Otto Kretschmer
Banned
What is the latest possible PoD that can be taken so that French performanace in the war is better than IOTL?
Best possible French performance in the Franco Prussian war?
- Thread starter Otto Kretschmer
- Start date
"Don't start it" comes immediately to mind 
I mean, the whole pretext was ridiculous... the candidacy of Leopold of Hohenzollern for the throne of Spain had already been withdrawn.
Now, granted, Bismarck was trying to goad the French into conflict (he so much as admitted so himself), but... they didn't have to take the bait.
I mean, the whole pretext was ridiculous... the candidacy of Leopold of Hohenzollern for the throne of Spain had already been withdrawn.
Now, granted, Bismarck was trying to goad the French into conflict (he so much as admitted so himself), but... they didn't have to take the bait.
Otto Kretschmer
Banned
Any way to counter superior Prussian artillery and logistics? The French already have a rifle with longer range and higher rate of fire, that's at least 1 advantage.
Napoleon III doesn't take the bait, his son inherits the throne as Napoleon IV doon after, who mends fences with much of Europe via an alliance with Britain then marries Viktoria the Hohenzollern princess. Wilhelm II dies in an unfortunate gunfire accident involving a cigar and American woman he is later reputed to have scorned, Kaiser Henri I and Emperor Napoleon IV share the Nobel Peace Prize of 1915 for defusing the murder of Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand by Serbian extremists before ot turns into all-out war in Europe. Germany, France, and the UK soon form the Triple Alliance with half a century of peace resulting. Unfortunately the resulting World Wars from 1970 to 1975 and again from 2005 to 2012 following the Space Race with the Colonization movement in between would reshape the planet - and humanity - forever.
John Farson
Banned
It's an advantage, but it's not much of an advantage when the other side's artillery can outreach and outfire yours, and when they can put more men on the field quicker than your side can. It's telling that at the start of the war Prussia and the other Northern German states managed to mobilize 50,000 more men than the French, with 462,000 soldiers concentrated on the French border opposite 270,000 French soldiers, despite France having 6 million more people. French planning and administration was so poor that they managed to lose 100,000 stragglers before a single shot was fired.
So for France and Napoleon III, the winning move definitely was "not to play." However, if France winds up fighting Prussia and her allies, then the latest possible PoD for France to salvage the situation at least somewhat would be the Battle of Mars-la-Tour on August 16th. This thread explores the battle in depth. In short, that battle was France's greatest missed opportunity to inflict a serious setback on the Prussians. Had the French Army of the Rhine and its 180,000 men (minus a garrison left in Metz) withdrawn to Chalons as ordered, Mac Mahon could then withdraw to Paris as originally planned, with enough men to prevent a siege and basically turn Paris into a far bigger version of the ACW's siege of Petersburg-Richmond, allowing the French to buy time to complete their mobilization by autumn while the Germans would be facing difficulties holding the territory they had taken, with their LOCs threatened by all the French fortresses still resisting, such as Metz and Strasbourg.
economic damage is the point to go really. The otl blockade of Prussia by the French navy was notoriously flimsy and Prussian blockade runners made a life's worth of money running through the blockade. Creating a firmer French blockade should make Prussian lives harder, as food from North America will be drastically reduced. Also, the French had the ability to attack Prussian stocks at the beginning of the war, before Prussia withdrew their stocks from France, however France did not take this opportunity. Attacking the stocks would have led to investor points dropping in Prussia, which would have negatively affected the prussian factories building the army's equipment.
i am not sure how much this would affect the outcome of the war, but it would certainly make Prussian lives harder.
i am not sure how much this would affect the outcome of the war, but it would certainly make Prussian lives harder.
I worked on an AH timeline (that I abandoned), where the franco-Prussian war ends with a white peace.
You could find many different PoD that could allow France to have a better outcome, even during the war, but if you want a broad change and a realistic one. I would say allow France to purchase Luxemburg.
In 1867, Napoleon III tried to purchase the Luxemburg from the dutch king that agreed, Bismarck that agreed to this demand, backtracked due to German nationalist outrage.
Now let's say that the purchase happens during the war against Austria or that NapoleonIII makes a better impression on Bismarck, pushing him to accept this demand, and that Napoleon manages to purchase Luxemburg what will happen.
Germans will be aflame, and it will change a lot of things. Numerous german newspapers will be asking for war against France, South german state publicly seeking a rapprochement with Prussia.
