AHC: Keep Napoleonic France long as possible

sans military defeat, Napoleonic france lasts as long as Napoleon, maybe a couple decades beyond. Assume for argument's sake that he dies a natural death in late middle age of stomach cancer, with France having a strong position in Europe. No matter who takes over, malaise is going to set in. Nappy kept control by a cult of personality. After him, everyone will seem weak. The noble classes aren't kaput, so they'll keep on with their inept ways.

The way to keep Napoleonic France longer is two fold. One, avoid the Peninsular war. Two, avoid trying to take over a huge Russia starting in late summer. Without the second, even a Peninsular war could be accomodated. Avoiding both leaves France the top dog in Europe, hands down, and there's absolutely nothing Britain can do about it.

Avoiding the P war: simply don't do a power grab and try installing Joseph as king. Easy to say in retrospect, since Charles and Ferdinand were both seen as dunderheads. You can take Portugal, but stop there. Let Britain pound away at Spain around the globe. Both will take losses and reduce their threat to France.

Avoiding Russia: you can't do it. Russia is too big, too powerful. However, you can avoid trying to take over Russia. You can defeat R in battles, so defeat R in battles, but don't get sucked into a horrendously long supply line. France can withstand years of war. Russia can't, and Russia can't bring the war to France. The only way France can be defeated is to go to Russia. Don't go to Russia, and you maintain hegemony over Europe. Go with a limited war to set Russia back, but don't go for the kill.

If those two things, easily avoidable since both are French initiatives, happen, what is the mechanism for French defeat? There is none, other than waiting for Nappy to die, or for the French to get bored with him (or his successors)
 

katchen

Banned
And Napoleon CAN follow his original plan and take the Ottoman Empire (or at least the European side of the Ottoman Empire). Which will change Europe irrevocably even after Napoleon's Empire falls. No going back to status quo ante power relationships with the Ottomans gone from Europe:D
(Though the alternative to an Ottoman Middle East is likely to be a former Ottoman Empire divided between Russia in the Christian Armenian/Assyrian East, Qajar Persia in Bagdad and Basra and Hasa and Egypt and the Wahabis fighting over the rest, perhaps even including what is now Turkey.
 
sans military defeat, Napoleonic france lasts as long as Napoleon, maybe a couple decades beyond.
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There is none, other than waiting for Nappy to die, or for the French to get bored with him (or his successors)
so what should be done if we want a French Empire that collapses by 1830, several years after Napoleon's death? it wages both wars, "successfully" conquers up to Poland-Lithuania, tentative Continental System until Napoleon's death?
 
my question is why do we want napoleonic france to collapse at all? He was an aggressive bugger, but really, so what? I suspect the entire rest of the world wouldn't be so sad to have Britain be second class instead of top dog

Austria: going downhill fast regardless.
Germany: stirred up a whole lotta shit until post WW2

Everybody else: happy to see Britain more worried about France than they are screwing all the second rate nations.
 
my question is why do we want napoleonic france to collapse at all? He was an aggressive bugger, but really, so what? I suspect the entire rest of the world wouldn't be so sad to have Britain be second class instead of top dog

Austria: going downhill fast regardless.
Germany: stirred up a whole lotta shit until post WW2

Everybody else: happy to see Britain more worried about France than they are screwing all the second rate nations.
but we don't know whether having a France as great nation actually helps, since we didn't experience French hegemony. But I suspect it wouldn't be much different...
 
I suspect the same. the dynamics/players/events change, but overall not much else really changes.

The big possible change is whether enlightenment continues (and I'll be honest, I don't know how much enlightenment survived into Napoleon's last years) and whether kings around the world try to turn back time and hold on to absolutism. To me, trying to hold on to absolutism (and failing) defined the post napoleonic OTL years.
 
There is absolutely no reason why Napoleon's empire, as an internal political construction, should necessarily crumble.

His nephew was about to succeed in transforming an authoritarian regime based on universal suffrage into a parliamentary monarchy based on universal suffrage (constitutional reform of may 1870) when he started the war against Prussia.

So there is no reason, after Napoleon I's death why France could not have come through the same evolution as under Napoleon III.

Of course, even if France comes out victorious from the revolutionary-napoleonic wars, as time goes by, the ties of domination with Spain, the German Confederacy and the italian kingdoms wil become much weaker. Prussia is not going to be occupied forever.
 
Without the "buffoon" France industrialisation would have been slower. He lost a war but was a skilled stateman.

Exactly. For his so called buffoonish-ness, Napoleon III had one of the longest lasting regimes in nineteenth century France. Not to mention France was stable and profitable under his reign and he had began to overturn the limits placed on the Nation by the Congress of Vienna. So no buffoon there.

But, if Napoleon I doesn't invade Russia (or manages to goad the Russians into an a battle) then his Empire could survive. I mean he'll need to make a permanent peace with Britain (maybe restore Hanover to the King of the UK?) but if he manages to do so then the Empire could easily last. Though who knows how long Napoleon I will rule for. After all he was supposedly poisoned by the British.
 
Without the "buffoon" France industrialisation would have been slower. He lost a war but was a skilled stateman.

That I'm not sure. French industrialisation was already well started under Louis-Phillippe. I'm not sure any successor regime would not have not as well - or better - as Napoleon the little on that side - unless it is as moronic as Charles X's, of course.
 
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