AHC: Royalist Restoration in France

Wolfpaw

Banned
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have a royalist restoration in France. All PODS are fair game so long as they occur post-1900; the sole requirement is that the monarch be a member of either the Legitimist or Orléanist branches of the House of France.


 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Something from 1934 maybe?
That's what I was thinking. The Crisis of February 6 would probably be the best chance. Perhaps if the Croix-de-Feu decides to aid the rioters? The only issue is that such a turn would be more likely to leave de La Rocque in charge than any monarchists.
 
Philippe d'Orléans was charismatic he tried to get incorporated in the french army like any other conscrit to do is millitary service. He was put in prison and that was there that he got really popular after learning that the Duke of Orlean was in prison the duke of Luynes send to him a huge feast the republican press thogh they could use that to discredit him but he responded to them by saying "Je ne demande que la gamelle du soldat"/ I only ask the mess tin of a soldier. This would earn him the surname of Prince gamelle and he got really popular
He also tried to join the french and belgian army during WWI almost succeded in joining the italians army but was prevented to do so because he was injured when a bus knocked him down. If he is not injured and join the italians army and does well during the war and do not die of pneumonia in 1926 he is your best bet to get the french crown.
He was already popular in France before WWI and if he become a war heros there is maybe a chance to see him getting the throne.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Philippe,_Duke_of_Orléans_(1869–1926)
 
Anything before Action Francaise was excommunicated by the pope. Because once that happens, they lose their largest base of supporters, working class catholics.
 
The Central Powers have wn very decisively by the end of 1915. As a result, a revolution breaks out in France demanding the restoration of the monarchy as many will have grown to see republicanism as discredited.

Not likely, but the best I could do with this POD.
 

MSZ

Banned
Daladier allows Napoleon VI to sign up to the French Army in 1939, which allows him to enjoy a career in the Free French Forces during the war. He becomes a symbol of French resistance next to De Gaulle, and is granted the Crown after WW2.

Unlikely, but not impossoble - Charles De Gaulles carrer was quite unexpected as well, after all.
 
Daladier allows Napoleon VI to sign up to the French Army in 1939, which allows him to enjoy a career in the Free French Forces during the war. He becomes a symbol of French resistance next to De Gaulle, and is granted the Crown after WW2.

Unlikely, but not impossoble - Charles De Gaulles carrer was quite unexpected as well, after all.

No Bonapartists allowed.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
I never really understood the cult of Napoléon or the Bonapartists in general. Not to say that the House of Bourbon is at all better, but what's so special about a dynasty that has "given" France two emperors who left the place worse than they found it?
 
I never really understood the cult of Napoléon or the Bonapartists in general. Not to say that the House of Bourbon is at all better, but what's so special about a dynasty that has "given" France two emperors who left the place worse than they found it?

Uhh... you're forgetting their domestic achievements. Like, I don't know, public education, civil code, religious tolerance (Nappy I), building modern Paris (Nappy III), importing the IR to France (Nappy III)? ;) I don't recall any of the latter-day Bourbons doing anything comparable.
 
Uhh... you're forgetting their domestic achievements. Like, I don't know, public education, civil code, religious tolerance (Nappy I), building modern Paris (Nappy III), importing the IR to France (Nappy III)? ;) I don't recall any of the latter-day Bourbons doing anything comparable.

For Napoleon I, it is said in french historians milieu that he was in a way still quite 'true and honorfull' to the Revolution's changes... he made a dictature, for sure, and war, but also, he kept, and built definitly for good some changes of the Revolution, solidified and rendered them permanant.

In a way, the Empire didn't betray it - totally.
 
The Central Powers have wn very decisively by the end of 1915. As a result, a revolution breaks out in France demanding the restoration of the monarchy as many will have grown to see republicanism as discredited.

Not likely, but the best I could do with this POD.
No High Seas Fleet, or a significantly smaller one, leading to Britain being more reluctant to enter the war. If Belgian Neutrality is respected, or the Germans somehow trick the French into being the first to violate it, Britain will absolutely stay out, because the removal of both would make joining the war on the French side politically untenable. The removal of just the HSF stands a fair chance by itself.

That could lead to the French losing fairly quickly. Would go even faster if Germany manages to get a separate peace with the Russian Empire (which might delay or prevent the Russian Revolution - for one thing, Lenin was in Switzerland until 1917, and it was the smaller February Revolution that prompted him to leave).

So, while its not very likely, its certainly possible. How might the HSF be removed or sufficiently reduced, though?
 
Top