Anaxagoras said:
By that point in 1918 the Allies were going to win with or without the US. The other two points are good but you could still get them with an earlier POD.
Still working on that map.
AH Challenge: Superpower France
- Thread starter Glen
- Start date
By that point in 1918 the Allies were going to win with or without the US. The other two points are good but you could still get them with an earlier POD.
Still working on that map.
Glen
Moderator
Anaxagoras said:
That's another possibility, though the POD of no US entry into the war seems not enough.
Instead, how about a Russia first strategy in WWI for the CPs, knocking Russia out (but how to get Lenin there...) then grinding down France in a war of attrition. Both are fairly exhausted by the war, but France takes the worse of it. Then have a right winger come to the fore, someone like Laval, in league with Mussolini. German Empire is hit harder by the Great Depression, and is preoccupied as the Franco-Italian axis builds up. The economic strain coupled with ethnic strife leads to a multisided civil war in Austria-Hungary, taking out a key ally and further weakening the Central Powers.
The Fascists and the Soviets make an unholy alliance, and attack the CPs from both sides. Europe is carved up between them, but the French and Italians aren't as nuts as Hitler so they stop there and don't invade the Soviets. Britain probably declared war against the Fascio-Soviet Powers to keep the balance in Europe, but in reality could do little, and has to settle for a peace where they don't really lose anything except influence in Persia and Afghanistan to the Soviets. Germany's colonies are stripped and parcelled out to the French and a lesser degree the Italians. The US is attacked by Japan still, but the Franco-Soviet Axis doesn't care, and thus the Pacific War is separate. The US still wins, but doesn't develop the atomic bomb (with no Nazis or Fascist Hungary, many of the nuclear scientists were in the Central Powers, and though engaged in a crash course to develop the bomb, the war ends before they are successful and they are captured by advancing French and Russian forces, thus France and the Soviets get the bomb first in this timeline). Also, with the Franco-Italian Fascists and Soviets splitting Europe, the US loses a lot of markets and doesn't develop nearly as much as OTL economically...its still a power, especially an economic one, just not a Superpower. It slips back into Isolatonism...maybe essentially taking the place of OTL France ITTL.
The Cold War is between the Fascist Axis and the Soviet Pact. The Italians after the death of Mussolini go into a bit of decline, and France emerges as the dominant partner in the Axis.
'Shudder' this isn't a warm, fuzzy timeline (though at least no Holocaust).
Glen said:Okay, so we need a history where they decide to do it, then.
However, a few things to give them a leg up wouldn't hurt.
Yep, but the problem with that is that such France won't be warm and fuzzy
If you wanted non-dystopian superpower France I think the change needs to be before slaughter of WWI, or oposing superpower, how about US ocupies France for a short time?At some point they are going to have to get in a major war with Britain. Otherwise they'll always have to play second fiddle, even after the Brits have lost India.
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Thande
Donor
What about something like Bobby Hardenbrooke's Shattered World or G.Bone's A Healthy Baby Boy, where the French leadership is exiled to Algeria and works on developing it up to First World standards (while Germany is busy turning metropolitan France into a puppet state) and then eventually comes back and re-conquers it, the whole eventual France encompassing a big bit of Africa, and being militaristic and advanced?
I did something similar for 'Look to the West', in which metropolitan France is first a German puppet and then conquered by a Socialist insurgency.
I did something similar for 'Look to the West', in which metropolitan France is first a German puppet and then conquered by a Socialist insurgency.
Glen said:
Nah, they don't have the Low Countries or Rome.
Yet.
<laughs maniacially>
France needs to kick some ass to become a superpower with a POD no earlier than 1900. Germany is the country which needs to have its ass kicked.
So...a few things others have mentioned which will help France wipe the floor with Germany:
1. An increased birthrate would definitely help. Lets go with something as (seemingly) unimportant as a 1% growth per year, due to a rather enlightened government realizing that France needs more manpower. Eventually, good proportions of this extra population will go forth to Gallicize the colonies.
2. World War I starts under slightly different conditions, preferably with everyone except France involved. Socialist French governments before the 1920s help with this, since they were relatively friendly towards Germany. Perhaps France has effectively by 1920 become nonaligned with the power blocs of Europe, kind of like that one superpower...what was it called...the USA?
3. World War I goes on for a long time before the French get involved. Five years should do nicely. Its even better if America has been involved from the very beginning...especially against Britain. UK-Germany-Austria vs. US-Russia-Italy. Russia should have been strengthened earlier on in the 20th century with a liberalization following a 1905 revolution, so as to be able to seriously hurt Germany and A-H. Getting the US to go against the UK is the difficult part.
