Subject: Re: WI a Greater France circa 1790's? From: Rune Steinsland Date: 1998/08/26 Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if,alt.history.what-if This one has fascinated me too, so I permit myself to butt in. Randy McDonald wrote: > This idea of mine has been kicking around since everyone began talking > about creating a greater France, perhaps in the course of the War of the > Spanish Succession, or a related conflict. Myself, I was always > interested in the possibilities of a greater France that would emerge > during the Revolutionary Wars of the 1790's. How about 1797? In that year, the elections in France (probably the most democratic during the revolutionary period) resulted in a royalist majority in the French parliament. Obviously, this was seen as a threat by the regicides in the Directory, so the move towards a constitutional monarchy was cut short by the Republican coup of the 18th Fructidor, carried out with the help of general Bonaparte. But suppose the coup had failed? This might have lead to a purge of radical Republicans in France, Napoleon's career could have ended abruptly, and Louis XVIII might have returned in triumph to sign the treaty of Campo Formio with the Austrians, giving France control of modern Belgium, bits of the Netherlands and the western bank of the Rhine. France might also have taken parts of Italy (I don't think the Austrians would have accepted French rule in Switzerland; it's a bit too close to home). I don't suppose the British would have liked it, but without any allies left on the continent, it's hard to see what they could have done. Of course, there are problems. The French army may already have been so much in love with Napoleon that the coup of 1797 could not possibly fail. If a French civil war broke out, Napoleon would presumably have a good chance of winning it. Also, I imagine Louis XVIII may have been less willing to compromise with the revolutionaries in 1797 than he was in 1814-15. > A France enlarged to include most of northern Italy and the Rhineland, > along with Wallonia and Switzerland, perhaps Flanders, would be a > formidable power indeed. Actually, I don't think this enlarged France would have been that much stronger than in OTL. They would probably still have to fight an endless series of wars with Britain, so their colonial empire might have been reduced far more than it actually was in 1814. And if avoiding the Napoleonic Wars boosted the French economy, surely the same would be the case in England? Also, with France gobbling up Germany west of the Rhine, I imagine the rest of the German states would have been united far earlier, probably under the leadership of Austria. After all, Bismarck used a (not very realistic) French threat to finish the job in 1870, so a far more real threat from a greater France would most likely have speeded up the process considerably. And this German empire would not necessarily be weaker than in OTL. The inclusion of Austria in such an empire would more than compensate for the loss of the Rhineland, and fear of French expansion would probably encourage a strong central government and the development of a federal army, so I suspect the French would have been thrown out of the Rhineland sooner rather than later. If the French tried to prevent German unification, Britain would presumably support the Germans, and you would have a scenario not unlike the Napoleonic Wars (except that Louis XVIII would, most likely, be less successful than Napoleon). Finally, a large German and Italian element within the borders of France would probably have caused much trouble. > Pre-revolutionary France had a population of > some 30 millions; this enlarged France would have a total poulation of > perhaps as many as 45 million people. If population growth continued > inside this greater France as it did OTL, then there would be perhaps as > many as 80 to 85 million French citizens in Europe. (This doens't > consider the possibility that French population growth might be more > rapid, without the tremendous slaughter of more than a million young > Frenchmen on the field of battle.) I have my doubts. As far as I know, French population growth was slower than in most European countries even before the Revolution, and I don't see any reason for that to change just because the frontier was moved to the Rhine. A quick peak in history books tell me that the population of France in 1800 was about 27 mill. Add to this the population of Belgium (about 3 mill.), the Rhineland (I don't have the exact figure, but I imagine something like 1,5-2 mill.) and bits of Italy (not very large bits, I think), and you end up somewhere around 32-35 mill. An increase, to be sure, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of numbers that would make France an instant superpower. By 1900, Germany would have a larger population than France anyway. I suppose some of the soldiers that didn't die for Napoleon might have emigrated to the colonies - in OTL, French emigration has been negligible, but without the Napoleonic wars, maybe the people of Louisiana would be French-speaking today? > France's cultural influence would probably be greater in this timeline. > Prior to the French Revolution, France was the dominant power in > European high culture, with the French language and French writers > (Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, et cetera) enjoying a high degree of > esteem among the various royal courts of Europe. Only when France was > occupied by the other Great Powers of Europe, and suffered eclipse by > Britain, did this attraction fade. In this TL, a liberal-democratic > France in the first decades of the 19th century would probably retain > France's lead over Europe, especially in the context of a European > continent thaty was dominated elsewhere by absolutist monarchies. Actually, the cultural dominance of France in continental Europe continued well into the Second Empire, so I don't see much change here (as far as I know, French was still the preferred language at the Russian court in 1917, and it has maintained its position as an important language of diplomacy). If anything, I think French influence may have been weakened, since a large Bourbon France would probably be far less popular and inspiring to most Europeans than Napoleon's Empire (one should not forget that Napoleon was much admired, even in the countries that fought against him). And who's to say that the restored monarchy would be more democratic and liberal than in OTL? After all, the presence of large ethnic minorities might have made the country so unstable that real democracy was virtually impossible. > As for France's colonial empire -- OTL, Britain only gained an > overwhelming lead over the other colonial powers, including both France > and the Netherlands, when the Royal Navy confiscated isolated French and > Dutch colonies, such as the Dutch Cape Colony and Ceylon, and French > Mauritius, in the Napoleonic period. Without Napoleon, Britain would > probably never make all of those confiscations. Actually, Britain didn't make very large confiscations after the war - at least, people at that time didn't seem to realize the importance of the colonies they gained. In many ways, the peace which was made in Vienna in 1814-15 did far less harm to France than, say, the peace after the Seven Years' War in 1763 (which was really the point where Britain beat the other powers in the race for colonies). This was something Napoleon himself could never understand - he couldn't figure out why Britain didn't take more when they had the chance. As I see it, there's not much difference, then. But I suppose the main problem with this scenario is that 19th century European history would be bloody dull without the Bonapartes... __________________________________________________________________ Randy McDonald Staff Reporter for _Cadre_ rmcdonald@upei.ca Home E-mail: mcdonald@isn.net "What! call a Turk, a Jew, and a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course; for are we all not children of the same father, and the creatures of the same God?" - Voltaire, from Treatise on Tolerance, 1763 __________________________________________________________________