These changes will have a vast impact on the french mentality. The franco-Prussian war was a disaster for France due to a lot of reasons. First, the war plans were made under the assumption that they will face Prussia or Prussia with a few northern German states, resulting in several strategic errors such as invading Saarland during the early stages of the war and finding themselves surrounded by a Bavaro-Prussian army. (When the army was persuaded that Austria along with Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden would join in a revenge war against Prussia). If they focus more on their defensive with their fort as Luxemburg (in case of purchase), Metz, etc with their Chassepot, they could have to make a lot of damage.
Furthermore, due to the assumption that the army will only face Prussia and that the parliament was against the imperial regime, the french military reform was stalled, unravel, emptied of its substance, military spendings were decreased, the mobilization of reservists was chaotic and resulted in large numbers of stragglers, while the Garde Mobile were generally untrained and often mutinous, resulting in a lot of defeat even with huge odds in their favors. Now with germans calling for blood, the reforms will surely be quickly implemented, and not many will be mutinous. Furthermore, if the reforms are implemented they will be able to have a decent level of preparation. Many battles that the France army "should have" win
However even with all these changes, a victory will be unlikely, France's army was plagued by many difficulties (communication, indecision, ...), and Prussia still have a strikingly prompt mobilization of their armies (enough to cause some damage at the beginning of the war.) But a white peace could easily be obtained, as the franco-Prussian war showed France could muster a vast army with enough time. If they have a decent competent and mostly intact army, with their defensive fort they could stall for time to increase their strength. (During the war, when a fort is well defended, Prussia will have a lot of difficulties to take it (see Belfort). With enough time and with the logistic problem on Prussia side, after few months a victory will be mostly impossible for them forcing them to sign for a lenient peace or even a white one.
You could find many different PoD that could allow France to have a better outcome, even during the war, but if you want a broad change and a realistic one. I would say allow France to purchase Luxemburg.
In 1867, Napoleon III tried to purchase the Luxemburg from the dutch king that agreed, Bismarck that agreed to this demand, backtracked due to German nationalist outrage.
Now let's say that the purchase happens during the war against Austria or that NapoleonIII makes a better impression on Bismarck, pushing him to accept this demand, and that Napoleon manages to purchase Luxemburg what will happen.
Germans will be aflame, and it will change a lot of things. Numerous german newspapers will be asking for war against France, South german state publicly seeking a rapprochement with Prussia.
These changes will have a vast impact on the french mentality. The franco-Prussian war was a disaster for France due to a lot of reasons. First, the war plans were made under the assumption that they will face Prussia or Prussia with a few northern German states, resulting in several strategic errors such as invading Saarland during the early stages of the war and finding themselves surrounded by a Bavaro-Prussian army. (When the army was persuaded that Austria along with Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden would join in a revenge war against Prussia). If they focus more on their defensive with their fort as Luxemburg (in case of purchase), Metz, etc with their Chassepot, they could have to make a lot of damage.
Furthermore, due to the assumption that the army will only face Prussia and that the parliament was against the imperial regime, the french military reform was stalled, unravel, emptied of its substance, military spendings were decreased, the mobilization of reservists was chaotic and resulted in large numbers of stragglers, while the Garde Mobile were generally untrained and often mutinous, resulting in a lot of defeat even with huge odds in their favors. Now with germans calling for blood, the reforms will surely be quickly implemented, and not many will be mutinous. Furthermore, if the reforms are implemented they will be able to have a decent level of preparation. Many battles that the France army "should have" win
However even with all these changes, a victory will be unlikely, France's army was plagued by many difficulties (communication, indecision, ...), and Prussia still have a strikingly prompt mobilization of their armies (enough to cause some damage at the beginning of the war.) But a white peace could easily be obtained, as the franco-Prussian war showed France could muster a vast army with enough time. If they have a decent competent and mostly intact army, with their defensive fort they could stall for time to increase their strength. (During the war, when a fort is well defended, Prussia will have a lot of difficulties to take it (see Belfort). With enough time and with the logistic problem on Prussia side, after few months a victory will be mostly impossible for them forcing them to sign for a lenient peace or even a white one.
Easiest POD would be that Bazaine slips and falls to his death, or his ship sinks on the way back from Mexico, etc. An absolutely atrocious and indecisive commander.
Longer past that, a better artillery would have been welcome. Perhaps Reffye, instead of working on the mitrailleuse, should have turned his attention and that of the French procurement to breech loading artillery. I don't know how much it would have taken to rearm conventional artillery rather than the mitrailleuse. If the French are at least not so outmatched in field artillery, the Prussians will have a much tougher time overcoming their infantry. After all, in plenty of cases French infantry absolutely chewed through Prussian infantry, with only enormous gun lines bombarding them finally forcing them out of position. Despite the operational incompetence, at the tactical level only the Prussian artillery saved them from disaster.
