French victories

[tom]

Either France wins the War of Spanish Succession or the Seven Years War.
Which is more plausible?
What is our world like now?

[Straha]

french victories? isn't that an oxymoron?? take this thread to ASBs

[Faeelin]

french victories? isn't that an oxymoron?? take this thread to ASBs

Umm, we'll just not mention the 30 years war, the napoleonic wars, the revolutionary wars, world war I, I guess?

[tom]

Felt 30 year was too early (and wasn't it mostly German anyway?) to extrapolate, and not really "our" France yet. Napoleon seems to be felt to be ASBish by some (and I already asked what is the best he could do). Didn't France win the Revolutionary War and World War one (or rather their allies)?

[re2005]

hey, be nice, I mean, they did sink that greenpeace ship!

[Straha]

Umm, we'll just not mention the 30 years war, the napoleonic wars, the revolutionary wars, world war I, I guess?

1 they had allies

2 they lost in the end

3 they were merely on our side

4 again allies

don't make me have to call Dave howery to put you to work in the salt mines ;)

[Raymann]

I don't think we should be bad-mouthing the French, they might get scared and surrender :p

[fhaessig]

It seems this thread is attracting a lot of so-called 'wits' which are trying to hide biggotry under the pretext of humor.

Maybe this should be restricted to the question posed by the original poster.

If anyone want to take the discussion about french short-coming, I invite him to e-mail me in private ( fhaessig@wanadoo.fr ).

[wkwillis]

I have noticed that countries that have very good armies at one point in their history seem to never rebuild them again. Consider Classical Greece, Assyria and the rest of the fertile crescent, Rome, Persia, Spain, France, Germany, Arabia, Afghanistan (Moghul empire), Turkey, Mongolia, and for that matter, us Hungarians.
Once we had annexed the easternmost German lands, massacred their men, and raped all their women (which is why I, of Hungarian and therefore originally of Chinese descent, have blue eyes), we just lost it. We Hungarians haven't won a war in 500 years.
Maybe it's a question of been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.

[fhaessig]

I tried to post a rather long answer concerning the spanish succession war, however, it seems to have been lost due to connection problems. I may retype it if I find the will. Meanwhile, let's hope this gets through.

Concerning the 7 years war, there were really three theaters, Europe, America and India.

I must admit I don't know much about the India theater, so I don't know if there is anyway for the french and their indian allies to win. Maybe if Clive is beaten and killed at Plassey, but I don't know if that is likely, and given the RN dominance of the sea, it may just postpone the inevitable.

Concerning the American theater, the battle on the plains of Abraham could easily have switched the other way. This was so balanced, that any butterfly will justify it.

Concerning Europe, if the Death of Catherine is delayed by a few month, Prussia will cease to exist and be dismembered.

If the first happen, the french are likely to keep Quebec ( and just Quebec ). I'm not sure if that impacts the American revolution or not; It may mean that it is cancelled or postponed, or the french presence may be small enough that it gets ignored. If the former, then there are impacts on the french revolution as well, and all is up for grabs, as Napoleon's rise to power is likely stymied.

If the second happens, there are also impacts on the french revolution, as no prussian army may mean no Valmy ... and definitely no Waterloo ( in fact, the Napoleonic wars are nothing like OTL ). Also no German unification by Prussia ( obviously ).

The impacts in Y2k are very difficult to judge. Basically anything which plays with the french revolution and the formation of Germany triggers HUGE butterflies

[fhaessig]

Concerning the war of spanish succession, I can imagine a couple PoD which could potentially lead to the french doing better and maybe winning the war.

1) Death of Malborough in battle. In OTL, He was thought to have died behind the french lines at Malplaquet in 1709. Even if this occurs, it is probably too late to have much impact on the settlement of the war. So, WI Malborough dies in battle at Rammillies in 1705 ( and thus loses the battle ) ?

2) WI the Camisard war is delayed ? OTL, the french had to divert 60,000 men and 2 marshalls from the main war, in order to fight in central France. If this revolt is delayed by a dozen years ( due to a different bishop being apointed, maybe ? ), those troops would be available in the opening stage of the war of spanish succession. Would that be enough for the french to size the advantage and carry it to final victory ?

