WI: Napoleon III's 1852 Coup d'etat failed?

What if someone had blabbed about the coup d'etat while it was still in the planning stage and Napoleon III's coup d'etat had failed? How would France's foreign policy in things such as the Franco-Prussian war and Mexico have differed?
 
Those foreign policy issues would be butterflied away or altered heavily.
The start of Franco-Prussian War relied heavily on the personalitis of Napoleon III and Bismarck.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
What if someone had blabbed about the coup d'etat while it was still in the planning stage and Napoleon III's coup d'etat had failed? How would France's foreign policy in things such as the Franco-Prussian war and Mexico have differed?
Before his coup, Nappy was forbidden from running for re-election as French President, correct? If so, he'd probably support one of his allies for this job--who in turn might win due to large-scale French peasant support.
 
For Mexico, there probably would have been a multinational expedition again anyway: there had been a unilateral force sent for the purpose of obtaining reparations by Louis Philippe, the so-called Pastry War. France and other European countries had developed a nasty tendency of sending the gunboats as repo men in this part of the world. However, there probably would be no attempt at installing a monarchy: this was one of Napoléon III's scheme as part of his plan to ingratiate himself with the more established dynasties. The man had a bad inferior complex. But the butterflies take wing earlier, really: the Crimean War is affected because while the title of Protector of the Christians in the East wasn't as much a catalyst to the war as it has sometimes been portrayed, it did play a role for a man as insecure as Napoléon III. And if a conservative member of the Parti de l'Ordre is elected to succeed him to the Presidency, there might be no help forthcoming for Cavour. Which might butterfly away the Red Cross or at least its origins.

Minor nitpick: the coup happened in 1851, 1852 is the year the Empire was proclaimed.
 
OK I think people are ignoring the obvious situation at hand. The President is exposed as plotting a coup. He's gonna be arrested, removed from office, tried and either imprisoned or executed. Second, this means a third restoration is inevitable. The Party of Order dominated the Parliament and was effectively Royalist in character. Some kind of compromise would have to develop between the Legitimists and Orléanists, but such a deal is more likely in 1852 than in 1871/73. A Royalist France means no support for Italian unification and likely some kind of Franco-Austrian alliance. Not sure about the Crimean war. OTL the Comte de Chambord was anti-Ottoman so he might chose to side with the Russians, though on the other side France had long maintained an alliance with the Turks, so could go either way. Not too sure about the Second Opium war either, though I guess that depends on how relations between London and Paris develop TTL.
 
Prussia probably is still going to try to expand, though whether there is war with France is hard to say.

France is still going to want Mexico to pay back its debt but the crazy scheme to make Mexico an empire won't happen.

Italian unification could be seriously butterflied here, and possibly might not even happen at all. That could also mean no French annexation of Savoie/Nice.

The massive renovation of Paris by Haussmann quite probably does not happen; as emperor, Napoleon III had the political clout to accomplish that, whereas a regular elected official might not dare. Maybe there is eventually some reconstruction to clear up the congestion, but the city may not have the characteristic "Haussmannien" look of OTL.
 
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Without Napoleon III trying to achieve the greatness of his illustrious uncle, France wouldn't commit itself to so many outlandish schemes, which should really help the country.
 
OK I think people are ignoring the obvious situation at hand. The President is exposed as plotting a coup. He's gonna be arrested, removed from office, tried and either imprisoned or executed. Second, this means a third restoration is inevitable. The Party of Order dominated the Parliament and was effectively Royalist in character. Some kind of compromise would have to develop between the Legitimists and Orléanists, but such a deal is more likely in 1852 than in 1871/73. A Royalist France means no support for Italian unification and likely some kind of Franco-Austrian alliance. Not sure about the Crimean war. OTL the Comte de Chambord was anti-Ottoman so he might chose to side with the Russians, though on the other side France had long maintained an alliance with the Turks, so could go either way. Not too sure about the Second Opium war either, though I guess that depends on how relations between London and Paris develop TTL.

I can see an attempted restoration, but I don't know if it is inevitable to succeed, for two reasons: first, the internal divisions within the Parti de l'Ordre might actually be greater than in 1871, and second, trying to restore the monarchy so soon after 1848 would be messy.

In 1871, it appeared clear by that time that the comte de Chambord would not have children, which made him an easy compromise candidate. In 1851 he is still quite young and the Orléanists might never accept him.

And then there is issue that in 1851, the June days are still a fresh memory for a lot of people and trying to turn back the clock to monarchy is quite likely to lead to renewed popular uprising.
 
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CaliGuy

Banned
OK I think people are ignoring the obvious situation at hand. The President is exposed as plotting a coup. He's gonna be arrested, removed from office, tried and either imprisoned or executed.
Is pissing off a lot of French peasants really a good idea, though?

