New Orleans wasn't founded until 1718.If it was founded earlier in this timeline,then it will definitely have a different name,since New Orleans was named after the regent of the time,the Duke of Orleans,who served as regent for Louis XV during his minority.
Bourbon Delirium - TL about a more successful Louis XIV
- Thread starter Onkel Willie
- Start date
I will alter this as well when I'm off work (or sooner, if given the opportunity).
Last edited:
Subscribed.
Surely there are a lot of interesting butterflies. The ATL rise of Prussia was surely one of the most interesting in my opinion - I admit Frederick I wouldn't be the best choice for an early Prussian wank, but I guess he was helped by luck mostly. And besides there is wank Bavaria in South Germany as counterweight so it would be interesting how the HRE would develop. From now, we knew already the Hapsburg would never retake the crown, but they retain still the Bohemian electoral vote... Point is, to piss the Wittelsbach, they would dare to vote for a Protestant?
Karl XII as usual ruined himself with his own hands, and well I am glad the Russian Bear rose as well, if only to balance the French wank. I guess with the Austrian screw, the Romanov will have lots of free hand in the Balkans.
Ouch for Italy, I guess, which indirecly paid for the Hapsburg demise. Milan in French hand maybe wouldn't be bad for the Lombards, and with Venice suddenly weakened... Uhm French Lombard-Venetian Kingdom in the long term? Also, with Tuscany which would see her dynastical crisis, it would be a peace of a cake for Paris to place her Borboun candidate.
Britain wasn't in a good position, either. I suspect loss of positions in India in the near future, which could likely lead to interesting scenarios. All depends who could take Bengal in the end...
Well this ATL jizya in gallican sauce is surely not good for Hugenots, but still better than OTL expulsions and persecutions. Besides multireligious French Canada and Louisiana are surely a good thing for the overseas colonial empire...
I wonder if Louis's different religious choices came out with a supposely less ingerence TTL from the Maintenon. But I am guessing the restoration of catholic archbishops in North Netherlands was more than sufficient from Rome to digest ATL Fontainebleu...
Surely there are a lot of interesting butterflies. The ATL rise of Prussia was surely one of the most interesting in my opinion - I admit Frederick I wouldn't be the best choice for an early Prussian wank, but I guess he was helped by luck mostly. And besides there is wank Bavaria in South Germany as counterweight so it would be interesting how the HRE would develop. From now, we knew already the Hapsburg would never retake the crown, but they retain still the Bohemian electoral vote... Point is, to piss the Wittelsbach, they would dare to vote for a Protestant?
Karl XII as usual ruined himself with his own hands, and well I am glad the Russian Bear rose as well, if only to balance the French wank. I guess with the Austrian screw, the Romanov will have lots of free hand in the Balkans.
Ouch for Italy, I guess, which indirecly paid for the Hapsburg demise. Milan in French hand maybe wouldn't be bad for the Lombards, and with Venice suddenly weakened... Uhm French Lombard-Venetian Kingdom in the long term? Also, with Tuscany which would see her dynastical crisis, it would be a peace of a cake for Paris to place her Borboun candidate.
Britain wasn't in a good position, either. I suspect loss of positions in India in the near future, which could likely lead to interesting scenarios. All depends who could take Bengal in the end...
Well this ATL jizya in gallican sauce is surely not good for Hugenots, but still better than OTL expulsions and persecutions. Besides multireligious French Canada and Louisiana are surely a good thing for the overseas colonial empire...
I wonder if Louis's different religious choices came out with a supposely less ingerence TTL from the Maintenon. But I am guessing the restoration of catholic archbishops in North Netherlands was more than sufficient from Rome to digest ATL Fontainebleu...
But ITTL you could get around that by having the Duke sponsor the expedition.
Alternatively, maybe St-Louis? The city in (present-day) Missouri hadn't been founded yet so the name would be available. Or else just name it after another French city.
And all great things must come to an end. Behold the end of the Sun King. I hope you'll find his successor to be worthy.
Chapter IV: Louis, the Enlightened Despot, 1715-1730.
On December 16th 1715, Louis XIV drew his last breath. He died aged 77 after a reign that had spanned 72 years and 217 days, the longest of any monarch of a major European country. He left some extremely large shoes to fill for his successor. As an adherent of the concept of the “divine right of kings” (which advocated the divine origin of monarchical rule), he had continued the work of his predecessors of creating a centralized state. He had, quite successfully, tried to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France. Moreover, by compelling many members of the nobility to inhabit his lavish palace of Versailles (formerly a hunting lodge belonging to his father), succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the Fronde rebellion during Louis’s minority. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs and consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule.
His reign had also seen the War of Devolution (1667-1668), the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1673), the War of the Reunions (1683-1684), the Nine Years’ War (1688-1697) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1706). Not only had he successfully expanded France to its “natural borders” (i.e. the river Rhine), but he had also put a Bourbon on the Spanish throne, giving France access to the riches of the Spanish Empire, exemplified by the cargo ships hauling in silver and gold. Beyond that, the War of the Spanish Succession had led to a colossal political revolution in that the Habsburgs had been deposed as the ruling house of the Holy Roman Empire after more than 250 years, being replaced by the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. The flipside of the coin, however, was that the French treasury had been severely depleted.
