Madeleine Birchfield
Banned
Challenge: Have the region of Normandy in northern France be English-speaking.
AHC: English-speaking Normandy
- Thread starter Madeleine Birchfield
- Start date
Any chance Harold survives at Hastings, William is killed instead, and the Saxons decimate the invaders in detail, then take ships of their own and invade Normandy (and allied territories, I believe Flanders was involved too), take it and hold it?
That would be in defiance of the King of France's claims of course, but feudally speaking as a fief of France, that king had responsibility for William's actions. If the English can seize Normandy, and defy the French attempts to get it back, they can claim the territory as conquered. If successive English kings value it enough, as a foothold on the Continent, to beat off repeated attempts on it, I can imagine a reversal of OTL--English lords over a Norman-French peasant substrate. With the easiest invasion ports to England in their hands, England itself is relatively secured, able as OTL to mobilize what wealth the realm can produce toward maintaining the best navy around and with resources, augmented by exploiting Normandy and Flanders, to support an army largely based in Normandy. The monarchy is split in attention between managing England as "home" and Continental wrangling, which a sufficiently wise succession might indulge judiciously, calculating their strength beyond what it takes to maintain their footholds so as not to risk losing that. The fact of the face of the kingdom, politically and militarily speaking, being turned toward France and Continental intrigues "Frenchifies" English high society and paves the way for a reverse modern English fusing Norman French with island English, giving a cachet for things French to the island notables, so gradually English and the evolving Anglo-Norman vernacular tend to converge at least superficially. Can something parallel to Middle and modern English evolve from a pidgin? I know of other languages that have.
The upshot I suppose would be for southeast England preoccupied with trans-Channel business and Normandy itself to evolve the kind of English we know best today, and for England in general to be more "Up North" and quasi-Scottish--more Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, less Malory.
Geopolitically I suppose this is a dangerously unstable arrangement, dependent on the English kings never overplaying their hand. Could quasi-parliamentary institutions evolve constraining the monarchs to either maintain a certain level of professionalism, reliably, perhaps through evolution of semi-elective succession--the princes of the royal family know that for the heir apparent to actually succeed to the throne they have to meet standards, some body of notables customarily deemed competent to judge rules on it, so the designated heir has a strong motivation to comply, to demonstrate the necessary balance of political competence, with the court also keeping an eye on ambitious younger sons, finding honorable places (Lord of the Admiralty and the like) for decently competent ones and making sure both that they stand by ready to become king should it be necessary but do not plot to plunge the realm into civil war to try to usurp it either?
This is a tall tall order of course. But it might not be inconceivable, given England's island base where the rival kingdoms to worry about are limited to Wales and Scotland; perhaps there is early union with Scotland, and Wales I suppose must succumb, perhaps on somewhat negotiated terms involving dynastic union on a theoretically equal basis. That leaves Ireland, which is surely not going to unite and form a very dangerous rival. If some continental enemy were to gain sway over Ireland, that would be bad, but communications are by sea, which an evolving English navy might interdict, and eventually policy might put Continental distractions on hold to turn toward securing Ireland to prevent such annoyances, perhaps on rather loose terms akin to Finlandization--some cadet dynasty maintained in loose overlordship at Tara, mainly focused on preventing Continental rivals from carving off their own footholds.
With the British Isles thus secured, as a permanent deep pockets fiscal and demographic resource, perhaps an ongoing hold on a well defined English Conquest set of territories can be maintained despite the high cost of being vulnerable to strong land armies. Expansion is a temptation and a danger, but perhaps it can be done in a methodical and irrevocable fashion, say by dynastic union with Anjou securing the whole French coast and north from Flanders, the Low Countries to say Jutland. This would be a crushing stunting of France of course, and might lead to drawing the English farther east to seize Paris as well as the eastern, Mediterranean parts of Languedoc from an Angevin-Gascon base. Such expansion if sustainable would leave Normandy near the heart of the whole system. I don't think the English would move the capital from London though, London is just as central and convenient as a natural center of their English heartland and naval/mercantile base.
