DBWI: The French Empire was defeated in the Napoleonic Wars?

The thing was that the Franco-Russian alliance was so overwhelmingly powerful because of their size and because they didn't have any real conflicting interests. I don't see anything matching them in ATL. The Alliance OTL maintained hegemony for a century, but competing interests(like France backing China with Russia backing Japan) let to the Franco-Russian split, causing Russia to court Prussia and Britain and France to ally with Austria. Again, I don't see any alliance not including the French Empire being powerful enough to maintain a century long hegemony. We'd see more wars for sure.
Worth remembering as well that the Franco-Russian alliance only worked because of Napoleon's victory in 1813-14, and the subsequent deposition of the Romanovs - I highly doubt a non-constitutional monarchy would have been able to work with France quite as well as it did until the Great Kurdish Crisis in 1902 and the Eastern War in 1906. I definitely agree that France is pretty much essential in any hegemonic alliance, though - France has been the most powerful nation in Europe since the 1400s at least, and just has too much of an entrenched advantage over other European powers to slip away from that.
 
So, what do you think of the ACPBCV powers?
It's a bit of an artificial category - a mixture of nations on the ascent (Vietnam and Bharat), nations on the decline (China and Persia), and potentially powerful but internally unstable nations (USA and GC). I also don't understand why they've missed nations like the Argentine Empire, the United Tai Republic, Java, or Korea out of that group.
 
Well, China surpassed the French Empire as the world's largest economy in 2011.
Fair point, although only through population growth - their economy's strong in the short-term, but they just aren't investing in the nation as much as they need to be to make sure that the Tian Dynasty doesn't get overthrown in the next decade. In a broader sense, the Tian government is a bit obsessed with the idea of looking back to some Chinese Golden Age, rather than actively trying to modernise.
 
Fair point, although only through population growth - their economy's strong in the short-term, but they just aren't investing in the nation as much as they need to be to make sure that the Tian Dynasty doesn't get overthrown in the next decade. In a broader sense, the Tian government is a bit obsessed with the idea of looking back to some Chinese Golden Age, rather than actively trying to modernise.
Well, I see promise in the rump Qing Empire (or Manchuria to non-Chinese even though they still control bits of Northern China including the area around Beijing), but yea, hopefully reform-minded elements in the Tian Dynasty win out in the power struggles in Nanjing.
 
Worth remembering as well that the Franco-Russian alliance only worked because of Napoleon's victory in 1813-14, and the subsequent deposition of the Romanovs - I highly doubt a non-constitutional monarchy would have been able to work with France quite as well as it did until the Great Kurdish Crisis in 1902 and the Eastern War in 1906. I definitely agree that France is pretty much essential in any hegemonic alliance, though - France has been the most powerful nation in Europe since the 1400s at least, and just has too much of an entrenched advantage over other European powers to slip away from that.
"Deposition" is a bit strong; Nicholas I was deposed, but replaced by Constantine, also a Romanov(OOC: established in an earlier post).
 
The United States instability is largely due to France's intervention in their Civil War by Napoleon III over a diplomatic insult and a sunk boat. The resulting confederacy was a cluster of epic proportions which was eventually readmitted into the union (with the exception of Texas), but the damage was done and there have been constant secessionist movements ever since. It's a miracle it hasn't gone Gran Colombia- but with states developing their own nuclear forces it's very dangerous.

That said, America provides many troops for the Foreign Legion.
 
So, why do you think of the rump Qing Empire?

Russian puppet, just like the mongols.

Fun fact, France had a decent missionary presence in Vietnam in the late 18th century that was heavily involved in it's politics. If carefully maneuvered, the country could have eventually become a France colony, or at least an ally. Instead, Napoleon decided to pull that stupid stunt of trying to conquer the country to counter British India to the west and the Chinese to the north resulting in an embarrassing defeat, eliminating any chance of establishing France presence in the region for years to come.
 

Deleted member 97083

What would Berlin and Vienna be like if they hadn't been redesigned in Paris's image by Georges-Eugène Haussmann?
 
Well, the rump Qing Empire is actually better-led economically than Tian Empire and could become a better economic power than Tian China.

You're talking about surpassing the world's largest economy.
In the short run, yes, Manchuria could pull ahead but in the long run, when the modernization faction of China eventually won, there is no chance of it even capable of competing with a fully industrialized China.

And that's assuming Russia itself won't put a stop to Manchuria's growth to prevent it from growing to powerful on the basis of realpolitique.
 
Qing Empire is strong only just because of support by Russia. If Russia would withdraw its forces from Manchuria and stop all economic support, Tian would conquer that in weeks.

Russian puppet, just like the mongols.

Fun fact, France had a decent missionary presence in Vietnam in the late 18th century that was heavily involved in it's politics. If carefully maneuvered, the country could have eventually become a France colony, or at least an ally. Instead, Napoleon decided to pull that stupid stunt of trying to conquer the country to counter British India to the west and the Chinese to the north resulting in an embarrassing defeat, eliminating any chance of establishing France presence in the region for years to come.

And this helped Siam becoming strong regional power. Brits helped Siam pretty much. Without French attempt of capturing Vietnam and help of Brits Siam hardly could go anywhere.
 
I think your only chance is killing the Emperor early. While he lives France is unbeatable. Latest would be before the Russian champaign. After beating Russia there remained no one who had a chance. But thats still pretty slim a chance so you are better of if you do it even earlier. Actually the earlier the better for your POD.
 
Well, the rump Qing Empire is actually better-led economically than Tian Empire and could become a better economic power than Tian China.
Being better led economically than a bunch of Christian(I use the term loosely) fanatics whose leader still thinks he's Jesus is hardly an achievement. Meanwhile, the Korean Empire has an economy stronger than most European states, and the Indian Empire(formed by the Marathas) is dominant from Iran to Vietnam.
 
Going back to the OP (sorry!). I think that the POD which is most useful to curtailing the French actually occurs BEFORE Napoleon comes to power.

Reverse the outcomes of the Spithead and Nore Mutinies in 1797. They were both about pay and conditions in the RN but the Spithead Mutiny was a much less revolutionary one (they maintained naval discipline and even obeyed their officers and went out on patrol!) whereas the Nore Mutiny quickly became more revolutionary in outlook especially after the crushing of the Spithead Mutiny (that showed that the Admiralty and hence the government could not be trusted) and spread rapidly through the RN. The result was that the RN was all but useless until about 1806 by which time it was too late.

Have the Admiralty deal with the Spithead Mutineers fairly (as Admiral Howe wanted) and Britain will not be engaged in defending its coast against what is meant to be its own navy and hence will be able to take a much more active role against the French and then Napoleon.

The British Amy at the time is now considered almost a laughing stock (20:20 hindsight is wonderful) but at the time it was actually at least as disciplined as the French and did have one or two capable leaders.
 
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