Impacts :
1) The spanish Bourbon stays in the line of french succession ? No impact IMO, except that the break between Orleanist and Legitimist is even worse, so there is no talk of reinstating the monarchy in 1877.
2) Spain keeps Gibraltar. With it and Ceuta in Spanish hands, they control the access of the Med. This means less RN involvment in this sea. I must admit I’m not quite sure of the impacts and whether the RN could force it’s way in anyway or not.
3) France keeps parts of Canada and acquires parts of Flanders. The former means that France will not be expulsed from Canada in a signle war, which in turn means the Amrican revolution is much delayed if it occurs at all, which, in turn, means that the french revolution is slightly delayed ( a dozen years at most, IMO ). The later has interesting impacts when the industrial revolution comes around ; these were where the industrial revolution first bloomed on the continent ( at one point, Belgium rivalled Uk in railroads ). Both point, taken together, mean that France is larger and more populated than OTL, and much more powerfull in the second half of the XIXth century. So bismarck will look for another foe to unite Germany. Which means no WWI ( or WWII ) as we know it.

Quite a huge butterfly.

[Melvin Loh]

OTL the French and Indian allies during the French and Indian War initially inflicted some nasty defeats on the British and colonial forces such as the Monangahela ambush in 1760 and the successful defence of Ticonderoga in 1758, so IMHO I feel it's possible that, with better leadership and decision-making, les Canadiens et les sauvages (couldn't resist the temptation to utilise a little of my French- lol) could've held out on better terms against the British by giving les Anglo-Saxons more bloody noses and winning a negotiated peace.

[Paul Spring]

A few more regiments sent from France would have also been enormously helpful to the French/Canadiens in the French and Indian War. A few regiments less probably wouldn't have made a big difference in Europe, but it could have made a huge difference in North America (or the West Indies, or India, but I don't know as much about those). With more support, I think that the French in North America might still have lost some territory west of the Appalachians, but they could still have held on to Canada proper, and quite possibly some of Louisiana and the Great Lakes region as well.

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

That's not entirely true. The Byzantines managed to do it more than once, and even the Ottomans made a pretty impressive comback, if you consider WWI, and go ahead and try attacking Turkey today! Hungary only had that bad 500 years because they had the Ottomans on their border; if not for that Hungary might have developed a bit more bad-ass. And BTW, you're of Mongolian origin, not Chinese. :eek:

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

You can get off the anti-French crap. They had one bad performance (WWII). They did all the heavy lifting against the Germans in WWI and were the predominant military power in Western Europe for 1,000 years. If you want more victories, think: Charlemagne.

[DominusNovus]

First of all, I'm mostly French (I've got some German in me, but thats from Alsace Lorraine, so its kinda iffy). Yet only the French could be on the winning side (ARW) and still lose (India). I have to take this opportunity to mention http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html
Not perfectly accurate (leaves out Charlemagne), but still pretty good.

[Paul Spring]

Well, Charlemagne was arguably at least as much "German" as he was "French" - not that either term in the modern sense would have meant anything to him.

I agree, though, about the "France always being beaten" arguments. The only time that France really fell apart quickly was in WWII, and even that wasn't nearly as 1-sided as most people think. As far as casualties, the German invasion of France in 1940 was actually comparable to the first couple of months of the German invasion of Russia in 1941. German casualties actually went up during the last 3 weeks or so. Unlike the Russians, though, the French didn't have a vast hinterland to fall back on. The Germans were good, but they were also very fortunate to launch a strong attack on what turned out to be the weakest link in the whole French-British-Belgian line (around Sedan and the Ardennes), and they were also fortunate in the fact that the military and political leaders on the other side largely panicked and failed to take steps to counterattack while there was still time.

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html


But I like the version I first read for the Hundred Years War: "Mostly lost. Situation saved by a schizophrenic teenage girl."

[Max Sinister]

Oh man, do we have a feast for the French-bashers here or what? BTW, did somebody in the US suggest to send 'em back the Statue of Liberty? I mean, imagine, she was made in FRANCE! ;-)

About the war of Spanish succession: The bad luck for France was that king Louis wanted to much, so half of Europe allied against him. Nobody could've won for France in such a situation.

