Does French population still stagnate in Napoleonic victory?

During the 19th century, Britain, Germany, and Russia saw massive expansions of their populations, often between double and triple, but France's population grew only incrementally, say from 30 million to 40 million. At the start of the century, France had three times the population of Prussia, but on the eve of WWI, Germany had twice the population, and the annual classes available for conscription were approaching three times the size.

Is there any reason to believe a Napoleon who satisfies himself with crushing the Fourth Coalition without the Continental System, and then rests on his laurels, intermarrying with the other royal houses of Europe etc and not getting hundreds of thousands more Frenchmen killed would have any effect on this trend?
 
The most likely cause of the slow growth of the French population in the last two centuries was the combination of a large class of people who owned modest properties, whether farms or small businesses, and a system of inheritance that required an equal division of property among children. This created an environment in which an only child, who stood to inherit a large farm or an intact business, had much better prospects than a child with multiple siblings, who, having but little property to work with, was in danger of falling into the working class. Widespread understanding of this phenomenon led all but the most prosperous and the most poor to prefer small families.
 
Britain's population (if you set Ireland apart), even quadrupled.

My guess is that if Napoleon comes out victorious of his war, no matter when and how (in 1805 of in 1813) and France retains Rhineland and Piedmont-Savoy (northern Westphalia and central Italy never were meant to remain french territories and were but temporarily annexed) ,France will have a stronger demographic growth because it will benefit from the big industrial resources of the annexed austrian Low Countries and Saarland.

But its demographic growth will still remain less important than Britain's or Germany's because the demographic weakness of France in the 19th and early 20th centuries was mainly due to cultural and social causes.

But this would still be a massive changer. It France retained frontiers comprizing around 38/39 million people at the end of the napoleonic wars (instead of 28 million), you could see a France around 65-70 million people in the early 20th century and another 5 million french people having migrated abroad, be it in the Americas or in north Africa.
 
The most likely cause of the slow growth of the French population in the last two centuries was the combination of a large class of people who owned modest properties, whether farms or small businesses, and a system of inheritance that required an equal division of property among children. This created an environment in which an only child, who stood to inherit a large farm or an intact business, had much better prospects than a child with multiple siblings, who, having but little property to work with, was in danger of falling into the working class. Widespread understanding of this phenomenon led all but the most prosperous and the most poor to prefer small families.
You do realise that many countries adopted the code napoleon as a basis including the inheritance and did not face such decline.
 

longsword14

Banned
You do realise that many countries adopted the code napoleon as a basis including the inheritance and did not face such decline.
Massive industrialisation? By shifting people from villages, the land per person could increase. Still would it lead to growth?
 
Britain's population (if you set Ireland apart), even quadrupled.

My guess is that if Napoleon comes out victorious of his war, no matter when and how (in 1805 of in 1813) and France retains Rhineland and Piedmont-Savoy (northern Westphalia and central Italy never were meant to remain french territories and were but temporarily annexed) ,France will have a stronger demographic growth because it will benefit from the big industrial resources of the annexed austrian Low Countries and Saarland.

But its demographic growth will still remain less important than Britain's or Germany's because the demographic weakness of France in the 19th and early 20th centuries was mainly due to cultural and social causes.

But this would still be a massive changer. It France retained frontiers comprizing around 38/39 million people at the end of the napoleonic wars (instead of 28 million), you could see a France around 65-70 million people in the early 20th century and another 5 million french people having migrated abroad, be it in the Americas or in north Africa.

It's entirely possible the number of emigrants would not change much. OTL, the groups which saw particulaly heavy emigration were on the fringes of the Francophone world, in the Pyrenees and Alsace. Why not add Flanders and the Rhineland to that list?
 
During the 19th century, Britain, Germany, and Russia saw massive expansions of their populations, often between double and triple, but France's population grew only incrementally, say from 30 million to 40 million. At the start of the century, France had three times the population of Prussia, but on the eve of WWI, Germany had twice the population, and the annual classes available for conscription were approaching three times the size.

Is there any reason to believe a Napoleon who satisfies himself with crushing the Fourth Coalition without the Continental System, and then rests on his laurels, intermarrying with the other royal houses of Europe etc and not getting hundreds of thousands more Frenchmen killed would have any effect on this trend?

If there were fewer war dead, then that alone might allow for somewhat greater growth. I wonder how many Frenchwomen were not able to find a spouse in the generation after Napoleon's wars ended.

In the broader scheme of things, I don't see much of a difference. France's slow population growth was related to deep-seated cultural reasons, the French responding to the economic pressures of their time by controlling their births. A larger France, one with the Rhine frontier, will have a larger population, and these populations newly included within the Rhine frontier may well respond differently to economic pressures.
 
Couldn't Napoleon not look for ways to encourage large famelies.
It looks something which would be in character for him, as I once read an anacdote wherein after a woman proudly proclaimed to have 27 kids, he responded by asking when she expected her 28th.
 
Couldn't Napoleon not look for ways to encourage large famelies.
It looks something which would be in character for him, as I once read an anacdote wherein after a woman proudly proclaimed to have 27 kids, he responded by asking when she expected her 28th.

I doubt his strategies, of exhorting people to have more children and perhaps stigmatizing people to have less children, would work.

A better angle might be to try to decrease mortality, which certainly took its share. Much of OTL's population explosion in the 20th century Third World, relatively greater than the First World's at a comparable stage, had to do with mortality being so much higher in the 19th century First World countries of Europe and North America. How would you change that, though>
 
You do realise that many countries adopted the code napoleon as a basis including the inheritance and did not face such decline.

What was the position in Belgium? It was part of France for twenty years, and yet after 1815 became the most industrialised country on the European continent. Any thoughts as to why?
 
What was the position in Belgium? It was part of France for twenty years, and yet after 1815 became the most industrialised country on the European continent. Any thoughts as to why?

Belgium (and the Rhineland) also did pretty well in the Empire.
 
Zackly. So why did Belgium industrialise so much more rapidly than France? What was different there?

Belgium (especially Wallonia) has abundant coal resources. France's coal-producing areas did industrialize, but there weren't that many of them. If Wallonia is part of France, that changes France's economic outlook quite a bit in the 19th century.
 
Last edited:
What was the position in Belgium? It was part of France for twenty years, and yet after 1815 became the most industrialised country on the European continent. Any thoughts as to why?
Zackly. So why did Belgium industrialise so much more rapidly than France? What was different there?
very simple, lots of pushing to industralise by king william I of the netherlands, from the moment it was part of the netherlands he invested large amounts of money in industry there, this started it and only kept going afterwards.
also the fact that there are sizeable coal deposits in belgium helped a lot also
 
very simple, lots of pushing to industralise by king william I of the netherlands, from the moment it was part of the netherlands he invested large amounts of money in industry there, this started it and only kept going afterwards.
also the fact that there are sizeable coal deposits in belgium helped a lot also

There was also a substantial industrialization in Belgium before the United Netherlands, with heavy French investment. That Belgium had coal and other resources that France lacked within its 1792 borders made it a central industrial area of greater France.
 
Top