With a POD going back to 1600, make France, rather than Britain, the undisputed world hyperpower of the 19th century. In addition to having the largest army (which it did in OTL), France must also have naval dominance, as well as the largest colonial empire in the world, and economic hegemony (Paris stock exchange being dominant, practically all business done involves France in some way, etc).
AHC: France the dominant power of the 19th century
- Thread starter Armored Diplomacy
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I can do that with a PoD during the seven year's war, so with a PoD in the 1600 it's too easy. 1st goal : the Rhine Frontier. France gets two of the best regions for industrialisation in Europe (Belgium and the Ruhr) and the port of Antwerp that was badly needed to get a powerfull navy. France keep it's colonies in India (mostly to keep the british out) and in North America. Avoid the demographics gap of the 19th century and France is a powerhouse.
Napoleonic victory...or even Napoleon doesn't lose Haiti. If Napoleon doesn't lose Haiti, France is THE major power in the continent(s). Louisiana, dontchaknow.
France has ports, but it's still spending lopsidedly in favor of the army. That's more problematic than whether or not it holds Antwerp.
And frankly, until Germany united, France was the dominant power of the 19th century within Europe (and without is a consequence of things this doesn't address).
If the POD reaches back to 1600, I'm sure there's a lot you can do with the English Civil War to screw over Britain. Have the King win and impose some sort of absolutism, and you can lay the groundwork for a lot of English domestic troubles for the next century. Alternately, a decisive French victory in the Seven Years' War should do the trick nicely (some combination of no Clive + much more settlement in Canada + a longer-lived Elizabeth should do for a fairly decisive victory).
wolf_brother
Banned
Exactly. Prevent German unification, or have it take place in such a way as to be on friendly terms with Paris.
I think this has been done before, but have the Second Empire win the Franco-Prussian War. France would remain the power on the continent.
France has ports, but no really good ports. The french already have what i call a cultural deficit in everything related to the sea for one reason : France is a freaking agricultural holy land. Why go out on the sea when you can cultivate almost anything in large quantities. The only region where people turned to the sea was Britanny because of it's harsh hinterland. Then the french coast isn't really good for large ships. The four great estuaries (Seine, Garonne, Loire, Rhône) aren't adapted to sailing (the Rhône is the worst, you couldn't navigate it). France also had to maintain two different navies for the mediterannean and the Atlantic, with no easy way to travel between the two. The ports (outside Toulon and Brest) often lacked a good draft, and Brest had bad winds to go out 4 months a year and bad months to go in another 4 months a year. Antwerp would have been a far easier port for the french navy than any of those it operated.
But yes, the budget was always a problem during the ancien regime, as were the shifting policies, the lack of an admiralty board, the lack of naval knowledge of the government, the behavior of the naval officers (only for nobles)and the lack of a link with the merchant navy.
If you have a POD after 1815, it is entirely possible to maintain France as the dominant continental power, but it's more or less impossible to take over Britain's position as supreme naval power.
The biggest thing is for the French birth rate to not experience its mysterious decline. France had 30 million people in 1800 and 40 million in 1900. Most of the rest of Europe saw its population double, triple or even more over the same time period. More people not only gives France more troops, but increases the pressure to colonize/capture more territory.
Anaxagoras
Banned
I wrote a TL way back - God is a Frenchman - with exactly this kind of scenario. My POD was a French victory in the Seven Years War.
It's not a mysterious decline. France's population was just already more developed than the rest of Europe's in 1800 - other countries overtaking it were really playing catchup. Add that to the development of unused land in parts of Germany and the UK thanks to better technology and different crops it is actually very unsurprising that France lost its demographic lead.
It's mysterious because nobody know the cause of france popullation decline. I don't see how the french were more developed then anyone else.
katchen
Banned
Louis XIV establishes primogeniture, preventing the fragmentation of agricultural holdings and the overpopulation of farming areas as population grows. Nouvelle France, both Canada and Louisiana opened up to unrestricted French settlement (though this leads to disproportionate settlement of the New World by French from Langdeoc,particularly in Louisiana, much as Scots-Irish settle the English South disproportionately since THEiR land is less productive). Nouvelle France's coast settled from Appalachicola River to Corpus Christi Bay by 1760.
I think it's pretty mysterious given that birth control methods back then were primitive and certainly not encouraged by the church. It's remarkable to me that the French birthrate was so much lower than all its neighbors. Even if French people wanted fewer children due to various legal inheritance issues, I'm surprised they actually were able to control their number of children so effectively.
This was coupled with women owning their own property and later marriages. And yes, a much more widespread use of contraception.
Even the French recognized the Perdido river as the boundary with Spanish Florida....
And the Spanish won't allow settlement they don't control beyond the Mississippi valley. that doesn't mean you won't have French settlement of course if the Spanish Bourbons allow it. Which could strengthen their position in those areas.
I don't know - it still seems strange. Countries that experience declining birth rates usually have become highly urbanized and well-educated. France in the 19th century was neither of these. Public education did not become free and universal in France until the 1880s, and a majority of the population remained rural all century. Also, the Catholic Church was still very influential, and of course it discouraged contraceptive use. I guess French peasants must have used it anyway, but it seems surprising.
What about at the other end of the spectrum - the mortality rate? Was it unusually high?
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