AHC: French-Italian border on the Rhone

Is it plausible for French and Italian nation states somewhat similar to what exists otl to border each other on the Rhone river instead of the alps? The change would represent less than a tenth of each nation's population and area, and doesn't seem to have any particularly important resources. Would this cause any significant changes?

I'd be interested to see any tls, especially with pods after about 1000 CE.
 
Petrarch said that the western boundary of Italy is the Var, so the POD can't be too much more recent than 1000.
 
Well if Savoy manage to unite most of the Kindgom of Burgundy lands before France could (Dauphiné, Provence) or if the Kingdom survives independently.

Then, if such a state conquers lands in the same path as the Duchy of Savoy: Piedmont, Genoa, Corsica/Sardinia/Sicily) then it could be the prime state to unify Italy (or at least North Italy).

But I don't know if there'd be a drive for it. Savoy went this way because the French lands had a lower population than the Italian ones, and France was a juggernaut. With such a surviving sourthen French kingdom, they might stay on only one side of the Alps.
 
Well if Savoy manage to unite most of the Kindgom of Burgundy lands before France could (Dauphiné, Provence) or if the Kingdom survives independently.

Then, if such a state conquers lands in the same path as the Duchy of Savoy: Piedmont, Genoa, Corsica/Sardinia/Sicily) then it could be the prime state to unify Italy (or at least North Italy).

But I don't know if there'd be a drive for it. Savoy went this way because the French lands had a lower population than the Italian ones, and France was a juggernaut. With such a surviving sourthen French kingdom, they might stay on only one side of the Alps.

POD: Humbert II, Dauphin of Viennois dies during the Symrniote Crusade, prompting a war of succession from which Savoy emerges victorious?
 
Well if Savoy manage to unite most of the Kindgom of Burgundy lands before France could (Dauphiné, Provence) or if the Kingdom survives independently.

Then, if such a state conquers lands in the same path as the Duchy of Savoy: Piedmont, Genoa, Corsica/Sardinia/Sicily) then it could be the prime state to unify Italy (or at least North Italy).

But I don't know if there'd be a drive for it. Savoy went this way because the French lands had a lower population than the Italian ones, and France was a juggernaut. With such a surviving sourthen French kingdom, they might stay on only one side of the Alps.

They'd also become France's prime target. France considered the Alps its natural boundary to the southeast. They'd look for any excuse to conquer it and incorporate it as crown land. (Claiming it by marriage would have been impossible, since both France and Savoy used agnatic primogeniture.)
 
They'd also become France's prime target. France considered the Alps its natural boundary to the southeast. They'd look for any excuse to conquer it and incorporate it as crown land. (Claiming it by marriage would have been impossible, since both France and Savoy used agnatic primogeniture.)

The French also considered the Rhine a natural border, and look how that turned out. Of course the east Rhone valley is much smaller and has many more francophones, but I don't think an alpine border is inevitable.

It might be worth noting that this area, (and much more modern french territory besides), was part of the HRE for a while. Perhaps a very different evolution of the empire, with gradual centralisation into the component kingdoms of germany and italy (and maybe bohemia), followed by a liberal/nationalist conquest of the papal states, naples, etc. could give a further west border.
 
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