Hardest POD would be at the higher leadership levels. You can buy new weapons and train with them in a few years but to change your mindset and training of the officer corps would be a very tough job taking a decade at least. The French didn't even have corps headquarters in peacetime.
Longer past that, a better artillery would have been welcome. Perhaps Reffye, instead of working on the mitrailleuse, should have turned his attention and that of the French procurement to breech loading artillery. I don't know how much it would have taken to rearm conventional artillery rather than the mitrailleuse. If the French are at least not so outmatched in field artillery, the Prussians will have a much tougher time overcoming their infantry. After all, in plenty of cases French infantry absolutely chewed through Prussian infantry, with only enormous gun lines bombarding them finally forcing them out of position. Despite the operational incompetence, at the tactical level only the Prussian artillery saved them from disaster.
Hardest POD would be at the higher leadership levels. You can buy new weapons and train with them in a few years but to change your mindset and training of the officer corps would be a very tough job taking a decade at least. The French didn't even have corps headquarters in peacetime.
There were many flaws in the latter days of the Second Empire, politically, administratively and militarily. In many ways, France was not at all prepared to fight a lengthy modern war against Prussia. But that shouldn’t obscure the fact that it was probably one of the preeminent powers of its time and would have done pretty well against any other opponent with a post-Napoleonic mindset regarding organization, logistics and strategy. Prussia however was well on its way towards pre-industrial warfare and was thus simply perfectly poised to fight such a modern war.
France could have switched from a volunteer army to a conscript army to match German federation numbers but not only was that a political impossibility due to Napoleon III’s insufficient legitimacy, militarily nobody expected Prussian conscripts to be able to stand up to veteran French regulars. They didn’t realise that the Prussian system transformed raw conscripts in soldiers equal to regulars for the first time in history.
Perhaps the best chance the French had to win the war was to have retained its previous tactical doctrine of aggressive infantry attacks which coined the phrase ‘furia francese’. But it wasn’t just attack columns, French commanders were expected to be aggressive, as fitting with the elan of the soldiers.
After the introduction of the Chassepot bolt-action rifle in response to the Prussian success with their Dreyse rifles at Koninggratz, French generals debated the wisdom of massed column attacks in the face of massed rifle fire. They rightly concluded it would be suicide.
But instead of developing tactics to cope with this new development (which would eventually lead to trench war and subsequently infiltration tactics and modern fire and movement tactics), they opted for defensive tactics based on strong defensive positions allowing their troops to decimate any attacker. It looked good on paper.
What happened during the early Franco-Prussian War was that the French indeed occupied strong defensive positions which were promptly attacked by the Prussians at great cost. But adjacent Prussian units would then march to the sound of the guns and eventually outflank and overpower the French position. Meanwhile, adjacent French forces would refuse or be reluctant to leave their own strong defensive position. And the French army was defeated even when they had numerous chances to defeat Prussian units which were often recklessly thrown against the French.
Now if the French corps commanders had counter-attacked after repulsing the initial Prussian attacks against their position, they would have inflicted heavy and demoralizing defeats on the German confederation armies.
In 1870, the North German condeferation was still a new entity. Prussian dominance was not popular. The member states at all sided with Austria in 1866 against Prussia and would likely have welcomed a return to their independent status so a botched invasion of France and subsequent French (and Austrian) support to a return of the 1866 status quo might well have done the trick.
France could have switched from a volunteer army to a conscript army to match German federation numbers but not only was that a political impossibility due to Napoleon III’s insufficient legitimacy, militarily nobody expected Prussian conscripts to be able to stand up to veteran French regulars. They didn’t realise that the Prussian system transformed raw conscripts in soldiers equal to regulars for the first time in history.
Perhaps the best chance the French had to win the war was to have retained its previous tactical doctrine of aggressive infantry attacks which coined the phrase ‘furia francese’. But it wasn’t just attack columns, French commanders were expected to be aggressive, as fitting with the elan of the soldiers.
After the introduction of the Chassepot bolt-action rifle in response to the Prussian success with their Dreyse rifles at Koninggratz, French generals debated the wisdom of massed column attacks in the face of massed rifle fire. They rightly concluded it would be suicide.
But instead of developing tactics to cope with this new development (which would eventually lead to trench war and subsequently infiltration tactics and modern fire and movement tactics), they opted for defensive tactics based on strong defensive positions allowing their troops to decimate any attacker. It looked good on paper.