As a result of his establishment of an absolutist monarchy and his successful wars he was henceforth known as Louis the Great. His son Louis, Grand Dauphin, was described by one of his tutors as having inherited the docility and low intelligence of his mother. Rivalling his father’s reputation would be a difficult task, but he never got the chance to prove himself because he died of nephritis in 1713, aged 52 (he was the only one of Louis’s children to reach adulthood and the last of his descendents to predecease him). His generosity, affability and liberality, however, had made him popular. Upon the Grand Dauphin’s death his son Louis, the Duke of Burgundy, succeeded him and became known as the “Petit Dauphin,” the new heir apparent. After his grandfather’s death, the 33 year-old Petit Dauphin and Duke of Burgundy was formally anointed King Louis XV in a grand coronation ceremony in the cathedral of Reims. He was the oldest of Louis’s two surviving grandchildren, and the second of them to be crowned King. He and his younger brother King Philip V of Spain, crowned in 1706, formed an unshakeable alliance.
As far as domestic policy was concerned, Louis XV had been influenced by the dévots, a faction advocating alliance to the Habsburg monarchy and a policy of opposition to the Protestants inside France. They had been severely weakened by the collapse of the Habsburgs, which had rendered the central tenet of their foreign policy moot. Despite the sympathy of the new King, their anti-Protestant leanings weren’t implemented as policy either since wealthy Protestants were too important in the booming trade triangle between Africa, New France and France. After Louis XIV had encouraged Protestants to go to New France and develop that colony, a highly profitable plantation economy had been set up. Tobacco, sugar, coffee, cotton, cacao, indigo and various spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, peppers and cloves were grown on large estates, some the size of small countries (sometimes their success was based on seeds smuggled out of other countries who had tried to maintain a monopoly on them, mainly Britain and the Netherlands). Their mostly bourgeois owners had become wealthier than many aristocrats in the mother country by exporting their products to eager consumers at home and elsewhere (their extremely profitable endeavours are considered to be an example of the Protestant work ethic). The second part of the triangle was a series of small military expeditions that established a French fort on the Gambia River and several more in a region that became known as Ivory Coast. From here, the French staged raids to get slaves or, more commonly, brought slaves here that they had simply purchased from local African rulers. The slaves transported to New France often had tragic fates, but nonetheless managed to have a lasting cultural influence: African religions were influenced by Christian, Jewish and even Native American beliefs, inspiring completely new syncretic religions that still exist today. Long story short, Protestants on the other side of the pond were making so much money, in turn providing so much tax revenue for the state, that Louis XV couldn’t afford to alienate them.
The faction de Bourgogne (faction of Burgundy), which partially overlapped with the dévots, was more successful in influencing the new King. The so-called faction of Burgundy was made up of several high-ranking aristocrats, including the King’s former tutor François Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, and his brother-in-law Charles Honoré d’Albert, Duke of Chevreuse. They sought a return to a monarchy less absolute and less centralized, with more powers granted to the individual provinces. They perceived that government should work through councils and intermediary organs between the king and the people. These intermediary councils were to be made up not by commoners from the bourgeoisie (as the ministers appointed by Louis XIV) but by aristocrats who perceived themselves as the representatives of the people and would assist the king in governance and the exercise of power. In fact, they proposed that eight councils of aristocrats would replace the ministries and assist the King in the exercise of government power (a system called polysynody).
Seeking a compromise between the absolutist monarchy established by his illustrious predecessor, the desires of the nobility, and keeping the support of the bourgeoisie, he planned a major administrative and political reform. He started by convening the Estates General over a century since the last convocation. In 1717, a new convocation of the Estates General was announced and letters were issued in view of the elections. The Estates General hadn’t convened since 1614. In the preceding period 1302-1614 they had convened semi-regularly 35 times, or about once every nine years. A new convocation had been announced to take place on the majority of Louis XIII but nothing had ever come of it, resulting from the progressive entrenchment of royal absolutism, with which the institution of Estates General was incompatible.
To the relief of liberal figures in the new King’s entourage, Louis XV kept his word and representatives of the three estates met in Paris, debating what shape the reforms should take. The first and second estates (the clergy and the nobility) advocated their plans for councils of aristocrats in the provinces and to replace the ministries with councils as well. The third estate’s representatives (officially representing all commoners, but in practice only the bourgeoisie) were vehemently opposed since they’d then be effectively cut out of the decision making process (the unofficial “fourth estate” composed of the peasantry, artisans, traders and the like had no representatives, except for a few in the third estate who thought they spoke for them; they would remain shut out of the political process completely). Louis XV was wary of polysynody, fearing that he’d empower the aristocracy too much, setting himself up for a second Fronde that the enemies of France would no doubt take advantage of.
The young King brokered a compromise solution that would give the clergy, nobility and the bourgeoisie roughly equal political influence. Wealthy townsmen with at least 150.000 francs worth of assets and landed proprietors owning at least 30 hectares (~ 75 acres) of land would elect fifty representatives to provincial assemblies (assemblées provinciale), one assembly per province. Anyone who wanted to run for these elections had to own assets equivalent to 500.000 francs or at least 100 hectares (~ 250 acres) of land. Both voters and candidates had to be male. These provincial assemblies would be given large powers in the areas of education, medical relief, public welfare, food supply, road maintenance, maintaining law and order in the region, organizing local militias, and levying troops in the event of war. All-in-all, only a small percentage of the population could vote and only a tiny fraction of the population could actually run for office. It was a start.
