Challenge: Franco-German alliance

Snowstalker

With a POD after the Franco-Prussian war, have France and Germany on the same side in a Great War analogue.

This sort of falls on both pre and post-1900, so I used my best judgement.
 

Falecius

Have them somehow both pissed off at Britain more, and better yet at Britain and Russia at once. Pretty hard to do as long as Britain and Russia are rivals, though.
 

Kaiser K

BLASPHEMY! next are you going to tell me the Nazi's and Soviets signed a alliance? :D:p


But honestly, this would only work if you find someone there both pissed at more then each other, most likely Russia, and that's hard work, as Germany's more likely to ally with Britain in any case, and France and Germany despised each other during this point.
 
Jefferson Lee Roosevelt

Jefferson Lee Roosevelt

MissWhatsittoya said:
BLASPHEMY! next are you going to tell me the Nazi's and Soviets signed a alliance? :D:p


But honestly, this would only work if you find someone there both pissed at more then each other, most likely Russia, and that's hard work, as Germany's more likely to ally with Britain in any case, and France and Germany despised each other during this point.
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i KNEW you would have said something on this! :D:p
sounds quite hard, anyway. i guess it requires a very important shift in alliances that could be created only with a war or with something very near to it
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
The only time that France and Germany united for a brief moment was the Triple Intervention when Japan just won the First Sino-Japanese War. Have that intervention become botched or a possible rapprochement between the two nations in a San Stefano gone horribly bad.
 

Deleted member 14881

MarshalBraginsky said:
The only time that France and Germany united for a brief moment was the Triple Intervention when Japan just won the First Sino-Japanese War. Have that intervention become botched or a possible rapprochement between the two nations in a San Stefano gone horribly bad.
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So basically like a reverse Fashoda incident?
 

Zoidberg12

MarshalBraginsky said:
The only time that France and Germany united for a brief moment was the Triple Intervention when Japan just won the First Sino-Japanese War. Have that intervention become botched or a possible rapprochement between the two nations in a San Stefano gone horribly bad.
Click to expand...

This is a very hard scenario to pull off after the Franco-Prussian war, but this does seem like the best scenario so far.

So this may mean a world war between France and Germany against Russia. Would Britain maybe join Russia then? I only a know a little bit about the Triple Intervention, but this could maybe make sense.
 

TRH

If this seems impossible to pull off, maybe we're thinking too short-term here? How about instead of focusing on building up a mutual threat to France and Germany, it would make more sense to simply prevent actual war between the two for long enough that they get used to their current state of affairs, and then come to odds against, let's say Britain in Africa or something. Just wait until the 1920's or later for something like that to take shape, and circumstances might have changed enough for such an alliance to seem more palatable.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Zoidberg12 said:
This is a very hard scenario to pull off after the Franco-Prussian war, but this does seem like the best scenario so far.

So this may mean a world war between France and Germany against Russia. Would Britain maybe join Russia then? I only a know a little bit about the Triple Intervention, but this could maybe make sense.
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The Triple Intervention was a diplomatic intervention by France, Germany and Russia when Japan was awarded the Liaodong Peninsula. The three nations have most to gain from forcing Japan to drop the claims and to go for the larger indemnity. It was this intervention that gave rise to the Anglo-Japanese alliance. However, for this to work, there should be no Entente Cordiale. Find a way for France and Russia to remain hostile, and then work their way from there. It also helps if German and Russian interests in Asia fall apart, meaning that Russia can try and intervene in the Balkans a lot more actively. (this is what I mean by "a San Stefano gone horribly wrong")
 

Zoidberg12

MarshalBraginsky said:
The Triple Intervention was a diplomatic intervention by France, Germany and Russia when Japan was awarded the Liaodong Peninsula. The three nations have most to gain from forcing Japan to drop the claims and to go for the larger indemnity. It was this intervention that gave rise to the Anglo-Japanese alliance. However, for this to work, there should be no Entente Cordiale. Find a way for France and Russia to remain hostile, and then work their way from there. It also helps if German and Russian interests in Asia fall apart, meaning that Russia can try and intervene in the Balkans a lot more actively. (this is what I mean by "a San Stefano gone horribly wrong")
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I already knew quite allot this, but thanks for the new info. :)

So, would Britain ally with Russia then. On the other hand Japan could ally with France and Germany. Things would get very interesting after that.

