WI: No Napoleon III

NedStark

What if Napoleon III was removed from French politics between 1848 and 1849?

There could be 2 scenarios - or both could happen at the same time:

1) He drops dead in obscurity somewhere.

2) In October 1848, Antoine Thouret, a moderate republican, tabled an amendment which bared members of former ruling dynasties - the Bourbons, Orléans, and Bonapartes - from standing for the Presidency. LN made a very poor opposition speech, and was literally laughed off the Assembly due to his poor French. IOTL, Thouret withdrew the amendment with contempt. But, ITTL, he instead pressed the amendment forward and got it passed. Basically, there would be no "Prince-President" with this.

So, what would be the impacts of no Napoleon III or other pretenders running for Presidency? What would be the Second Republic's policies if it managed to pull through and last, especially its foreign policies, since Nappy III's foreign policies, for better or worse, really helped reshaped European balance of power?
 
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NedStark

Wendell said:
I did a thread on this once.
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Yeah, I saw it. This is a really under-explored idea.

However, without Napoleon III, who was simultaneously a Bonaparte and an excellent populist demagogue, DeCavaignac would most likely have been re-elected (in addition, other pretenders like Francois d'Orleans would have been banned as well if Thouret Amendment was passed). He was a pragmatic yet not power hungry leader - a good candidate to bring stability and IOTL he would have lived for another 8 or 9 years. So, my view is that there is a good chance that Second Republic would have lived passed the monarchists' expected expiry date and ended up surviving like the Third did IOTL.
 

Wendell

NedStark said:
Yeah, I saw it. This is a really under-explored idea.

However, without Napoleon III, who was simultaneously a Bonaparte and an excellent populist demagogue, DeCavaignac would most likely have been re-elected (in addition, other pretenders like Francois d'Orleans would have been banned as well if Thouret Amendment was passed). He was a pragmatic yet not power hungry leader - a good candidate to bring stability and IOTL he would have lived for another 8 or 9 years. So, my view is that there is a good chance that Second Republic would have lived passed the monarchists' expected expiry date and ended up surviving like the Third did IOTL.
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Stands to reason. The questions I'd have pretty quickly though pertain to events in Italy and the gains Napoleon III made from Sardinia without firing a shot.
 

NedStark

Wendell said:
Stands to reason. The questions I'd have pretty quickly though pertain to events in Italy and the gains Napoleon III made from Sardinia without firing a shot.
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I can see the Second Republic supporting Mazzini's Roman Republic, or if 1848 still fails on Italy as IOTL, throwing support to Italian republicans in later periods. Garibaldi's army ITTL could explicitly fight for a republic with French support, turning Italian unification into a three-way war. Italy is likely to be united as a Republic.

France ITTL is unlikely to snatch Nice and Savoy, though. In addition, stuffs like Crimean War most likely would not happen - I mean, it was Nappy III's search for glory - and that would have impacted Sardinia-Piedmont, which fought on the side of the winners IOTL.

Mexico adventure is 100% butterflied away, period.
 
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Aghasverov

Aghasverov

NedStark said:
I can see the Second Republic supporting Mazzini's Roman Republic, or if 1848 still fails on Italy as IOTL, throwing support to Italian republicans in later periods. Garibaldi's army ITTL could explicitly fight for a republic with French support, turning Italian unification into a three-way war. Italy is likely to be united as a Republic.

France ITTL is unlikely to snatch Nice and Savoy, though. In addition, stuffs like Crimean War most likely would not happen - I mean, it was Nappy III's search for glory - and that would have impacted Sardinia-Piedmont, which fought on the side of the winners IOTL.

Mexico adventure is 100% butterflied away, period.
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I think a Crimean War equivalent might still have happened without Nap III... The British didn't want to see the Russians gain too much influence over the Porte, either. If there was no pro-British leadership in France like NIII though, the Brits may have had trouble in search of alliance partners. The conflict could've ended quite differently, as the French IOTL supplied the greater part of the troops... maybe the Austrians could be convinced to join in after Russia's occupation of the Danube Provinces.... and the bulk of the fighting could've occurred somewhere besides Crimea...
 

Wendell

NedStark said:
I can see the Second Republic supporting Mazzini's Roman Republic, or if 1848 still fails on Italy as IOTL, throwing support to Italian republicans in later periods. Garibaldi's army ITTL could explicitly fight for a republic with French support, turning Italian unification into a three-way war. Italy is likely to be united as a Republic.

France ITTL is unlikely to snatch Nice and Savoy, though. In addition, stuffs like Crimean War most likely would not happen - I mean, it was Nappy III's search for glory - and that would have impacted Sardinia-Piedmont, which fought on the side of the winners IOTL.

Mexico adventure is 100% butterflied away, period.
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I agree about Mexico, but if you're proposing to have France back republican efforts in Italy, then a confrontation with Sardinia certainly seems possible. Realistically though, A POD this late won't change much in the First War of Italian Independence. But the next one could go father differently should it still happen. Likewise, French foreign policy objectives in this era would suggest to me that something like the Crimean War miht still happen, but France being a Republic cloud nonetheless be considerably less involved depending on which faction is dominant when.
Aghasverov said:
I think a Crimean War equivalent might still have happened without Nap III... The British didn't want to see the Russians gain too much influence over the Porte, either. If there was no pro-British leadership in France like NIII though, the Brits may have had trouble in search of alliance partners. The conflict could've ended quite differently, as the French IOTL supplied the greater part of the troops... maybe the Austrians could be convinced to join in after Russia's occupation of the Danube Provinces.... and the bulk of the fighting could've occurred somewhere besides Crimea...
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Looks like a job for @alexmilman, but a Russo-Austrian war might be interesting and could escalate.
 

alexmilman

Wendell said:
I agree about Mexico, but if you're proposing to have France back republican efforts in Italy, then a confrontation with Sardinia certainly seems possible. Realistically though, A POD this late won't change much in the First War of Italian Independence. But the next one could go father differently should it still happen. Likewise, French foreign policy objectives in this era would suggest to me that something like the Crimean War miht still happen, but France being a Republic cloud nonetheless be considerably less involved depending on which faction is dominant when.

Looks like a job for @alexmilman, but a Russo-Austrian war might be interesting and could escalate.
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IMO, the Austrian option is unlikely. In OTL France and Britain risked very little if the things went South: they’d just board their ships without bothering to say “Good bye”. Austria is in a completely different situation because it has nowhere to go and the British military help can be safely ignored as not being a noticeable factor: the Brits could bombard some Russian ports and that’s it. So for Austria this is a major risk with very uncertain gains. As for the Principalities, Russian campaign there was not successful (to put it mildly) so perhaps the whole thing can be diffused diplomatically.
 

NedStark

Wendell said:
if you're proposing to have France back republican efforts in Italy, then a confrontation with Sardinia certainly seems possible. Realistically though, A POD this late won't change much in the First War of Italian Independence. But the next one could go father differently should it still happen.
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Yes, I did mention a three-way war possibility, it would also depend on who is in charge of the French government.
 

NedStark

No Haussmann's Paris, almost certainly, at least at the OTL scale. He could only carried out his project with Nappy III's backing.
 

Wendell

The interesting thing is that France under the Second Republic forbade presidents from serving consecutive terms.
 
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