Originally there had been 34 French provinces, the Spanish Netherlands added ten more and the Generality Lands ceded by the Dutch republic added three more, for a total of 47 provincial assemblies. Each of these had to elect three members from their midst to seat in a new Royal Assembly (Assemblée Royale), an advisory and executive body to the King. In total, 141 seats were distributed thusly and another nine were filled with advisors appointed by the King. Candidates had to be aged 35 years and over (an age requirement set to give the assembly a more conservative nature). The second requirement for a member to seat in the Royal Assembly was he had to pay an additional poll tax, producing the unique situation of nobles and clergymen paying a tax (albeit a negligible one, though setting a precedent nonetheless). To avoid elections stalling due to everybody voting for themselves, the King dictated that provincial assemblies had to remain in session behind closed doors until they had finally elected three representatives (similar to the College of Cardinals during a Papal election). Secondly, the wealthiest members usually bought votes by handing out money, land or favours. The provincial assemblies would go through rounds of voting in which each time the candidate with the least amount of votes was eliminated, after which a new round of voting followed. This process could last several days. The King, his appointed ministers and the King’s Council appointed by him also, would set policy in consultation and cooperation with the Royal Assembly.
In 1725, King, cabinet, King’s Council and Royal Assembly appointed a commission of ten eminent jurists. They wrote a national law book for the entire realm. It was to replace the confusing and contradictory patchwork of feudal laws, obsolete laws, local customary law, privileges, exemptions and special charters with a clearly written and accessible civil code. This was the Code Civil de France (more commonly known as the Code Louis Quinze) introduced in 1730. The code forbade judges from introducing general rules since that was an act of legislative and not judicial power, leading to the result that in theory France would not know the principle of precedent; in practice judges had to fill in the gaps in the laws and regulations, creating a vast body of jurisprudence. All magistrates, lawyers, jurists, court clerks and civil servants were required to be acquainted with it, forcing the legal system and the state bureaucracy to professionalize and expand. His grandfather might be Louis the Great, but he was Louis the Enlightened. He became the earliest example of an “enlightened despot”, i.e. a ruler espousing the ideas and principles of the Enlightenment era to enhance his own rule.
Chapter IV: Louis, the Enlightened Despot, 1715-1730.
On December 16th 1715, Louis XIV drew his last breath. He died aged 77 after a reign that had spanned 72 years and 217 days, the longest of any monarch of a major European country. He left some extremely large shoes to fill for his successor. As an adherent of the concept of the “divine right of kings” (which advocated the divine origin of monarchical rule), he had continued the work of his predecessors of creating a centralized state. He had, quite successfully, tried to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France. Moreover, by compelling many members of the nobility to inhabit his lavish palace of Versailles (formerly a hunting lodge belonging to his father), succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the Fronde rebellion during Louis’s minority. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs and consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule.
His reign had also seen the War of Devolution (1667-1668), the Franco-Dutch War (1672-1673), the War of the Reunions (1683-1684), the Nine Years’ War (1688-1697) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1706). Not only had he successfully expanded France to its “natural borders” (i.e. the river Rhine), but he had also put a Bourbon on the Spanish throne, giving France access to the riches of the Spanish Empire, exemplified by the cargo ships hauling in silver and gold. Beyond that, the War of the Spanish Succession had led to a colossal political revolution in that the Habsburgs had been deposed as the ruling house of the Holy Roman Empire after more than 250 years, being replaced by the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. The flipside of the coin, however, was that the French treasury had been severely depleted.
As a result of his establishment of an absolutist monarchy and his successful wars he was henceforth known as Louis the Great. His son Louis, Grand Dauphin, was described by one of his tutors as having inherited the docility and low intelligence of his mother. Rivalling his father’s reputation would be a difficult task, but he never got the chance to prove himself because he died of nephritis in 1713, aged 52 (he was the only one of Louis’s children to reach adulthood and the last of his descendents to predecease him). His generosity, affability and liberality, however, had made him popular. Upon the Grand Dauphin’s death his son Louis, the Duke of Burgundy, succeeded him and became known as the “Petit Dauphin,” the new heir apparent. After his grandfather’s death, the 33 year-old Petit Dauphin and Duke of Burgundy was formally anointed King Louis XV in a grand coronation ceremony in the cathedral of Reims. He was the oldest of Louis’s two surviving grandchildren, and the second of them to be crowned King. He and his younger brother King Philip V of Spain, crowned in 1706, formed an unshakeable alliance.
As far as domestic policy was concerned, Louis XV had been influenced by the dévots, a faction advocating alliance to the Habsburg monarchy and a policy of opposition to the Protestants inside France. They had been severely weakened by the collapse of the Habsburgs, which had rendered the central tenet of their foreign policy moot. Despite the sympathy of the new King, their anti-Protestant leanings weren’t implemented as policy either since wealthy Protestants were too important in the booming trade triangle between Africa, New France and France. After Louis XIV had encouraged Protestants to go to New France and develop that colony, a highly profitable plantation economy had been set up. Tobacco, sugar, coffee, cotton, cacao, indigo and various spices like nutmeg, cinnamon, peppers and cloves were grown on large estates, some the size of small countries (sometimes their success was based on seeds smuggled out of other countries who had tried to maintain a monopoly on them, mainly Britain and the Netherlands). Their mostly bourgeois owners had become wealthier than many aristocrats in the mother country by exporting their products to eager consumers at home and elsewhere (their extremely profitable endeavours are considered to be an example of the Protestant work ethic). The second part of the triangle was a series of small military expeditions that established a French fort on the Gambia River and several more in a region that became known as Ivory Coast. From here, the French staged raids to get slaves or, more commonly, brought slaves here that they had simply purchased from local African rulers. The slaves transported to New France often had tragic fates, but nonetheless managed to have a lasting cultural influence: African religions were influenced by Christian, Jewish and even Native American beliefs, inspiring completely new syncretic religions that still exist today. Long story short, Protestants on the other side of the pond were making so much money, in turn providing so much tax revenue for the state, that Louis XV couldn’t afford to alienate them.
