AHC: Break France on these lines with a 1872 PoD.

You have from the end of the Franco Prussian war until the modern time to have france to have these borders:

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However, the areas that on the mark are to be part of UK does not specifically needs to be under british control, maybe Caen could be leased for Britain, but Normandy can be under a independent duchy or principality allied to the british.
 
1872 seems way too late for Brittany or for Belgium to want anything, and Occitania would probably call itself the REAL France too. But a civil war frozen in space from foreign meddling might be possible.
 
1872 seems way too late for Brittany or for Belgium to want anything, and Occitania would probably call itself the REAL France too. But a civil war frozen in space from foreign meddling might be possible.
How about cheating and making them occupation zones, like Germany after WWII, with Brittany as the equivalant of Saarland and the UK and Belgian areas occupation zones, which will be returned to France after X amount of years.
 
The only way I could see an independent Occitania emerging would be by having an ideological split occurring following a major conflict with opposing powers supporting Occitania and France-proper, in a similar sense as Germany was divided after WW2 in OTL.

EDIT: In this scenario, Britanny and/or Normandy for France could very well serve as an equivalent to OTL Saarland for Germany, too.
 
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Independent Occitania is a popular idea here but OTL there was never a notion of a common Occitan state in that whole area. Regions like Auvergne, Gascony, Languedoc (County of Toulouse) and Provence had their own identities. You would probably need a medieval POD for a sense of shared Occitan identity to develop.
 
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Maybe a world war happens post Napeoleonic victory, and France looses said world war. And the great powers in Europe decide France must be totally eviscerated to prevent them from waging war ever again?
 
This could a post WW1 Kaiserreich wank scenario. Let's say Wilhelm II dies earlier and Wilhelm III is a competent military figure who is seen favorably along the lines of Kaiser Frederick III who was a distinguished cavalry commander in the Prussio-German War. This Wilhelm III unlike his otl counterpart would have some stellar battlefield victories where he serves on the Eastern Front smashing the Russian armies defending Konigsberg and Eastern Germany/Prussia from the fearsome Russian Army. Wilhelm III's image is untarnished which helps to fuel a more favorable view of the Monarchy in Germany, while more of the blame is shifted to his "incompetent" father (Wilhelm II was actually quite intelligent and would have made for a good peacetime leader) and the stab in the back theory. Wilhelm III is also free to get back into German politics without the meddling of his father preventing him from standing in elections. Once the Great Depression hits and the Weimar government's incompetence is demonstrated with the German economy tanking, Wilhelm III can pull off a Napoleon and become elected as the Chancellor with the conservatives and monarchists fully backing him. In this timeline Hitler and the SPD remain a fringe group that don't take power because of Wilhelm's popularity with war heroes like Augustus von Mackensen and von Hindenburg backing Wilhelm III. Wilhelm III basically rules Germany as a benevolent military dictatorship taking steps to rebuild Germany's economy similar to how Napoleon III did it. Only this time he also embraces more popular support for the monarchy. Wilhelm II takes a page out of his father's book and tries to alleviate conditions for the working class and the poor which allows his popularity to skyrocket. And since he would be anti-communist he would frame the stab in the back theory against the communists (instead of the Jews) working to create a revolution within Germany to overthrow its social order. By presenting them as evil radicals Wilhelm III is able to seize more powers as Chancellor and effectively reduces the Reichstag to a rubber stamp by staffing it with army veterans and Monarchist loyalists. And as a result he pulls a Rudolph von Goldenbaum and eventually declares the restoration of the Kaiserreich crowning himself as Wilhelm III. He then makes a push for the old federal monarchs of Bavaria to return but with their lands being under more central authority. He also restores some privileges to the junkers and bails some of them out as a reward for their support, but allows noble status to be more open to commoners and members of the middle class who serve Germany through distinguished service.

Wilhelm III then tears up the treaty of Versailles and begins the re-arnament of Germany, but without the idiotic Autarky measures which crippled the German Economy. To counter the emergent feelings of nationalism, Wilhelm presents himself as the monarch of all peoples living within Germany which unites Catholics, Protestants, Poles, and other German minority groups around the monarchy. Wilhelm then frames the narrative against France and Britain in his speeches declaring them to be hypocritical powers in regards to their empires. He evokes feelings of nostalgia from the Franco-Prussian War and various wars with France and Britain. He says that it was the fault of the diabolical French that Germany was in the state that it was in. Wilhelm then makes speeches talking about how the 30 years war and how foreign powers always invaded it and devastated Germany. He also talks about how Napoleon's occupation of Germany and directs German hatred to the French. Meanwhile in the UK as a butterfly, Edward VIII stays in power and is friendly to Germany. Perhaps he even marries a German princess instead of Simpson and its government likely becomes fascist under a royal dictatorship like it basically is in Germany which is an absolute monarchy in all but name. Italy also joins with Wilhelm after Wilhelm intervenes to prevent Mussolini (who in this timeline stays a socialist) from taking power, saving the Monarchy. Italy is also promised French Tunis, Maghreb, Nice, Savoy, and Corsica when if it joins Germany. Wilhelm III also marries a Hapsburg Princess and then incorporates Austria into Germany creating a pan German Empire.

