The Napoleonic Wars involve Napoleon's French Empire and a shifting set of European allies and opposing coalitions.

As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionize European armies and play out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to the application of modern mass conscription.

French power rises quickly, conquering most of Europe, but collapses rapidly after France's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812.

Napoleon's empire ultimately suffers complete military defeat, resulting in the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France.

Meanwhile the Spanish Empire begins to unravel as French occupation of Spain weakens the Spanish hold over its colonies, providing an opening for nationalist revolutions in Latin America.The Napoleonic Wars end following Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo (June 18, 1815) and the Second Treaty of Paris.

Some sources (in the United Kingdom) occasionally refer to the nearly continuous period of warfare from 1792 to 1815 as the Great French War, or as the final phase of the Anglo-French Second Hundred Years' War, spanning the period 1689 to 1815.