As we all know, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the French Republic, was one of the great leaders of the French Republic who led the French Republic to victory after victory and established republican governments all over Europe. But what many don't know is that Napoleon Bonaparte considered making himself Emperor in the early 1800s, so, what if he did make himself Emperor of France and proclaimed a French Empire? Would he be as successful as he was historically? Or would he have been overthrown?
DBWI: Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor
- Thread starter Whiteshore
- Start date
I know the idea was tossed around after all the assassination attempts and plots to restore the Bourbons to the French throne. But like Oliver Cromwell and George Washington, Napoleon realized that the whole point of the French Revolution was to establish a Republican form of government, even though like Cromwell the 'Bonaparte Regime' was a military dictatorship and while Napoleon successfully conquered most of Europe and established plenty of 'Client Republics', ultimately the tide of war turned against him and most of the puppet states were taken back.
Thankfully for him, all of the male Bourbons died in exile, leaving the would-be monarchists bereft of an acceptable King to put on the French throne, especially since the Orleans family were discredited due to... well several things really.
Plus while the Coalitions against the French Republic managed to take back a lot of their lost lands, Napoleon defeated them in several key battles when they attempted to invade France Proper and Italy, which prevented them from destroying the French Republic, which forced them all to the negotiating table and form a permanent peace.
Thankfully for him, all of the male Bourbons died in exile, leaving the would-be monarchists bereft of an acceptable King to put on the French throne, especially since the Orleans family were discredited due to... well several things really.
Plus while the Coalitions against the French Republic managed to take back a lot of their lost lands, Napoleon defeated them in several key battles when they attempted to invade France Proper and Italy, which prevented them from destroying the French Republic, which forced them all to the negotiating table and form a permanent peace.
So, would a hypothetical French Empire have fared better or worse than Napoleon's republican dictatorship?
Perhaps some of the other states in Europe might also proclaim themselves to be 'Empires'? Austria, for instance, might have considered such a move - they had been Holy Roman Emperors, of course, but Napoleon did away with that. A French Empire might have prompted Wien to elevate their ruler back to Emperor status. Perhaps the United Kingdom as well, given that George IV was Elector of Hanover. Emperor of the British Isles?
Perhaps, and also, would "President" be a more popular title in this world for leaders of republican governments as most of Latin American republics call their leaders "Consuls" on the model of Napoleonic France?
Hard to do better, really. I don't think France was ever going to last as the hegemon of central and eastern Europe. Even an Imperial France wasn't going to be able to put the genie of republican nationalism back in the bottle. So sooner or later that means some kind of German unification. It might have been based somewhere else, though.
A monarchist France might have had a better shot at getting Britain to the table. The republicanism really scared the British elites- it took until the loss of Ireland for them to finally pull out of the coalitions. You can picture them trading quite happily with an Emperor Napoleon, I think.
All six bloody days of it.
It's ridiculous the conspirators thought that by 1826 the French people would accept a monarchist coup, especially when their "rightful King" was a Spaniard.
OOC: We've already established the male Bourbons died out and no serious monarchist contenders were left.
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And were promptly guillotined before a cheering crowd in Paris before a cheering crowd under the orders of the First Consul.
Wouldn't this also butterfly away the great German uprising that United Germany?, it was mainly prompted by French attempts to Frankify their Rhine possessions, would a United Germany even be possible without the revolutionaries' march from the Rhine to the memel? OTL it triggered uprisings all across Europe that saw entholingistic nation states pop up all over Europe and the French being left with only the polish as allies, what would Europe even look like?
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This thinking kind of smacks of that whole 'the Ogre wasn't the Aggressor' revisionism so popular in Latin Quater cafes, as though Britain was the one pushing for war and could therefore be mollified. Let's not pretend that a crown would wave away Napoleon's nature. I know, I know, technically the Allies declared war on France in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th Coalition Wars, but everyone knows that was just coincidence. History is full of actual victims of foreign aggression who are repeatedly the ones to declare war and attack. So many I won't bother to name any here. Everyone knows what Boneparte was up to, and I doubt the pattern would have changed just because he changes his title.
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What would the impact be of a Bonaparist empire as opposed to the republican dictatorship on France be?
Well, I suppose it would have had a harder time easing into democracy than the dictatorship did.
You look at the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, and France is under constant strain. Thirteen coalition wars meant a massive drain of blood and treasure, even though the French won most of them. It was always easier to put off constitutional reform and let one man make the necessary decisions. That's the key difference between the French and, say, the contemporary Czarists. The Czar could excuse autocracy by right of blood and divine right. The Consuls- Bonaparte, Bernadotte, all the rest- excused autocracy through necessity. And even then they disguised it with the Senate and Assembly and the Prefects and what have you.
By the late 1830s, those crises are over. Germany is unified, but has formally forsaken all claim to French territory in Alsace and Lorraine. Ernst Augustus's Britain is well on the way towards the civil war that will make it one of France's brother republics. Yes, France no longer formally governs northern Italy- but the Lombard, Savoyard, Venetian and Tuscan republic are all in its political (and more importantly, economic) sphere. The Hapsburgs are too busy trying to put down their own nationalist revolts to think about the French, and in Constantinople Paris has a stout ally in Mohammed Ali.
So you have the space for political change in France. By then you have the best part of three generations who have fought at home and abroad for Freedom of the French people. You've got brilliant young agitators like de Toqueville who know how to speak to middle and upper class property owners without sounding like a St-Just.
Most all, you have a First Consul who is old and lacks the fire of his youth. Soult was a brilliant Marshal, and a good First Consul- but he was an old man in 1839. His only real base of support was the army, and credit to the man, he didn't want to govern at the point of a bayonet.
It was elegant, really- no need for a second revolution. Just six months of laws passed in the Senate and Assembly slowly handing back power to the legislature, and the stunning idea of when to hold the elections.
I know Talleyrand died a year before, but I'm sure that he was the one to suggest to the Neo-Girondins in the Assembly when to have the great referendum that gave France back to its people (and, quite by chance, the men who drafted the new constitution.)
July 14, 1839.
If there's a greater, more optimistic date in the history of democracy I don't know it. What was it that Dumas said about the President having the loyalty of all France and an obligation to all of France?
"All for one and one for all!"
You look at the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, and France is under constant strain. Thirteen coalition wars meant a massive drain of blood and treasure, even though the French won most of them. It was always easier to put off constitutional reform and let one man make the necessary decisions. That's the key difference between the French and, say, the contemporary Czarists. The Czar could excuse autocracy by right of blood and divine right. The Consuls- Bonaparte, Bernadotte, all the rest- excused autocracy through necessity. And even then they disguised it with the Senate and Assembly and the Prefects and what have you.
By the late 1830s, those crises are over. Germany is unified, but has formally forsaken all claim to French territory in Alsace and Lorraine. Ernst Augustus's Britain is well on the way towards the civil war that will make it one of France's brother republics. Yes, France no longer formally governs northern Italy- but the Lombard, Savoyard, Venetian and Tuscan republic are all in its political (and more importantly, economic) sphere. The Hapsburgs are too busy trying to put down their own nationalist revolts to think about the French, and in Constantinople Paris has a stout ally in Mohammed Ali.
So you have the space for political change in France. By then you have the best part of three generations who have fought at home and abroad for Freedom of the French people. You've got brilliant young agitators like de Toqueville who know how to speak to middle and upper class property owners without sounding like a St-Just.
Most all, you have a First Consul who is old and lacks the fire of his youth. Soult was a brilliant Marshal, and a good First Consul- but he was an old man in 1839. His only real base of support was the army, and credit to the man, he didn't want to govern at the point of a bayonet.
It was elegant, really- no need for a second revolution. Just six months of laws passed in the Senate and Assembly slowly handing back power to the legislature, and the stunning idea of when to hold the elections.
I know Talleyrand died a year before, but I'm sure that he was the one to suggest to the Neo-Girondins in the Assembly when to have the great referendum that gave France back to its people (and, quite by chance, the men who drafted the new constitution.)
July 14, 1839.
If there's a greater, more optimistic date in the history of democracy I don't know it. What was it that Dumas said about the President having the loyalty of all France and an obligation to all of France?
"All for one and one for all!"
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