![MTE5NDg0MDU1MDgzMjU1MzEx[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/IYxpzn8.jpg "MTE5NDg0MDU1MDgzMjU1MzEx[1].jpg")
Was Napoleon III an actual good leader?
Was he a good politician?
Did his election campaign actually speak to the people, or did everyone just jerk off to the name Bonaparte?
How exactly did he transition to Emperor from President?
And finally was France in a better position after he'd left, ignoring the whole beaten up by the Germans thing?
French socialism be like
Up until 1870 he was pretty good. France gained new clay, it was rather prosperous and stable, and he brought some social progress. Of course Sedan was a pretty gigantic fuckup.
His election is rather interesting. It was the first presidential election by universal suffrage (after Napoleon I's, which wasn't really contentious). In Paris nobody believed he stood a chance, Cavaignac seemed like the obvious winner, and Bonaparte was just some adventurer with nothing but a name. But Bonaparte realised that most French people weren't Parisian, so he was the first to campaign (in the original sense of the word, from campagne = countryside). He'd go all over France and organise banquets with saucisson and wine where he'd make his speeches. Of course the people looked at him and saw his uncle. And in a time without opinion polls, it came as a complete shock in Paris when Bonaparte won with 75% of the vote.
He made Paris great again. Destroyed all the old buildings, made the most beautiful city in the west.
How he would roll in his grave if he saw the African ghetto they call Paris today.
>>1118978
The ghettos are in the suburbs, far from modern Paris and even farther from Napoleon III's Paris.
>>1118985
> spoted the man that googled "Paris pictures romantic xoxo*
>>1119008
>I know everything about Paris thanks to my PhD in /pol/ memes
>>1117774
He's just as good as his uncle politically and administratively. Too bad he sucks ass at military especially with his weird, retarded political adventures (Mexico, Crimea, helping Sardinia)
>>1119024
>everyone that disagrees with me is a /pol/tard
>>1119075
>implying you're not
>>1119075
No but you obviously are.
>>1119045
>Mexico
Nappy helped Mexico more than any Mexican Ever Did
>>1119045
Can one say his military adventurism is basically him trying to Channel Napoops?
>>1119024
I'm French, I can confirm that most of the big cities in France are Arab/African ghettos.Paris,Marseilles,Roubaix, especially
>>1119177
The post you answered to never really implied the opposite.
>>1119219
>Roubaix
>Grande ville
Rentre dans ta province paysan
>>1119219
So you're not Parisian, and as a typical provincial you're probably butthurt about Paris to boot. Opinion discarded.
>>1119360
Je me vis plus en France, je te laisse cette dechetterie a ciel ouvert, fais toi plaiz avec les cacapeaux
>>1119560
What the fuck are you talking about you stupid shit-eating faggot, learn English.
>>1119574
u wot nigger?
>>1118890
>Up until 1870 he was pretty good. France gained new clay, it was rather prosperous and stable, and he brought some social progress.
>>1119045
>He's just as good as his uncle politically and administratively.
explain your reasoning behind these statements, because i'd argue that all of this is false or at least spooks
>>1119177
not at all, the french invasion of Mexico set that country back by a decade or two.
>>1121108
>not at all, the french invasion of Mexico set that country back by a decade or two.
Not quite, to the surprise of Juarez and his american backed government the french intervention left the country in an almost impecable state of peace and security, the federal rents grew from 9 million in 1861 to 16 million in 1867. Napoleon invested close to 50 million pesos on mexican soil and Max also had a fair share of political, economic and cultural maneuvers who were later shamelessly used by the ones who killed him.
>>1121225
hmm, I guess I'm mistaken then. I was going off the presumption that the French invasion was an extension of the Reform wars fought against the conservatives, and that war in general fucks up a country's economy. Maximilian was a descent guy though but he made a pact with the devil by rising to power on the back of the conservative landowners
He didn't behaved as a king, but as a bourgeois.
>>1121251
Wasn't Maximillian a pretty liberal guy that tried to protetect the lower strata though?
>>1121258
Yeah, Maximilian was indeed a moderate liberal monarch sort of similar to Napoleon III. Interestingly, he was a freemason (which was basically secret society which espoused liberalism) as were the Mexicans he was fighting against (lerdo, juarez, porfirio diaz and most other mexican leaders). However, Maximilian's tendencies were in a way unsustainable. He came to power in alliance with the conservative landowners who were trying to prevent the liberal mexican politicians such as juarez from trying to appropriate church lands and basically destroy its hold over mexican society. So Maximilian's own liberalism alienated many conservatives and no doubt led to his own fall.
>>1121256
>bourgeois
i don't think you know what this means
>>1121251
There was more to the reform war than just liberals vs conservatives, and at the end of the day it didn't even matter, Juarez didn't became president trough a popular referendum but trough sheer force and the USN intervention, and Maximilian contrary to what most people believe would have won a plebiscite for his cause, the French wanted to build a strong Mexican Empire to counter US influence on South and Central America, the US on the contrary wanted a unstable puppet government forever in debt with their northern neighbor. It's quite obvious who won the proxy war.
>>1121256
I would call him both, a good ruler, just not in touch with his immediate reality, guy did spend tons of cash in pointless stuff like turning Mexico City into Paris, but he also helped found hospitals, colleges, museums, mines, economic and legislative institutions; more than once with his own money.
>>1121324
Why do the good guys have to lose like this?
