“Ironically for all his achievements, Louis-Napoleon is still dismissed in French school books today as a failure and a disaster, who was defeated on the battlefield by the Prussians in 1870.”

By Alan Strauss-Schom

UNLIKE HIS UNCLE, Napoleon I, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, aka Napoleon III (1808-1873), did not kill over one million French soldiers. Unlike his uncle, he did not live for constant war. Unlike Napoleon I, Louis-Napoleon had no wish to conquer either England or the whole of Europe.

As Emperor of the French, 1852-1873, Napoleon III’s aim was to remake France into a prosperous modern nation, and he succeeded, becoming the father of the modern France we know today. And yet ironically for all his achievements, Louis-Napoleon is still dismissed in French school books today as a failure and a disaster, who was defeated on the battlefield by the Prussians in 1870.  In reality, Napoleon III did far more from France than Napoleon I ever did.

When he was proclaimed Emperor by the French Senate in December 1852, France was suffering from a deep economic depression that had continued since the fall of Napoleon I in 1815. The previous king, Louis-Philippe, had tried without success to restore the country. Once in power Louis-Napoleon took vigorous action in many fields, to do what his predecessors, including Uncle Napoleon I, had failed to do, beginning with the economy. He prepared decrees and legislation that permitted the great increase of capital throughout the country, by way of modern banking and credit institutions.

For the first time in French history, private and government banks and institutions were created to make massive sums available for investment in commerce and industry, thus opening the economy up to middle-class entrepreneurs, and not just the wealthy and the aristocracy. The Crédit Mobilier, launched by Émile and Isaac Pereire, was just the first of these. The bank heavily financed the creation of the country’s vast new rail network, not to mention steel mills and factories.

Upon Louis-Napoleon’s rise to power, France had only a few small rail lines and major cities such as Lyons, Marseilles and Bordeaux had yet to be connected to Paris. Thanks to his full support billions of francs were poured into a railroads that linked every corner of the country by the mid-1860s. Investors from London to St. Petersburg were eager to participate in this bonanza. Railways in turn increased national commerce, while permitting access to major isolated mining operations. An explosion of jobs eradicated France’s once staggering national unemployment rate. In addition, new modern banks were created in which individuals could become stockholders: the BNP, the Crédit Lyonnais, the Crédit Agricole, Crédit Foncier, etc, several of which exist to this day. For the first time in history individuals, even farmers could take out mortgages in order to develop their property. Of course, widespread major corruption accompanied France’s financial boom. In fact, the emperor’s half-brother, Auguste de Morny, was among the worst offenders. Yet, the reforms spurred on an emerging middle class. The  expanding commerce saw the creation of the country’s first department stores: Bon Marché, Printemps, Samaritaine and Galleries Lafayette.

Napoleon III’s railway program was accompanied by a campaign to found country’s first international steamship lines. Ever since his youth, Louis-Napoleon had been fascinated with modern science and was interested in seeing it applied to improve life in France. He favoured the legislation and the creation of financial resources to encourage scientific development both in universities and industry. This included the widespread development of electric and steam power. Thanks to the establishment of the nation’s first steamship lines, regular service was provided to North and South America, Africa and the Far East.

At the same time, Louis-Napoleon modernized France’s navy. Dozens of large new steam-driven, iron-clad vessels, armed with state-of-the-art artillery and armor replaced wooden hulls and sails. Even Britain’s Royal Navy was impressed.

Another of Napoleon III’s top priorities was to completely rebuild Paris. Never before in French history had such a feat been attempted. He upgraded the city’s obsolete public water, sewage and sanitation infrastructure, sharply reducing the frequency and intensity of disease outbreaks like cholera. The last epidemic, in 1832, killed nearly 20,000 Parisians. New pure sources of water were brought into the city and old polluted wells were closed. A new underground system of canals were excavated.

Louis-Napoleon named a very able Georges Haussmann as Prefect of Paris, and charged him with razing the entire city core to the ground, removing ancient crowded tenements and narrow congested streets. Louis-Napoleon and Haussmann completely redesigned Paris, providing wide straight tree-lined avenues and boulevards.  The city’s first gas lighting was installed. A handsome new style of architecture replaced the previous houses, apartments, shops and government building, and of course many still adorn Paris to this day. New schools, hospitals and clinics were also built. And of course, the capital’s major railway stations, like Austerlitz, Gare du Nord, Gare de l’Est, were all built during the Second Empire.

