Challenge: Largest possible Ancien Régime France

Deleted member 97083

With a POD later than 843 and earlier than 1793, how large could the Kingdom of France become by 1850, 1900, or 1950 AD? An ATL Empire of France founded as a Capetian/Valois/Orleans/Bourbon entity also counts.

France was one of the most densely populated kingdoms in Europe in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment periods and fielded some pretty large armies as is.

What could the Ancien Régime have conquered if provided with different opportunities or if the French King had formed a professional centralized standing army earlier? Could the French have conquered the same empire that the Spanish did in the New World? Could French kings have been elected Holy Roman Emperor and taken over Germany?
 
Valois France wins the 16th century Italian Wars and expands at the expense of the Habsburgs. Milan and Naples end up in personal union with France, Lorraine and Alsace (and also possibly the Kingdom of Savoy) are annexed earlier than OTL, and France also bites off some territories from the Habsburg Netherlands to the northeast.
If the Habsburgs are defeated by the Ottoman turks at the 1529 Siege of Vienna, then the Valois french end up in an even better position.
Though i'm not very savvy on France's colonial empire.
 
Charles the Bold has a son, and his male line continues. Then when the Valois main line dies out, the Burgundian branch of the Valois branch inherits the crown of France, and brings all of the Burgundian domains into France.
 
Fix France's archaic financial system and the Grand Siècle would have been grander still. Repeatedly, France made peace simply because it ran out of money, and had to cut short promising campaigns. For example, Turenne was angry that peace was signed with Spain in 1659 as he believed he could conquer Spanish Netherlands in one more campaign, but the treasury was empty. The peace of Ryswick (1697) was also pretty unfavorable to France given how the fighting had proceeded, but again, lack of funds forced Louis XIV to accept whatever deal he could.

Insufficient funding was also a big reason why the French navy lagged so far behind the British navy in the XVIII century. France had three times the population of the UK but didn't have the financial resources to reflect this, and had to choose between its army and navy, focusing on the former.

I think it is not that difficult to have France achieve the Rhine border as it almost did so OTL. Maybe Piedmont and Catalonia could be conquered as well.
 
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I think a lasting France, as opposed to territories held in personal union with the king, requires contiguous or almost contiguous territories in the long-term. Thus, I think we are looking at expansion to the Rhine, over Flanders, over Geneva, over Savoy and Piedmont, over Catalonia or even (since you could claim Navarese continuity) the Basque territories.
 
With a POD later than 843 and earlier than 1793, how large could the Kingdom of France become by 1850, 1900, or 1950 AD? An ATL Empire of France founded as a Capetian/Valois/Orleans/Bourbon entity also counts.

France was one of the most densely populated kingdoms in Europe in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment periods and fielded some pretty large armies as is.

What could the Ancien Régime have conquered if provided with different opportunities or if the French King had formed a professional centralized standing army earlier? Could the French have conquered the same empire that the Spanish did in the New World? Could French kings have been elected Holy Roman Emperor and taken over Germany?
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  1. Habsburgs manage to keep this borders until the Spanish succession war
  2. All the Spanish subjects accept Phillip as their king.Making the succession war more of a restoration war
  3. Louis manages to win soundly against the massive coallition
  4. Phillip ends up inheriting France
You would pretty much have an unstopable super country if these events managed to happen somehow
 
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Would it count for the King of France to become Holy Roman Emperor? If they manged that then somehow managed to create some semblance of a functioning country. Also colonization would be a great way to increase France's size. Creating a massive colonial Empire would be a great way for France to increase it's size. A good POD would be for Mary of Burgundy to get married to Charles VIII and, have the French use the wealth of the Netherlands, along with their own massive population, to have Charles become the Holy Roman Emperor and to create a new world Empire similar to the OTL Spanish Empire, but because of their much larger population the French would have been able to much more effectively hold onto said Empire.
 
