Napoleon III
On June 26, 1858, crowds packed the narrow streets of Tianjin to witness an awesome spectacle: A British diplomat was about to sign a treaty between his country and China. Read more
Napoleon III
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the nephew and namesake of the great Napoleon, once said, “March at the head of the ideas of your century, and these ideas follow you and support you. Read more
Napoleon III
A hard, late-afternoon rain was falling on May 5, 1862, and the slopes at the foot of Puebla, Mexico’s twin forts were too slippery for another assault. Read more
Napoleon III
Long columns of blue-clad French troops marched east though the sun-baked plains of northern Italy in late June 1859. Read more
Napoleon III
In mid-October 1806, four days after Napoleon had crushed the Royal Prussian Army at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstädt, a distraught Queen Louise sat down with her two sons at the royal castle in Schwedt. Read more
Napoleon III
Near Marseilles, at Aubagne, stands the modern home of the French Foreign Legion. Its spotless grounds include a massive stone pile, the Monument aux Morts, which commemorates the Legion dead of the past 175 years. Read more
Napoleon III
On April 20, 1859, Emperor Franz Josef paid a respectful visit to Prince Klemens Wensel von Metternich’s place at Rennweg in Vienna. Read more
Napoleon III
The final outcome of the Franco-Prussian War was decided on September 2, 1870. On that day, more than 100,000 French troops, including Emperor Napoleon III, surrendered to the Prussian Army at Sedan. Read more
Napoleon III
Driven and energetic in his youth, by the late 1860s French Emperor Napoleon III was a shadow of his former self. Read more
Napoleon III
Almost from the beginning, the short, violent reign of Paraguayan strongman Francisco Solano Lopez devolved into a nightmare from which his unfortunate people could not awake. Read more
Napoleon III
In November 1861, word swept through London that an American warship, James Adger, in port at Southampton, was planning to put to sea and intercept a British ship bringing Confederate emissaries to Europe. Read more
Napoleon III
The waters of the South China Sea shimmered in the sunlight on the morning of April 15, 1847. Read more
Napoleon III
On the morning of September 14, 1854, an Anglo-French fleet arrived off the coast of the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea. Read more
Napoleon III
In May 1867, French ruler Napoleon III hosted a gala Great Universal Exposition that proved to be the high-water mark of his ornate but tissue-thin Second Empire. Read more
