DBWI - The Prussians win the Franco-Prussian War?

So as we all know, the French Second Empire won their war with Prussia, through what French historians still identify as superior force and tactics and through what many other historians identify as luck. What do we think Europe and the world would look like if it had gone the other way? Would OTL's world powers - such as the British Empire - still be powers today, or would the Butterfly of Doom have wreaked its way with them?
 
So as we all know, the French Second Empire won their war with Prussia, through what French historians still identify as superior force and tactics and through what many other historians identify as luck. What do we think Europe and the world would look like if it had gone the other way? Would OTL's world powers - such as the British Empire - still be powers today, or would the Butterfly of Doom have wreaked its way with them?
I reckon that a Prussian victory would have only led to further wars on the European continent that would have, eventually, weakened the British Empire, maybe even causing it to fall.
 
Well, it would take a shorter time for Germany to unify. It was a bit of a slap in the face of Prussia. Not that much since it didn't end with much German territory occupied. Prussian coalition collapsed.

Austria would probably not have unified Germany.

On the other hand, it would probably have taken longer for France to start the Scramble for China. As I remember, the 1873 Tonkin expedition was cut short because of a lack of men to occupy the terrain after. If there had been a defeat, the Emperor would have probably kept the men in the metropole instead
 
Sure, France just annexed Luxemburg and Saarland.

But how can you call unification of Germany a situation where Austria formed a small union with Bavaria, Wurtenberg, Bade, Saxony and the small franconian principalities, and an alliance with Hanover in order to protect it from any new Prussian agression, and Rhineland as an independant kingdom with the same neutrality status as Belgium ?

And most of all, barely a generation later, the hungarian kingdom would take the decisive steps that would lead it to independance under a separate Habsburg branch because it did not want to become a german colony through a sovereign giving precedence to its german holdings.

The result of this war was in fact a political triumph for France but this has been underestimated because the military campaign seemed all but brillant. Now if you take a look at the political results, France did reestablish in fact a division of greater Germany that was Richelieu's triumph in the treaties of Westphalia and that Prussia had patiently worked to undo with its zollverein strategy and then through the Bismarck highly risky tension and iron and fire strategy.
 
Sure, France just annexed Luxemburg and Saarland.

But how can you call unification of Germany a situation where Austria formed a small union with Bavaria, Wurtenberg, Bade, Saxony and the small franconian principalities, and an alliance with Hanover in order to protect it from any new Prussian agression, and Rhineland as an independant kingdom with the same neutrality status as Belgium ?

Well, that's the historical German core isn't it? Prussians are basically bastards of Poles and Danes. Austria and Bavaria on the other hand...

I mean, sure Prussia wasn't in the alliance you mention, but after the IInd Prusso-Austro War of 1884 there wasn't much of Prussia left anyway.

I read somewhere that at the time, a few people started looking at Africa and even read a TL once where a beaten France had to look to conquering Africa for prestige. I wonder if an attack on the Mali river region would lead to some kind of unification of the kingdoms? Surely the British/Prussian would be happy to give them tech if France was pushing.

Could we see an industrialised Mali?
 
Sure, Hungary isn't part of Austria anymore, but it's still very much economically tied to Vienna. Why else would the Austrians have intervened when the Slovaks revolted? In any case, I'd say that it probably would have butterflied away the German Civil War, when the far right forces under Prussia and supported by Russia tried to unite Germany against the Constitutional Monarchist's led by Austria and supported by France. Today France and Germany are friends after Vienna won that war and unified the country for good, simply because both have a common enemy in Russia.
 
Perhaps an alliance between France and Russia is possible is Germany is unified by the Prussians. After all, France would feel threatened by defeat and want to 'encircle' their new foe.
 
IDK... what would Prussia take from France if they won? Alsace still spoke a German dialect at the time IIRC. Probably Prussia would annex Luxembourg too. Maybe some oversees colonies, like Dakar or Madagascar?

Germany probably doesn't unify in this TL. Prussia would simply remain too strong of a counter to A-H. So you might have two German-speaking great powers today... :eek::eek::eek:
 
Maybe some oversees colonies, like Dakar or Madagascar?

Madagascar was "French" only in the same sense that India was Portuguese following Tordesillas. Sure, couple trading towns but other than that, not sure the ruler of the Island knew he was supposed to be under French rule
 
Perhaps an alliance between France and Russia is possible is Germany is unified by the Prussians. After all, France would feel threatened by defeat and want to 'encircle' their new foe.

