Napoleon III

[AntiochusIII]

Summary: He prepared the road to WW1.

I always take the view that WWI is something inevitable. The old Europeans were notorious for continuous wars everywhere and anywhere. The French and the Spanish were engaging in yet another war right after the biggest, bloodiest European War of the 17th century, the Thirty Years' War, ended!

That mindset had not changed until WWI really did everyone in with the new realization that no nation can truly sustain the horrors of an Industrial War without horrendous losses...a lesson soon to be forgotten and repeated upon.

I find Napoleon III to be an intriguing figure. He is often painted as a weakling by the mishandling of the Franco-Prussian War, but I think that is rather unfair. Compare the qualities of monarchs throughout history, he actually ranks pretty high in terms of good intentions and decent, though not spectacular, abilities. Like someone said earlier, the name he bore was arguably the catalyst of both his rise and his downfall. His undoing also, I think, has something to do with his attempt to please too many factions at all times. The Catholics regarded the "Socialist on Horseback" with distrust, which he tried to alleviate by protecting the pope from the newly born Italians - probably a lost opportunity to build a permanent rapport with Cavour, or may be the latter had never really been interested in France as more than a tool to achieve unity. The socialists viewed the Emperor's control with distrust also - and the fact that he was, after all, an emperor; a monarch. The Republicans despised his authoritarian styles used early on. And the Bourbon monarchists would have nothing to do with a Bonaparte scum.

Sorta reminds me of Frederick II (Holy Roman Emperor) in terms of being an intriguing, controversial, even wild figure with not too many real achievements that truly last. Though his many foreign adventures sure impacted Europe in different ways.