Napoleon III of France

Napoleon III (1801-1873) was Emperor of France in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. He installed Maximillian as Emperor of Mexico, a move opposed by the United States under the Monroe Doctrine. As a result, his government was hostile to the United States, and in late 1862, during the War of Secession, despite opposition to slavery, Napoleon III extended diplomatic recognition to the Confederate States and supported British military protection over that country, thus beginning an alliance between France and the CS that would continue through the Second Great War over eighty years later.