Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/393

 THE EUROPEAN POWERS FROM 1815 TO 1871 381 In France itself the Republic was destined to a very brief life. The moderates — that is, the middle-class section — cap- tured the government, and intended to model 4. Napoleon the new constitution after that of the United IIL States of America, giving executive control to an elected president and legislative control to elected assemblies. But Louis Napoleon, a nephew of the great emperor, procured his election to the Presidency. He aimed successfully at obtaining the support of the peasantry and the working-classes. Following the precedents set by his uncle, he secured his re-election to the Presidency by a coup d'etat confirmed by a plebiscite in 1851, and twelve months later was proclaimed Emperor of the French as Napoleon in. on the theory that there had been a legitimate Napoleon 11., who never actually succeeded. France reappeared as a military empire, whose ruler was in the nature of the case obliged to pose as the arbiter of Europe, and to win military glory. This opportunity soon came. Oppression of Christians in the Turkish Empire was used by the Tsar as an excuse for intervention ; France claimed that the protection The Crimean of the Latin-Church Christians lay with her ; Great War - Britain for the last twenty years had been watching Russian aggression in ^the East with alarm. So France and England supported Turkey and declared war in 1854 when hostilities had begun between the eastern powers ; while Prussia and Austria, though sympathising, cheerfully left them to do the fight- ing. The allies invaded the Crimea, and captured Sebastopol after a long siege and a winter in which their troops suffered frightful hardships. The Peace of Paris in 1856 neutralised the Black Sea and forbade Russia to keep more than six warships on it. The terms of the peace were agreed upon by a general conference of the Powers. The principle that the voice of Europe at large as well as that of the belligerents should be taken into account in settling terms of peace was beginning to become established. Napoleon had won considerable credit from the war : the next field of his activities was to be in Italy. Here the success of Austria in 1849 na ^ only intensified Italian antagonism to the