Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 1808 – 1873) was the first President of France from 1848 to 1852, and the only Emperor of the Second French Empire from 1852 to 1870. The nephew of Napoleon I, he seized total power in France via a coup in December 1851.
Biography
In 1853, Napoleon sent a warship into the Black Sea to "politely suggest" that the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I acknowledge French Catholicism as the authority over Christian sites in the Holy Land. This rather annoyed Tsar Nicholas I, since up until that point the Eastern Orthodox Church had controlled those sites, and he responded by sending two corps to the banks of the Danube. Diplomatic relations soured from there, and since the British and French were leery of Russian expansionism and already had troops in the area, they decided to ally with the Ottomans.[1]
The conflict, which became known as the Crimean War, ended in 1856 when the allies took the key Russian city of Sevastopol. Recognising the inevitability of defeat, Nicholas I sued for peace.[1]
On 14 January 1858, Napoleon and his wife Eugénie de Montijo went to attend the opera theater of Rue le Peletier. However, a series of bombings aimed at the emperor occurred, resulting in multiple casualties and injuries, though the emperor and his wife survived unscathed. The bomber, Felice Orsini, and his accomplices were later arrested, and ties between France and England grew to be harsher as a result of the assassination attempt.[2][3]
During the last few years of his reign, Napoleon sent French Army officer Jules Brunet to Japan to help the Tokugawa shogunate modernize its military for the inevitable confrontation with the Imperial Court of Kyoto.[4]
On 4 September 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon was forced to surrender and was dethroned as emperor, marking the end of the Second French Empire.[5]
Appearances
- Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (mentioned in Database entry only)
- Assassin's Creed: Fragments – The Blade of Aizu (mentioned only)
- Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Magus Conspiracy
- Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Resurrection Plot (mentioned only)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Database: Crimean War
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Magus Conspiracy – Chapter 15
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Magus Conspiracy – Chapter 18
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Fragments – The Blade of Aizu
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Resurrection Plot – Chapter 14