LOUIS-NAPOLEON BONAPARTE'S FOREIGN POLICY

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LOUIS-NAPOLEON BONAPARTE'S FOREIGN POLICY

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• Publié par: ovawozyq
• Nombre de lectures: 4 377
• Langue: Français

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Romanian Military Thinking

~

4/2008

90

heworksofLouis-NapoleonBonaparte,

firstPresidentoftheRepublicandlast

French sovereign, were despised by

LOUIS-NAPOLEON BONAPARTE’S

FOREIGN POLICY

– A GEOPOLITICAL VISION TO BE REHABILITATED –

Major PERROT

– Army France –

The article approaches the figure

of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, first

President of the Republic and last

French sovereign, better known as

Napoleon III.

First,theauthormentionsthebooks

writtenbyNapoleonIII,inwhichhehad

thechancetoexposehisvisionofFrance

and notably his foreign policy.

Then, he elaborates on the most

significantmomentsinhismilitaryand

diplomaticwork,amongwhichonethat

concerns usdirectly,theParisCongress

of 1856, which placed the autonomy

of Moldavia and Valachia under the

collective guarantee of the sevengreat

powers. Subsequently, he adds that

Louis-Napoleonwasthefirststatesman

who wanted a Europe not under the

domination of one nation, but under

the influence of universal ideas.

Toconclude,theauthorwritesthat

NapoleonIII’smistakes, notablybeing

responsible for the disaster at Sedan,

cannot overshadow the fact that his

geopoliticalintentionsrepresentatopical

questionininternationalrelations.

Keywords:

constructiveambiguity;

Prince-President;diplomaticisolation;

the 1870 war; peacetime army

the intellectuals of his time just as they were by the

French 20

th

century historians. His foreign policy

fares no better. Yet, perhaps it should be looked at

with modern eyes where statesmen are no longer

judgedby the territorial gains they make but rather

by economic growth, nor by who was the strongest

ruler but rather who imposed peace.

Louis-Napoleon thought out and proposed a

new world order, which prefigured the state of the

world today. Nevertheless, as the theoretician of

Napoleon I’s ideas, he was unable to impose his

foreign policy ideas on his contemporaries either

by diplomacy or by war.

If the French head of state from 1848 to 1870

developed his visionary ideas in his writings before

acceding to power, once he had to exercise power,

it became a “constructive ambiguity” as he had to

merge contradictory ideas to try and create his

geopolitical construct. Even if it all ended in 1870

*Thearticlewasfeaturedin

LaTribuneduCID

,thePermanentStaffandStudentReviewoftheFrench

Joint Staff College, May 2008.

T