The faction de Bourgogne (faction of Burgundy), which partially overlapped with the dévots, was more successful in influencing the new King. The so-called faction of Burgundy was made up of several high-ranking aristocrats, including the King’s former tutor François Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, and his brother-in-law Charles Honoré d’Albert, Duke of Chevreuse. They sought a return to a monarchy less absolute and less centralized, with more powers granted to the individual provinces. They perceived that government should work through councils and intermediary organs between the king and the people. These intermediary councils were to be made up not by commoners from the bourgeoisie (as the ministers appointed by Louis XIV) but by aristocrats who perceived themselves as the representatives of the people and would assist the king in governance and the exercise of power. In fact, they proposed that eight councils of aristocrats would replace the ministries and assist the King in the exercise of government power (a system called polysynody).
Seeking a compromise between the absolutist monarchy established by his illustrious predecessor, the desires of the nobility, and keeping the support of the bourgeoisie, he planned a major administrative and political reform. He started by convening the Estates General over a century since the last convocation. In 1717, a new convocation of the Estates General was announced and letters were issued in view of the elections. The Estates General hadn’t convened since 1614. In the preceding period 1302-1614 they had convened semi-regularly 35 times, or about once every nine years. A new convocation had been announced to take place on the majority of Louis XIII but nothing had ever come of it, resulting from the progressive entrenchment of royal absolutism, with which the institution of Estates General was incompatible.
To the relief of liberal figures in the new King’s entourage, Louis XV kept his word and representatives of the three estates met in Paris, debating what shape the reforms should take. The first and second estates (the clergy and the nobility) advocated their plans for councils of aristocrats in the provinces and to replace the ministries with councils as well. The third estate’s representatives (officially representing all commoners, but in practice only the bourgeoisie) were vehemently opposed since they’d then be effectively cut out of the decision making process (the unofficial “fourth estate” composed of the peasantry, artisans, traders and the like had no representatives, except for a few in the third estate who thought they spoke for them; they would remain shut out of the political process completely). Louis XV was wary of polysynody, fearing that he’d empower the aristocracy too much, setting himself up for a second Fronde that the enemies of France would no doubt take advantage of.
The young King brokered a compromise solution that would give the clergy, nobility and the bourgeoisie roughly equal political influence. Wealthy townsmen with at least 150.000 francs worth of assets and landed proprietors owning at least 30 hectares (~ 75 acres) of land would elect fifty representatives to provincial assemblies (assemblées provinciale), one assembly per province. Anyone who wanted to run for these elections had to own assets equivalent to 500.000 francs or at least 100 hectares (~ 250 acres) of land. Both voters and candidates had to be male. These provincial assemblies would be given large powers in the areas of education, medical relief, public welfare, food supply, road maintenance, maintaining law and order in the region, organizing local militias, and levying troops in the event of war. All-in-all, only a small percentage of the population could vote and only a tiny fraction of the population could actually run for office. It was a start.
Originally there had been 34 French provinces, the Spanish Netherlands added ten more and the Generality Lands ceded by the Dutch republic added three more, for a total of 47 provincial assemblies. Each of these had to elect three members from their midst to seat in a new Royal Assembly (Assemblée Royale), an advisory and executive body to the King. In total, 141 seats were distributed thusly and another nine were filled with advisors appointed by the King. Candidates had to be aged 35 years and over (an age requirement set to give the assembly a more conservative nature). The second requirement for a member to seat in the Royal Assembly was he had to pay an additional poll tax, producing the unique situation of nobles and clergymen paying a tax (albeit a negligible one, though setting a precedent nonetheless). To avoid elections stalling due to everybody voting for themselves, the King dictated that provincial assemblies had to remain in session behind closed doors until they had finally elected three representatives (similar to the College of Cardinals during a Papal election). Secondly, the wealthiest members usually bought votes by handing out money, land or favours. The provincial assemblies would go through rounds of voting in which each time the candidate with the least amount of votes was eliminated, after which a new round of voting followed. This process could last several days. The King, his appointed ministers and the King’s Council appointed by him also, would set policy in consultation and cooperation with the Royal Assembly.
In 1725, King, cabinet, King’s Council and Royal Assembly appointed a commission of ten eminent jurists. They wrote a national law book for the entire realm. It was to replace the confusing and contradictory patchwork of feudal laws, obsolete laws, local customary law, privileges, exemptions and special charters with a clearly written and accessible civil code. This was the Code Civil de France (more commonly known as the Code Louis Quinze) introduced in 1730. The code forbade judges from introducing general rules since that was an act of legislative and not judicial power, leading to the result that in theory France would not know the principle of precedent; in practice judges had to fill in the gaps in the laws and regulations, creating a vast body of jurisprudence. All magistrates, lawyers, jurists, court clerks and civil servants were required to be acquainted with it, forcing the legal system and the state bureaucracy to professionalize and expand. His grandfather might be Louis the Great, but he was Louis the Enlightened. He became the earliest example of an “enlightened despot”, i.e. a ruler espousing the ideas and principles of the Enlightenment era to enhance his own rule.
Last edited:
Probably not.Milan seems to be connected directly to France itself through Northern Savoy,this would probably mean greater integration with the rest of France instead of being administrated separately.
I will. PM me with more of the border specifics so I don't have to go hunting them.
