Patrice de MacMahon
Marie Edmé Patrice Maurice de Mac Mahon, better known simply as Patrice de Mac Mahon, Count of Mac Mahon, Duke of Magenta and Marshal of France (Sully, 13 July 1808-Montcresson, October 17, 1893) was a French military and politician. He President of France, and second of the French Third Republic, from May 24, 1873 to January 30, 1879. He came from a family of Irish descent who immigrated to France at the end of the 17th century.
Military career
A small expedition under Marshal MacMahon left Oran by sea and land in January 1848 to take possession of the Chafarinas Islands. When the French arrived, the Spanish had already taken over the islands in the name of Queen Elizabeth II.
Already a general in the French army, his victory at the Battle of Sebastopol in 1855 ensured the final victory of the French and their British allies in the Crimean War.
During the Second Italian War of Independence, he led the troops of France and Piedmont to victory at the Battle of Magenta in 1859. That victory earned him the appointment of Duke of Magenta and Marshal of France by Emperor Napoleon III.
Because of his successes in the war of conquest of Algeria, where he crushed the resistance of the Berbers of Kabylia, he was appointed governor of Algeria in 1864. Criticism of his mismanagement forced him to resign before the emperor in 1870. However, the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in the summer of the same year will cause Napoleon III to require him to assume command of the French army. After suffering several defeats in Alsace, his defeat at the Battle of Sedan led to the capitulation of the French before the King of Prussia and future German Emperor from 1871, William I, on September 2, 1870.
Once the Third French Republic had been proclaimed, President Adolphe Thiers entrusted Mac Mahon with the command of the government troops called "of Versailles" when the Paris Commune broke out in March 1871. His repression of the popular uprising would be particularly bloody: 30,000 civilian deaths, 38,000 people imprisoned and 7,000 deported.
Political career
After Thiers left, Patrice de Mac Mahon was elected President of the Republic on May 24, 1873. He made no secret of his monarchical sentiments, and during his presidency he encouraged the creation of conservative and restorationist governments without the support of the national assembly, so the constitutional crisis and the blockade of the institutions were constant. While rural France admired him for his military past, discontent grew in Paris and in the big cities over the repression carried out against the press and republican circles.
With the support of the Senate, Mac Mahon decreed the dissolution of the lower house in 1876, hoping to achieve a more favorable majority. But the result of the elections turned against him and the left won with an overwhelming majority (335 seats against 198 anti-republicans). Ignoring the result of the referendum, Mac Mahon tried to impose a conservative government but could not prevent the formation of a republican government led by Jules Dufaure. When in the elections of 1879 the left won a majority of the seats in the senate, Mac Mahon resigned. The republican Jules Grévy succeeds him in the presidency of the State.
Patrice de Mac Mahon remained retired from political life until his death in 1893.