Unlike Napoleon I and any other previous ruler of the country, Louis-Napoleon was also interested in many aspects of the environment. He ordered Prefect Haussmann to build green squares throughout Paris, and the development of the Bois de Boulogne and Vincennes received major attention. In the countryside, he seized vast tracts of swamp and wasteland, and had them converted to agricultural production, greatly increasing the supply of wheat, corn and wine.

Napoleon I had chopped down the nation’s forests for his armies and navy. Louis-Napoleon ordered vast reforestation projects for the mountains and the Landes (north of Bordeaux). He was also interested in modern agriculture and built several model farms, and improved breeding livestock.

The mid-1850s saw renewed interest in colonization by European powers, including France. Louis-Napoleon expanded his empire’s possessions in West Africa and Algeria, and he was responsible for the first French conquests in southern Indochina, beginning around Saigon. France also seized New Caledonia in the South Pacific, and established it as a penal colony.

Louis-Napoleon was famously persuaded to seize Mexico for Archduke Maximilian of Austria. It was a military intervention that proved disastrous from the start. Maximilian was executed, his wife went insane and Louis-Napoleon pulled out his army by 1867.

Algeria was another matter. The North African territory became the “showcase” of his colonies. The first French forces had invaded in 1830, and Louis-Napoleon was determined to complete the conquest. Once his victory was complete, he hoped to forge peace between the French and the Algerians. The territory, which had no historical ruler, and was divided into over 300 independent tribes from the Hamite and Amazigh or “Berber” nations. Louis-Napoleon considered the Algerian civilization to be in decline and inferior to that of Christian France; he was determined to help improve it. The emperor would do away with tribal structure and establish private property rights. The French army, politicians and ordinary citizens were scandalized when Louis-Napoleon offered Algerians full French citizenship if they converted to Christianity. Soon, five million North Africans were surging into the slums of Paris, Orleans, Lyons, Bordeaux and Marseilles.

Although Louis-Napoleon genuinely hoped to improve the lot of the Algerians, he faced constant uprisings there. His permanent army, which was expanded from 60,000 to half a million under his rule, soon became embroiled in a series of wars in North Africa that were ultimately responsible for the annihilation of over 350,000 Algerians. Few in France knew the extend of the slaughter — army commanders kept the public in the dark about the bloodbath.

In foreign affairs, Napoleon III’s record was mixed. He reluctantly joined his major ally, Britain, in a war with Russia in 1854. Ultimately, the Allies prevailed, but France suffered nearly 100,000 dead in the process.

French intervention in Italy in 1859 was more successful. King Victor Emmanuel II requested the help of 200,000 French troops to oust the Austrian army then occupying the north of Italy, from Milan to Venice. The combined Franco-Italian army defeated the Austrians in the summer of 1859, permitting an independent Italy to be reunited, for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire. In 1861, the Independent Kingdom of Italy was officially proclaimed. Victor Emmanuel rewarded France by ceding Savoy and Nice to her.

Louis Napoleon’s reign of France ended in disaster with the Franco-Prussian War, when France was invaded and defeated by King Wilhem I’s Prussian army, July 1870 to January 1871. Napoleon III was captured and France was occupied. The invaders took control of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and their 1.6 million citizens. The Second Empire was replaced by a new republic (III). In my recent book, I establish the real cause of this war, thereby correcting the historical record.

Despite his many foreign policy failures, Louis-Napoleon brought France out of the 18^th century, and introduced her to a modern new world. In finance, banking, commerce and industry, the country was transformed, permitting France to participate in a modern age. Louis-Napoleon strongly supported modern scientific research and education. He completely rebuilt the city of Paris, making it the capital of Europe. He was successful in drawing England and France together, after centuries of distrust preparing the way for the alliance that would confront Germany in 1914. Altogether, the mild-mannered Napoleon III changed the face and future of France for the better, more than any man in history. If Napoleon I was a destroyer, his nephew, Napoleon III was a builder, a man with a vision.

Alan Strauss-Schom is a critically acclaimed historian and the author of The Shadow Emperor: A Biography of Napoleon III. He has received Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominations for One Hundred Days: Napoleon’s Road to Waterloo, Trafalgar, Countdown to Battle, 1803-1805, and Napoleon Bonaparte, which took second place in the Los Angeles Times Best Biography of the Year category, 1997. It was also one of Library Journal‘s top five biographies of that year and nominated for a Critics Circle Award.