In addition to sheer overexpansion and vulnerability to heavy attack from a rival continental power (with France crushed or perhaps even absorbed, this means basically some version of the Holy Roman Empire I suppose) there would be the danger of sheer centrifugal secession. A strong local lord, discontented merchants and landowners bypassed by policy in London, an ambitious younger son (or daughter!) of the royal family, deep social fissures such as led to the Reformation OTL--the low integration of late medieval and very early modern society versus the levels we assume today, might create too many centrifugal tendencies to split off the various parts again, unity be damned.
Certainly OTL the Normans maintained a trans-Channel regime a very long time, they and their successors. But only for 400 years or so. Can Anglo-Normandy be maintained as a bastion by an English system taught prudence in avoiding the siren song of empire, just doggedly holding on to one or two large bits and stoically enduring the imperfection of their security with Scotland and Ireland as well as a strong France and HRE all facing this realm on all sides indefinitely?
At some point, the union between England and Normandy can rupture and Normandy still remain "English-speaking," if it is possible to get to that point in the first place. But I wouldn't want that split to happen until say 1600 or perhaps later to keep the linguistic shift set. Even at that, the reversed nature of the mixture of English and Norman French would be such that countryside villages will remain basically French speaking with a lot of English overlay.
A language that is fundamentally Romance in basic grammar and commonest utility words, the way English of OTL remains Germanic despite the fact that most words in the dictionary have quite different origins, is not "English." The way for it to be English would have to involve the overall pattern paralleling that of Norman overlords pressing down on English peasantry. So I actually am thinking of two hybrid languages here--a French-overlaid, basically Saxon Middle English which as noted happens because English lords are culturally captivated by French culture; this can take root in Normandy itself only to the degree that English commoners migrate into Normandy to seep in demographically, perhaps in a pattern similar to the founding of German towns scattered all through southeast and farther eastern Europe in a non-German countryside--the English being privileged and politically reliable tend to become the burghers and urban artisans, albeit with a lot of countryside Normans assimilating to them. And there would be a separate (though superficially fused seeming perhaps) Normanish or Normande, a reverse deal where the basic common words and grammar remain stubbornly Norman-French, but a rich overlay of English words and some grammatical mutations give it a superficial resemblance to Middle English. This is why I think it is important the English actually remain in control, Normandy firmly and perpetually under rule from London; this privileges the actual English speakers--a minority, but a politically and socially dominant and important minority. If at any point union with England were shrugged off, as late as say some ATL expy of the aftermath of the Great War, the stubborn persistence of the peasant back country asserting Normande ascendency might purge the actual English speakers. Perhaps some political development can create a national identity intertwining both so that both mirror image hybrid tongues persist, but frankly I'd think one or the other would tend to dominate in time. That might be the English dialect I suppose, with only the most rustic in the more peripheral villages failing to switch over to the Germanic base even as the newly separate and self-identified Norman land celebrates its separation from English rule by superficially adopting all sorts of Normanisms formerly deplored by English-ruled high society.
Now perhaps instead the fusion and eventual dominance of the Germanic version with its commonalities with the English dialects on the home island itself can happen early enough that even with earlier fission, Normandy remains an English speaking nation, albeit increasingly divergent and subject to going more French in vocabulary. Maybe just a few centuries can do it? My main reason to doubt that is that the Normans hardly got the English speaking French as such OTL, except as a second language, so it is tricky to see the mirror image situation acting deeper or faster in Normandy unless either the situation is less symmetrical, or the time span is much longer.
I think it would actually help Englishizing Normandy if there is never any policy to extirpate the French-based country dialect, if in fact it is more than tolerated, but even facilitated. Certainly it would be useful to an English kingdom with a Continental foothold to have a decent sized base of subjects who are reasonably loyal yet speak natively a form of French; this will help with communications on various battlefields and in recent conquests at French expense. If persistent French is respected in Normandy, while meanwhile English burghers and city artisans form a solid demographic core for English as such in the province, perhaps voluntary self-assimilation will over time accomplish what a thousand years of brutal forced assimilation never would.
