French revolution w/o Napoleon?

Could revolutiary France have withstood the various internal and external threats without Napoleon playing any role in it? How would recent history be different?

Even less...

KJM said:

Could revolutiary France have withstood the various internal and external threats without Napoleon playing any role in it? How would recent history be different?

Click to expand...

In the end they couldn't withstand the onslaught with Napoleon, so I guess w/o Napoleon some kind of Ancien regime is restored earlier and without quite the (world) war that Napoleonic Wars was. Without the anti-Napoleonic engagement of OTL the British might have resources to try to retake the North American colonies. Perhaps USA ends in 1813!

Europe and not at least Germany will look a lot more old fashioned with the Napoleonic reforms, divided into a lot of small principalities and with a Holy Roman Empire lurking everywhere, but not exactly appearing like a young Lion. German nationalism will not have the boost that Napoleonic Wars gave it, but tension between the old regimes and the growing middle class of non-noble citizens will be increasing. The French Revolution could very well be German and in the 1840's (and quickly spreading to the Americas). The first to go would be the minor German Princes, but the main enemy of the revolution will be the Holy Roman Emperor and his main advisor Fürst Metternich, who for decades has been the most powerful man on the planet (Pitt in UK being the main rival for the title, but basically their interests are not conflicting).

The British doesn't give a damn who bullies who on the continent, as long as the continentals have no major navies and their armies are not in the vincinity of any British possessions. In this context a strong and leading HRE is in British interest, as it keeps the potential threats France and Russia occupied.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard

Revolutionary France basically died when the directory took power, if we assume that the Directory was still taken out by a coup then another military figure will no doubt gradually emerge as ruler. The European powers would have grudgingly accepted this ruler, as they initially accepted Napoleon, as a restorer of "order" In France and, without Napoleon's egomania, France would not have set off the second round of warfare from 1802-14 and would never have provoked EVERYONE to ally against them (revolutionary France never did this, it took Napoleon's ambition and attempt at total European conquest).

France could have settled down with a government more progressive and stable than the restored Bourbon monarchy and consolidated its hold on the SOuthern Netherlands and the Left bank of the Rhine.

The British would have to be mad to attempt the reconquest of teh American colonies at this point, and they weren't. There's also no evidence that they wanted to anyway.

Umm, it's rather simple to blame Napoleon, but that's not fair. Britain was encouraging everyone to attack France so that that massive army wasn't across the channel.

Matthew Craw said:

In France and, without Napoleon's egomania, France would not have set off the second round of warfare from 1802-14 and would never have provoked EVERYONE to ally against them (revolutionary France never did this, it took Napoleon's ambition and attempt at total European conquest).

Click to expand...

As I recall, Revolutionary France DID have everyone fighting them. Every nation that Napoleon fought, Revolutionary France fought; in fact, Revolutionary France fought more nations than Napoleon, as by the time he came around, many smaller nations had been annexed or pacified to France.

Kuralyov said:

As I recall, Revolutionary France DID have everyone fighting them. Every nation that Napoleon fought, Revolutionary France fought; in fact, Revolutionary France fought more nations than Napoleon, as by the time he came around, many smaller nations had been annexed or pacified to France.

Click to expand...

The key exception is Russia, which only fought France after it was provoked by Napoleon's mad excursion to the Eastern Mediaterranean. The only European Great powers that persistently fought revolutionary France were Austria and Britain, by 1813 Napoleon had managed to add Russia and Prussia to that list.

And teh British wouldn't have been so concerned with building a coalition against Napoleon if he had actually stuck to the terms of the Treaty of Amiens. They wouldn't have been happy about leaving France with that many of her gains but it would have been seen as preferable to more war if there had been a reasnoble chance of France settling down.

Except, umm, Britain violated the Peace of Amiens by not evacuating Malta, and then said they'd keep peace if France evacuated Italy and Holland as well, not in the treaty.

Faeelin said:

Except, umm, Britain violated the Peace of Amiens by not evacuating Malta, and then said they'd keep peace if France evacuated Italy and Holland as well, not in the treaty.

Click to expand...

But that wasn't exactly what caused the war to resume, Napoleon reacted much more strongly to George III's message to parliament on March 8th, which called for a response to French military preparations in their Channel ports.

Moreover, Malta was retained in order to prevent a feared French expedition to Egypt, which the aggression of France during the peace appeared to justify. None of this would even have been an issue if it hadn't been for Napoleon's expedition to Egypt.

None of this really addresses the key point, revolutionary France was detested, but not really feared, throughout aristocratic Europe. She never managed to seriously push passed the Alps and the Rhine until Napoleon became involved and it was this success that provoked the other European powers to join Austria and Britain in sustained hostility to France and created a coalition that was powerful enough to push into Paris. Without the fear that Napoleon's successes and megalomania engendered such a coalition would never have come into being.

In otherwords, once France became strong, the powers banded against it.

That's not Napoleon's fault.

Faeelin said:

In otherwords, once France became strong, the powers banded against it.

That's not Napoleon's fault.

Click to expand...

not simply strong, but rather expansionist, and Napoleon made an absolutely decisive conbtribution to Franch expansion, and to ensuring it went unrestrained by such arcane concepts as "common sense"

Spain is questionable, but what else?

Faeelin said:

Spain is questionable, but what else?

Click to expand...

only questionable?

Tilsit was disastrous, it enshrined Austrian and Prussian enmity when, arguably, both could have been conciliated at little cost, and what wwas the point of creating the Grand Duchy of Warsaw except to piss off everyone in Eastern Europe?

You could also argue that the invasion of Russia was, perhaps, somewhat unwise?, although the war itself was more or less unavoidable once Napoleon had gotten himself so heavily mixed up in Eastern Europe

The whole diplomatic history of 1813 was an attempt by the Austrians and others to find a way of integrating France into a more balanced European system and of Napoleon spurning their advances and insisting on total victory.

Okay, how do you "conciliate" nations which are going out of their way to attack you?

I mean, they both hated the Confederation, but a strong France wanted it. Both showed they'd cooperate with Britain.

Tilsit, the idea of a franco-russian entente dominating Europe, is rather intelligent.

Warsaw was bad, although I can't see any other ideas. Give it to russia in return for creating the grand duchy of brandenburg under Murat?

At this point, isn't Murat already King of Naples?

Everyone seems to be thinkign that the Revolutionary Wars would end the same way they did OTL without Napoleon. As I recall, the Directory was quite happy with keeping the war going (dispite its growing unpopularity in France), as it made them tidy profits. Without Napoleon or the Peace of Amiens, it seems to me that France will just wear itself out sooner, although perhaps some OTL marshal will be able to maintain the army effectively enough to decisively defeat the Coalition.