4. When the French do get involved, the war ends within a year. The addition of a huge French submarine arm (socialists' idea of cutting back naval armaments by funding lots of subs instead of battleships) to the Atlantic War already infested by large numbers of US subs brings an exhausted Britain to the table. French tanks (since great French generals have paid close attention to the war being fought, and put some of its lessons into practice) drive towards the Rhine, through Belgium and the Netherlands. Russia finally breaks the Germans and Austrians, and Italy starts gobbling up the Balkans with the help of latecomers Romania and Serbia.
5. The UK ends up being dealt with rather harshly, losing colonies to France and the USA. France gets all of Germany west of the Rhine, plus the Ruhr. Austria-Hungary collapses into three or four different countries, and a severely exhausted Russia expands a little bit to the west.
6.
USA- Over the next decade, the social and economic ravages of fighting a total war against Great Britain and winning after a struggle of six years sends America into a spiral of depression and political and social unrest. The colonies she took from Great Britain rebel and revolt so often that America usually ends up granting them independence.
UK- In the 1920s the UK goes Fascist. But not in the militarily competent German sort of way, more in the militarily incompetent Italian way.
Germany- Germany goes communist and isolationist, just perfect for France. Maybe this brand of communism is agrarian, and Germany self-imposes a Morgenthau plan on itself, without the starving civilians. Germany becomes a really big happy Finland-type state until the present day, with an internal war every decade or so to keep the economy suitably low.
Russia- Russia burnt any stability it may have had under the Tsars' reforms in a six year World War. The nation soon collapses into a civil war that will not end until the late 1930s, utterly devastating the nation.
France- Since the end of the war, France has added Belgium, the Netherlands, the Rhineland, the Ruhr, Alsace-Lorraine, all of the Dutch colonies, and several British colonies to her domains.
OK...now you have it intil 1930-ish, I see the superpowers being USA (though weaker than in OTL), and France (USSR-strength). A war in the 1940s which pits these two against a "losers' coalition" of the UK, Russia, Italy, Spain, and some Balkan states will allow France to gobble parts of Northern Italy and Catalonia, and impose an occupation over southern Englandeek: ) and large parts of Eastern and Southern Europe.
So...a few things others have mentioned which will help France wipe the floor with Germany:
1. An increased birthrate would definitely help. Lets go with something as (seemingly) unimportant as a 1% growth per year, due to a rather enlightened government realizing that France needs more manpower. Eventually, good proportions of this extra population will go forth to Gallicize the colonies.
2. World War I starts under slightly different conditions, preferably with everyone except France involved. Socialist French governments before the 1920s help with this, since they were relatively friendly towards Germany. Perhaps France has effectively by 1920 become nonaligned with the power blocs of Europe, kind of like that one superpower...what was it called...the USA?
3. World War I goes on for a long time before the French get involved. Five years should do nicely. Its even better if America has been involved from the very beginning...especially against Britain. UK-Germany-Austria vs. US-Russia-Italy. Russia should have been strengthened earlier on in the 20th century with a liberalization following a 1905 revolution, so as to be able to seriously hurt Germany and A-H. Getting the US to go against the UK is the difficult part.
4. When the French do get involved, the war ends within a year. The addition of a huge French submarine arm (socialists' idea of cutting back naval armaments by funding lots of subs instead of battleships) to the Atlantic War already infested by large numbers of US subs brings an exhausted Britain to the table. French tanks (since great French generals have paid close attention to the war being fought, and put some of its lessons into practice) drive towards the Rhine, through Belgium and the Netherlands. Russia finally breaks the Germans and Austrians, and Italy starts gobbling up the Balkans with the help of latecomers Romania and Serbia.
5. The UK ends up being dealt with rather harshly, losing colonies to France and the USA. France gets all of Germany west of the Rhine, plus the Ruhr. Austria-Hungary collapses into three or four different countries, and a severely exhausted Russia expands a little bit to the west.
6.
USA- Over the next decade, the social and economic ravages of fighting a total war against Great Britain and winning after a struggle of six years sends America into a spiral of depression and political and social unrest. The colonies she took from Great Britain rebel and revolt so often that America usually ends up granting them independence.
UK- In the 1920s the UK goes Fascist. But not in the militarily competent German sort of way, more in the militarily incompetent Italian way.