That would be in defiance of the King of France's claims of course, but feudally speaking as a fief of France, that king had responsibility for William's actions. If the English can seize Normandy, and defy the French attempts to get it back, they can claim the territory as conquered. If successive English kings value it enough, as a foothold on the Continent, to beat off repeated attempts on it, I can imagine a reversal of OTL--English lords over a Norman-French peasant substrate. With the easiest invasion ports to England in their hands, England itself is relatively secured, able as OTL to mobilize what wealth the realm can produce toward maintaining the best navy around and with resources, augmented by exploiting Normandy and Flanders, to support an army largely based in Normandy. The monarchy is split in attention between managing England as "home" and Continental wrangling, which a sufficiently wise succession might indulge judiciously, calculating their strength beyond what it takes to maintain their footholds so as not to risk losing that. The fact of the face of the kingdom, politically and militarily speaking, being turned toward France and Continental intrigues "Frenchifies" English high society and paves the way for a reverse modern English fusing Norman French with island English, giving a cachet for things French to the island notables, so gradually English and the evolving Anglo-Norman vernacular tend to converge at least superficially. Can something parallel to Middle and modern English evolve from a pidgin? I know of other languages that have.
The upshot I suppose would be for southeast England preoccupied with trans-Channel business and Normandy itself to evolve the kind of English we know best today, and for England in general to be more "Up North" and quasi-Scottish--more Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, less Malory.
Geopolitically I suppose this is a dangerously unstable arrangement, dependent on the English kings never overplaying their hand. Could quasi-parliamentary institutions evolve constraining the monarchs to either maintain a certain level of professionalism, reliably, perhaps through evolution of semi-elective succession--the princes of the royal family know that for the heir apparent to actually succeed to the throne they have to meet standards, some body of notables customarily deemed competent to judge rules on it, so the designated heir has a strong motivation to comply, to demonstrate the necessary balance of political competence, with the court also keeping an eye on ambitious younger sons, finding honorable places (Lord of the Admiralty and the like) for decently competent ones and making sure both that they stand by ready to become king should it be necessary but do not plot to plunge the realm into civil war to try to usurp it either?
This is a tall tall order of course. But it might not be inconceivable, given England's island base where the rival kingdoms to worry about are limited to Wales and Scotland; perhaps there is early union with Scotland, and Wales I suppose must succumb, perhaps on somewhat negotiated terms involving dynastic union on a theoretically equal basis. That leaves Ireland, which is surely not going to unite and form a very dangerous rival. If some continental enemy were to gain sway over Ireland, that would be bad, but communications are by sea, which an evolving English navy might interdict, and eventually policy might put Continental distractions on hold to turn toward securing Ireland to prevent such annoyances, perhaps on rather loose terms akin to Finlandization--some cadet dynasty maintained in loose overlordship at Tara, mainly focused on preventing Continental rivals from carving off their own footholds.
With the British Isles thus secured, as a permanent deep pockets fiscal and demographic resource, perhaps an ongoing hold on a well defined English Conquest set of territories can be maintained despite the high cost of being vulnerable to strong land armies. Expansion is a temptation and a danger, but perhaps it can be done in a methodical and irrevocable fashion, say by dynastic union with Anjou securing the whole French coast and north from Flanders, the Low Countries to say Jutland. This would be a crushing stunting of France of course, and might lead to drawing the English farther east to seize Paris as well as the eastern, Mediterranean parts of Languedoc from an Angevin-Gascon base. Such expansion if sustainable would leave Normandy near the heart of the whole system. I don't think the English would move the capital from London though, London is just as central and convenient as a natural center of their English heartland and naval/mercantile base.
