DBWI/AHC: French Revolution instead of British Revolution

Dolan

Banned
Ah yes, it was well known that one of the most important moment that defines the Modern World as we knew it, The British Revolution, was actually started on the other side of the Atlantic, at the British Colonies in North America to be exact... However, the egalitarian ideas spread to the motherland, and before long, the Revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic decides to join forces in removing the corrupt Aristocracy and their puppet Monarchy, creating The United States of Brittania in the process.

All while the Kingdom of France being one of the longest, continuous lines of Kings that belongs to the same Capetian Dynasty, that ruled France for literally more than a Thousand Years and still going strong in the current days.

Your Challenge is simple, have The French somehow becoming the ones who overthrown their Monarchy all while keep the British Isles having their monarchy survives to the current days.
 
Ahh this is a tough one, I feel like there was a history of anti-monarchism in Britain that there just never was in France. From Magna Carta, through the First Republic and the increasingly impotent Hanoverians. Britain never had anything like 'l'etat c'est moi'.
Maybe you could have the United State of Britannia adopt a more aggressive policy within Europe...
"...all while keep the British Isles having their monarchy survives to the current days." ... so not that then.
My first thought would be that you change the Five Years War around a little. If the British did much better in Bengal and Canada then maybe you'd have created a situation in which there's more resentment in France towards an expensive and fruitless war, while there's less in Britannia.
I'm sure that all those old "dukes" in the United Kingdom of the West Indes would love to hear if anybody finds a viable route though, just in case they ever get their hands on a time machine.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
My first thought would be that you change the Five Years War around a little. If the British did much better in Bengal and Canada then maybe you'd have created a situation in which there's more resentment in France towards an expensive and fruitless war, while there's less in Britannia.
They actually won in Canada and obtain control over North America, but it was a pyrrhic victory. I means, King George treated the colonists like fodders, hence the Revolution of 1750, starting in New England.

Bengal, OTOH, was a complete disaster. But in the long run, being kicked out of India turned out to be a good thing for the United States of Britannia. It literally dodged the painful decolonization process that France had to endure.


The British Revolution, was actually started on the other side of the Atlantic, at the British Colonies in North America to be exact... However, the egalitarian ideas spread to the motherland, and before long, the Revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic decides to join forces in removing the corrupt Aristocracy and their puppet Monarchy, creating The United States of Brittania in the process.
Yeah, they ended up becoming an economically dominant globally-spanning liberal democratic superstate, ranging from the British Isles to Canada, New England, the Great Lakes Region all the way to Cascadia on the Pacific Coast of the North American continent.

The eligitarian nature of the Republic was demonstrated in the fact that the very first thing it did was to create an universal education system.

Fun fact: The United States of Britannia championed both Industrial Revolutions during the period between late 18th to 19th century, with the first one in Old England and the second one in New England.
 
Last edited:
Impossible. In spite of the minor troubles suffered by the French kingdom, an upheval similar to the British it's impossible. Revolutions like that happen once in a century.
 
For the British, I'd think of the Dutch Republic's fudge; for 2 centuries, we had a monarch but not a king, and at times said monarchy was pretty pathetic as far as power went. Of course after Willem V spent all his credit on trying to oppose the British revolutionaries they were definitively thrown out, never to return, but before that the Stadhouders had gone through several periods of being there, but not ruling.

So imagine after the Glorious Revolution, Willem III has a son - now you have that Dutch semi-republican model consistently infecting the British monarch. It might convince them that being a rich/influential person-on-the-throne is good enough and you don't need to, like the Hannoverians, try to centralize power in the king.

That much for the British; it seems straightforward enough; remove the king without officially doing so.

For the French though, that sounds like ASB. There's never been a serious strain of anti-monarchism there. Plenty of jockeying among the nobility (and later the Estates, after the nobility started declining), but to jump from that to uniting France under anyone but the Capets? It'd literally fall apart on sight. Bretons, Flemings, Alsatians and Occitanians are a poor fit for the French core, and even the Normans and Burgundians might fall out if the unifying figure of the king is removed.
I mean, I suppose you could go a few steps beyond the scenario and postpone this revolution until after national education systems have had some time to work (those managed to crush scots and welsh identity, after all), but by that point, is it really the same?
 