Germany- Germany goes communist and isolationist, just perfect for France. Maybe this brand of communism is agrarian, and Germany self-imposes a Morgenthau plan on itself, without the starving civilians. Germany becomes a really big happy Finland-type state until the present day, with an internal war every decade or so to keep the economy suitably low.
Russia- Russia burnt any stability it may have had under the Tsars' reforms in a six year World War. The nation soon collapses into a civil war that will not end until the late 1930s, utterly devastating the nation.
France- Since the end of the war, France has added Belgium, the Netherlands, the Rhineland, the Ruhr, Alsace-Lorraine, all of the Dutch colonies, and several British colonies to her domains.
OK...now you have it intil 1930-ish, I see the superpowers being USA (though weaker than in OTL), and France (USSR-strength). A war in the 1940s which pits these two against a "losers' coalition" of the UK, Russia, Italy, Spain, and some Balkan states will allow France to gobble parts of Northern Italy and Catalonia, and impose an occupation over southern England
eek: ) and large parts of Eastern and Southern Europe.
Thande
Donor
I don't see how Britain would or could get involved in a WW1 without France. Britain was in the war because Germany invaded Belgium (at least, that was the stated reason). Germany invaded Belgium as part of the Schlieffen Plan to invade France. If France is not in the war then there is no reason for Germany to invade Belgium, and so Britain has no casus belli.
Furthermore, it's hard to see how France wouldn't jump very quickly on any anti-German bandwagon after 1870. You'd need good reasons for that.
I'm inclined to think that an 1870 or pre-1870 POD would be easier to get a superpower France, but of course that's out by the terms of this challenge.
Furthermore, it's hard to see how France wouldn't jump very quickly on any anti-German bandwagon after 1870. You'd need good reasons for that.
I'm inclined to think that an 1870 or pre-1870 POD would be easier to get a superpower France, but of course that's out by the terms of this challenge.
Redbeard
Banned
PoD:
The "Miracle at the Marne" in WWI becomes not only a miracle for the French but a true disaster for the Germans. The French counter attack starts a rout in the German army and soon the French push the Germans back everywhere and from the east the Russians advance too, the French and Russians meeting at the Elbe. Meanwhile Denmark has joined the war too and advance to Hamburg.
At the peace conference Russia gets East Prussia, Poland is recreated, France moves to the Rhine and the numerous smallstates of west Germany (have to) accept French hegemony. Denmark takes back Slesvig-Holstein.
In the next years it comes to a lot of rebellions in Germany, but they are all crushed with determination by the French and their Polish, Danish and Russian allies.
The British are very concerned about their former allies now dominating the continent and also increasingly show interest in overseas matters. Both the French and the Russians have ambitious naval programmes underway. A-H is the third major power on the continent (abandoned Germany in time) but is far from strong enough to balance the French-Russian hegemony.
In the late 1920s the young Italian state is close to collapsing under internal strides and temperature is rising in Germany too. For years the Habsburgs have tried to marketing themselves as protector of the "common spirit of the peoples of central Europe" and with hestating British support they try to stir the pot in both Italy and Germany. The French have to intervene, and in a short war the Habsburgs are beaten and limited to a core area of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary. The British maintain the command of the seas but can't stop the French and Russians from further consolidating their hold of the continent and overseas the British gain no lasting conquests in the French colonies. The Japanse allies of Britain even are thrown out of Manchuria and Korea.
By 1939 the French and Russians have gained enough strength to go for a duel with the British for global hegemony, and in the war known as the Great Colonial War the British soon are pushed on the defensive everywhere on land. In North Africa by the French, in Northern India by the Russians and in the Middle East by both. The British Isles are never seriously threatened from invasion, but the British must hand over many colonies to especially the French. The Russians initially have great success in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Persia, but the huge losses in the logistical disaster of a campaign soon sets fire to the already unstable and very conservative Russian society.
After a very bloody civil war a fraction of National Syndicalists take over and soon focus on spreading the revolution. This brings trouble in many places, incl. Germany one more time, but in the end it really consolidates the French status as a global power - conservatives everywhere see the French as the only effective bulwark against the National Syndicalist scurge. Even the British feel this, and are anyway relieved that they can keep India. In USA the dominating isolationists feel confirmed in isolation from the European madhouse is right although the creation of an "independent" (French vasal) Quebec raised many an eyebrow.
Culturally French language and litterature etc. have some expanding years, especially among the French vassals and allies. Here a successful career in anything soon demand a good command of French and preferably a French degree too. Soon a system of "Confederational Citizenship" is developed, whereby non-French CC's achieve equal right to French nationals in populating the French colonies.
