Alternate WW1 alliances.

One hitch in the France-Spain idea(as fun as it sounds)

I don't think Boulanger was in contact with the Legitimsts, but the Orleanists and the Bonapartists. It seems more likely he would have restored the Orleanists rather than the Legitimists.
 
But if he supports the Legitimists he'll get Spain as an ally. It isn't much but France faced with this Triple Alliance and Britain unwilling to commit yet will want every ally he can get. With French help the Spanish might become decent military wise.
 

General Zod

Banned
But if he supports the Legitimists he'll get Spain as an ally. It isn't much but France faced with this Triple Alliance and Britain unwilling to commit yet will want every ally he can get. With French help the Spanish might become decent military wise.

Exactly.

How would the Dreyfus Affair go in TTL France?

In Boulangist France ? Very bad for Dreyfus, I am afraid. A Catholic-reactionary, ultranationalist regime would welcome him as a perfect scapegoat, and ruthlessly suppress any evidence of his innocence. He might or might not become a rallying cry and a symbol for the leftist opposition, but I doubt they would have the means to do much to help him in Boulanger's para-fascist France. If Dreyfus is really lucky, he's given a life sentence in the penal colony and might escape when the USA invade French Guiana. If he's not, he gets a death sentence and is shot.
 
I'm guessing that if Zola runs with J'Accuse he gets a nice comfy cell in prison.

We could see the Ligue des Patriotes become reorganized into a secret police with Boulanger in power, something like La Garde Patriote sounds like a good name.

Other thoughts on France- after the defeat of WWI could we see parts of the country fall under Communist control and parts under Royalist/right wing and a subsequent French Civl War?
 
I'm guessing that if Zola runs with J'Accuse he gets a nice comfy cell in prison.

We could see the Ligue des Patriotes become reorganized into a secret police with Boulanger in power, something like La Garde Patriote sounds like a good name.

Other thoughts on France- after the defeat of WWI could we see parts of the country fall under Communist control and parts under Royalist/right wing and a subsequent French Civl War?

The funny thing is that Zola's father was an Italian engineer who migrated to France, and Alfred Dreyfus was born in Mulhouse, Alsace: both Italy and Germany would certainly make abundant use of their respective stakehold in the Dreyfus case (admittedly, the German connection is quite weak: Dreyfus left Alsace after the Franco-Prussian war, and when WW1 started he came out of retirement and volunteered to serve. Still, propaganda does not require a firm connection with reality :D) to harass the French regime, and score PR points.
 
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