With a POD later than 843 and earlier than 1793, how large could the Kingdom of France become by 1850, 1900, or 1950 AD? An ATL Empire of France founded as a Capetian/Valois/Orleans/Bourbon entity also counts.

France was one of the most densely populated kingdoms in Europe in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Enlightenment periods and fielded some pretty large armies as is.

What could the Ancien Régime have conquered if provided with different opportunities or if the French King had formed a professional centralized standing army earlier? Could the French have conquered the same empire that the Spanish did in the New World? Could French kings have been elected Holy Roman Emperor and taken over Germany?

Well, for example the French crown could inherit the entirety of Navarra both side of Pyrenees (qitht the Basque Country), Aragon and Catalonia with Valencia, the Balearics and Sardinia beyond Corsica acquired from Genoa, Piedmont in turn inherited from the Savoy; all of French-speaking Switzerland due to different developments in absence of the Lorrain dukedom expansion, plus Belgium including Flanders up to Antwerp and the Schelde; and maybe the Palatinate, that is the Saar and something betyonf,d, akways through a mix oiof inheritance and military expanionism.
(Ok, Napoleon did more, still...)
 
Well, for example the French crown could inherit the entirety of Navarra both side of Pyrenees (qitht the Basque Country), Aragon and Catalonia with Valencia, the Balearics and Sardinia beyond Corsica acquired from Genoa, Piedmont in turn inherited from the Savoy; all of French-speaking Switzerland due to different developments in absence of the Lorrain dukedom expansion, plus Belgium including Flanders up to Antwerp and the Schelde; and maybe the Palatinate, that is the Saar and something betyonf,d, akways through a mix oiof inheritance and military expanionism.
(Ok, Napoleon did more, still...)
The Basque country is a really recent political entity. Both Vizcaya and Alava had been traditionally part of Castile while Guipuzcoa was anexed later. The only period in which they were together was the XII century and the lord of Vizcaya rebelled pretty fast to rejoin Castile
 
  1. Habsburgs manage to keep this borders until the Spanish succession war
  2. All the Spanish subjects accept Phillip as their king.Making the succession war more of a restoration war
  3. Louis manages to win soundly against the massive coallition
  4. Phillip ends up inheriting France
You would pretty much have an unstopable super country if these events managed to happen somehow

If he inherits France there will be a new war, unless he abdicates in Spain (which he'd probably be expected to do). Though if the Bourbons can decisively win the Spanish war I suppose they could win that war as well.
 
Leopold I agrees to the 1668 Spanish partition plan proposed by Louis XIV, then Charles II obliges them by dying shortly after. France gets Navarra, Naples, Sicily, the Southern Netherlands, the Franche-Comte, and the Philippines. Louis goes to war with the Netherlands, but accepts their offer of the Generality lands, content with an easy victory that reduces the United Provinces to a client state. Louis exchanges Naples and Sicily with Charles Emmanuel II for the territories of the Savoyard state. Anticipating war with Leopold, Louis purchases Corsica from Genoa, and begins claiming Sardinia as the King of Corsica & Sardinia. When the war does break out France and it's allies in Germany are able to crush Leopold and take a lot of territory from him, claiming Milan, Finale, Sardinia, and the Stato di Presidi in Italy, carving out a new Spanish March in the territory south of the Pyrenees, and advancing to the Rhine. Having humbled Leopold Louis is able to expand mostly peacefully along the Rhine biding his time. When Leopold dies Louis is elected the new Holy Roman Emperor and is able to retroactively legitimize his conquests.

Of course his successors will probably lose some of it, but this 1793's France will almost certainly be much larger than OTL's 1793 France.
 
