AH Challenge: "Peshawar Lancers"-Style Napoleonic War

Here's a scenario:

Napoleon successfully invades England but the Royal Family and others relocate to Canada or India.

They then stage a successful reconquest of the British Isles from their largest colonial possessions, possibly even using troops from them.

(The Company's sepoys might be a good source for manpower.)

How can this happen, with a POD no earlier than 1789?
 
EVERYTHING would have to go perfectly for the French and then terribly for humanity. Perfect crossing of the channel, massive wins against the British population and home forces, and then an almost Look to the West-ish sack of London in its scope.

The British royal family would likely flee to Scotland but pressure could be had if Nappy wins a big battle in the midlands or something and seems like hes headed there. They could flee to Ireland, and most likely would, but for this scenarios purproses we would have to have some kind of Catholic-Irish uprising or something that has tons of success and would put the family at risk...thus they flee to Canada (India is to far to be practicle).

From there they would have to rally everything they had, Canadians, Australians, Sepoys, the British population under occupation...to defeat the French. However in reality the biggest threat to the French is lack of control of the channel, they wouldn't be able to resupply or reinforce their military on Britain. French defeat would happen within a year and might even end with the capture of Nappy and a quicker end to the wars.

Britain suffers tremendously but Continental Europe is in a much better position. Canada and the Empire are viewed much more favorably and with much more respect by the home isles, I woudn't want to be Ireland, and the War of 1812 is likely butterflied away.
 
Without acces to any European ports, how would they ever be able to reconquer Britain? (I assume Napoleon would also invade all European countries that offers it's ports to the RN)

If Napoleon can get an army large enough to conquer britain onto britain (highly unlikely), he would conquer it. Then Irland will revolt or invaded as well.

And suddenly, France is the dominant naval power in the world...

In the end a rebellion can still throw the french out, but the British colonies can't do more than watch and pray...
 

Larrikin

Banned
From there they would have to rally everything they had, Canadians, Australians, Sepoys, the British population under occupation...to defeat the French. However in reality the biggest threat to the French is lack of control of the channel, they wouldn't be able to resupply or reinforce their military on Britain. French defeat would happen within a year and might even end with the capture of Nappy and a quicker end to the wars.

They wouldn't get much from Australia. Depending on when it happened the military there was either the Rum Corps ( Bligh's third set of mutineers) or one line regiment of infantry. Aside from that, a few hundred free settles and lots of convicts.
 
Without acces to any European ports, how would they ever be able to reconquer Britain? (I assume Napoleon would also invade all European countries that offers it's ports to the RN)

If Napoleon can get an army large enough to conquer britain onto britain (highly unlikely), he would conquer it. Then Irland will revolt or invaded as well.

And suddenly, France is the dominant naval power in the world...

In the end a rebellion can still throw the french out, but the British colonies can't do more than watch and pray...

Ahura Mazda

Barring a major defeat or three the RN would still be very powerful and the French fleet would face serious problems defending supply lines between occupied Britain and Europe. The ships of the time could operate for quite a while without more than minimal supplies, although with most shipyards and sources of naval stores gone Britain would have to win quickly but not impossible.

The danger for French if they actually got an army to Britain, especially with Napoleon with it, would be that if the RN can isolate it in Britain for a while you might well get the other European powers rebelling against his empire. Which with the degree of centralisation he developed could be bad for France. Its far more difficult if, as suggested by the OP, Napoleon crushes all formal resistance in Britain itself, but not impossible if the other powers start moving before Britain is defeated and if the naval is then able to pin the main French army in Britain. Under those circumstances the allies would be able and no doubt willing to supply ports and other facilities, although it wouldn't be as good as having the home ports and infrastructure. [It is actually highly unlikely the French could get a force across in decent order, at least from Napoleonic times. Possibly more difficult for them than the Germans in 1940. However that's the assumption of the OP].

Steve
 
In OTL Napoleonic war I just don't see France conquering Britain.
I'd htink you'd need to change things earlier on and have the overthrow of the UK being very focussed on native republicans (with French support of course).
But then if we're doing that we don't have Napoleon and a nice French republic...hmm...a different TL.

Anyway.
The royals escaping to Canada....Canada in the early 19th century is not a place any royal would escape to at all.
They would go to Prussia, they would go to Italy, they would go to Vienna, they would go to St.Petes. They would really go into exile in Europe and try and build up support in a foreign court rather than escaping to a nasty forested land far over the sea where you have to poo in the woods. I think you'd need another 50 years of Canadian devleopment before the royals would even seriously consider it. Even then they would rather go for cousins on the continent. Its not until the 20th century when going to Canada would be seen as a viable option for them IMO.

As for India...well its not even British.
Though...interesting idea if you do a lot of changes earlier to somehow make the Mughals more palettable to the European nobility...but I fear that would be one of those changes which dominates the TL and makes the reason for making it null.

Assuming somehow it happens though- thats how you get your invasion.
Not WW2 style foreign landings but local support and minor landings of ships from Canada. Mostly mercenaries from elsewhere would be used.
 
I don't think you can handwave away "Napoleon would invade any country whose ports Britain can use."

I fail to see how he could occupy Iceland, for example. And he'd get very thinly-spread occupying all of Britain and Ireland, making it easier to conduct landings.
 

Larrikin

Banned
Depending on the hold Napoleon held on Germany at the time, the logical, NUMBER ONE, choice of the British Crown and Govt going into exile is Hamburg. After all, George III is the Elector there.
 
Depending on the hold Napoleon held on Germany at the time, the logical, NUMBER ONE, choice of the British Crown and Govt going into exile is Hamburg. After all, George III is the Elector there.

A good point. But isn't that a little close to France?

Of course, the Royal Navy, if they can build smaller riverine boats somewhere, might try to hold the Rhine...
 
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