Here's a fairly interesting "greater France" scenario from Paul Drye (
http://pauldrye.livejournal.com )
pauldrye
7/23/05 01:33 pm
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The colonial empire, early 21st-century edition
At the CFTAG this weekend past, rfmcdpei, schizmatic, and I discussed how you could go about keeping a colonial empire alive to the present day using a post-WWII POD. I've been thinking about that on and off since then during a busy week and I thought I'd share. This is mostly an elaboration of some thoughts Randy and I had while Andrew was in the bathroom; we hit the conversational singularity in that time.
So. I think you could probably only do this by constructing a post-modern nation. With few exceptions, the world's countries are either empires -- in the technical sense of "multiple ethnic groups ruled for the benefit of one group or at least their ruling elite" -- or nations that are essentially ethnically homogeneous. Canada is one of the exceptions (two nations being within the one country); so is Belgium. The EU is an attempt at constructing one by sneaking up on it slowly. It's a good model for an empire in a world where empires are passé. Make a country that exists solely for economic or ideological reasons, rather than basing it on a nationality or naked power.
How to do this, then? I think you'd have to do it with an underpinning of ideology, and if you want that France seems to be a good choice. At least twice (revolutionary democracy, royal absolutism) the French have been on the bleeding edge of a new way to organize a country, and they're consciously proud of this history. Why not give them a third one after the horrible shock to the system that was WWII?
Let's try this. Taking Randy's idea of the USSR on the Rhine, I'll start with this point of divergence: Franco and Salazar throw with the Axis some time around 1941. This makes Iberia the soft underbelly of that alliance instead of Italy, and the Allies invade along the route of the Tagus in 1943. The invasion of Italy only begins in 1944, and the equivalents of Overlord and Dragoon don't begin until spring of 1945 when the Russians are already smashing their way to and past Berlin. The war ends with the Allies in control of Iberia, France, and southern Italy, while Stalin has Germany, Austria and northern Italy under his thumb. From Emden on the North Sea to San Remo on the Ligurian, an iron curtain has descended across Europe.
In France, the nation tries to recover psychologically from the Nazi occupation. In the real world, they develop and implement the ideology of a United Europe. Here this never happens as France's potential partners are reduced to the much-smaller Belgium and The Netherlands, and the economically backwards Portugal, Spain, and the Federal Republic of Italy ("South Italy").
Instead they continue the emphasis that the Free French placed on France's major colonies in the Brazzaville Declaration. Merely having the Russians on the Rhine is not enough to push that idea over the top; I'll throw in an unnamed young philosophe who has survived to 1945 here despite dying while under Nazi rule in the real world. Whoever he may be, he articulates the idea of France's new place in the world to be radically democratic and "civilizing" throughout its empire. The ideology catches fire and is widely accepted by 1948.
I suppose some of you will object to the difficulty of switching the rather arrogant French attitude of their own superiority into one that explicitly accepts the equality of all its citizens regardless of colour, language, or religion. But really, if you'd told a young Frenchman in 1945 that before his life was through he'd be living in a European Federation based on friendship between France and Germany, would he have considered that any more likely?
So those are our basic parameters: France uses the burning desire to redeem itself for 1940 to reinvent its empire as a country consisting of multiple ethnic nations, with the over all goal of being at the cutting edge of civilization and development. Metropolitan France is at the centre de facto because of its economic and social development, but the idea is that the other nations will be brought up to speed.
Looking at the French Empire in 1945, I think we can break things down like this. For clarity's sake, I'll refer to France as it actually exists as "Real France" and the alternate as the "French Federal Republic" or "FFR".
Things That Stay The Same
The core of Real France does not change. Out in the real world, the remaining French possessions are the only notable colonial presence left. While they have their share of oceanic flyspecks like the British (for example, Clipperton Island), they do have two pieces of real estate worth mentioning: New Caledonia, and French Guiana. Similarly, they have a few other places with notable population like French Polynesia and Martinique. There's no reason to believe that any of them would leave the new set-up.
Similarly, I think there's little doubt that Indochina is gone. The resistance to French rule in Vietnam and Laos was already entrenched by the late 1940s, and if the FFR is not to be hypocritical they have to be willing to let secessionists go. However, if you do want to play with the alien space bats, there's always Cambodia. Unlike its brethren in the area, the Cambodian independence movement was largely driven by Norodom Sihanouk. With a strong ideology backing them up, could the French have neutralized the King? On the whole I'd say "no", but it's not impossible either. Just for interest's sake, I'll say they're in and you can take that or leave that as you wish.
Also in Asia, it's safe to say that India wasn't going to let the French keep their enclaves.
North Africa is almost definitely gone too. Tunisia and Morocco bolted from Real France as soon as they could, and Algeria would be considered France's Vietnam if only Vietnam hadn't been France's Vietnam. I do think it's worth considering that Algeria would have been the one place where the FFR would be inclined to go against the will of the larger populace for a while, because of the million or so pieds-noirs. This is not to say that Algeria would have stayed, but rather that I think it would have stimulated several attempts at reform and conciliation before it finally went on its own. Keep this in mind as I'll come back to it later.