In addition to sheer overexpansion and vulnerability to heavy attack from a rival continental power (with France crushed or perhaps even absorbed, this means basically some version of the Holy Roman Empire I suppose) there would be the danger of sheer centrifugal secession. A strong local lord, discontented merchants and landowners bypassed by policy in London, an ambitious younger son (or daughter!) of the royal family, deep social fissures such as led to the Reformation OTL--the low integration of late medieval and very early modern society versus the levels we assume today, might create too many centrifugal tendencies to split off the various parts again, unity be damned.
Certainly OTL the Normans maintained a trans-Channel regime a very long time, they and their successors. But only for 400 years or so. Can Anglo-Normandy be maintained as a bastion by an English system taught prudence in avoiding the siren song of empire, just doggedly holding on to one or two large bits and stoically enduring the imperfection of their security with Scotland and Ireland as well as a strong France and HRE all facing this realm on all sides indefinitely?
At some point, the union between England and Normandy can rupture and Normandy still remain "English-speaking," if it is possible to get to that point in the first place. But I wouldn't want that split to happen until say 1600 or perhaps later to keep the linguistic shift set. Even at that, the reversed nature of the mixture of English and Norman French would be such that countryside villages will remain basically French speaking with a lot of English overlay.
A language that is fundamentally Romance in basic grammar and commonest utility words, the way English of OTL remains Germanic despite the fact that most words in the dictionary have quite different origins, is not "English." The way for it to be English would have to involve the overall pattern paralleling that of Norman overlords pressing down on English peasantry. So I actually am thinking of two hybrid languages here--a French-overlaid, basically Saxon Middle English which as noted happens because English lords are culturally captivated by French culture; this can take root in Normandy itself only to the degree that English commoners migrate into Normandy to seep in demographically, perhaps in a pattern similar to the founding of German towns scattered all through southeast and farther eastern Europe in a non-German countryside--the English being privileged and politically reliable tend to become the burghers and urban artisans, albeit with a lot of countryside Normans assimilating to them. And there would be a separate (though superficially fused seeming perhaps) Normanish or Normande, a reverse deal where the basic common words and grammar remain stubbornly Norman-French, but a rich overlay of English words and some grammatical mutations give it a superficial resemblance to Middle English. This is why I think it is important the English actually remain in control, Normandy firmly and perpetually under rule from London; this privileges the actual English speakers--a minority, but a politically and socially dominant and important minority. If at any point union with England were shrugged off, as late as say some ATL expy of the aftermath of the Great War, the stubborn persistence of the peasant back country asserting Normande ascendency might purge the actual English speakers. Perhaps some political development can create a national identity intertwining both so that both mirror image hybrid tongues persist, but frankly I'd think one or the other would tend to dominate in time. That might be the English dialect I suppose, with only the most rustic in the more peripheral villages failing to switch over to the Germanic base even as the newly separate and self-identified Norman land celebrates its separation from English rule by superficially adopting all sorts of Normanisms formerly deplored by English-ruled high society.
Now perhaps instead the fusion and eventual dominance of the Germanic version with its commonalities with the English dialects on the home island itself can happen early enough that even with earlier fission, Normandy remains an English speaking nation, albeit increasingly divergent and subject to going more French in vocabulary. Maybe just a few centuries can do it? My main reason to doubt that is that the Normans hardly got the English speaking French as such OTL, except as a second language, so it is tricky to see the mirror image situation acting deeper or faster in Normandy unless either the situation is less symmetrical, or the time span is much longer.
I think it would actually help Englishizing Normandy if there is never any policy to extirpate the French-based country dialect, if in fact it is more than tolerated, but even facilitated. Certainly it would be useful to an English kingdom with a Continental foothold to have a decent sized base of subjects who are reasonably loyal yet speak natively a form of French; this will help with communications on various battlefields and in recent conquests at French expense. If persistent French is respected in Normandy, while meanwhile English burghers and city artisans form a solid demographic core for English as such in the province, perhaps voluntary self-assimilation will over time accomplish what a thousand years of brutal forced assimilation never would.
