Napoleon The Third - Term Paper Example

Any dissenting and uprisings were thoroughly repressed and intimidation tactics were employed in electoral processes. The second Empire was established in November, 1852 with Louis Napoleon becoming Emperor Napoleon III. For the next years, Napoleon III used dictatorial leadership style and encouraged both railway construction and establishment of the first French Investment bank. Napoleon provided better housing and free medical care for workers in order to reduce the tensions among the working class.

Napoleon also reconstructed Paris by ensuring new water supply, sewage systems and circular plazas (Spielvogel 666). Napoleon III is considered to have personal power since he asserted that “nothing could trouble the clear vision of his judgment or the strength of his resolution”. Napoleon foreign policy contributed to the unification of Italy and Germany. Napoleon participated in the Crimean War between 1854 and 1856 and is idea was to free the French from the early ideology that France should not participate in peace arbitration across Europe that had been implemented in 1814 to 1815.

Napoleon III undertook an aggressive foreign policy in all major wars and confrontations across the globe. His pursuit for French supremacy in Europe led to success in Crimean war in the 1850s and the ultimate unification of Italy and Germany (Spielvogel 666). In Italy, Napoleon III wanted to prevent Spain and Austria from extending the authority to papal Rome and intervened militarily in order to restore the authority of pope in Rome. The revolutions of 1848 led to nationalism ideas across the Italian Peninsula as Lombardy tried to rise against the influence of Austria dominance in the region.

The kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia Prime minister Count Camillo di Cavour secured a diplomatic alliance with Napoleon III in 1859 before the onset of Franco-Austrian War. The Austrian Army was considered a common enemy and was defeated by Piedmont and French forces at Solferino and Magenta thus surrendering Lombardy. In early 1860, Italian states voted to join the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia while Nice and Savoy was relinquished to France. By 1862, the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed with only Venetia and Rome outside the kingdom.

Napoleon III was interested in protecting the Papal States and Rome from any Italian occupation, but Prussia declared the Franco-Prussian War (1879-1871). Italians took advantage of the ongoing Franco-Prussian war and invaded the Papal States and Rome and annexed them to the Kingdom of Italy. Finally, the Italian capital became Rome thus symbolizing the final unification of Italy (Spielvogel 668). The outcomes of Prussian war surprised Napoleon, but Napoleon III tried to tighten his ties with anti-Prussian South German states but Germans had become economically advanced and nationalistic.

The German revolutionaries of 1848 advocated for national militia and trial by jury. Bismarck advocated for real-politik and allied with Austria in fighting Danes in 1862 in order to protect Holstein which was a member of German Confederation. After the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, Prussia annexed some German states while allowing some Austrian states to maintain a considerable level of independence. In 1867, Bismarck a union of the Northern German states under pretext of Prussia and several German states in the north joined the German Confederat