Can the Napoleonic War go a bit longer.

Napoleon would only be content with the empire expanding ,not contracting or stagnating , at some point he would have been on the march again ,at that point the Allies would have destroyed France once and for all ,in 1814 France was very lucky with the terms issued ,to extend the war in any form if Napoleon would have considered perhaps concentrating on one foe such as England , and defeated Wellington in Spain , then dominating the Med perhaps a longer drawn out conflict could have evolved , perhaps with the capture of Gibraltar , Malta the conflict could have staggered on for a few more years , but at some point if Napoleon still led France the East would have beckoned ?

Napoleon doesn't really have the option of concentrating on just one opponent when multiple opponents that dislike each other are willing to put aside their differences to fight him.

And how the hey is he going to dominate the Mediterranean when the Royal Navy will pwn (best word I can think of) any fleet that somehow slips out of being blockaded?
 

Kongzilla

Banned
Can Napoleon use the Americans, send them ships and crews and have them be trained there while brokering a peace with the British and abandoning the Continental system.
 
Can Napoleon use the Americans, send them ships and crews and have them be trained there while brokering a peace with the British and abandoning the Continental system.

"Hey, here are some foreign ships that want to practice in your waters so as to be prepared to beat the British."

. . . and the anti-hypocrite in me is wondering if Jefferson the Francophile would actually accept that.

But I don't think the British are going to be happy about it, even if they would consider peace otherwise.
 
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Why does Napoleon have to beat the RN to capture Gibraltar ? If he can concentrate in Spain this can be attempted from the land ? Napoleon did take Malta but did not see this as a important feature ! As per Rommel in WW2 who for months did not see the Island as important ! The French Navy could give a good account of itself when required ,the ships were well designed but as we are aware training of the crews was not what it could be ,and the office class had been savaged during the revolution , also the gunnery of the French differd to the practice of the RN which in many ways was superior .The RN Had a history of strategic errors but at a tacticial level were superior ,many of the issues of the French could be resolved
 
The problem is that you can't build a world-class navy from scratch. It takes a whole generation for several reasons : not only because war ships are extremely expensive, but only because training crews and competent officers takes many many years.

And you also need update tactics. The french navy was world number 2 up to the french revolution. But the 10 years anarchy of the french revolution were a disaster for the quality of french navy officers. French naval tactics were completely out of date when Napoleon needed a good navy. And at the same time, the RN went through one of its most significant tactical breakthrough, and had at its disposals the brothers in arms.

So even if you have the french take Gibraltar, how can you have them lock-up the Gibraltar straight ? Guns, at that time, did not have a long enough range to prevent the RN from breaking through the straight. The big Bertha was available only a century later.
 
There were huge issues with the British fleet lack of funding ,a shortage of sailors and corruption within the system , many of the British ships were captured and converted vessels , the French 75 was a superb class of ship , many of the issues with the fighting part of the RN was this attitude of let the enemy grain ships go ,but attack the supports , this happend on a number of occasions and the stratgitic advantage would be with the French , rember no support from France during the War of Independence and no USA ,yes the French Navy had issues but they were not insurmountable ?
 
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There were huge issues with the British fleet lack of funding ,a shortage of sailors and corruption within the system , many of the British ships were captured and converted vessels , the French 75 was a superb class of ship , many of the issues with the fighting part of the RN was this attitude of let the enemy grain ships go ,but attack the supports , this happend on a number of occasions and the stratgitic advantage would be with the French , rember no support from France during the War of Independence and no USA ,yes the French Navy had issues but they were not insurmountable ?

The "huge issues" with the British fleet are not comparable to the ones crippling the French fleet. And the strategic advantage isn't with the French, as the naval records show.
 
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