Napoleon III
Napoleon III (born 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[edit | edit source]
Crimean War[edit | edit source]
In 1853, Napoleon sent a warship into the Black Sea to push the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I to acknowledge French Catholicism as the official authority over Christian sites in the Holy Land. Since those sites were controlled by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Tsar Nicholas I responded by sending two corps to the banks of the Danube.[1]
As diplomatic relations soured, the French and the British, leery of Russian expansionism and with troops already in the area, decided to ally with the Ottomans against the Russians. 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]
Assassination attempt[edit | edit source]
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 mostly 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]
Later life[edit | edit source]
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[edit | edit source]
- 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 (first appearance)
- Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Resurrection Plot (mentioned only)
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 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