(BTW, I think that there were some more little wars before that. France significantly expanded over the centuries at the expanse of the HRE, that didn't come from nothing...)

French revolutionary war: Seems to me that the French really kicked the Prussians', Austrians', Spanish, Russian and a few more butts. Except Britain which as always ruled the waves.

[MerryPrankster]

There was a good-sized French military contingent at the Battle of Nicopolis. The French were too aggressive and attacked prematurely rather than waiting for the rest of the allied forces to join up. Though they killed a lot of Ottoman troops (so many that the planned offensive against Hungary was called off, according to Barbara Tuchman), they ultimately lost the battle.

Perhaps the French aren't so hot-headed; many French knights there advised caution, but a few young lunatics led the army astray. Butterfly away one of the knights somehow, or have an incident that makes them more cautious, and the allied forces, including the French, could win.

[Faeelin]

Oh man, do we have a feast for the French-bashers here or what? BTW, did somebody in the US suggest to send 'em back the Statue of Liberty? I mean, imagine, she was made in FRANCE! ;-)

About the war of Spanish succession: The bad luck for France was that king Louis wanted to much, so half of Europe allied against him. Nobody could've won for France in such a situation.

(BTW, I think that there were some more little wars before that. France significantly expanded over the centuries at the expanse of the HRE, that didn't come from nothing...)

French revolutionary war: Seems to me that the French really kicked the Prussians', Austrians', Spanish, Russian and a few more butts. Except Britain which as always ruled the waves.

They beat Britain on land.

France did really well for a long time. I suspect if you change the outcome of Blenheim, you might get a more favorable outcome for France.

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

It's hard to even find an accurate assessment of Nicopolis since it had been so colored by centuries of nationalist rhetoric about the horrible tyannical Ottomans and their merciless oppression of the Christians. If 'merciless oppression' means lowering taxes by 80% and abolishing the corvee, then I guess it was.

The Ottoman losses were not that great; the French broke through the initial lines of light cavalry and light infantry, whose purpose is to wear down the enemy then back off. The Ottoman army was about the same size as the Crusader army, somewhere around 30,000 men, not 200,000 as the chronicles report, and Beyazid didn't massacre his captives because he was enraged at his losses, he massacred them because he was enraged that the Crusaders had massacred every Muslim they could get their hands on.

There is no reason why the Crusaders shouldn't have won; they had an equal-sized army, and more heavy cavalry, but once again, Ottoman organizational superiority and command unity won the day.

[Faeelin]

To be fair, these are the same french who decided on the tactics at Agincourt.

Is it just me, or do Christian military leaders seem less competent after the 1350's?

[fhaessig]

To be fair, these are the same french who decided on the tactics at Agincourt.

Is it just me, or do Christian military leaders seem less competent after the 1350's?

As a counter exemple, I offer Du Guesclin.

[Paul Spring]

One of the more prominent French nobles who was taken prisoner at Nicopolis was later ransomed and was one of the senior French commanders at Agincourt. He apparently drew up a battle plan that was fairly good - had it had been followed, the French would almost certainly have had a better chance of winning. Instead, though, some of the French knights attacked prematurely, and the battle went out of the effective control of the senior French leaders and ended up with a series of uncoordinated attacks under a hail of English arrows.

[Kuralyov]

Speaking of French victories, let's not forget Charles Martel, either. Without him we'd probably all be speaking Arabic right now. ;)

Reading over this post, I could think of one way that a French victory in the Seven Years War could radically alter history: in the mid 1790s, a certain General Buonaparte is sent by the Directory to take command of the Army of Quebec...

[Melvin Loh]

What about the Philippe Kieffer's Free French Commandos at Sword Beach on D-Day performing just as well as any other Allied elite unit ? Or in Dec 1994 when a counter-terrorist GIGN team took out the hijackers on the AirFrance flight at Marseilles ? Of course, there's also the example of William the Bastard and how his Norman knights and archers narrowly won at Hastings in 1066, which meant tremendous Franco-Norman influence on English culture, language, politics, etc which is still influential today