What happened during the early Franco-Prussian War was that the French indeed occupied strong defensive positions which were promptly attacked by the Prussians at great cost. But adjacent Prussian units would then march to the sound of the guns and eventually outflank and overpower the French position. Meanwhile, adjacent French forces would refuse or be reluctant to leave their own strong defensive position. And the French army was defeated even when they had numerous chances to defeat Prussian units which were often recklessly thrown against the French.
Now if the French corps commanders had counter-attacked after repulsing the initial Prussian attacks against their position, they would have inflicted heavy and demoralizing defeats on the German confederation armies.
In 1870, the North German condeferation was still a new entity. Prussian dominance was not popular. The member states at all sided with Austria in 1866 against Prussia and would likely have welcomed a return to their independent status so a botched invasion of France and subsequent French (and Austrian) support to a return of the 1866 status quo might well have done the trick.
Certainly seizing anything the Germans could claim to deny it to them (not to mention France using it instead) would be a coup.
But the war OTL only lasted six months. That was the norm of wars between the Napoleonic period and the Great War; a lightning campaign and peace settled in a matter of months; the American Civil War was a weird outlier in this era. The long term effects of blockade were not much studied I suppose, and anyway there just wasn't long for Germany to grow desperate. Meanwhile, Bismarck had good relations with neighboring powers such as the Netherlands or Denmark or even Russia; even with complete command of the North Sea the French would have to interdict not just anything German-flagged or headed for German ports, but stop and inspect anything heading for any neighboring neutral, inspect everything approaching the Danish straits from the west...the RN can do that kind of thing and even fairly strong powers like say the Netherlands think twice about defying them, knowing getting into a war is not something they are likely to profit by and not too likely to win. Was the French navy strong enough to similarly deter such powers from defiance or counterattack? Can France win in the long run if they alienate every nation on the Continent? And meanwhile there's not a damn thing they can do, short of conquering the whole Baltic, to stop Russians from shipping stuff from St Petersburg to eastern ports on the Baltic. Or just trade overland at the extensive Prussian-Russian border, the Russians being free to import stuff through the Black Sea. Could France ally with the Ottomans to close the Dardanelles, and if they do, won't the British, not to mention the Russians, react badly to that?
So, France can impede German imports and make them more costly, but they cannot possibly seal off Germany from all imports--I haven't even mentioned importing through Austria-Hungary, in part because I suppose the recent war with them might make them sore on the point and more liable than usual to cooperate with French wishes. Italy might cooperate with France in this era so perhaps Italy-Switzerland import routes are out too, but there is nothing the French can do about the eastern route from Russia.
Meanwhile it is just 6 months Germany might suffer some impediment of supplies. Then her armies prevail, unless quite other ATL reforms or decisions change the circumstances.
Wrong war, wrong time frame I think then. Also wrong belligerent, and if Napoleon III had built up a Navy strong enough to try your reinforced blockade concept I dare say the British would have been a lot less friendly Napoleon and a lot more cozy with the Prussians. Who had not yet turned to making a navy on a scale to alarm the British. A powerful French navy on the other hand was the stuff of legendary dread.
I have to agree intelligent decision number one had to be to avoid getting drawn into the fight at all. And to be prepared with better forces and doctrines. But "you go to war with the army you've got," which is why it is so damn important not to go to war on impulse but only for very grave reasons--or for the cynical, only when the correlation of forces is in one's strong favor from the get-go. Whether France could or could not have been better prepared at all is a debatable question, and still more pointed and more likely to be answered "no" under Louis Bonaparte, what with all his crony state liabilities.
Another way to be prepared would have been to have good relations with the southern German Catholic realms, Baden and Bavaria etc. Bismarck's long game was to get them to agree to German unity; play them off so they are more interested in staying "free" as French allies. That could of course trigger war in itself, but it would be war where France had some seriously distracting allies and where the north Germans going it alone would have been weaker. Bismarck would not want to start the war if he didn't reckon Prussia could not win it, and even if a victorious north German confederation could beat both France and the southern tier of Germany together, incorporating the latter by conquest was not as appealing to him as getting their monarchies and governments to agree to imperial union on their own hook.
Prussian trade over the north sea predominantly went over from the ports of Hamburg and Wilhemshaven, which were very loosely blockaded. Overland trade from Netherlands, Denmark and Russia will all be subject to extra tariffs, and border taxes, which makes them costlier and that is economically hard for a country which was 3 months away from inflation in the Franco-Prussian War. That is the main point i am making. No matter how much discount to tariffs, Russia, Denmark or Netherlands give, they will still be subject to tariffs, and taxes along the way.Austria-Hungary embargoed the Prussians during the war, making overland trade extremely and highly unlikely between prussia and austria. In 1870, the cost of tariff rates from Russia caused Russian goods coming into Prussia to be 0.75% more costlier, and tariff rates from Netherlands made goods 1% costlier. Unfortunately, i do not have numbers for Denmark, however 0.75% and 1% in price fluctuation is not massive, but it is not a small amount either, which will force Prussia to go into economic subsidization which will not be good either way.
