AHC: French Civil War instead of Revolution

Challenge: Instead of a French Revolution, have French go through a period of civil war, a late 18th Century version of the Syrian Civil War.
 
Challenge: Instead of a French Revolution, have French go through a period of civil war, a late 18th Century version of the Syrian Civil War.

Well, I wouldn't use Syria as a comparison. A civil war along the lines of the English Civil War in the mid 1600s is probably a better analogy.

What you need is for both the Estates General (parliament) and the King (royal) be able to raise and field their own armies. You need parliament to be well enough established that they just wouldn't fold, and you need the King or his heir outside the control of Parliament.

Best POD would when the King attempted to escape to Varennes in June 1791. It's entirely possible that having escaped, King Louis XVI could mobilize his own army and the National Constituent Assembly do the same. Presumably the existing French Army would split with some aligning with the Assembly.

At that point you have the Assembly in control of Paris, and the King in charge of some other area with the rest of the country in play.
 
Well, I wouldn't use Syria as a comparison. A civil war along the lines of the English Civil War in the mid 1600s is probably a better analogy.

What you need is for both the Estates General (parliament) and the King (royal) be able to raise and field their own armies. You need parliament to be well enough established that they just wouldn't fold, and you need the King or his heir outside the control of Parliament.

Best POD would when the King attempted to escape to Varennes in June 1791. It's entirely possible that having escaped, King Louis XVI could mobilize his own army and the National Constituent Assembly do the same. Presumably the existing French Army would split with some aligning with the Assembly.

At that point you have the Assembly in control of Paris, and the King in charge of some other area with the rest of the country in play.


I agree with the succesful flight to Montmédy (the intended destination). You don't really need anything about the Estates-General at all. If Louis XVI flees to Montmédy and summons the various Armee des Emigres then the Assembly will no doubt try to raise an army to defend the Revolution. Truelly its up in the air who would win.
 
Yes, but this time we are talking about the royalists following a living King Louis XVI instead of his martyred corpse.

And that matters, why?

The counter-revolutionaries, emigres, people scared shitless, etc., followed his son after the king's execution, and the Comte de Provence after the kid's death.
 

Razgriz 2K9

Banned
In all honesty, Trotsky is right, the War in the Vendee (and IMHO, the French Revolutionary Wars in general) was by all account a French Civil War between support of a Radical Revolutionary Republic (try saying that 5 times fast), and the restoration the Ancien Regime, either under a surviving Louis XVI (if he reaches Montmedy), a surviving Louis XVII, or the Count of Provence (and future Louis XVIII)
 
Well, I wouldn't use Syria as a comparison. A civil war along the lines of the English Civil War in the mid 1600s is probably a better analogy.

It wasn't meant to be an analogy. I want an 18th Century version of the Syrian Civil War, with atrocities committed by both sides, and the war spreading to neighboring countries.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Challenge: Instead of a French Revolution, have French go through a period of civil war, a late 18th Century version of the Syrian Civil War.
France did go through a period of a brutal Civil war
It wasn't meant to be an analogy. I want an 18th Century version of the Syrian Civil War, with atrocities committed by both sides, and the war spreading to neighboring countries.
That's basically the Vendee rebellion
 
The revolution was a condition of the french civil war. I don't mean the civil war was unavoidable but the radicalisation of the revolutionaries, especially on religious matters because they had an absolutist conception of power, led to the civil war.

Without revolution, ni possibility for civil war especially not a syrien war since the syrian civil war is mainly a religious war. The sunnisme want to take power in order to become masters of the country and to exert their own religious tyranny.
 
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