Things that Change
There are two main parts of the Empire that I think could have stayed under the right circumstances.
The first of these is the Indian Ocean possessions. They actually still have one of these, Mayotte, as one of their more important remaining colonies. As it was, the other three main islands of the Comoros went while leaving Mayotte behind. The Comoros have been politically volatile to say the least, though. Last decade they lost all their islands to secession except one, so I think it's fair to say that the real-world situation is not ideal in the minds of the Comoros Islanders. Réunion also stayed in the empire, so I think the general mood in the Indian Ocean could easily have swung towards staying. They're in the French Federal Republic.
The jewel in the crown, however, is Madagascar. There was one violent uprising, not particularly strong, in 1947. Otherwise the island moved peacefully towards independence. I think it's telling that the new-formed country kept the colonial tongue as an official language, even though unlike other cases where this happened (India, Nigeria, Indonesia) there was already a dominant local language in Malagache. For me that's the scale-tipper and makes me comfortable with putting the world's fourth largest island into the FFR.
On a similar basis, I think much of French Africa could have been convinced to stay. French possessions in the continent are almost entirely of one history when it comes to independence, with just two outliers. French Somaliland, AKA "Le Territoire des Afars et Issas" -- modern Djibouti -- was one of those exceptional cases. It didn't become independent until 1975. I think it's fairly clear that if the French had put some serious effort into making them want to stay, they would have.
The bulk of France's colonies (exhaustively: Upper Volta, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Dahomey, Gabon, Niger, Mali, Mauretania, Senegal, Ubangi-Shari, Tchad) all left the Empire in two steps: autonomy in 1958 and independence in 1960, give or take. Quite frankly, they were all rather cajoled into it if my reading is correct. I grant that the winds were blowing in this direction and they didn't have to be cajoled very hard, but if the French had been working for 15 years to get the air going another way....I think it's worth noting that all of them, in the real world, were quite happy to continue using French as their official language, and accept a currency pegged to the French Franc (the CFA Franc) rather than go for fiscal independence. Quite clearly, they thought that some of what Real France had to offer was worthwhile. How much more could it take to make them accept the whole package?
The other outlier is the exception to this general climate of positivity. Unlike all its brethren, Guinea voted to leave Real France immediately, and let its membership in the French Community lapse. Similarly, they made their own currency rather than using the CFA. There was no violence or particularly hard feelings leading up to any of this, but I believe that reforming the Empire wouldn't have been enough to have Guinea stay.
The question "why didn't Guinea go along with the real-world evolution of France?" does help resolve the fate of a few other colonies. Guinea is on the fringes of the Islamic world, and so had its own cohesive ideology already. If I'm right, I'm guessing that Mali and Mauritania would leave too. Niger and Chad are more problematic, as both have substantial ethnic groups away from the mainstream of Islam (Nigeriens do not use Arabic, and Chad is about half non-Muslim). One possibility is that both nations split in two, with their southern regions staying in the FFR, and the north joining up into a new Muslim nation. However, this hypothetical country would be radically poor and nomadic -- Mauritania without a coastline -- to the point that I don't think it would be viable. On the grounds that Sub-Saharan Africa has been relatively laissez-faire about Islam. I'll pull the trigger and say that Niger and Chad stay in helped inadvertently by the reforms made in an attempt to keep Algeria in the fold.
There's one other nation, made independent in 1960 with the main bulk of the French colonies: Togo. The difference between it and the others is that it was technically a mandate territory, taken from Germany in 1919. Though it too uses the CFA Franc and French, I'll be perverse and decide that its complicated history was enough to make it seek independence.
Enter the Space Bats
Earlier I mentioned Cambodia as a low-probability member of the FFR, and put it in because it was fun. More seriously, we're running up against a problem with alternate history in general. Given the odd vagaries of the world, it would be strange if nothing with a low chance happened (consider the unlikelihood of "peaceful transition to one-man, one-vote in South Africa" in the real world), but it's impossible -- by definition -- to decide which if these to use in AH speculation. For the French Federal Republic, I'll list two more "low-probs" and what routes I could see for them to happen.
Lebanon: Unlike the other Arab territories, "Le Liban" left the French Empire peaceably, in 1943 (they were a UN Mandate rather than a colony, strictly speaking, so they had the option to go). There's a streak of Francophilia to their culture, and I wonder what the effect of reforms aimed at Algeria might do for them. Sure, Algeria ends up going, but before then there are likely laws normalizing Arabic and Islam in our newly revamped Empire. I'm thinking Lebanon might look at that sometime around 1960 and say "You know, it wasn't too bad when they were around, and we're having problems with this bi-polar Christian/Muslim thing...maybe we should sign up again." More fun than likely, but hey.
Québec: Let's put sentiment aside and admit that Canada most definitely has two nations embedded in its borders. In the real world, the French Canadian nation nearly broke away from the country before the end of the 20th century, which shouldn't be surprising if you use a little game theory on this bi-polar set-up. Of the many factors that tipped the scales in Canada's favour was the suspicion that an independent Québec would have real economic difficulties. What, then, if they had another, multi-polar federalist option that gave them better security for their language and culture? I trust you see where I'm going with this.
What Would The Federal Republic Be Like?
It's 2005, and for the last fifty years or so, the FFR has been stable after a period of rapid change in the decade following 1945.
The basic ideology of the Empire is as it has always been: quasi-federalist along national lines, with a statist central government strongly interested in getting the regions to a point where they can be integrated. Economic development has subtly edged out the last-gasp colonialist idea of "spreading civilization", but the two are sufficiently similar that this was not a major change.
Unfortunately, this development has been very patchy, and much harder than anyone suspected. While Québec, Lebanon, and (recently, with the explosion of wealth on the Pacific Rim) Cambodia have either caught up to or made great strides towards Metropolitan France, Africa has been a disappointment. Granted, the FFR's possessions are doing better than most of the rest of the continent, but even the best of them are at no better than a third the wealth per head as the métropole. The richer areas of the FFR are noticeably poorer than Britain and the US, and arguably not much better than the Soviet sphere thanks to the rathole that is sucking away much capital. There's a movement to cut-and-run, but it's poorly supported as most French saw their ideology as a bulwark against the twin pressures of North America and the Communist East. However, there are stirrings now that the USSR has collapsed after the civil war of the late 1990s. Newly free countries like Germany and Poland are looking towards France for inspirations just as France is starting to doubt.
Still, they've done remarkably well considering how grim the situation looked in 1945 with 600 Russian divisions glaring at them across the Rhine and around Genoa. The Bear hasn't gained an inch since then, thanks to the FFR (rather logically) siding with the United States more often than not. France-proper has certainly done better Switzerland, which went all tinfoil-hat with their "armed neutrality" once the USSR surrounded them on three sides. They nearly bankrupted themselves to build their nuclear arsenal, and no-one expected 50 A-bombs to do much good if the tanks start rolling towards Geneva.
There are four languages in which services are available throughout the FFR: French, Arabic, Khmer, and Malagache -- the last being added to the list in 1991. Other languages are used at a national level if so desired, but not widely spoken elsewhere. Religious toleration is the official policy; Roman Catholic is by far the most common, but there are quite a few Muslims and Buddhists, and a host of smaller religions. The centres of culture are Paris (in a class by itself), Montreal, Beirut, and Phnom Penh. The port cities of Dakar and Antsirana have boomed since 1945 and are bidding fair to join the club, but both are currently too poor. Paris in particular has a metropolitan population of 12 million, and an astonishing mixture of ethnic groups.
The French Federal Republic is home to 170 million people in all, which makes it the sixth most populous country in the world. Unfortunately its PPP per head is only about $16,000, which puts it in the mid-30s behind the rest of the West, though about half the population is at First World levels while most of the rest is marginally developed or underdeveloped. This still is enough to make it the third largest economy in the world after the United States and Japan, though it only ranks this high because the USSR has collapsed and China has not yet caught up. With just over six million square kilometers of territory, it is comfortably ensconced at #7 on the list of nations with the largest area behind Australia and ahead of India.
The world as a whole would is a poorer one than the real world. Without much of Western Europe as a market, the rest of the West would have had some troubles. I would guess they'd focus very much on developing new markets for lack of another option. Brazil and India might be doing alright, while China could have a critical effect. If it went Communist, things are bad; if it didn't, the situation is a bit better as hundreds of millions of (admittedly poor) customers are now available. The British Empire tried to hang on with the example of the French in front of them, but their inherent conservatism doomed the effort despite being smart enough to let India go peacefully. Multiple African insurrections have left them with few possessions and in rough economic shape, a definite #3 in the US/French/British compact. As mentioned before, the USSR hung on a little longer on the strength of having Germany and the industrial Po Basin on their side, but still collapsed when the Laws of Economics came a'callin. Germany as a whole is where the DDR was in 1991, and Northern Italy is a big Slovenia: economically developed by post-Communist standards, but still not doing great on an absolute scale.
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One thing that this thread seems to confirm is that any "French superpower in the 20th century" has to deal with the problem of insufficient Frenchmen: even if we somehow handwave French demographics in the twentieth century so they grow as fast as the Dutch, that still only gives us around 106 million Frenchmen in 2000-something: not quite enough to have the military/political/economic throw-weight to be considered a superpower, not unless we also throw in a GDP/capita comparable to Luxembourg.
France needs an empire, a federation, an alliance of some sort to be the leader of: it can't "go it alone." Holding an empire together is difficult: for a still fairly democratic France best bet is as the leader of a federated western Europe, if you can cripple Germany in some way. (Although this is a fun sceanrio, it doesn't strike me as a particularly probable one). Some form of Unifying Menace is of course useful, with Russians, Soviet or otherwise, as the obvious candidate...
best,
Bruce