^^^ Above for Austria and the eastern route for Russia and overland trade.
France had the second largest navy on the planet from 1740s to the 1920s. Prussia did not even make the top 10 list. The Danish navy was strong enough to blockade Prussia in the second schleswig war creating massive inflation which forced berlin to beg Austria to send their navy to defeat the Danes. If the Danes can do it with their bygone navy, the French bloody well could blockade Prussia if not for their bureaucratic imbeciles who mucked up the blockade. Britain was otl betting how long before the Prussian economy started showing signs of inflation during the war and were massively surprised when the blockade by France was extremely flimsy. France creating a strong blockade against Prussia was the expected outcome and would not scare London at all.
All right, that was news to me.
Still think you are making a mountain out of a molehill in terms of the effectiveness of a French blockade of the North German confederation. Overland trade involves tariff costs increasing prices by...1 percent? How can that possibly be the stuff of major crisis?
What could make overland trade via Russia or the Netherlands (the French could have done a contraband patrol of the neutrals to the north I guess) significantly more expensive than seaborne is the simple fact that overland carriage is always more expensive per ton than sea transport. Even railroads just bring the rates into shouting distance of each other, but still, waterborne carriage is just about always the cheapest way by far, even versus railroads that beat other forms of land carriage. Canals are cheaper to ship on than rails. Buying stuff via Russia involves particularly long overland routes over much poorer than average European levels of development routes. So that might put a serious damper on German war fighting ability.
But this is the Germany that staggered through the Turnip Winter in 1917 and still kept fighting.
Certainly France can annoy and impede the Germans by blockade. Can they cripple them? Heck no.
1% to 0.75% in economic terms is a large amount. Why do you think economies which drop by 1% have major heart attacks when they do? Many global economies in 2008 contracted by only 1% and everyone saw the amount of damage that did to the world economy. There is a reason why naval trade is preferred over overland trade.
Overland trade means....let us take an example.
A ship from America to Wilhemshaven has to pay the port duties and tariffs of Wilheshaven and then the items brought over will be sent to the industries, with transportation money being spent there.
A ship from America to Netherlands for example, has to pay the port duties and tariffs of the Netherlands, and then has to be transported to the border, which includes extra transportation fee, and then at the border, the good will be subject to prussian tariffs and border duties as well, and then transported to industries inciting new transportation fees.
Having to pay more is a detriment to the historically inefficient prussian economy before the 1880s. It puts risk on the warmaking capability of the prussian industries, which were heavily reliant on goods from America, Brazil and Britain during this time. As it was, Prussian gold reserves and currency worth contracted by 14% during the Franco-Prussian war. pushing it over to 20% or 25% would see the economy on the brink of collapse. Which is why Bismarck was so eager to build blockade runners during the war.
The same Germany? No. It did not have the industries of Bavaria, Baden, and Wurttemburg, which were all industrialized states in their own right. Neither did the Prussians have access to Bavarians, Baden's and Wurttemburg's natural resources of iron, copper and steel. Neither did the Prussians have access to the south german manpower, which constituted 40% of all German manpower in ww1. This is not the same Germany which cultivated a massive agricultural program from the 1880s to the 1910s to stem their agricultural dependence on the new world.
Neither did true industrial warfare exist in the 1870s for Prussia to emulate the industrial warfare that took place in the 1910s and 1940s. The wars of 1850s to 1890s are termed as proto-industrial wars or partial-industrial wars for a very good reason in economics. Deficit Spending and Deficit accumulation and banking revitalization schemes that Germany used in ww1 were not even put on paper and not even theories in 1871. They are not the same situation and to as such would be massively disingenuous.
Annoy? Cripple? Yes they can. Prussia had 60% of its food for the war imported through blockade runners. How are the troops even going to fight if they have empty rations? This is not the same Germany which cultivated a massive agricultural program from the 1880s to the 1910s to stem their agricultural dependence on the new world.
Where are they getting the 120,000 rifles they imported from Britain, and America from?
Where are they getting the 70,000 pieces of machine tools?
Where are they getting the 350 pieces of heavy artillery?
etc etc. They certainly can cripple the Prussians. The British commander of the royal navy Sir Sydney Dacres called it a massive blunder on the French part. The major problem was that unlike Britain, who knew the economic warfare game like the back of their hand, the French did not, and threw away the advantages that they had.