After this Germany starts trying to regain all its lost territory and retakes the Rhineland, Sudetanland and Bohemia, and Danzig and of course Schlesweig Holestein. Wilhelm III paints himself as a a universalist monarch bringing order in Europe and saving it from the communist menace. France because of the a worse economic condition goes Communist, and when Wilhelm Danzig and vassalizes Poland, France declares war. The UK stays out of it thanks to King Edward's focusing on more domestic policy to rebuild the UK's strength after WW1. After France is defeated, a vengeful Germany partitions France up and its empire even giving some lands to the UK. Spain under Franco joins as well and takes some land from Southern France. France is then broken up into the Windsor duchy of Normandy, Kingdom of France, Grand Duchy of Aquitaine, and the Duchy of Britanny. These independent states are also under German military occupation as well. Alsace-Lorraine is retaken as well.

After the Commune of France is crushed the Soviets make preparations for war while Germany rallies the other European Powers against the Red Menace of the East. And Germany leads a large coalition into Russia which cripples the Russians. Unlike WW2 of otl Germany doesn't follow Halder's plan to push to Moscow, instead Wilhelm goes to the Caucus mountains to take the oil. Germany reimposes Brest-Listov (with German client states under German cadet branches) and then restores the Romanovs to power under a puppeted Russia.
 
Occitania would be independent if a Branch of the Angevins/Plantagenets in Aquitaine marry to a Barcelonian heiress like Douce of Provence.
 
Isn't too late to do that?
Maybe a Kaiserreich that won WW1 early is stable enough to pull a reverse Versailles on France. This angers the French and they either turn Communist or Fascist and WW2 starts with the French as the aggressor. Maybe an irate Kaiser after beating France two times in a row breaks up France to humiliate it and ensures that it never threatens Germany again.
 
Maybe a Kaiserreich that won WW1 early is stable enough to pull a reverse Versailles on France. This angers the French and they either turn Communist or Fascist and WW2 starts with the French as the aggressor. Maybe an irate Kaiser after beating France two times in a row breaks up France to humiliate it and ensures that it never threatens Germany again.
Impossible as Southern France or Occitan elite is weak.
 
I can only see the Occitania and France split being temporary, with them fusing back together after a few years with linguistic rights. The others are... well, the Belgium and Normandy ones are stretching, but the others are reasonable.
 
As someone from Occitan, I find the thought of an independent occitania quite baffling, especially since Occitan is actually just the south west.
 
That is a ludicrously overblown Occitania. Also, 1872- after a century of nationalism? That map is a recipe for internecine guerilla war- many, many dead French people but quite a few dead collaborators and occupiers too.
 

Kaze

Banned
Brittany & Normandy and the English parts --- King John defeats the French. No Joan of Arc to retake it. Brittany breaks free.
-- alternate way.... There was an invasion of France by British and royalists in Brittany. It was a miserable disaster. In a OTL timeline you could have them establish a kingdom in Brittany and nerf Napoleon somehow. Or if Napoleon isn't nerfed, have him defeated and forced to sign them away as part of a peace deal - he stays King of France or at least part of it.

Spanish / Italian / Belgium parts -- lost by Louis the Sun King when he loses in one of his numerous wars

-- alternate way... see the alternate Brittany model above, Napoleon takes power in 100 days - forced to sign them away as part of a peace deal - he stays King of France or at least part of it.

German section - ceded by the Franco-Prussian

As for the southern part... see Occitania in the above posts.
 
Brittany & Normandy and the English parts --- King John defeats the French. No Joan of Arc to retake it. Brittany breaks free.
-- alternate way.... There was an invasion of France by British and royalists in Brittany. It was a miserable disaster. In a OTL timeline you could have them establish a kingdom in Brittany and nerf Napoleon somehow. Or if Napoleon isn't nerfed, have him defeated and forced to sign them away as part of a peace deal - he stays King of France or at least part of it.

Spanish / Italian / Belgium parts -- lost by Louis the Sun King when he loses in one of his numerous wars

-- alternate way... see the alternate Brittany model above, Napoleon takes power in 100 days - forced to sign them away as part of a peace deal - he stays King of France or at least part of it.

German section - ceded by the Franco-Prussian

As for the southern part... see Occitania in the above posts.

All of those are before 1872. For that matter, they contradict each other, since you can't expect an English victory in the Hundred Years' War to not butterfly the Franco-Prussian War.
 