Leopold I agrees to the 1668 Spanish partition plan proposed by Louis XIV, then Charles II obliges them by dying shortly after. France gets Navarra, Naples, Sicily, the Southern Netherlands, the Franche-Comte, and the Philippines. Louis goes to war with the Netherlands, but accepts their offer of the Generality lands, content with an easy victory that reduces the United Provinces to a client state. Louis exchanges Naples and Sicily with Charles Emmanuel II for the territories of the Savoyard state. Anticipating war with Leopold, Louis purchases Corsica from Genoa, and begins claiming Sardinia as the King of Corsica & Sardinia. When the war does break out France and it's allies in Germany are able to crush Leopold and take a lot of territory from him, claiming Milan, Finale, Sardinia, and the Stato di Presidi in Italy, carving out a new Spanish March in the territory south of the Pyrenees, and advancing to the Rhine. Having humbled Leopold Louis is able to expand mostly peacefully along the Rhine biding his time. When Leopold dies Louis is elected the new Holy Roman Emperor and is able to retroactively legitimize his conquests.

Of course his successors will probably lose some of it, but this 1793's France will almost certainly be much larger than OTL's 1793 France.
Does any one have the specifics of this plan? I have not heard much about it.
 
Have the Burgundian branch inherit all of France and integrate the Netherlands et al. A France controlling the low countries is pretty much unstoppable.
 
Does any one have the specifics of this plan? I have not heard much about it.

It's pretty much what I said, Louis XIV got the territory I listed, the rest went to Leopold. Both parties also recognized the independence of Portugal. I think the main point of the treaty for Leopold was to ensure that he ruled Spain directly instead of through his wife Margaret Theresa, older sister of Charles II.
 

Deleted member 97083

Charles VII of France (1403-1461) created France's first standing army since Roman times. In The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli asserts that if his son Louis XI had continued this policy, then the French would have become invincible. How correct is this assertion?
 
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  1. Habsburgs manage to keep this borders until the Spanish succession war
  2. All the Spanish subjects accept Phillip as their king.Making the succession war more of a restoration war
  3. Louis manages to win soundly against the massive coallition
  4. Phillip ends up inheriting France
You would pretty much have an unstopable super country if these events managed to happen somehow

It would be far too late to make a single country with such a set of kingdoms or principalities.

At this stage, the cultural identities and consciousness were far too strong for whole big kingdoms to be frenchified.

The union of spanish kingdoms had been a world power and one of the top european powers for 2 centuries. And it had been at war with France for 2 centuries.

Italy was a too big piece too.

France can swallow a part of these other areas on its borders, not all of them.

You need PODs before the printing press to have France or any other country swallow other big countries.
 
Belgium plus France-Spain PU pushing through and we got ourselves a monster.

The Holy Roman Empire of the Gallo-Iberian Nation, anyone?
 
Belgium plus France-Spain PU pushing through and we got ourselves a monster.

The Holy Roman Empire of the Gallo-Iberian Nation, anyone?

You could even add a large part of Italy if you start soon enough.

IMO, concerning Spain (which then was not Spain yet but Castile, Aragon, ... etc), you need a personal union with the king of France before the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.

Piedmont can be frenchified with a much later POD : 1800 could still do it.

For Lombardia-duchy of Milan, you need a POD no later than the early 18th century.
 
What you need is a wanked Louis XIV France, crushing every opposition and conquering freely. You can have some PoDs with large positive effects :
1. No Edit de Nantes revocation. France kept its Protestants and their industries.
2. Eugene of Savoy found a position in the French Army.
3. Churchill (Marlborough) had some loyalty and left with James to France
3.a. either he did not serve in the English/British Army
3.b. or he served in the French Army.

After winning the War of the Spanish Succession in 1705, France stretched from the Rhine to Guipuzcoa and from the Atlantic to Milan. Savoyan Naples, rump Dutch Republic and Venice were its client states and quasi-protectorates.
 
Western Francia gets the kingdoms of Lotharingia Burgundy and Italy instead of east Francia so you have a France in the eleventh century with its boundaries across the Rhine and the Alps deep in the Italian peninsula.a HRE of the French nation at an early stage
 
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