Iron Revolution (Napoleon's World)

The Iron Revolution is the name given to the 1925 coup of Emperor Napoleon III by his brother, Prince Regent and State Minister Albert Bonaparte, assisted by members of the military and Imperial elite. It is considered a major historical event, and the aftermath of the Iron Revolution includes the French Civil War and the assumption of power of Sebastien Bonaparte to usher in the modern global era.

Metillon Conferences and Bourges Agreement
On June 4th, 1925, several high-ranking members of the State Ministry received an invitation to the Bonaparte family's Metillon palace, in the French Alps. On June 10th, Albert Bonaparte welcomed eight visitors to Metillon, and in a closed conference, said the following immortalized words:

"Gentlemen, I do love my brother, and I do love the Empire, but the two cannot coexist."

In attendance at the first Metillon Conference were the following:


 * Desmond Aumange, Secretary of the State Ministry
 * Phillippe Nife, Undersecretary of the State Ministry
 * Francois Baptiste, Director of Information, State Ministry
 * Jean-Louis Claves, Vice Director of Information, State Ministry
 * Edouard Jobere, Vice Director of Operations, State Ministry
 * Karl Heimer, Chief of State Ministry's Berlin Wing

Albert presented to his gathered friends a need to immediately remove Napoleon III from power; his initial plan to forward this plot involved employing his allies in the Grand Assembly to block Napoleon III's edicts and assume control of state affairs by declaring the Emperor unfit to rule. Nife and Aumange both recognized that an attempted constitutional battle would be fruitless, especially with the recent violence in Berlin.

It was Baptiste who suggested a more sinister plot; the removal of Napoleon III from office by force. He pointed out that the Emperor was deeply unpopular and that if he were to be ousted in a popular revolt, the citizens of the Empire would feel vindicated.

Heimer and Nife disagreed with the execution of Baptiste's plan. They realized that a popular revolt would soon remove the rest of the government's elite as well, and would only spell doom for the Empire's sagging economy. The coup, they argued, would have to occur from within the government itself.

Albert's concern now, after the First Metillon Conference, was Edouard Jobere, who was a high-ranking member of the State Ministry but also a noted political adversary of Napoleon III. Despite his dislike of the weak Emperor, Jobere found a coup, even a nonviolent one, to be an extremely disagreeable act, and threatened to accuse the other conspirators of treason. He never had a chance; Albert's personal bodyguards murdered Jobere on June 17th in Nice in front of a stunned crowd - including Jobere's wife and three children - on a public beach in broad daylight. The exact culprits were never found.

Albert returned to Paris following the dispatchment of Jobere and there called a conference of high ranking generals to discuss, one by one, the implementation of military policy by Napoleon III. Three generals stood out among the rest as loyal to the Emperor - Roger Holle, Pierre Tital, and Fredric Giles, all three young, promising generals waiting for promotions to higher service.

The Second Metillon Conference was held on June 29th-July 3rd. The conspirators from the first conference returned, and were joined by Grand Marshall Desmond Cerf and Brigadier General Henri Moderan, the two highest-ranking officers in the. Here, a bloody oath was sworn; having seen a violent riot occur in Venice only days prior, the conspirators recognized that Napoleon III would need to be removed via military coup. With the leaders of the military onboard, the consensus was simple: Remove the reigning Emperor from office and install Albert on the throne.

The coup would need to be kept secret; scapegoats would be necessary, and for that purpose the agreement was that the Churat would have to become involved. Knowing that the Grandmaster of the Churat was just as likely to betray him as the Emperor, Albert approached the Minister of the Churat, Remy de Nancourt, and proposed that the Churat act in the best interest of the Empire and assist in the overthrow of Napoleon III. Nancourt responded on July 10th: "The Churat has decided that treason in the good of the Empire is not treason, but a public service. Tell us what we must do."

With the Grandmaster, with Nancourt as proxy, onboard, Albert could move forward with his plan. The problems with overthrowing the Emperor were twofold; first, the Grand Assembly would be in an uproar, and would need to immediately be dissolved following the physical coup. Second, as the German industrial economy swayed, so did the Empire. Albert would need the assistance of the economic heavyweights of the Rhineland to come to his aid in funding a coup that would only benefit them.

At Bourges on July 23rd, the Bourges Agreement was made between Albert, Grand Marshall Cerf and Heinrich Jasser, head of the Berlinerbank, the largest bank in the Empire: Napoleon III would be removed from power in one month's time, and the Empire's elite would back the coup one hundred percent.