Dolan

Banned
The eligitarian nature of the Republic was demonstrated in the fact that the very first thing it did was to create an universal education system.
Paradoxically though, The United States of Britannia still has legal slavery up to early 1900s and committed what is essentially a coordinated, large-scale genocide against their Native American populations in their 19th century "Manifest Destiny", while in France and many parts of Europe, slavery were generally banned even before the 1800s and they never really committed such large-scale genocide although atrocities did happened every now and then in their colonies.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Paradoxically though, The United States of Britannia still has legal slavery up to early 1900s and committed what is essentially a coordinated, large-scale genocide against their Native American populations in their 19th century "Manifest Destiny", while in France and many parts of Europe, slavery were generally banned even before the 1800s and they never really committed such large-scale genocide although atrocities did happened every now and then in their colonies.
Legal slavery? You mean the Kingdom of Virginia? It is a royalist rump state. It is still one of the worst place to live these days. The only legit argument against Britannia is that it did not try to overthrow that regime to free slaves.

OTOH, the Trail of Tear was a dark part of The USB's history.
 
Last edited:

Thomas1195

Banned
the British, I'd think of the Dutch Republic's fudge; for 2 centuries, we had a monarch but not a king, and at times said monarchy was pretty pathetic as far as power went. Of course after Willem V spent all his credit on trying to oppose the British revolutionaries they were definitively thrown out, never to return, but before that the Stadhouders had gone through several periods of being there, but not ruling
Yeah, in the end, the Dutch Patriots overthrew him and never looked back. The Dutch Republic became a staunch ally of the United States and was rewarded with Flanders and Walloonia after beating the French and the Austrian in the First European Revolutionary War which saw the formation of the Westphalian Republic in West Germany.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, have to say, this is a pretty hard sell. It'd be like asking if the Russian and Chinese monarchies could fall; it's just not gonna happen.
 
But then most monarchies fell except for France, Russia and China. Even Japan became a Republic.
Sure, but look at what it caused; Turkey lost its empire when it lost its monarch, Austria fell apart, etcetera.

France, China, and Russia are too great empires to hang together without a monarch. Their monarchs could fall, but you couldn't have France without a monarch; you'd have a gaggle of small states. It's no surprise Persia and Germany needed to be crowned republics rather than proper republics.
 
Oh, I also forgot the Scandinavians and Poland-Lithuania in my list of "crowned republics", with Poland-Lithuania being the nearest thing to a literal "crowned republic" with their King being basically a ceremonial President who happens to have a fancy title and serves for a lifetime term with their elective monarchy system.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
OOC: Are you allowed to do that in a DBWI? One player defines a bit of lore and another just disregards it?
OOC: you can actually spin it if you want. Because you said Britain could have done better, I spinned into a pyrrhic victory. But the Brits still got booted out of India ITTL.
 

Dolan

Banned
Legal slavery? You mean the Kingdom of Virginia? It is a royalist rump state. It is still one of the worst place to live these days. The only legit argument against Britannia is that it did not try to overthrow that regime to free slaves.
Yeah, and they simply labelled all the Virginian, err african slaves they "leased" as property of Virginian citizen, even if said slaves being worked on the West Coast frontier or the Caribbean Plantations. The existence of Kingdom of Virginia itself (as a place to put the deposed Hanoverians), is also much more complicated than "they are loyalist holdouts".

Essentially Virginia were Outsourcing Company serving as front to do all dirty, morally reprehensible practices that were supposedly outlawed in the USB. It's a good thing that the early 20th century Reformists finally abandoning the practice.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
It's no surprise Persia and Germany needed to be crowned republics rather than proper republics.
Never forget about the (real republic) Westphalian Republic in the West and the Republic of Spain when talking about the Crowned Republic of Germany (Austria + Saxony + Prussia + Bavaria) in the East.

Oh, I forgot about the Republic of Spain and the Republic of Italy that was founded following The Second Republic of Venice's victory in the Italian Unification War.
 
Last edited:

Thomas1195

Banned
Sure, but look at what it caused; Turkey lost its empire when it lost its monarch, Austria fell apart, etcetera.
Of course these Empires could not survive. It would be ASB. They consisted of like 8-9 completely different nationalities with completely different languages and cultures like the Czechs/Bohemians, the Poles, the Hungarians, the Slovaks, the Croatians, the Greeks, the Bulgarians and the Serbians.
 
Top