Without Napoleon III trying to achieve the greatness of his illustrious uncle, France wouldn't commit itself to so many outlandish schemes, which should really help the country.
It could also mean slower French industrialization, no?
 
I can see an attempted restoration, but I don't know if it is inevitable to succeed, for two reasons: first, the internal divisions within the Parti de l'Ordre might actually be greater than in 1871, and second, trying to restore the monarchy so soon after 1848 would be messy.

In 1871, it appeared clear by that time that the comte de Chambord would not have children, which made him an easy compromise candidate. In 1851 he is still quite young and the Orléanists might never accept him.

And then there is issue that in 1851, the June days are still a fresh memory for a lot of people and trying to turn back the clock to monarchy is quite likely to lead to renewed popular uprising.

Depends really. During the 1850s there were a lot of negotiations between the Orléanist Princes and the Comte de Chambord but they ultimately stalled in 1857/58. Also, there were plans in 1852 for the Prince de Joinville to run for President after Napoléon III's term ended and his chances were probably good after the Assemblie changed the voter laws in 1850 to exclude the "vile multitude". A succession of Prince-Presidents wouldn't speak all that well for the survival of the Second Republic, especially if the Parti d'Ordre decides to do for Joinville what they wouldn't for Napoléon and change the constitutions to extend the presidential term. If the Orléanists and Legitimists can't come to a compromise, then we could see a situation similar to what the Monarchists hoped for during the early Third republic: a Royalist President "keeping the throne warm" while awaiting either a compromise or for the Comte de Chambord to die.

As for being so close to the end of the previous monarchy, wouldn't that make it easier rather than harder? Usually restorations are easier to pull off if they're closer to the initial deposition. After all, the main issue was Louis-Philippe's regime, and by this point the King is dead and his unpopular ministers were out of power. And they couldn't realistically restore the Orléanist line: in 1852 the head of the House was 14, which meant a regency. Not a popular idea, made worse sense his mother the Duchesse d'Orléans was thoroughly disliked in France. The Orléanist Princes and Queen Amalie seemed more willing to make a deal with their cousin, so we could see a very bad situation in which the senior Princes defect to the Legitimists, dividing the Orléanist movement.

Finally, the June days (and most other popular uprisings in France) were ultimately put down and were more about the supposed planned closure of the National workshops. Fun fact BTW, Chambord was an advocate of the National workshops, or at least a plan that was similar to them. So his coronation might not be as big a problem as you think.

Is pissing off a lot of French peasants really a good idea, though?


It could also mean slower French industrialization, no?

Pissed off Parisians you mean, not French. Most of the country was quite conservative (pretty obvious considering the Parliament they elected was conservative) and if push came to shove the Parisians were able to be repressed if enough resources were devoted to the situation, as the June rebellion (1832), the June days (1848) and the Commune (1871) proved.

As for industrialization, that's probably accurate. I don't know much about French industrialization during the era.
 
Pissed off Parisians you mean, not French. Most of the country was quite conservative (pretty obvious considering the Parliament they elected was conservative) and if push came to shove the Parisians were able to be repressed if enough resources were devoted to the situation, as the June rebellion (1832), the June days (1848) and the Commune (1871) proved.

Umm, no? That's just a royalist myth and a false narrative to discredit the various revolutions, and many of the revolutions had great amounts of support throughout France's cities. Paris was the centre of revolution, but that doesn't mean that it was the only place that supported the revolutions.

1832 was just a minor revolt, the revolutionaries won in 1848, and in 1871 there were actually failed attempts in many French cities to establish communes.
 
I don't think that the coup plot being discovered would mean Louis-Napoléon overthrown.
You have to get the context. Since the June Days and the conservative takeover of the Assembly, the Party of Order went on huge restriction of freedom, and with the law that removed those who couldn't give evidence of three years residence, which removed one third of the electors with most being poor and low income classes, you had social tension building up.
I may be exagerating, but it seems that if the coup hadn't happened, the country would have headed straight to another Revolution and civil war.
In this context, the consensus in the military and some financial circles was that the Prince-President was the only one able to funel that anger and avoid explosion while federating contradictory components of the socio political landscape, due to his social populist tones (worker classes) and name recognition (countryside). So, as it matters the coup plotting, the army was on the side of the president.
Also, there is that feat that as he has been elected by the people, courtesy of direct suffrage, the President can argue of an equal legitimacy to that of the National Assembly, and that institutional antagonism was one of the reasons that doomed the Second Republic from the onset.

So, to answer the question of knowing what a direct confrontation between the Assembly and the President would be in case of the plot being discovered, it's still very likely that Louis-Napoléon would still win the contest. The difference is that it would go less smoothly as IOTL, the president being forced to react quickly to preempt an impeachment by the National Assembly, resulting in more violence and victims, but still a successful coup.
 
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