AHC: Many French states

Ok, so your challenge is to allow for France to remain broken into several smaller states, like OTL Germany. It doesn't unify until the 19th century, and only then does it become a major power. There is no PoD limit here, but the later the better. So how can it be done?
 

Delvestius

Banned
All you would really need are either more powerful feudal lords or less powerful absolute monarchs... An altered Hundred Years war or French Civil war would be a good place to start.
 
What's not possible? France being divided, or a divided France being unified?
France can be divided but I am not sure what could unite them without the influence of Paris the cituation is really different then in Germany where the language for all german state was germanic for exemples Breton and Occitan are not mutually intelligible at all. Like LSCatilina say in another thread the french concept of nation isn't based on ethnicity. I am not sure a divided France would have the common culture the german had to unite.
 
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France can be divided but I am not sure what could unite them without the influence of Paris the cituation is really different then in Germany where the language for all german state was germanic for exemples Breton and Occitan are not mutually intelligible at all. Like LSCatilina say in another thread the french concept of nation isn't based on ethnicity. I am not sure a divided France would have the common culture the german had to unite.
There would still be two mutually intelligible d'oil and d'oc languages/language groups. (mutually intelligible within them not between them.)

So there's at least a France and an Aquitaine.

Maybe if West Francia became the HRE instead of East Francia?
The early HRE was more centralized than France of the time.
 
In their original state the langues d'oil, superficially at least, had just as many differences between them as the languages of the stem duchies in Germany. Language is not going to be the make-or-break factor in switching the fortunes of royal authority in France and Germany. In Germany, royal authority collapsed because the monarchy lost the key power struggles with the Papacy, the Italian city-states and the regional magnates in Germany. With the benefit of hindsight it's pretty clear that the Hohenstaufen emperors overreached themselves and pushed far beyond the practical limits of their authority, especially in Italy, with bad results.

As for the French kings, they did not have the burden of having the greater part of their legitimacy dependent on the support of the Pope in Rome. Nor did they have the capacity to overextend themselves so dramatically given that the actual power of the Capetian kings in the early medieval period was incredibly limited. On the contrary, it was the French regional fiefdoms that became overextended and vulnerable under the Angevins...

I suppose if the roles of West and East Francia could be reversed right at the beginning, with West Francia coming under the influence of strong kings and securing the imperial crown, while the East drew the 'short straw' of weak kings whose influence barely extended beyond the borders of their personal domains, you might be able to reverse the roles right down to the early modern period.
 
Probably a POD as early as the fall of the Roman Empire. Perhaps if the Franks are never able to fully unite in the first place, or are somehow defeated at the Battle of Soissons. Gaul would be split between Vandals, Burgundians and Roman remnants. Neither of those groups could consolidate France like the Franks did, and probably would be overrun many times (except the Burgundians). Burgundy would probably be the only truely stable part of Gaul.
 
I think this can be done but the unification would harken back to a geographic identity like Italy had. So it would be unifying Gaul rather than France.
 
There would still be two mutually intelligible d'oil and d'oc languages/language groups. (mutually intelligible within them not between them.)

Since when oil and oc are groups and not languages of their own?

So there's at least a France and an Aquitaine.
And that's make a french and an aquitain state, not two french states.

The early HRE was more centralized than France of the time.
No, you're making an anachronism there.

No feudal state was centralized, at least as we understand it. Feudal state and Modern state are two different things.

HRE benefited from less powerful vassals at first, and from the imperial prestige. But in the more "old" aeras as Italy and Burgundy it was the same situation than in Francia with independent principalities activly pursuing an independence towards the Emperor.
 
Now, for actual french states (and not frankish, or occitan/french/breton), the easier is to have already an unification both political AND cultural of french.

The easier solution would be to search a political facture between two sides : communalist France against conservative France; or even a Vichy France against a Free France that manage to live on separatly.
 
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