For anyone who is willing to do a map:
Territorial changes up until the end of Louis XIV's reign.
- France has gained the Dutch Generality Lands, the Spanish Netherlands, Alsace, Lorraine, the northern half of the Duchy of Savoy, the entire Duchy of Milan, Breisgau and Offenburg in Further Austria, and has puppetized the Prince-Bishopric of Liège.
- Spain gets a Bourbon on the throne and sees the return of Minorca and Gibraltar by Britain.
- Bavaria has by this time gained: the rest of Further Austria, Voralberg, the Egerland and Asch in Bohemia, the County of Tyrol, Neuburg, Schwandorf, and the imperial cities of Nuremberg, Ratisbon, Augsburg, Regensburg and Ulm. It also obtained the right to appoint the archbishops of Cologne and Salzburg, the bishops of Hildesheim, Regensburg, Münster, Augsburg, Freising, Ratisbon, Passau, Brixen and Trent, and the provost of Berchtesgaden. And of course the title of Holy Roman Emperor goes to the Wittelsbachs.
- The Ottoman Empire gets back the lands it had ceded to Austria with the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz: the Eğri Eyalet, Varat Eyalet, much of the Budin Eyalet, the northern part of the Temeşvar Eyalet and parts of the Bosnia Eyalet; additionally Austrian governors in the nominally independent Principality of Transylvania are replaced by Ottoman ones. These territorial gains correspond to large parts of Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slavonia. The Ottomans get Dalmatia back from Venice and also retake Morea (the Peloponnesus).
- Eastern Europe: Russia gets what it got IOTL after the Great Northern War (Estonia, Ingria, Livonia, parts of Karelia and parts of Viborg and Kexholm) plus the Polish-Lithuanian counties (vovoideships) of Vitebsk, Polotsk and Mstislavl. Brandenburg-Prussia has gained Silesia, Poznan, the Bishopric of Warmia, Royal Prussia (West Prussia), Swedish Pomerania, Lusatia, and the Duchies of Bremen and Verden.
- Lastly, Denmark annexes Holstein-Gottorp.
I thank mr. Yates (or whoever beats him to the punch
).Ain't gonna wait for that map. Update time .
Chapter V: Building France’s Mare Nostrum, 1730-1745.
In terms of foreign policy, Louis XV maintained his alliances with Sweden, Bavaria, Spain and the Ottoman Empire. A scion of the House of Bourbon on the Spanish throne and naval bases in the Balearics and Naples firmly established French influence in the western Mediterranean. The alliance with Bavaria was useful to ensure that France’s former nemesis, the Habsburgs, stayed weak and was also necessary to curb the rising star of Prussia. Simultaneously, Sweden, albeit weakened after the Great Northern War, could still threaten Prussia from the north with a still sizeable navy and the military genius of Charles XII.
France helped arrange a marriage for Charles XII: the Great Northern War had encompassed over half his reign and most of his life so far and he hadn’t had the time to acquaint himself with potential spouses. In 1723, the 41 year-old King was engaged to Princess Maria Anna Karoline of Bavaria, who was still unmarried at age 27, which was unusual at the time. She had to convert from Roman Catholicism to Lutheranism, which proved no insurmountable obstacle, allowing for two of France’s allies to be linked dynastically. In 1724 they were married and a year later the union produced a son: the future King Gustav III Adolf of Sweden.
France’s alliances made perfect sense given what Louis XV was aspiring. The western Mediterranean Sea was already under French influence and the young King wanted the eastern half to come under his influence too. The Franco-Ottoman Alliance was about two centuries old, but hadn’t always been active. The young King sought to intensify the cooperation to unseen levels with the goal of turning the Mediterranean into a French dominated sea, proving as ambitious as his grandfather had been. He stated: “If God willing, I’ll see to it that France becomes the new Rome, with the Mediterranean as the modern Mare Nostrum.” Thusly, France re-emerged in its traditional role as the Ottomans’ best friends in Christendom. The Ottomans were the archenemies of Russia. Prussia was allied to Russia at this time and therefore an opponent. The still powerful Swedish navy to the north and the increased military prowess of a burgeoning Bavaria to the south, however, should contain Prussia in a future war.
In the meantime, Sultan Ahmed III, had been inspired by his victories over the Habsburgs in 1705 and 1706, which had helped put an end to Habsburg Monarchy as the dominant power in Central and South-eastern Europe. The victory had temporarily arrested the Ottoman decline, but the Sultan wanted to turn it around definitively and he saw help from France as a means of overcoming the Ottoman Empire’s various issues. The West improved technology, industry and agricultural methods, resulting from scientific experimentation stemming from the Renaissance and the Reformation, developments that largely bypassed the Orient. European manufactured goods were therefore superior, undercutting local industry. New World silver flowed in with the import of European products, leading to debased coinage, while the trade imbalance resulted in an outflow of gold. Additionally, European consolidation of overseas trade routes diminished the transit trade through Ottoman territory while conflicts with Safavid Iran interrupted the silk trade, further weakening the Sublime Porte’s economy.
