Several good suggestions, thanks.
So... the arrondisement of Dunkirk, and not only the city, I presume?
Yes. By checking on some Wiki maps, it seems the area of Dunkirk is the only one in French Flanders where the linguistic majority of a Dutch-Flemish dialect exists, so I used that as the criteria to establish what would go directly to Netherlands and what to the Belgium rump.
And why would Belgium gain French Flanders, but lose the rest of Flanders?
I assume that after the experience of WWI (I'm assuming here that ATL Belgium sides with France at the onset of the war and resists German-British passage), Britain and Germany are deeply skeptical on the value of neutral Belgium as a bulwark against France, and wish to strengthen allied Netherlands. Yet, they are also mindful of the experience of 1830 and skeptical about recreating the United Kingdom of Belgium-Netherlands.
Solution: they partition it; all Flemish areas go with Netherlands, Germany annexes everything east of the Meuse to recreate the HRE border, Walloon Belgium is left as a vassal buffer state, and in order to compensate it for the loss of Flanders, and further weaken France in one swoop, it is given non-Dutch French Flanders.
This also creates a nice analogy between ATL France and Walloonia and OTL Germany and Austria. Alternatively, we could give Walloonia to Netherlands, which would create a nice analogy with OTL Czechoslovakia, but IMO this way is slightly preferable since it pays lip service to the principle of nationality, and mirrors old 1830 plans for the partition of Belgium.
However, on second thoughts, Walloonia ought to be significantly weakened here, since the eastern part of it goes to Germany, so it is well possible that Netherlands may be able to keep Walloon irredentism down, differently from 1830, and be willing to have it back. So what do you suggest ? West Wallonia as an rump state or back to Netherlands ?? Both the Dietsland and the Greater Netherlands solututions seem like something Britain and Germany could agree upon to me.
Hm... wait a second here... wasn't Limburg in the Netherlands?
Well, a Belgian Limburg province does exist, but it is Flemish and should go to Netherlands. Sorry. I will correct the item thusly, to clarify what goes to whom.
"France shall cede the arrondissement of Dunkirk to Netherlands and the rest of the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais to Belgium.
Belgium shall cede Flanders (including the provinces of Antwerp, Limburg, Flemish Brabant, West Flanders, and East Flanders) to Netherlands, and the parts of the provinces of Liege, of Luxembourg, and of Namur, which lie east of the Meuse River, to Germany."
For reasons of looking nice, I'd replace 'France shall cede the rest of its colonies to the British Empire.' with 'France shall cede the remainder of her colonies to the British Empire.'
Good catch. I 'll edit the draft accordingly.
Also, I believe they would pay in French Francs.
Well, they payed 5 billions francs in 1871, and OTL WWI reparations were eventually established to 132 billion marks. I admit I have little idea on the exchange rates involved, and inflation differential between 1871 and 1910-1920, but I suppose 100 billion franks might be adequate, don't you think ? Lowering the amount a bit to account for the likely lesser duration of the war (France-Russia probably won't last longer than a couple years agains the Quadruple Alliance). But still a nice outrageous amount to make France economically crippled and revanchist and to account for the victors' anger towards recidivist warmonger French.
However, on second thoughts, the exact amount is somewhat difficult to establish. It is quite true that in case of another victorious war against France, the German elite would be quite willing to inflict heavy punitive reparations on France (there are some speeches of Bismarck where he threatens France to be "bled white" and "crippled for a generation" if it attacks Germany once again and loses it) and the British would be probably eagerly concurring as they did OTL. But OTL reparations were also established according to the damages caused by the war in Belgium and France, pensions for Allied veterans, and Allied war expenses, which would likely be rather lesser ITTL. I doubt that France-Russia could stand more than a couple years against the Quadruple Alliance. France here is especially fragile: even if we assume (as I do here) that Belgium resists the passage of the Anglo-German Army under pressure of the Wallonians (and seals his fate), it is highly doubtful that they could repeat the miracle of the Marne, with the BEF marching with the Wehrmacht, the Netherlands also quite possibly offering free passage and siding with the Quadruple Allaince, and the Italians hammering on the Alps.
Even if they do manage to stop the initial Allied rush (or the Allies do not attack from Belgium), I doubt France could resist more than a year, being hammered upon on two fronts and under heavy naval blockade.
Russia is another issue, I can well see them standing a couple years against the Anglo-German-Hungarians, until the collapse of France and the full onslaught of the whole German Army, the British attacking in Central Asia, and the Japanese in Machuria, overwhelm them, too. Hmm, maybe another thread on ATL WWI would be good.
No taking of all the patents?
Sorry, I'd forgotten it. I'm not at all persuaded that the 1914 France had many patents that Britain and Germany would find appetizing, so I got a nasty idea: what if we make it "patents and copyrights" ? All the rights to that abundant and successful 1800s French literature being transferred to the Allied Powers
And why is Germany *called* the Greater German Empire? If it includes Austria, then that's still the German Empire! The distinction of 'greater' would not have developed for just Cisleithenia- too many people still remember the Confederation at the time the Empire was formed!
Agreed. I'll edit the preamble accordingly.
I also got the idea that Germany seizes the opportunity to revoke the internationalization of the Rhein.
Another thing: I think that either Britain or Germany would seize the opportunity to claim Belgian Congo. Since the UK is gobbling most of the French colonial empire, I assume it would go to Germany, it is contigous to its other colonies.
