Napoleon III does not take Bismarck's bait in 1870, what's the situation in 1875?

[Tanc49]

Did the French get driven out then, to only reinvade in the 1880s?

If the French do their occupation and pacification in the mid 1870s instead of the 1880s, there could be less of a chance of this spilling over into a war with China as it did in OTL. The Chinese were still suppressing rebellions in the southwest and northwest through 1877 and seeing off the Russian occupation of Ili that year. By the 1880s in OTL, those challenges were over.

Good Lord no. They took the Hanoi fortress in three hours with just 200 men, at this point Vietnam was not in any shape to actually form a resistance, especially with France having such a strong base in the South.

It was an expedition led by an officer (Francis Garnier) who may or may not have acted of his own accord and got killed by pirates in the Mekong delta. After that, rather than pushing, the governor just negotiated quite a wide trade agreement with Vietnam over Tonkin.
It's more a lack of politic will and resources to actually push the pacification than capacity to do so. And China would have caused issues at some point anyway, Vietnam was a border kingdom and a tributary of China, it was quite a blow to get it into the French sphere of influence.
You also have to account for the fact that at the time, Vietnamese authority in the region was fairly minimal as it had been over-run by Black Flags, Chinese remnants of the Taiping war.

A campaign for Tonkin is very feasible at any time, but you need men on a fairly heavy rotation to account for diseases and you need support for the long supply chain, especially once you enter the pacification phase. Capacity was there, but political will wasn't

 

[raharris1973]

Good Lord no. They took the Hanoi fortress in three hours with just 200 men, at this point Vietnam was not in any shape to actually form a resistance, especially with France having such a strong base in the South.

It was an expedition led by an officer (Francis Garnier) who may or may not have acted of his own accord and got killed by pirates in the Mekong delta. After that, rather than pushing, the governor just negotiated quite a wide trade agreement with Vietnam over Tonkin.
It's more a lack of politic will and resources to actually push the pacification than capacity to do so. And China would have caused issues at some point anyway, Vietnam was a border kingdom and a tributary of China, it was quite a blow to get it into the French sphere of influence.
You also have to account for the fact that at the time, Vietnamese authority in the region was fairly minimal as it had been over-run by Black Flags, Chinese remnants of the Taiping war.

A campaign for Tonkin is very feasible at any time, but you need men on a fairly heavy rotation to account for diseases and you need support for the long supply chain, especially once you enter the pacification phase. Capacity was there, but political will wasn't

Without being bogged down in the Prussian War, France might have time to do more posturing or punitive action over this incident in 1870
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianjin_Massacre
By the time the Chinese mission of apology came in 1871, Thiers was rather preoccupied and pretty much said "yeah, we're good"

 

[M79]

What of Belgium and Luxembourg? The latter was almost cause for war in 1867 when Napolean III paid the Netherlands for it but had to back out and a sizeable portion of Belgium was eyed for potential conquest. And what does Bavaria think of all this?

 

[JackLumber]

What of Belgium and Luxembourg? The latter was almost cause for war in 1867 when Napolean III paid the Netherlands for it but had to back out and a sizeable portion of Belgium was eyed for potential conquest. And what does Bavaria think of all this?

They won't be getting either, getting to pushy over Luxembourg probably means war with Prussia and targeting Belgium will likely get at least Prussia and Britain in an awfully bad mood

 

[M79]

A rising Germany is not good for Paris or London. Soon it the right way and it might result in the two cooperating to contain Bismarck.

 

[JackLumber]

A rising Germany is not good for Paris or London. Soon it the right way and it might result in the two cooperating to contain Bismarck.

No one was concerned about Prussia until it had already smashed two great powers, why would things be different in this tl?
The British weren't that concerned about Germany even after unification, at least not until the Germans had built the second strongest navy in the world.

 

[M79]

No one was concerned about Prussia until it had already smashed two great powers, why would things be different in this tl?
The British weren't that concerned about Germany even after unification, at least not until the Germans had built the second strongest navy in the world.

Potential unification and actual unification are different animals. German industrial might and their army will cause notice, especially as a possible strong Prussia-Russia combination would do a lot to undermine the effectiveness of any naval interdiction.

