1854 in France

Incumbents

• Monarch – Napoleon III

Events

• 27 March - United Kingdom declares war on Russia and Crimean War begins.
• 28 March - France declares war on Russia.
• 16 August - Russian troops in the island of Bomarsund in Åland surrender to French-British troops.
• 18 August - Siege of Petropavlovsk by Anglo-French naval forces begins.
• 20 September - Battle of Alma, Anglo-French force defeats the Russians in the first battle of the war.
• 17 October - Siege of Sevastopol by Anglo-French forces begins.
• 25 October - Battle of Balaclava, indecisive battle between the allied forces of the United Kingdom, Second French Empire and the Ottoman Empire against Russia.
• 5 November - Battle of Inkerman, Anglo-French forces defeat the Russians.
• 27 November - André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri patents a method of producing carte de visite photographs.
• Luxury goods brand Louis Vuitton is founded in Paris by Louis Vuitton.

Births

• 29 April - Henri Poincaré, mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher of science (died 1912)
• 2 September - Paul Marie Eugène Vieille, chemist and gunsmith (died 1934)
• 6 September - Georges Picquart, army officer and Minister of War, exposed the truth in the Dreyfus Affair (died 1914)
• 20 October - Arthur Rimbaud, poet (died 1891)
• 5 November - Paul Sabatier, chemist, shared Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1912 (died 1941)
• 17 November - Hubert Lyautey, Marshal of France (died 1934)

Deaths

• 3 January - Adolphe Delattre, ornithologist (born 1805)
• 28 January - Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui, economist (born 1798)
• 14 March - Louis Léon Jacob, admiral (born 1768)
• 5 July - Émile Souvestre, novelist (born 1806)
• 2 September - Pierre Alphonse Laurent, mathematician (born 1813)
• 7 September - Jacques-François Ancelot, dramatist (born 1794)
• 16 November - Marcellin Marbot, general (born 1782)
• 14 December - Léon Faucher, politician and economist (born 1803)

References