LEADERS & COMMANDERS

NAPOLEON III

“HIS INTERFERENCE DURING THE CRIMEAN WAR WAS EMBARRASSING AND HIS EXPERIENCE ON THE BATTLEFIELD AT SOLFERINO SHOCKED HIM TO HIS CORE”

THE FUMBLING FOUNDER 1808–1873

Napoleon III was nothing like the military leader his uncle had been, nor did he have such a dazzling array of generals to call upon. The commanders of the Second French Empire are generally viewed as a decidedly inferior bunch, partly because they were weighed down by the tradition of French military might established under Napoleon Bonaparte, and partly because they did not get the practice of regular pitched