>>1121324
I see what you're getting at, but I'd still argue that the wars of this time were a matter of liberal vs. conservative, with bonapartism thrown in during the French intervention. It's just that there was no clear good side or bad side. Juarez was anti-democratic, as were his liberal successors, but you're confusing nineteenth century liberalism (as well as Maximilian's use of plebiscite, which was a typical Bonapartist tactic to give the appearance of democracy without there actually being any), with modern democracy. Yes, Mexican liberals did espouse lofty ideals that seem to mean democracy in practice. They, after all, talked about popular sovereignty (rule of the people), constitutionalism (the ultimate authority of the constitution of 1857) and the rule of law (i.e. independence of the judiciary from the meddling of government). But nineteenth century mexico arguably didn't have the conditions for democracy when there had been constant war which necessitated strong central rule, an already age-old tradition of caudillismo and patronage politics as well as an undeveloped economy that could not grow for lack of revenue or foreign capital. So it's not surprising that Juarez (not to mention his successors, lerdo and porfirio diaz) violated the spirit of liberalism even if they always were careful to preserve something of its forms, such as preserving the constitution and the illusion of electoral politics
>>1121413
cont.
also you also imply that the French would have been any more better than the Americans, or that Mexican leaders were not as wary of American threats to their country's sovereignty, which they in fact were. Lerdo, who followed Juarez as president, actually canceled a planned railway from Texas to Mexico because he feared that a railway connection would make it easier for the American military to invade if there were future conflict.
Kind of sucks that there doesn't seem to be much good in the way of books on Napoleon III and his reign since it seems like a really interesting time period.
>>1121641
Sucks even more that his entire reign is overshadowed by the defeat against the Germans.
I can suggest some books if you like
>>1119219
"Roubaix", top kek le paysan
>>1121815
Please do.
>>1121893
sure
there are two quick overviews of Nappy 3:
one from the profile in powers series by James Macmillian, which you can buy used on amazon from $0.75 on amazon (+$3 dollar shipping)
http://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Profiles-Power-James-Mcmillan/dp/0582494834
alternatively, there's roger price's work from the lancaster pamphlet series which you can download free here:
http://bookzz.org/book/1044169/8b4acb
its only around 60 pages or so to Macmillian's 200 or so pages.
J.P.T. Bury's Napoleon III and the Second Empire (1964) is another survey around 200 pages which is also cheap on amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Second-Empire-J-P-T-Bury/dp/B0032OSXA0
seeing as some anons here like older historians like Gibbons Rise and Decline (1776) for the Roman Empire or C.V. Wedgewood for the Thirty Year's War (1938), Carlyle on the French Revolution (1836), you might like F.A. Simpson's Rise of Louis Napoleon, 1808-1848 (1909). It's around ~400 pages and still very much worth reading.
cont.
>>1122052
cont.
another bio is Napoleon III and Eugenie [queen], by Jasper Ridley (1979)
best penetrating, yet concise analysis is the chapter on Nappy in Rene Remond's translated work, The Right Wing in France: 1815 to De Gaulle (1968):
http://www.amazon.com/Right-Wing-France-1815-Gaulle/dp/0812274903/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463009569&sr=8-1&keywords=rene+remond
best general survey Alain Plessis's The Rise and Fall of the Second Empire, 18522-1871 (1985)
>>1122162
On methods of goverment, Zeldin's The Political System of Napoleon III (1958) is useful
and
Howard C. Payne, The Police State of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, 1851-1860 (1966)
For foreign policy and domestic repercussions:
-Lynn M. Case, French Opinion on War and Diplomacy during the Second Empire (1954), is indispensable
the following are also important
-Isser, Second Empire and the Press (1974)
-Ann E. Pottinger Napoleon III and the German Crisis, 1865-1866 (1966)
-Echard, Napoleon III and the Concert of Europe (1983)
-David M.Goldfrank, The Origin of the Crimean War (1994)
-Steefel, Bismarck the Hohenzollern Candidacy, and the Origins of the Franco German War (1962)
Napoleon III also published his own ideas in 1839, but I'm not sure if it is published in English
if you can read french I can recommend yet more books
>>1122272
also:
Matthew Truesdale,
Spectacular Politics: Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte and the Fête Impériale
http://bookzz.org/book/986962/d16d16
>Drawing on newspapers, archival sources, and memoirs, Spectacular Politics shows how, as President of the Second Republic and then as Emperor Napoleon III, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte used public speech and spectacle to dazzle and seduce the French population, helping to pioneer the modern techniques of image politics and the manipulation of a mass electorate. Elected President of the Second Republic in 1848, the year of the inception of universal male suffrage, this nephew of Napoleon I overthrew that Republic in 1851 to establish himself as Emperor Napoleon III, a title he kept for almost twenty years. During this period, Louis-Napoleon used events as diverse as the annual national holiday on the birthday of Napoleon I, the glitzy inaugurations of Paris's new streets, the universal expositions, and the many military reviews of the time to stage elaborate public celebrations. Author Matthew Truesdell shows how these events were more than just festive amusements, but were in fact some of Louis-Napoleon's key tools in the projection before a mass audience of powerful images that allowed him to present himself as the incarnation of the national will and the ideal leader for the age. His ability to package his ideas in short, appealing verbal slogans made him one of the most successful political orators in French history. He had a knack for coming up with the felicitous phrase, the emotionally engaging slogan that summed up his policy in simple terms and was infinitely repeated in newspapers, speeches, songs, and poems, in the "soundbite" style that dominates politics today.
He was great and did a lot for the country, peopel will blame him for 1870 but at that point he was a old and sick man who didn't even war but was forced by french elites and Bismarck who wanted the war.
>>1121405
>Eternal Anglo
>>1119045
>retarded political adventures (Mexico, Crimea, helping Sardinia)
Well to be fair, Crimea made sense at the time to stop the Ottoman Empire splintering any more but he did kinda fuck the war over by trying to court the Russians without the Brits finding out right in the middle of a war.