1899, February. UK backs Bonapartists as puppets, Italy and Spain back Orleanist 'Presidents' of Occitania, Dreyfusards declare Brittany a free state, and Germany already has A-L while thise areas bordering Belgium decide to go for stability and safety.
 
The only way to have an independent Occitania in this age is to have it start out as early as possible as South France (so not before the early 20th century) and eventually have the people in charge on both sides give up on reunification and promote "Occitan" culture and rename their country ("Occitan Republic of South France" or something) in some desire to split from North France and prevent any sort of desire for reunification. One side is probably going to need to be far poorer than the other, like North Korea. Occitan would likely be slightly more relevant than Irish in Ireland.
 
Heh I made that map. Anyhow I feel like contributing more to this thread than a simply "I'm cool" statement.

As has been pointed out already, there was no unified Occitan identity as people considered themselves part of a certain region, such as Gascons, Provençals or whatever. With a 1872 PoD we could have one or more prolific southern French writers or politicians hit his head with a wall and start defending an identity of a common southern French identity based on Occitan language. For this to happen, Occitan would have to be grammarised and standarised, possibly based on the Toulouse dialect. IOTL other languages such as Catalan weren't grammarised until the 1910's and have achieved a certain degree of identitarian unity in the "Catalan Countries" (even if most people outside Catalonia itself are against it). Then we would have the French government not to crack so hard on Occitan and other regional languages as IOTL. Maybe a series of local schools in the south which teach children how to speak French and at least some notions of that centralised Occitan I've already mentioned. This will slow down the rapid decline of Occitan in favour of French and we could add butterflies so more pro-Occitan writers or politicians appear. Of course this is not enough for an independent Occitania or Brittany, but we haven't reached foreign politics yet.

For France to eventually lose land to the United Kingdom and Germany France would have to lose a war against both, preferably at the same time. I'll butterfly the Spanish-American War so it happens early and the Americans manage to pull off a victory, so Spain looks for territorial expansion but it's still outside any of the European Alliances. For an Anglo-French war, we can have the Fashoda Incident blow up into a full-scale war between the two, likely by politicians being stupid. Germany and Italy (and maybe Spain) eventually side with the British to fight off a possible Franco-Russian alliance. Those "Central Powers" win WW1 and impose a peace treaty to France.

Let's assume the treaty confirms German control of Alsace-Lorraine and they somehow don't annex any territory, Italy gains some of it's claimed territories (I can't see them winning all three at the same time). The UK annexes Calais as an occupation zone and some sort of Gibraltar on the Channel, so they can control who enters the Channel. France is left weakened and demilitarised, with governments formed by loose coalitions and radical ideologies slowly creeping on powers. Let's assume communists win, either by a civil war, elections or whatever. That communist government has two ways to go: One would be for it to crack hard on minorities, forcing nationalists to side with the right and foreign powers and for these to succeed; or two, for France to be federal (which would fit better with the "Federal Republic of France" shown in the map) with some sort of Breton or Occitan SSR.

France is ready for round 2 on the 1930's. Somehow the French manage to either defeat or inflict enough damage to Germany so they can safely switch troops to Italy and Spain (for the sake of Occitan independence, these two have fascist* governments, will be explained later). France is eventually crippled and defeated, and partititioned in four major occupation zones (British, German, Spanish and Italian). The Italian and Spanish zones together roughly correspond to Occitania. Britain and Germany agree to an independent Breton state at the end of the war. Belgium is awarded with Pas-de-Calais. Spain wins Basque and Catalan areas, while Italy secures Savoy, Nice and Corsica. Now there' a break within the alliance between the Spanish-Italian fascist* block and an Anglo-German block. The fascists* refuse to unify their part of France with the north and create a separate Occitan republic, basing themselves on Occitan nationalists and a desire to destroy French identity in the area so no pro-French groups emerge.

That first phase of Occitan independence would be confuse and done by force, with massive propaganda and brainwashing starting from a low age. It eventually succeeds and that "Cold War" either lasts until modern times or Occitania refuses to join back to France after it.

About the Swiss expansion, IOTL they were offered Voralberg at the end of WW1 but refused, maybe they could be offered Belfort in the same way and somehow accept, or gain the territory at the end of WW2 after the French invade Switzerland.

Finally, about Normandy, the UK taking control of it is mostly ASB. The closest scenario would be for that area to have a better treating than the rest of France, maybe by not being so thoroughly destroyed during the war. If the breach in quality of life is significant enough, maybe Normans wouldn't want to be annexed into the rest of France in an incredibly narcissistic move. Have a referendum happens in which the "join the UK" option somehow wins and you have it. Probably the most ASB part of the scenario, but it had to be done.
 
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