On a side note, I wonder what would happen to AH or the Ottomans.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
The Ottomans could end up joining the Franco-German tag team. The French did have excellent relations with the Turks, while Britain and Russia will have to make do with Aus-Hun.
 

Matteo

For this scenario, you absolutely need to have Prussia/Germany not annex any territory from France. Just have french pay the heavy war reparations it paid.

In this case, you can really have France bear all responsability for the 1870/1871 war and France can't see itself as the victim of an unfair peace forced by a treacherous Bismarck who wanted and provoked war.

In this case, you could have some kind of french-german reconciliation and some kind of continental alliance which would lead to a conflict against the UK.
 

Tyr Anazasi

Banned
Very difficult. However, if Stalin and Hitler got together...

Anyway, you need Fashoda and a kind of British Fashoda as well. Perhaps soon after the Japanese win against the Russians and there is no intervention. Japan is now a player and for some reasons the British are afraid of them and try to find a new ally against Japan, which is Russia. Perhaps even both signing an alliance. On this way all three nations, Germany, France and Japan, would feel threatened. It would be more of a temporal alliance at first, but would be interesting nonetheless.
 

Janprimus

Matteo said:
For this scenario, you absolutely need to have Prussia/Germany not annex any territory from France. Just have french pay the heavy war reparations it paid.

In this case, you can really have France bear all responsability for the 1870/1871 war and France can't see itself as the victim of an unfair peace forced by a treacherous Bismarck who wanted and provoked war.

In this case, you could have some kind of french-german reconciliation and some kind of continental alliance which would lead to a conflict against the UK.
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The German Empire might have gotten away with some French colonies, but not with territory the French saw as French 'proper'. Though for some in the German Empire some parts of that were considered 'German'. OTOH Bismarck was far too much a diplomat for that, so he could ignore that, if the long term result would have been better. No German Alsace-Lorraine has both merits and drawbacks (just like the OTL opposite); yet Bismarck wasn't really interested in colonies though. Finally though very influential Bismarck did not decide the German position on his own.

As for the heavy war reparations, the height of that amount was actually symbolic (still high though); in terms of percentage, it was the same as Napoleon I had demanded in war reparations from Prussia.

If you would qualify Bismarck as 'treacherous', wouldn't that also say something about how 'competent' Napoleon III was?
 

Matteo

The war reparations were all but symbolic. They amounted to 5 billion gold-francs.

5 billion francs represented at the time more than 20% of the french nominal GDP. It had to be paid in only 3 years. Finally France finished paying it in only 2 years (thanks to a big public loan).
 
LNSS

LNSS

Italy allies itself with both France and Germany separately, and Russia allies itself with Austria-Hungary and Brirain in response. It works for Italy to be the cohesive agent between France and Germany since it has claims in the balkans and North Africa (sphere of AH and the UK ), while Germany serves as a guarantee against Austria and France against Britain, meanwhile Austria gets Russia to balance against Germany

So, Western Entente:
Italy
Germany
France
Ottomans (?)

VS

Peripheral Powers:

Austria-Hungary
Russia
United Kingdom
 

Janprimus

Matteo said:
The war reparations were all but symbolic. They amounted to 5 billion gold-francs.

5 billion francs represented at the time more than 20% of the french nominal GDP. It had to be paid in only 3 years. Finally France finished paying it in only 2 years (thanks to a big public loan).
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No the huge amount was symbolic; Prussia had never forgotten the huge amount Napoleon I had made pay in war reparations (treaty of Tilsit 1807); and like I said, the terms France faced, mirrored the terms France had given to Prussia decades before.
 
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