Gonna go for a bit of a different way to look at this:
In OTL, there was some Saxon settlement in the region of Normandy during late Antiquity - a fact which gave the region the name "The Saxon Coast." So, lets say that there is heavier Saxon settlement in the region of *Normandy. These Saxons resist efforts by the Franks to conquer them (at least at first) and maintain their distinct identity and are roughly as successful of acculturating the Gallo-Romans of the territory as their Northern cousins are doing with the Romano-British. Basically, the local population becomes good Anglo-Saxons in their own right (much to the horror, I'm sure, of the neighboring Bretons!). The region eventually consolidates into a kingdom which we will call Sussex, or the South Saxons (sorry to OTL Sussex, which will need to find a new name). Furthermore, the people of Sussex feel a great cultural affinity to their northern cousins: they trade with them, they make marriage alliances with them, they go to war both with and against them. Basically, *Sussex is an Anglo-Saxon kingdom that just happens to be south of the English Channel.
(this actually brings up some interesting scenarios: will Sussex become the gateway for Christianity to gain a foothold in Britain, rather than Kent? Will it do so quicker? Will Sussex, in turn, be a foothod of the Anglo-Gaelic mission on the continent? What will their relations be with the neighboring Franks, and will they be able to successfully keep their political indpendence? Brittany did, but Amorica is further away from the center of Merovingian power. Will Sussex willingly enter into the creation of a united England, or will it be conquered, etc.)
In OTL, there was some Saxon settlement in the region of Normandy during late Antiquity - a fact which gave the region the name "The Saxon Coast." So, lets say that there is heavier Saxon settlement in the region of *Normandy. These Saxons resist efforts by the Franks to conquer them (at least at first) and maintain their distinct identity and are roughly as successful of acculturating the Gallo-Romans of the territory as their Northern cousins are doing with the Romano-British. Basically, the local population becomes good Anglo-Saxons in their own right (much to the horror, I'm sure, of the neighboring Bretons!). The region eventually consolidates into a kingdom which we will call Sussex, or the South Saxons (sorry to OTL Sussex, which will need to find a new name). Furthermore, the people of Sussex feel a great cultural affinity to their northern cousins: they trade with them, they make marriage alliances with them, they go to war both with and against them. Basically, *Sussex is an Anglo-Saxon kingdom that just happens to be south of the English Channel.
(this actually brings up some interesting scenarios: will Sussex become the gateway for Christianity to gain a foothold in Britain, rather than Kent? Will it do so quicker? Will Sussex, in turn, be a foothod of the Anglo-Gaelic mission on the continent? What will their relations be with the neighboring Franks, and will they be able to successfully keep their political indpendence? Brittany did, but Amorica is further away from the center of Merovingian power. Will Sussex willingly enter into the creation of a united England, or will it be conquered, etc.)
Oh, if Normandy remains under the same rule as England (I like my Reverse Conquest because I've always had a soft spot for Harold and think of William's gang as a bunch of rat bastards, but it works the other way too, Conquest of England as OTL but the monarchy doesn't drop the ball and get severed from Normandy as OTL, which IIRC was something John did) as a firmly held bastion continually until say 1700, that might be good enough. Not if it is the Sun King or some equally powerful French regime doing the eventual conquest, but maybe if the territory is lost to say the HRE. Also, the conquest might be temporary, with England coming back to take it back.
What is needed is time to normalize the united rule, and a certain demographic of English settlers there. I tried to tiptoe past that and minimize it because I dislike anything approaching genocide. The point is, the annexed (or ancestral) French territory is a small part of the larger English realm, whichever way the conquest goes, and over many centuries the norm of English speaking prevails in the ruling classes, and filters down through the merchants and bigger frog commoners as the language of the successful until at least a persistent minority in the province has a Germanic based dialect of English as their mother tongue.