In the following decades tens of millions of people proudly achieves CC status. Initially mainly Europeans but soon people from other ethnic groups follow suit - often being more French than the French themselves. By the end of 20th century France and her system of vassals is the dominating global power and French the unchallenged global language - voila!
Regards
Steffen Redbeard
The "Miracle at the Marne" in WWI becomes not only a miracle for the French but a true disaster for the Germans. The French counter attack starts a rout in the German army and soon the French push the Germans back everywhere and from the east the Russians advance too, the French and Russians meeting at the Elbe. Meanwhile Denmark has joined the war too and advance to Hamburg.
At the peace conference Russia gets East Prussia, Poland is recreated, France moves to the Rhine and the numerous smallstates of west Germany (have to) accept French hegemony. Denmark takes back Slesvig-Holstein.
In the next years it comes to a lot of rebellions in Germany, but they are all crushed with determination by the French and their Polish, Danish and Russian allies.
The British are very concerned about their former allies now dominating the continent and also increasingly show interest in overseas matters. Both the French and the Russians have ambitious naval programmes underway. A-H is the third major power on the continent (abandoned Germany in time) but is far from strong enough to balance the French-Russian hegemony.
In the late 1920s the young Italian state is close to collapsing under internal strides and temperature is rising in Germany too. For years the Habsburgs have tried to marketing themselves as protector of the "common spirit of the peoples of central Europe" and with hestating British support they try to stir the pot in both Italy and Germany. The French have to intervene, and in a short war the Habsburgs are beaten and limited to a core area of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary. The British maintain the command of the seas but can't stop the French and Russians from further consolidating their hold of the continent and overseas the British gain no lasting conquests in the French colonies. The Japanse allies of Britain even are thrown out of Manchuria and Korea.
By 1939 the French and Russians have gained enough strength to go for a duel with the British for global hegemony, and in the war known as the Great Colonial War the British soon are pushed on the defensive everywhere on land. In North Africa by the French, in Northern India by the Russians and in the Middle East by both. The British Isles are never seriously threatened from invasion, but the British must hand over many colonies to especially the French. The Russians initially have great success in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Persia, but the huge losses in the logistical disaster of a campaign soon sets fire to the already unstable and very conservative Russian society.
After a very bloody civil war a fraction of National Syndicalists take over and soon focus on spreading the revolution. This brings trouble in many places, incl. Germany one more time, but in the end it really consolidates the French status as a global power - conservatives everywhere see the French as the only effective bulwark against the National Syndicalist scurge. Even the British feel this, and are anyway relieved that they can keep India. In USA the dominating isolationists feel confirmed in isolation from the European madhouse is right although the creation of an "independent" (French vasal) Quebec raised many an eyebrow.
Culturally French language and litterature etc. have some expanding years, especially among the French vassals and allies. Here a successful career in anything soon demand a good command of French and preferably a French degree too. Soon a system of "Confederational Citizenship" is developed, whereby non-French CC's achieve equal right to French nationals in populating the French colonies.
In the following decades tens of millions of people proudly achieves CC status. Initially mainly Europeans but soon people from other ethnic groups follow suit - often being more French than the French themselves. By the end of 20th century France and her system of vassals is the dominating global power and French the unchallenged global language - voila!
Regards
Steffen Redbeard
Glen
Moderator
Glen said:
I found this one interesting, so I made a map for it.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=607630#post607630
The French were forced to use more troops from the Colonize and by the 1930's they the natives were able to gain the Vote .
By the Time WWII happened France had started to build industry in the colonies . By the Fall of Mainland France in 1940 the Rest of the Empire fights on .
By the End of the War 80% of the French Army is made up of the natives of the countries of the Empire . They See themselfs as French men and they have home rule in there nations with members in the national asambly .
By the 1950's France now includes all of her empire as departments of France . By the 60 and early 70's France is a True interational nation made up of many races of the world .
By the Time WWII happened France had started to build industry in the colonies . By the Fall of Mainland France in 1940 the Rest of the Empire fights on .
By the End of the War 80% of the French Army is made up of the natives of the countries of the Empire . They See themselfs as French men and they have home rule in there nations with members in the national asambly .
By the 1950's France now includes all of her empire as departments of France . By the 60 and early 70's France is a True interational nation made up of many races of the world .
Perhaps Poland/East Prussia could be in Personal Union with Russia a la the Congress Kingdom.