The history of the early 1840s is mainly remembered due to subtle shifts in the political climate and the consolidation of a strong France on the global stage.
In France, the election of 1840 saw three main blocs face off against each other. Prime Minister Adolphe Thiers was seeking reelection as head of the conservative Orléaniste party and reminded the public of his successes in the recent wars, promising that he would continue the policy of projecting French power over the Great Powers of Europe. In direct opposition to this line was François-René de Chateaubriand as head of the Reactionary Légitimiste party. He argued that France had no need to expend itself in costly foreign adventures but that it had to be on guard for revolutionaries at home who wished to topple the established order. Finally, Foreign Minister Victor de Broglie drifted out of Thiers' orbit and campaigned on a platform of extending suffrage and fulfilling the spirit of the July Revolution.
In December 1840, the results were announced to be: 44% for the Orléaniste, 37% for the Légitimiste and 19% for de Broglie's new Constitutionnel party. In view of this situation, King Louis Philippe decided to confirm Thiers as Prime Minister.
This balance would not last for long, however, due to a series of seditious protests in early 1841. The Upper House of Parliament, fearing the uprisings that Chateaubriand had warned, experienced a decisive turn towards the Légitimiste party under the parliamentary leadership of Édouard Affré.
Édouard Affré was born in Amiens in 1809 to one of the first families to set up a textile industry in the area. He started his education after the Restoration and studied law in the hope of being a useful legal asset to the family business. This did not pan out as expected, however, as Édouard chose to join the army upon finishing his studies in 1824. He served honorably in the following years and participated in the first Algerian expedition in 1830, there he was captured during an ambush and he remained in captivity until the peace. He remained in the colony as part of the garrison until 1835 when, thanks to the influence of his family and his legal studies, he was chosen to serve as a Deputy in the Parliament.
In February 1841, Affré pushed through a bill whereby Deputies could be appointed to the Upper House only if they were members of the ruling party and no longer by appointment. This reform served to ensure that the core elements of the ship of state be governed by the firm hand of the King rather than being subject to elites that might not have the state’s best interest at heart.
In March of 1841, with popular and parliamentary pressure mounting, the King sacked Adolphe Thiers of the Orléaniste party to grant the position of Prime Minister to the Légitimiste Chateaubriand.
Prime Minister François-René de Chateaubriand
Chateaubriand then used his influence in the Upper House by convincing Affré that it was in the best interest of France to curb the mutterings of Jacobin revolutionaries. In March 1842, a bill was passed legislating that, henceforth, misleading private newspapers would be illegal and only well-verified state press would have the right to publish.
In April, the government discovered a series of letters indicating that the Bey of Algeria was financing dissident groups in the coastal territories recently occupied by France. In view of such a blatant violation of the peace terms of 1836, Chateaubriand ordered the War Minister Médard de Valence to prepare for the final annexation of this rogue state.
Minister of War Médard de Valence
The Marquis de Valence was born in 1810 to a family of noble émigrés who had resided in London since the outbreak of the Revolution. With the Restoration of King Louis XVIII, the family moved back to France and their ancestral holdings where Médard attended the local military academy from 1820 to 1824. Upon finishing his studies, he was sent to the court in Paris where he served as an officer to the palace guard of Kings Louis XVIII, Charles X and Louis Philippe. In 1836, Valence was sent as an observer to the Algerian Expedition where he became well known for his rich and vivid descriptions of the exotic new Colony. This lit an artistic spark in the young man who then proceeded to make a name for himself as an author of Orientalist literature until he was called upon for his first-hand experience of Algeria and the military arts.
On the 15th of May 1842, Chateaubriand finalized the declaration of war and the French army marched across the Algerian border and headed directly for the Bey’s palace.
Newspaper announcing the beginning of hostilities between France and Algeria
By early June, the Algerian forces were in full rout and half of their territory had been occupied with only minimal pockets of resistance; it was at this point that the Sultan of Morocco threw in his lot with the doomed Algerians. The addition of another uncivilized Kingdom did little to change the result of the war and resulted only in the extension of the conflict up to September 1843 when the last desert strongholds surrendered to French soldiers. The Bey of Algeria and the Sultan of Morocco chose to offer their capitulation personally to Foreign Minister Fabien de Privas on the 23rd.
The Bey of Algeria and the Sultan of Morocco surrender to Privas
The Comte de Privas was born in 1789 at the dawn of the dreaded Revolution. Like many loyal nobles, his family emigrated to Great Britain where he received an education in the natural sciences. Upon the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Counts of Privas returned to France to serve at the newly founded court while Fabien abandoned his original education and practiced as a lawyer for the remaining duration of the Empire. With the Restoration of King Louis XVIII, the family of Privas were imprisoned due to suspicions about their loyalty to the King and later placed under house arrest in Lille after the return of Napoleon. Having proved his innocence to the Royal Court, Privas started to work on a series of travel diaries that began with his residence in the Netherlands and reached their pinnacle with his account of a Grand Tour undertaken in 1832. Under King Louis Philippe, Fabien de Privas was chosen in 1836 for his legal acumen to become governor Picardie where he served until being called to the Cabinet.
Under the terms of surrender, the nation of Algeria was wiped off the map and fully incorporated into the Kingdom of France as a consequence of its continued treachery across the past decades. Morocco’s punishment was less harsh but substantial nonetheless: the Sultan promised to pay war reparations to France together with ceding the lucrative port of Ifni.
Map of the situation in North Africa with the pacified Algeria and newly acquired port of Ifni
Within international politics, the continued decline of the Ottoman Empire compelled the other Great Powers to exclude the Turks from the decisions necessary to global stability. Their position was taken over by the Empire of Mexico whose industrialization was beginning to turn it into a clear contender for supremacy in the Americas together with the United States.
News of Mexico's ascendance reaches French papers
In late 1844, French foreign policy shifted its attention from the Mediterranean to Central Europe. Spain, under the indecisive and unstable government of Queen Isabella II, was an unreliable ally and, despite constant pressure by Privas, had contributed only a negligible amount of soldiers to the Algerian War. This, compounded with Spanish refusals to lower tariffs on the products of French industry, led the French Government to conclude that they could not be trusted as allies and, on the 7th of February 1845, King Louis Philippe officially dissolved the alliance between France and Spain. Privas then started work on securing an alliance among other, more trustworthy, powers in Europe and found an enthusiastic supporter in Tsar Nicholas I of the Russian Empire.
Tsar Nicholas I of the Russian Empire
The Tsar had paid attention to the Franco-Belgian war and had been pleased with the French defeat of Great Britain and, more importantly, the Austrian Empire which had provided a threat to Russia both in Poland and among the Slavic peoples of the Balkans. Privas was personally invited to Saint Petersburg where weeks of fruitful negotiations took place and concluded in a mutual defense pact with special clauses concerning Austria and the German Region. Both nations would collaborate in weakening Austrian power outside of the German Confederation while France would take special care to act as a third pole of influence between the German States. With this deal concluded, it seems as if a new profitable balance has been struck in Europe that will provide peace and stability for the foreseeable future.