As I noted, if there is nationalistic resentment between a Romance-French based dialect majority and the English speakers, and the political tie to England is not maintained, yeah, that puts paid to the Norman-English dialect all right. But if the provincial regime is reasonably integrated, and opportunity for "Normande" or whatever we call the Romance based dialect speakers is fair enough for them to buy into the English regime patriotically, the province can even resist a period of non-English rule, especially if this is temporary, especially if the new bosses don't want to borrow trouble with high-handed linguistic purity campaigns and just want to run the place profitably with minimal resistance--then perhaps Normandy can be assimilated into France (or some other regional power, such as a unified Lowlands or Languedoc based realm or super-Spain) with its Norman-English speakers being now less advantaged, maybe even persecuted a bit, but persisting as a stubborn dialect all the same for generations to come.
And yes, I agree that entering more or less modern conditions is probably essential to cement the deal, unless perhaps an English conquest did result in a really drastic overturning of countryside language quite early on, which does smack of genocide I'd rather not contemplate--consider how Breton is still a Celtic language despite the long rule of France there. On one hand, the Norman peasantry seems unlikely to ever shift over to full on English, more likely as I said to have upside-down Germanic-influenced French to the present day, just as the Bretons still speak a kind of Brythonic. But on the other, if a sufficient number of communities, seeded as it were by English settlers and accumulating some linguistic converts from the countryside, are established early enough and achieve critical mass, even the sort of linguistic imperialism France is, um, known for, might fail to eradicate it.
Vice versa, the most effective eradication of such languages as Gaelic, Cornish, Breton, Welsh, etc has been the modern era indeed. Where relentless persecution fails, the lure of the dominant society can succeed by seduction.
So if we have English Normandy holding out to say 1700, with almost everyone there speaking dialects of English as at least their second tongue, widely and well known as such in the most rustic town, then a strong French regime conquers, the Ancient Regime will perhaps not even try to extirpate it, just issue decrees in the local dialect after officially doing so in proper court French. If we have fair analogs to OTL developments, come the Revolution, the revolutionary regime would strike a hard blow, but mainly by attraction--masses basically aligned with the popular revolution will assimilate to French to show their patriotism. But this might not be at all inconsistent with Norman-English being their mother tongue, just as in Alsace the Alsatian German dialect is the mother tongue there without this mitigating their French patriotism. They just pick up French in their youth as a second language and are bilingual. The big sapping of the dialect would be as you say in the 20th century with full industrialization and mass media popular culture. Still I think despite negative associations with two German conquests, a majority or large minority of Alsatians are speaking Alsatian German first to this very day?
Meanwhile--if the English can hang on to Normandy until early modern times, I daresay they can, barring probably temporary overwhelming waves of conquest as by an ATL-Napoleon or Hitler, tend to remain British aligned by choice, by deep embedded nationalist identity. People will just see it as part of England, naturally, even if most people there speak a French dialect as mother tongue. It might be severed by politics, but tend to be reclaimed again when England's fortunes take an up-tick.
What is needed is time to normalize the united rule, and a certain demographic of English settlers there. I tried to tiptoe past that and minimize it because I dislike anything approaching genocide. The point is, the annexed (or ancestral) French territory is a small part of the larger English realm, whichever way the conquest goes, and over many centuries the norm of English speaking prevails in the ruling classes, and filters down through the merchants and bigger frog commoners as the language of the successful until at least a persistent minority in the province has a Germanic based dialect of English as their mother tongue.
As I noted, if there is nationalistic resentment between a Romance-French based dialect majority and the English speakers, and the political tie to England is not maintained, yeah, that puts paid to the Norman-English dialect all right. But if the provincial regime is reasonably integrated, and opportunity for "Normande" or whatever we call the Romance based dialect speakers is fair enough for them to buy into the English regime patriotically, the province can even resist a period of non-English rule, especially if this is temporary, especially if the new bosses don't want to borrow trouble with high-handed linguistic purity campaigns and just want to run the place profitably with minimal resistance--then perhaps Normandy can be assimilated into France (or some other regional power, such as a unified Lowlands or Languedoc based realm or super-Spain) with its Norman-English speakers being now less advantaged, maybe even persecuted a bit, but persisting as a stubborn dialect all the same for generations to come.
