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Paranoia? Show trials? I don't think so. Honestly, I think that the soldiers would mourn, but the elites would rejoice. They had used Napoléon to overthrow the Directorate and to assume direct power, and now Napoléon is gone, too. Remember that this is before Napoléon was able to distance...

The later ons would result in more chaos. In the early years of the Napoleonic regime, you still had a dominating republican/brumairien elite which would take back control and manage Napoléon's succession. However, Napoléon had an habit to weaken all institutions that could become a threat to...

I'm pretty sure that a military figure as president (think of a "northern Robert E. Lee") would have made better choices when it comes to the generals commanding the northern armies; this could have ended the war much faster.

It seems that the "Debré Plan" (I don't know who came up with it originally) called for a "population exchange" (= ethnic cleansing) to concentrate the French citizens and the sizeable Muslim minority loyal to France in the nothern regions. It also featured some less horrible but more crazy...

All of Algeria - no. But I always wondered why France gave up the northern Algerian départements. They had a pretty strong French population, and while none of them featured a non-Muslim majority, I'm pretty sure France could have created viable territories by abandoning the southern parts of...

A dialect is a language with an army and a navy. Low German, known as Platt in Germany, is as different from German as Dutch, but it's often treated as a German dialect in a very demeaning way.

Also, Austrians and Germans spoke (and speak) a mutually understandable language (German), while Dutch is predominant in the Netherlands, which is arguably a language in its own right and not just a German dialect. These differences are reinforced by popular culture, as Austria and Germany...

Which is good enough against infantry. No need to use tanks to combat other tanks. That was a task mainly assigned to the foot soldiers.

Well, there seems to be a certain consensus in historical studies that the German (military) leadership was looking for a conflict with the other Great Powers to assert Germany's position as the leading European power military (Germany at that point was already the top European economy)...

Oh, if you want a good POD for a more successful Haiti avoid the Peace of Amiens. Before Amiens, British troops occupied a couple of French sugar producing islands. These were the territories where slavery wasn't the abolition of slavery, decreed by the French National Convention, hadn't been...

Without the war, the genocide* and the reparations (Haiti's payments to France, mind you) ruining the Haitian economy, the situation would of course have been a lot better. Still, I don't think Haiti would be rich today. Just like the economy of the American South, the Haitian economy was a...

What do you think would have had to happen to push for American railway electrification reaching German or French quotas?

Pretty sure that Elsass-Lothringen would vote to stay German. It might be a close call (the Zabern affair might still be in people's mind even after 4 years of war), but I don't see the German majority voting to rejoin France.

However, the difference between "line infantry" and "light infantry" was pretty small, at least in the French army. Napoléon used his light troops just as he would use the line.

They could just decide to revert back to the good ol' American constitution.

Have post-communist politics been some kind of focus of your interest lately, @Augenis?

Yes, but were women in Russia really completly excluded from the throne, or were they just disregarded as long as there was a male heir?

How did Catherine become empress then?

The helmets were designed during WWII, but the new design wasn't implemented before the end of the war. It was then adopted by the NVA.

I don't know if you're aware of it but you just turned the "Greatest General of all Times" (Gröfaz) into the "Rude General of all Times" ;)