Corruption was also a major issue, with officials buying offices and reimbursing themselves by squeezing more taxes from the populace. In the meantime, the practice of devshirme ended in the late seventeenth century (the devshirme was a blood tax consisting of the kidnapping of Christian boys, forcibly converting them to Islam and training them for military and/or civil service, notably into Janissaries). After the end of the devshirme practice, the Janissaries evolved into a hereditary military caste and began to tax-farm to maintain the increasingly obsolete Ottoman armies, which had to grow in size to face more modern European adversaries. The Janissaries became a disruptive force in the empire. Moreover, after the Ottoman victories over the Shi’ite Safavid Empire, Sunni orthodoxy consolidated to the point that Muslims in the Empire were not forced to engage in intellectually challenging and stimulating conflict as Catholics and Protestants were in Europe. Muslim scholars became intellectually conservative and resistant to new ideas; convinced of the superiority of Muslim/Ottoman civilization, they were seemingly oblivious to the advances being made in infidel Western Europe. Meanwhile, the Ottoman religious establishment gradually became infiltrated by the Sufi orders, producing a new sort of symbiosis which gave greater strength to conservative religious elements. A strong, centralized, bureaucratic monarchy didn’t appear in the Ottoman Empire in the late 1600s, while such states did appear on their frontiers. The decline of the Habsburgs alleviated the pressure, but the Russians remained.
In 1728, Sultan Ahmed III received Ambassador Louis de Villeneuve, who promised lavish French support for reform plans. A military academy was established that same year, staffed by French officers, educating Ottoman officers in modern warfare. Under the auspices of French officer and adventurer Claude-Alexandre de Bonneval (1675-1751), cannon foundries, powder and musket factories, and a military engineering school were established in the 1730s. Bonneval actually converted to Islam and supervised the establishment of another foundry to build howitzers. He also helped create mobile artillery units, helped design modern fortifications on the Bosporus and started a naval science course, laying the foundations for a modern Ottoman Navy. Many other military experts followed, staffing a military academy in Constantinople where they educated officers loyal to the Sultan. He didn’t say it in so many words, but he wanted to form a new army, organized and trained along modern European lines.
Ahmed III’s reign had already seen a successful war against the Habsburgs, boosting Ottoman confidence in their military abilities. The 1720s saw successes against Safavid Persia, an empire in severe decline, taking much of Mesopotamia, including Baghdad. In this war, the Ottomans already reaped the rewards of their military reforms assisted by France. It was also one of the few occasions in which mortal enemies Russia and the Ottoman Empire worked together, Russia being a cobelligerent through the Russo-Persian War of 1722-’23. Peter the Great annexed Derbent, Baku and the provinces of Shirvan, Gilan, Mazandaran and Astrabad. The Ottomans even formed an alliance with the Mughal Empire against Persia.
Beyond military reforms, as a cultivated patron of literature and art, he wanted to import modern science into the empire (it was under his reign that the first printing press authorized to use the Arabic and Turkish languages came into use). In 1730, he established a secular scientific institution known as the Darülfünûn-u Osmanî (Ottoman House of Sciences) with faculties of science, medicine, law, engineering, arts and philosophy. It’s to be distinguished from the earlier institute of learning established by Mehmed II in 1453, the Medrese (Islamic theological school). In 1732, the latter was merged with the former, becoming the theological faculty of what was henceforth known as the University of Constantinople. The University of Constantinople was staffed predominantly by Western European scholars, most of them from France. One of them, notably, was Voltaire, who taught philosophy from 1734 to 1737. There he wrote his Petit Histoire de la Turquie (“Short History of Turkey”) in which he praised the Ottomans’ recognition and protection of religious minorities (i.e. Christians and Jews). Beyond educational reforms, Ahmed III also resolved to stamp out corruption by liberally handing out prison sentences and death sentences while replacing those who had simply bought offices with his own Western educated administrators. With less corruption the tax burden on the population decreased, but the state’s finances were still in a flourishing condition. In imitation of Louis XIV and Louis XV, Ahmed III began building up a professional bureaucracy and legal system in Constantinople to centralize his state and achieve royal absolutism similar to France’s.
The reforms caused a lot of bad blood with disaffected bureaucrats, Islamic scholars and of course the Janissaries. Many of them lost their influence, or lost their power and authority, or lost their offices, saw setbacks in their income, were disgraced or even faced legal repercussions (a select few were unlucky enough to be beheaded). The administrative reforms had severely reduced the Janissaries’ influence on the government; the Islamic scholars for the first time in a long time were being challenged intellectually, by infidels no less, which they didn’t like one bit. Ahmed III had anticipated that they’d rise against him and resolved to use that as the excuse to deal with them definitively: their abuse of power, military ineffectuality, resistance to reform and the cost of salaries to 100.000 men, many of whom weren’t actually serving soldiers, had all become unacceptable. In June 1735, the Janissaries surrounded the Topkapi Palace, but were confronted by a regiment of modern troops commanded by French officers and French-trained Ottoman officers loyal to the Sultan. A battle ensued in which the Janissaries were defeated, after which thousands were taken prisoner and summarily executed by decapitation, but their compatriots across the empire revolted as well. Ahmed III brutally quelled the revolt, imprisoning and exiling younger Janissaries and executing many more, ending the revolt by 1737. After that, the Janissaries ceased to exist.
The revolt and the plague weakened Ottoman resistance against the Russians, who successfully took Azov. The fact that they were plague stricken too prevented further military success, resulting in an end to hostilities in 1739. Besides that, Peter the Great had rejected the offer of Nader Shah, the new ruler of the Persian Empire, for an alliance against the Ottomans since Nader Shah wanted the territories back that Persia had lost in 1723. Peter wasn’t about to voluntarily give up the lands he had conquered beyond the Caucasus on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. His rejection ensured the enmity of the Persians for the foreseeable future. After disease, famine and supply shortages had stopped his military ambitions, Peter the Great started to make plans for another war against the hated Turks, but he was struck down by plague himself and died in 1740, aged 58, after a reign spanning 48 years. Peter was succeeded by his daughter Elizabeth.
Another reason for Peter to abandon the conflict with the Ottomans were worries about Sweden intervening on the side of the Ottomans, which certainly wasn’t beyond Charles XII, who had never accepted his defeat in the Great Northern War. Peter’s bitter rival Charles XII outlived him, though he didn’t get to undo the humiliation inflicted upon Sweden. Instead he died an embittered man in October 1744, aged 62. He was succeeded by his 19 year-old son Gustav III Adolf. Less than a year later the young Swedish king found himself embroiled in the greatest war in Europe in decades.
.Chapter V: Building France’s Mare Nostrum, 1730-1745.
In terms of foreign policy, Louis XV maintained his alliances with Sweden, Bavaria, Spain and the Ottoman Empire. A scion of the House of Bourbon on the Spanish throne and naval bases in the Balearics and Naples firmly established French influence in the western Mediterranean. The alliance with Bavaria was useful to ensure that France’s former nemesis, the Habsburgs, stayed weak and was also necessary to curb the rising star of Prussia. Simultaneously, Sweden, albeit weakened after the Great Northern War, could still threaten Prussia from the north with a still sizeable navy and the military genius of Charles XII.
France helped arrange a marriage for Charles XII: the Great Northern War had encompassed over half his reign and most of his life so far and he hadn’t had the time to acquaint himself with potential spouses. In 1723, the 41 year-old King was engaged to Princess Maria Anna Karoline of Bavaria, who was still unmarried at age 27, which was unusual at the time. She had to convert from Roman Catholicism to Lutheranism, which proved no insurmountable obstacle, allowing for two of France’s allies to be linked dynastically. In 1724 they were married and a year later the union produced a son: the future King Gustav III Adolf of Sweden.
France’s alliances made perfect sense given what Louis XV was aspiring. The western Mediterranean Sea was already under French influence and the young King wanted the eastern half to come under his influence too. The Franco-Ottoman Alliance was about two centuries old, but hadn’t always been active. The young King sought to intensify the cooperation to unseen levels with the goal of turning the Mediterranean into a French dominated sea, proving as ambitious as his grandfather had been. He stated: “If God willing, I’ll see to it that France becomes the new Rome, with the Mediterranean as the modern Mare Nostrum.” Thusly, France re-emerged in its traditional role as the Ottomans’ best friends in Christendom. The Ottomans were the archenemies of Russia. Prussia was allied to Russia at this time and therefore an opponent. The still powerful Swedish navy to the north and the increased military prowess of a burgeoning Bavaria to the south, however, should contain Prussia in a future war.
In the meantime, Sultan Ahmed III, had been inspired by his victories over the Habsburgs in 1705 and 1706, which had helped put an end to Habsburg Monarchy as the dominant power in Central and South-eastern Europe. The victory had temporarily arrested the Ottoman decline, but the Sultan wanted to turn it around definitively and he saw help from France as a means of overcoming the Ottoman Empire’s various issues. The West improved technology, industry and agricultural methods, resulting from scientific experimentation stemming from the Renaissance and the Reformation, developments that largely bypassed the Orient. European manufactured goods were therefore superior, undercutting local industry. New World silver flowed in with the import of European products, leading to debased coinage, while the trade imbalance resulted in an outflow of gold. Additionally, European consolidation of overseas trade routes diminished the transit trade through Ottoman territory while conflicts with Safavid Iran interrupted the silk trade, further weakening the Sublime Porte’s economy.
Corruption was also a major issue, with officials buying offices and reimbursing themselves by squeezing more taxes from the populace. In the meantime, the practice of devshirme ended in the late seventeenth century (the devshirme was a blood tax consisting of the kidnapping of Christian boys, forcibly converting them to Islam and training them for military and/or civil service, notably into Janissaries). After the end of the devshirme practice, the Janissaries evolved into a hereditary military caste and began to tax-farm to maintain the increasingly obsolete Ottoman armies, which had to grow in size to face more modern European adversaries. The Janissaries became a disruptive force in the empire. Moreover, after the Ottoman victories over the Shi’ite Safavid Empire, Sunni orthodoxy consolidated to the point that Muslims in the Empire were not forced to engage in intellectually challenging and stimulating conflict as Catholics and Protestants were in Europe. Muslim scholars became intellectually conservative and resistant to new ideas; convinced of the superiority of Muslim/Ottoman civilization, they were seemingly oblivious to the advances being made in infidel Western Europe. Meanwhile, the Ottoman religious establishment gradually became infiltrated by the Sufi orders, producing a new sort of symbiosis which gave greater strength to conservative religious elements. A strong, centralized, bureaucratic monarchy didn’t appear in the Ottoman Empire in the late 1600s, while such states did appear on their frontiers. The decline of the Habsburgs alleviated the pressure, but the Russians remained.
In 1728, Sultan Ahmed III received Ambassador Louis de Villeneuve, who promised lavish French support for reform plans. A military academy was established that same year, staffed by French officers, educating Ottoman officers in modern warfare. Under the auspices of French officer and adventurer Claude-Alexandre de Bonneval (1675-1751), cannon foundries, powder and musket factories, and a military engineering school were established in the 1730s. Bonneval actually converted to Islam and supervised the establishment of another foundry to build howitzers. He also helped create mobile artillery units, helped design modern fortifications on the Bosporus and started a naval science course, laying the foundations for a modern Ottoman Navy. Many other military experts followed, staffing a military academy in Constantinople where they educated officers loyal to the Sultan. He didn’t say it in so many words, but he wanted to form a new army, organized and trained along modern European lines.