And yes, I agree that entering more or less modern conditions is probably essential to cement the deal, unless perhaps an English conquest did result in a really drastic overturning of countryside language quite early on, which does smack of genocide I'd rather not contemplate--consider how Breton is still a Celtic language despite the long rule of France there. On one hand, the Norman peasantry seems unlikely to ever shift over to full on English, more likely as I said to have upside-down Germanic-influenced French to the present day, just as the Bretons still speak a kind of Brythonic. But on the other, if a sufficient number of communities, seeded as it were by English settlers and accumulating some linguistic converts from the countryside, are established early enough and achieve critical mass, even the sort of linguistic imperialism France is, um, known for, might fail to eradicate it.
Vice versa, the most effective eradication of such languages as Gaelic, Cornish, Breton, Welsh, etc has been the modern era indeed. Where relentless persecution fails, the lure of the dominant society can succeed by seduction.
So if we have English Normandy holding out to say 1700, with almost everyone there speaking dialects of English as at least their second tongue, widely and well known as such in the most rustic town, then a strong French regime conquers, the Ancient Regime will perhaps not even try to extirpate it, just issue decrees in the local dialect after officially doing so in proper court French. If we have fair analogs to OTL developments, come the Revolution, the revolutionary regime would strike a hard blow, but mainly by attraction--masses basically aligned with the popular revolution will assimilate to French to show their patriotism. But this might not be at all inconsistent with Norman-English being their mother tongue, just as in Alsace the Alsatian German dialect is the mother tongue there without this mitigating their French patriotism. They just pick up French in their youth as a second language and are bilingual. The big sapping of the dialect would be as you say in the 20th century with full industrialization and mass media popular culture. Still I think despite negative associations with two German conquests, a majority or large minority of Alsatians are speaking Alsatian German first to this very day?
Meanwhile--if the English can hang on to Normandy until early modern times, I daresay they can, barring probably temporary overwhelming waves of conquest as by an ATL-Napoleon or Hitler, tend to remain British aligned by choice, by deep embedded nationalist identity. People will just see it as part of England, naturally, even if most people there speak a French dialect as mother tongue. It might be severed by politics, but tend to be reclaimed again when England's fortunes take an up-tick.
Alternate WWI alliance system, France, Russia and A-H vs. US-UK-German alliance. France is defeated, with portions of Brittany and Normandy going to the UK, Belgium and even more of Alsace-Lorraine region to Germany, and France's Pacific and American possessions to USA. Belgian Congo and FWA to UK, Algeria and Madagascar to Germany, Vietnam to US a la Phillipines.
France goes Nazi, Russia goes Soviet, and A-H collapses. WWII happens with Nazi France-Soviet Axis, over Normandy and Brittany, along with Japan in the east. Once US-UK-German alliance deals with them again, a la OTL WWII Poland, they take more French land and ethnically cleanse it, sending the French back to the rump France. Normandy is then "re"settled by English settlers, particularly from recently decolonized areas.
There we go, Anglophone Normandy.
France goes Nazi, Russia goes Soviet, and A-H collapses. WWII happens with Nazi France-Soviet Axis, over Normandy and Brittany, along with Japan in the east. Once US-UK-German alliance deals with them again, a la OTL WWII Poland, they take more French land and ethnically cleanse it, sending the French back to the rump France. Normandy is then "re"settled by English settlers, particularly from recently decolonized areas.
There we go, Anglophone Normandy.
Still quite far . . . knowledge of English in France is slowly increasing but is still far beneath the level of the Netherlands, Scandinavia etc. You can be a successful professional in France and speak very limited English, whereas if you had that same career in say Denmark you probably would be expected to have conversational English skills.
Last edited: