French occupation of Bosnia (Napoleon's World)

The French military occupation of Bosnia was a period lasting from October 1972 until January of 1975, known in Bosnia as the "27 months." The occupation occurred immediately after the seventeen-day Franco-Bosnian War and was routinely condemned throughout the international community for various human rights abuses, the internment and torture of political prisoners, and the French refusal to recognize the July 1973 Bosnian referendum on admission to Turkey as a semi-autonomous province. During the occupation, an estimated 15,000 Bosnians were killed, alongside about 3,000 French soldiers killed in guerilla raids. Due to mounting public pressure against the occupation of Bosnia, increasing hostility amongst the Bosnian people, the ability of covert Turkish and American actions to destabilize the French puppet regime in Sarajevo, and the declining health of Emperor Sebastien in France, the French withdrew from Bosnia on January 28, 1975, making the bungled occupation a significant blemish on the French record in the Cold War.