AH Challenge:France win Franco-Prussian War

Inspired by a documentary that I watched early today,how could the French won the war?
 
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Without a much earlier POD, this is really difficult. The French were outnumbered, out-generaled, and just about out-everything by the Germans, and little could be done about it without a POD at the latest c. 1867.
 
Without a much earlier POD, this is really difficult. The French were outnumbered, out-generaled, and just about out-everything by the Germans, and little could be done about it without a POD at the latest c. 1867.
The Imperial French army might've been able to briefly penetrate into the Rhineland if it had held its ground at either Spicheren or Froeschwiller, both of which started with French troops magnificently deployed, only to be squandered by some of the most terribly sluggish, overly cautious, and/or just plain stupid officers in army. Had Napoleon III's army managed to continue forward into Germany without any embarrassing defeats of that sort (and improvised a supply system that mostly worked), there's a small but notable chance that either Denmark, Italy, and/or Austria-Hungary may have joined in the fight on France's side.
 
Well the best way for them to 'win' the war is to not fight it, but that's probably not what you're looking for.
 
Ofaloaf: That's really tricky, still. Given competent generals, the French could probably hold their positions for some time. To go on the offensive into the Rhineland, though, with the poor state of their supply train...yikes. That, to me at least, seems like a disaster.

To pull it off, you need the Germans to do something dumb like at Gravelotte against those French positions, to have Bazaine et alia not suck so much, and then to have the French advance into Germany just as the Austrians finish mobilizing. Some clever diplomacy by the Empire's diplomatic team (again, unlikely given Napoleon's diplomatic "successes") could bring Austria-Hungary into the war then. I just fear that if you don't get Austria into it fast enough following an initial French victory, the inevitable French defeat and retreat when going on the offensive against superior numbers will dissuade them from entering.

A straight France vs. Germany war leaves almost no chance for France, IMO.
 
Inspired by a documentary that I watched early today,how could the French won the war?


Artillery. Its all about the artillery. French loss is essentially attributed to being outgunned by German artillery. The Huns were able to deploy more of it faster than the French could. If you could somehow get the French logistics to get more artillery on the field at a rate faster than the Germans.
 
Artillery. Its all about the artillery. French loss is essentially attributed to being outgunned by German artillery. The Huns were able to deploy more of it faster than the French could. If you could somehow get the French logistics to get more artillery on the field at a rate faster than the Germans.
Alternatively, get the Germans to get more artillery on the field at a rate slower than the French. If memory serves, there were only three or so major German rail lines that ran towards the French border. If some sort of franc-tireur unit (or natural disaster or rail accident or anything) could muck up any of the lines, the German ability to ship men and material to the Rhine could be affected.
 

Susano

Banned
Without a much earlier POD, this is really difficult. The French were outnumbered, out-generaled, and just about out-everything by the Germans, and little could be done about it without a POD at the latest c. 1867.

Im not disagreeing with you, you are the military expert after all, but I wonder then why on the field of diplomacy most people expected a French victory?
 
Im not disagreeing with you, you are the military expert after all, but I wonder then why on the field of diplomacy most people expected a French victory?

1. A general feeling that the French victories of 1857 against Austria were still relevant in 1870 as negating Prussia's obviously impressive victory over Austria in 1866.

2. Lack of realization of how important railroads were in allowing the Germans to concentrate rapidly, and how the relative lack of railroads and lack of railroad organization in France would give them strategic inferiority.

3. Connected to the last point: in the past, Germany's decentralization and France's centralization allowed French armies to get into the Rhineland and across the Rhine. A few German states would ally with the French, and then you would need another power to step in, as France + German states vs. Prussia + German states wasn't a fair fight. In 1870, who was going to step in and save the Prussians? There was a failure to realize the strides nationalism had made in making a Bavarian much less willing to fight for a French Emperor than 50 or so years before.

As a side, the French commanders were truly awful, often promoted for "being" at victories rather than "winning" victories: MacMahon at Solferino, Bazaine in Algeria. I can't think of a worse group of commanders of a major European power between the Napoleonic Wars and 1945.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Im not disagreeing with you, you are the military expert after all, but I wonder then why on the field of diplomacy most people expected a French victory?

Hindsight are everything.

They was the French the dominating power for century, they had fought the entire Europe 60 years before. Prussia was a power which had fought Denmark* 20 years earlier, in a war which lasted 3 years and ended with status quo, while it later had defeated both Denmark** and Austria. France had also done well against Austria.

*the size difference was around the same as between USA and Canada today, and 30% of the "Danish" population fought on the Prussian side.

**in alliance with Austria and it still took almost a year to defeat Denmark in the second Schleswig War. It wasn't very impressive.
 
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