Oh, be serious. France, cradle of human rights, leader of European civilisation? You know what French identity involves. Sure, politics makles for strange bedfellows. They allied with Vienna over the Russian threat and even with London. That latter actually makes cultural sense if you get over the historical baggage. But Russia is the antithesis of everything France stands for. Two centuries of antagonism are not an accident of history, after all. Look at Gustave Doré's history of Holy Russia, that's the kind of sentiment you would have to overcome. If anything, I tremble at the thought of a Russo-Prussian alliance against France.

Not to mention a Prussian-led "Germany" (much of it wouldn't even be High German speaking) couldn't possibly constitute a threat to Russia. Berlin always made good relations with St Petersburg a keystone of its policy. It was effectively a Russian satellite a lot of the time. Even if we handwave the internal tensions that are bound to surface (Protestants ruling Catholics, a dynamic west shackled to a rural backward east), this creature could be a headache for France, but not for Russia.
 
If France was completely defeated, that could give Italy the opening she needed to occupy Rome and the "Roman Question" would be closed earlier, instead of becoming the open sore that it was IOTL. Possibly Italian Nationalism would not become so virulent and anticlerical, while at the same time being so powerless due to the joint Austro-French guarantee on Rome.

It is speculated the sense of "national emasculation" felt by Italian intellectuals because of not controlling the Eternal City was a major factor in allowing such a devastiting ideology as Futurism to form and eventually get to power. Maybe Marinetti would have stayed just a poet and we would still have the historical Venice instead of the modernist opprobrium(1) that was built over it and S.Peter's dome would still be standing...

It is really sad to think how he managed to hijack and pervert the labour movement in such a way.

Back to France, it is possible that the II French Empire would have collapsed immediately, instead of dragging on so long as it did: that system was deeply rotten, I think there might have been a revolution in Paris, if news came that Napoleon III had been defeated. Then what? A return of the Orleanist pretender, maybe? Or something more radical?

(1) Can you imagine still being able to cross the Canal grande on a gondola? If only it wasn't filled and turned into an alley useful only for pointless military parades!

OOC: Sorry if I went a bit overboard with this, I am open to retconning. Also will TTL have a Great war equivalent? it looks difficult without the rise of Germany, but I wouldn't discount it entirely.
Also, without the Commune of Paris the worker's/socialist movement would evolve in a very different way and this would have huge political butterflies.
 
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I reckon that a Prussian victory would have only led to further wars on the European continent that would have, eventually, weakened the British Empire, maybe even causing it to fall.

I call ASB. A Prussian victory would have cemented Prussia as a European power and prevented the old four of Russia, England, Austria and France from using other nations as their pawns in petty wars - I point to how France and Austria have behaved in Italy as just one example. Prussian victory would have stabilized things, not brought them (more) out of control.

And the British Empire bit... what can I say? Everyone and his mother predicts the imminent collapse of British colonial authority, as historians have been doing for a loooonng time now. And nothing comes of it. Why would the British even engage in a European war? As long as Belgium itself isn't attacked there's really no need for the Brits to engage, they can act through intermediary nations. And the French aren't going to attack Belgium. To invade a Royal British protectorate would be insanity. The place is fortified to hell and back, and the British could bring reinforcements and lay out navel blockaes faster than you could say 'Napoleon'.
 
The place is fortified to hell and back, and the British could bring reinforcements and lay out navel blockaes faster than you could say 'Napoleon'.

Sure the Brits could lay a blockade but the French are far from helpless. They do have the world biggest/best army after all. You can argue the Chinese have more men but we all know they're mostly ceremonials. If they tried to do anything, the French would jump from the Yunnan and Guangxi to take the Southern Chinese Republic of Canton in a pinch. I mean, if by then Canton hasn't been pressured even more.

And yes the RN has boats but the French have a shitload more industry. Even since they had to relinquish the Rheinland, we all know the output could be redirected, regardless of the will of the "government" of the Rheinland. I mean, the regiment of délégué à la coopération are the real power anyway. You add to that the fact France could lay waste to the Mediterranean from Algeria, I doubt the perfidious Albion could do much about it. What they gonna do, bombard Cherbourg? We'll see what they do when the French cut the Suez Canal and blockade the South China Sea.

The Brits might get some initial successes but give it a year or two and the French will be churning out boats like baguettes. The thing is, France can survived if it's blockaded. It would not be great but a lot of what makes France the most powerful army/nation is in the métropoles. You cut GB from India, you get a couple dirty coal mines and large fields populated by sheeps, sheep shaggers, and their offsprings.
 
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