 

[JackLumber]

Potential unification and actual unification are different animals. German industrial might and their army will cause notice, especially as a possible strong Prussia-Russia combination would do a lot to undermine the effectiveness of any naval interdiction.

Again no one was worried about Prussia otl except Austria why would this be different?

 

[M79]

Again no one was worried about Prussia otl except Austria why would this be different?

Russia and France were ready to side with Austria in 1866 on the matter and nearly did - if not for Sadowa the first World War might have started then.

 

[JackLumber]

Russia and France were ready to side with Austria in 1866 on the matter and nearly did - if not for Sadowa the first World War might have started then.

Citation? And "nearly" amounts to nothing, especially considering that but a few years later Russia was supposedly ready to intervene on Prussia's behalf if Austria joined the Franco Prussian war.

 

[M79]

Citation? And "nearly" amounts to nothing, especially considering that but a few years later Russia was supposedly ready to intervene on Prussia's behalf if Austria joined the Franco Prussian war.

Refer to the Biarritz meetings where Bismarck and Napolean III discuss the price of French neutrality (Luxembourg, parts of Belgium to France; Veneto to Italy) and the Luxembourg crisis about a year later.

 

[JackLumber]

Refer to the Biarritz meetings where Bismarck and Napolean III discuss the price of French neutrality (Luxembourg, parts of Belgium to France; Veneto to Italy) and the Luxembourg crisis about a year later.

That's just the French trying to take advantage of the situation, that doesn't back the idea of France thinking of Prussia as a rising threat at all, quite the opposite it shows that the French thought that the mere threat of French intervention would be enough to strong arm the prussians.

 

[Monter]

Russia and France were ready to side with Austria in 1866 on the matter and nearly did - if not for Sadowa the first World War might have started then.

Source on Russia? It was very pro-Prussian until Bismarck sold them out in 1878.

 

[Vanity 6]

Source on Russia? It was very pro-Prussian until Bismarck sold them out in 1878.

Yes, they thought an aggrandized Prussia would be good for their security (against France and Britain, I assume). Silly Russia.

 

[JackLumber]

Yes, they thought an aggrandized Prussia would be good for their security (against France and Britain, I assume). Silly Russia.

Being friends with Prussia worked out a lot better than being friends with France did.

 

[Xgentis]

Being friends with Prussia worked out a lot better than being friends with France did.

Until the German empire allied themselve with Austria-Hungary and broke their alliance with Russia.

 

[JackLumber]

Until the German empire allied themselve with Austria-Hungary and broke their alliance with Russia.

1 they already did have an alliance with A-H , as did Russia for that matter, the situation was tad more complicated than you are making it out to be.
2 they never broke the alliance, they simply didn't renew it, big difference
3 Russia made themselves Germany's enemy by allying France.

 

[thezerech]

I see Germany being likely unified by at least 1900. But by 1875, doubtful. Of course, Bismarck can just engineer another incident. If memory serves the cause of the Franco-Prussian war basically boils down to one guy was rude to another guy in a spa it just so happened that one was a French ambassador and one was the King of Prussia, at least officially as the casus bellum. Engineering a diplomatic insult to cause a war obviously was not that difficult for Bismarck so by 1880 I expect there to have been a Franco-Prussian War. The question is obviously, who would win? If France was given more time to reform and recover from its Mexican involvement etc. then maybe the war could have gone the other way. If I recall correctly France's forces only lost due to poor organization manifesting in a relatively slow mobilization that allowed the Prussians to move decisively.

 

[Xgentis]

1 they already did have an alliance with A-H , as did Russia for that matter, the situation was tad more complicated than you are making it out to be.
2 they never broke the alliance, they simply didn't renew it, big difference
3 Russia made themselves Germany's enemy by allying France.

Yet they refused to renew the alliance when Russia asked for it isolating them.
I can't blame Russia for searching a new alliance especially since their relation were getting colder with A-H.

 

[JackLumber]

Yet they refused to renew the alliance when Russia asked for it isolating them.
I can't blame Russia for searching a new alliance especially since their relation were getting colder with A-H.

They didn't renew it because it was discovered, made public and poorly received by the public and even after it wasn't renewed the Germans didn't really act any differently than if it had been.
You can not blame Russia all you want, fact remains that allying France was the same thing as making Germany their enemy.