Ahmed III’s reign had already seen a successful war against the Habsburgs, boosting Ottoman confidence in their military abilities. The 1720s saw successes against Safavid Persia, an empire in severe decline, taking much of Mesopotamia, including Baghdad. In this war, the Ottomans already reaped the rewards of their military reforms assisted by France. It was also one of the few occasions in which mortal enemies Russia and the Ottoman Empire worked together, Russia being a cobelligerent through the Russo-Persian War of 1722-’23. Peter the Great annexed Derbent, Baku and the provinces of Shirvan, Gilan, Mazandaran and Astrabad. The Ottomans even formed an alliance with the Mughal Empire against Persia.
Beyond military reforms, as a cultivated patron of literature and art, he wanted to import modern science into the empire (it was under his reign that the first printing press authorized to use the Arabic and Turkish languages came into use). In 1730, he established a secular scientific institution known as the Darülfünûn-u Osmanî (Ottoman House of Sciences) with faculties of science, medicine, law, engineering, arts and philosophy. It’s to be distinguished from the earlier institute of learning established by Mehmed II in 1453, the Medrese (Islamic theological school). In 1732, the latter was merged with the former, becoming the theological faculty of what was henceforth known as the University of Constantinople. The University of Constantinople was staffed predominantly by Western European scholars, most of them from France. One of them, notably, was Voltaire, who taught philosophy from 1734 to 1737. There he wrote his Petit Histoire de la Turquie (“Short History of Turkey”) in which he praised the Ottomans’ recognition and protection of religious minorities (i.e. Christians and Jews). Beyond educational reforms, Ahmed III also resolved to stamp out corruption by liberally handing out prison sentences and death sentences while replacing those who had simply bought offices with his own Western educated administrators. With less corruption the tax burden on the population decreased, but the state’s finances were still in a flourishing condition. In imitation of Louis XIV and Louis XV, Ahmed III began building up a professional bureaucracy and legal system in Constantinople to centralize his state and achieve royal absolutism similar to France’s.
The reforms caused a lot of bad blood with disaffected bureaucrats, Islamic scholars and of course the Janissaries. Many of them lost their influence, or lost their power and authority, or lost their offices, saw setbacks in their income, were disgraced or even faced legal repercussions (a select few were unlucky enough to be beheaded). The administrative reforms had severely reduced the Janissaries’ influence on the government; the Islamic scholars for the first time in a long time were being challenged intellectually, by infidels no less, which they didn’t like one bit. Ahmed III had anticipated that they’d rise against him and resolved to use that as the excuse to deal with them definitively: their abuse of power, military ineffectuality, resistance to reform and the cost of salaries to 100.000 men, many of whom weren’t actually serving soldiers, had all become unacceptable. In June 1735, the Janissaries surrounded the Topkapi Palace, but were confronted by a regiment of modern troops commanded by French officers and French-trained Ottoman officers loyal to the Sultan. A battle ensued in which the Janissaries were defeated, after which thousands were taken prisoner and summarily executed by decapitation, but their compatriots across the empire revolted as well. Ahmed III brutally quelled the revolt, imprisoning and exiling younger Janissaries and executing many more, ending the revolt by 1737. After that, the Janissaries ceased to exist.
The revolt and the plague weakened Ottoman resistance against the Russians, who successfully took Azov. The fact that they were plague stricken too prevented further military success, resulting in an end to hostilities in 1739. Besides that, Peter the Great had rejected the offer of Nader Shah, the new ruler of the Persian Empire, for an alliance against the Ottomans since Nader Shah wanted the territories back that Persia had lost in 1723. Peter wasn’t about to voluntarily give up the lands he had conquered beyond the Caucasus on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. His rejection ensured the enmity of the Persians for the foreseeable future. After disease, famine and supply shortages had stopped his military ambitions, Peter the Great started to make plans for another war against the hated Turks, but he was struck down by plague himself and died in 1740, aged 58, after a reign spanning 48 years. Peter was succeeded by his daughter Elizabeth.
Another reason for Peter to abandon the conflict with the Ottomans were worries about Sweden intervening on the side of the Ottomans, which certainly wasn’t beyond Charles XII, who had never accepted his defeat in the Great Northern War. Peter’s bitter rival Charles XII outlived him, though he didn’t get to undo the humiliation inflicted upon Sweden. Instead he died an embittered man in October 1744, aged 62. He was succeeded by his 19 year-old son Gustav III Adolf. Less than a year later the young Swedish king found himself embroiled in the greatest war in Europe in decades.
Last edited:
I do not found very pleasing the prospects of having the Ottoman Empire modernising and strengthened... If Louis xv want to turn Mediterranean Sea to Mare Nostrum, a too powerful Otoman Empire is detrimental. It was needed wen it could help against the Habsburgs. Now... they are less needed. Russia is far away from France and not so threatening. Yet.
Mare Nostrum is just a dream,the need of a strong ally to the East that doesn't actually border you is reality.Honestly,France isn't in control of the Western Mediterranean either,Spain is a fully independent entity,not a puppet state.The term Mare Nostrum is also figurative,I take it to interpret that as an attempt to lock out the enemies of France from it.I'm not sure why Russia is seen as an enemy though.To be honest though,a strong Ottoman Empire will definitely be more useful than Russia as an ally since you can launch a pincer move on France's enemies in Central Europe.
Last edited: