AH Vignette: Switcheroo!

I'm well aware that this scenario is convergent and implausible. I'm just having fun. Don't judge me.

Got the idea for this vignette from this Reddit post and decided to create my own interpretation of the scenario.


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Excerpt from the secondary school history textbook "Modern History: 1815-2015" by Thomas Henderson

The Unification of France
France entered the post-Hohenzollern era as a divided nation, much like it had been for centuries beforehand. Though the Congress of Arles saw the region go through significant territorial changes - numerous free cities, principalities or duchies had been merged with others, some expanded and some weakened, mostly as a way to form a western bulwark around the reestablished Kingdom of Germany - the reality of decentralization and division remained. However, this reality was in the process of being dismantled as France, alongside the rest of Europe, departed with the old traditions of dynastic allegiance and stepped towards the modern idea of a nation-state. The idea of nationalism, a concept which first reached continental importance during the Hohenzollern Wars, did not leave the French out, and alongside the numerous, disjointed regional identities, be it Occitan, Burgundian, Norman, Picard, Walloon, Poitevin or any other, an overarching "French" identity was rising to the limelight.

After the Congress of Arles, the region of "France" was firmly a two-party system, divided between two primary competitors - Burgundy and Wallonia. Both representing different ideas, different beliefs on what a united "France" should be, even following different religions - Wallonia, much like the rest of northern France, being Protestant, and Burgundy staunchly Catholic.

The history of Wallonia, historically an extreme periphery of the French cultural sphere, could fill a seperate section in its own right. The history of this duchy, later turned kingdom, starts in the 13th century, when the Catholic Order of Saint Lazarus was granted a fief in Arlos to serve as a fighting force against the numerous heretical movements in the region, such as the Cathars, Henricians and Waldensians, and later established control over much of the Low Countries - which perhaps makes it ironic that the last Grand Master of the Lazarite Order converted to Protestantism, secularized the Order's possessions in the Low Countries and crowned himself the Duke of Wallonia, one of the first Protestant rulers in Europe. Wallonia steadily grew in power from the 16th century onward, acquiring holdings in Ile-de-France and Centre through inheritances, reforming into a Kingdom in the early 18th century, and eventually joining their holdings together through Picardy in 1772. Wallonia's dramatic success could be attributed to a variety of factors - the outstanding professionalism and discipline of the Walloon Army (it is, after all, often said that while other nations possess an army, the Walloon Army possessed a state), the successful adoption of the ideas of the Enlightenment, Protestant faith, and often just a lot of luck. The Congress of Arles saw Wallonia granted the territory of Champagne on the border between France and Germany, once again, as a bulwark from future German revolutionary aggression - and a strategically important region as well, as it was among the wealthiest in the French cultural sphere with significant metalworking and mining industries.

Burgundy, on the other hand, represented a significantly different world. From the 15th century onwards, the rulers of the archduchy were consistently elected as Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (Saint-Empire Romain) - the successor of the Carolingian Empire of the Early Middle Ages, formerly uniting much of France, Italy and Spain, though reduced to merely a glorified union of French-speaking lands and some others by the 18th century. This title of Emperor of the Romans gave the rulers of Burgundy a lot of clout in inter-French affairs, leaving them often seen as the leaders of France itself. At the same time, Burgundy reigned over a wide eastern empire of their own, ruling over Northern Italy and much of Pannonia, where they served as Europe's defenders against eastern and southern aggression, for example, against Muslims. The numerous minorities within the Burgundian Empire led to Burgundy seen as less attractive of a choice for French pan-nationalists, especially since Burgundy seemed unwilling to let go of their domain to join the French project. The dilemma over whether the future of France laid in the Walloon-espoused "Petite-France" ("Lesser France") or the Burgundian-supported "Grande-France" ("Greater France") solution loomed as a shadow over the entire period of the unification of France.

Of course, Burgundy and Wallonia were far from the only players in the French cultural area. In 1815, 39 French-speaking states formed the replacement of the Holy Roman Empire, which had been disestablished by Revolutionary Germany nine years prior, known as the French Confederation (Confédération française). These included not just the greats like Wallonia and Burgundy, but also minnows such as Normandy (tied to Great Britain with a personal union), Brittany, Gascony, Aquitaine, Poitou, Berry, Chatellerault, Bourbon, Nevers, Anjou, Armagnac and many, many others.

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The Walloon lion circling the Burgundian elephant (1846 illustration)

The first serious attempt to unite all Frenchmen into one nation came during the Revolutions of 1848, where France, much like the rest of Europe, had been taken by storm by a wave of revolution and liberalism. In the face of chaos and disorder across the French Confederation, representatives from all member states gathered in the free city of Clermont, famous as, first, the starting point of the First Crusade, and second, the city in which Holy Roman Emperors had been traditionally coronated. This was where the conflict of Petite-France against Grande-France came to blows in full. The left-wing members of the Clermont Parliament hoped to witness a republican, federal greater France, stretching from the Gulf of Biscay to the city of Milan, whereas the liberal and conservative representatives instead preferred a constitutional monarchy without any of the Burgundian dominions. The Burgundians themselves hoped to witness a "super-France", or a French nation which kept all of the holdings of the House of Valois. Thus, as expected, the Clermont Parliament saw much debates and little actually achieved. By the time that the assembly drafted a constitution for the envisioned parliamentary "French Empire" and offered the crown to Wallonia, monarchist and conservative forces had regained control and reestablished order over France, thus the King of Wallonia, Louis XI, rejected this "crown from the gutter". By 1849, the Clermont Parliament had been dispersed and the attempt to unite France through the power of the pen had failed. It was up to blood and iron to take up on the task instead.

In 1862, King François I of Wallonia appointed Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, a conservative Walloon magnate and politician of Corsican origin, as the President of the Council of Ministers of Wallonia. Whether Bonaparte had a "master plan" of uniting France under the Walloon banner and military might or if he just sought to expand Wallonia's power and sphere of influence at the expense of other French states is a matter of academic debate, but the new Président du Conseil certainly came to power in an opportunite time, as the 1860s saw the spirit of Pan-French ideology shift from liberalism and federalism to accommodate Bonaparte's realpolitik, while the balance of power in Western Europe had shifted to the favor of the French.

Bonaparte's unification of Germany under Wallonia was achieved in three separate wars - against the Netherlands, against Burgundy and finally against Germany.

In 1863, the new King of the Netherlands, Willem XI, began enacting a policy of centralization, most notably seeking to incorporate the remnants of the Duchy of Picardy, a vassal of the Netherlands centered around the city of Calais and its surroundings, violating previous agreements between the Netherlands and the French Confederation over the distinction between Picardy and its overlord. Bonaparte took this as a casus belli almost immediately, receiving Burgundian help against a diplomatically isolated Netherlands and easily winning the subsequent Second Picardy War, placing Picardy under joint Walloon-Burgundian administration - a temporary status quo, as diplomatic conflicts between Wallonia and Burgundy over the administration of Picardy and, following that, the domination of France proper broke out almost immediately.

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Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, President of the Council of Ministers of Wallonia

Wallonia's sudden annexation of Picardy led to the Burgundo-Walloon War in 1866 - a war which many at the time described as a French "civil war" or a "brother's war", as it involved not just the two leading French powers, but almost all the other minor members of the French Confederation, divided into two competing alliances. At the same time, it also involved the recently formed Kingdom of Italy in the Apenine Peninsula, which had joined in an anti-Burgundian pact with Wallonia some time prior and used the conflict as a chance to take over some of its claimed territories on the Po river valley. The Burgundo-Walloon War was a perfect example of the great strides the Walloon military had taken to keep up with all of the advancements of the 19th century, such as the telegraph, railroads and bolt-action rifles, all of which the Burgundians did not wield and which gave Wallonia the decisive edge both in mobilization and on the battlefield. Within several weeks, the war was successfully concluded, with little losses on the Walloon side and several times more on the Burgundian, both in deaths and prisoners of war.

The sudden Burgundo-Walloon War saw noticeable changes in both nations. The idea of a powerful state led by a skilled leader upsetting the status quo and changing the dynamic of power in the continent had become an apparent lesson - in 1866, most French minor states opposed Walloon expansionism, while by 1870, the majority of them had been coerced to mutually protective alliances with the Kingdom. To avoid mass rebellions and upheaval after the disastrous loss akin to the 1848 revolution attempts, Burgundy went on the path of political reform, abandoning the hopes of uniting the French under their banner and instead reforming to the dual monarchy of Burgundo-Pannonia, despite the chagrin of the nation's large Italian population, which saw itself left out of the chance to autonomy and continued supporting the Kingdom of Italy to the south. Bonaparte, meanwhile turned his sights to the east, to the Second German Empire.

The Revolutions of 1848 saw the restored monarchy in Germany collapse yet again, replaced by the Presidentship and later Emperorship of Friedrich von Hohenzollern, the nephew of the far more famous upstart Berliner conqueror, now as Friedrich III, Emperor of the Germans. Though neutral in the Burgundo-Walloon War, Friedrich III saw the warning signs of growing Walloon power, while at the same time uneasy about the unrest at home - as is expected of emperors who came to power undemocratically, his rule was far from stable. This combination of preventing French dominance in Western Europe and attempting to rally the German people against a foreign enemy to make them forget about the troubles back home is what led to the German-Walloon War of 1870. Once again, a similar story to the Burgundo-Walloon War followed - unlike its German opponent, the Frenchmen had been far more versed in modern warfare, leading to a swift and powerful victory, culminating in the Battle of Trier on the 1st of September, where the Emperor and much of the remnants of the German Army were taken prisoner and thus forced to accept the terms of Bonaparte's dictated peace. The territory of Elsass-Lothringen, a border state between Germany and Wallonia and populated by Germans and Frenchmen alike, would fall to the control of the latter, and pay an indemnity calculated to be a precise equivalent of the indemnity Wallonia was forced to pay to the First French Empire after its defeat in 1807.

In January of 1871, in the surroundings of the German capital of Mainz, as barricades and revolutionary flags stood and flew a mere kilometer away, signaling the end of the Second Empire and the beginning of the Third Republic, the unification of France had been finalized with the coronation of François I as the first Emperor of the French (Empereur des Français).

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"Proclamation of the French Empire", 1877 painting

The new state of France immediately became one of the most important players in European geopolitics, boasting one of the largest populations and industrial networks in Europe, a military which had defeated other Great Powers within weeks and a strategic location both on the continent and on the planet. However, as history would later tell, this was only the beginning, not an end.

TASKS FOR HOMEWORK:

1. Briefly describe the timeline of French unification from the Congress of Arles to the proclamation of the French Empire.
2. Explain: what, in your opinion, is the most important factor why Wallonia, rather than Burgundy, became the nucleus of French unification?
3. Explain: why was the Clermont Parliament unsuccessful in unifying the French states into one nation?
4. Choose an important political or military figure from the French Unification period and make a 3-5 minute presentation in front of the class on their life and their importance in the unification of France.
5. French philosopher Albert Camus has made the statement that "Walloonism", that is, values pronounced by Wallonia and it's militaristic outlook, are the single most important cause of the horrors of the 20th century. Do you agree with this statement? Which Walloon values can be made out in the text above?


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