Actually the matter of a “National Identity” for the Ottoman Empire for the upcoming century is something I have been struggling with. On one hand it could try the Habsburg approach of unity based on the legitimacy of a God-ordained Monarchical family (but that might prove to be a problem if the House of Osman behave like buffoons which is pretty much going to happen). Then there is Pan-Islamism that would alienate the Balkans, and Pan-Turanism that is the worst one of them all and will turn both the Balkans and the Arabs against them. It is certainly going to be a challenge as the Empire modernizes and will be forced to choose one of them, let’s see if they will fare any better than IRL, but their luck for now is tied to France and the results of this Great War.
Empire of Freedom: The History of the American Empire
- Thread starter Kaiser of Brazil
- Start date
XXXIX: THE GREAT EUROPEAN WAR II
THE GREAT EUROPEAN WAR II
Polish Hussars charging the enemy lines c. 1836
Polish Hussars charging the enemy lines c. 1836
The year of 1836 would bring the poisoned fruits of decades of French domination of Central Europe ever since the Austrian defeat in 1809. The death of the cautious King Ludwig I during the new year celebrations in the palace (under suspicious circumstances while he slept) would bring the rule of his son Heinrich I and the old pro-war faction that was kept in check for most of Ludwig’s rule. In a similar manner, Archduke Franz II would drop dead less than a month later and give the throne to the new Archduke Ferdinand. The year had barely started but these two new “casualties” would intensify the war greatly, just as the Coalition seemed to be losing vigor and morale after the battles of Pinsk and Batumi, Napoleon II would have to deal with treason inside his system, including from his own marshals.
Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was one of Napoleon’s Marshals during the Third and Fourth coalitions, until he was elected as Prince of Sweden in 1810, becoming enamored with his new land. He would be crowned King Karl XIV of Sweden, and rule his country for decades as a loyal member of the Continental system, yet there would be tensions between France and Sweden over the status of Swedish Pomerania, which was invaded by the French in 1835. The Swedish population would be furious with such illegal invasion, and the King felt betrayed that the petulant boy in Paris considered Sweden only a stepping stone, as such he started secret negotiations with Russia, where the Russian Empire offered to sell back the island of Åland in return that the Sweden joined the coalition. The King would accept, and on the 12th of February of 1836 Sweden at last joined the war... by bombarding Christiania and crossing the Norwegian border and declaring war on the Continental Alliance. The enraged Emperor would order Prussian fusiliers to invade the island of Rügen, instead the Prussian army launched dual attacks against Poznan and Mecklenburg, betraying the French on the 14th of February, and on the very next day, Austrian forces would invade Hungary and Illyria, laying siege to Trieste by the 20th.
The sudden betrayal of the 3 nations cut the Poles, Hungarians, and Ottomans from the rest of the Alliance. In a matter of weeks, Prussian and Austrian forces would take the Illyrian provinces, Saxony, Mecklenburg, Danzig and Poznan. But as April came, the Alliance would recover from the shock and the forces of the “Rheinbund” another Grande Armee would march to the west, first hoping to take out Austria and swinging North to Berlin. The French forces would be led by a new generation of military officers after 16 years of peace, trained in the lessons of the Napoleonic Wars with many being veterans of these wars. The “Armee d’Allemagne” would be led by Marshal Charles-Eugene Mercer, member of the post-revolutionary generation of Frenchmen, born in 1792 in Reims and one of the most gifted students of the Military Academy.
The German campaign would follow the footsteps of the 1809 French campaign, advancing through the Danube in Bavaria and heading straight to Vienna. The Austrians expected such a move, creating several lines of defense near the city, forcing the French to test their Élan once again and charge them. But while a Marshal like Bellegarde would surely do that and engage in a brutal battle of attrition until the enemy population was reduced to zero first, Mercer had a more innovative approach. Vienna wasn’t necessary, defeat the Austrians was, the city was put under siege, with the defenders locked around the city. The Siege of Vienna was a maneuver of the French to draw in the main Austrian force to relieve their capital and Emperor (that refused to leave the Palace), and it worked, with the old General Radetzky leading the relief force and ending the siege of Budapest. The Battle of Vienna would be the largest and bloodiest battle in the history of Europe until then, with both sides having the number of troops that not even the Romans had in their peak. While 70,000 defenders were trapped and surrounded near and inside the city, over 250,000 Austrians would come from the North, beating back 130,000 Frenchmen trapped in the opposite bank of the Danube (thanks for Austrian sabotage of French bridges). After 2 days, those French troops were surrounded ironically, and the French approached the Austrians with an offer to exchange the prisoners: Vienna for the French Northern Flank. Radetzky accepted, but as an Englishman once said: Never trust a Frenchman.
On the day of the prisoner exchange, Mercer’s French army crossed to the North of Vienna, meeting the Austrians and receiving their prisoners. But Mercer had set a trap on the Austrians, and as they marched north and the Austrian forces prepared to move south, to the other bank of the river, fire ships filled with explosives burned the bridges, and the French turned against the confused Austrians in a vicious attack. The Austrian forces didn’t have time to enter in formation and every man was left to fend for itself as the banks of the Danube turned red. Eventually Austrian morale was shattered and the people of Vienna watched as their army was destroyed by a dishonorable stab in the back. With no hope of a relief force, Vienna would surrender and Archduke Ferdinand taken as prisoner. Austria was the First Nation in the Coalition to fall, and now the French turned north to Berlin.
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Tactically sound, but I fear that the consequences of this will be large. The inability to believe any French proposals on the battlefield will not work in their favor.
sodan
Donor
Austria betrayed the alliance so the word given to a traitor is worth nothing but if he behaves loyally against the Russians and the English there will be no consequence
May the French rot in their graves. The Russian bear will not stop till Paris burns.
I wonder what would Bellegarde or Napoleon deal with the Battle of Vienna.
Bellegarde would probably trust the French Elan like in Lisbon, firing the grand battery against the Austrian trenches while sending masses infantry charges of hundreds of thousands of men until they were fully overwhelmed. Then the army might take Vienna but would not be able to defeat the relief army due to the loses sustained and the exhaustion.
But what would Napoleon do ?
Bellegarde would probably trust the French Elan like in Lisbon, firing the grand battery against the Austrian trenches while sending masses infantry charges of hundreds of thousands of men until they were fully overwhelmed. Then the army might take Vienna but would not be able to defeat the relief army due to the loses sustained and the exhaustion.
But what would Napoleon do ?
Napoleon would probably aggressively maneuver and feint. Trying to get the Austrians to come after him but not relying on static defenses. Make them expose a weakness that he boldly exploits
Battlefield honor is different from diplomatic honor. Yes Austria betrayed France by siding with the coalition but the French general betrayed their battlefield agreement which is a bigger faux pas. I agree he won't be punished by France because he won the battle but I think it'll have consequences where Coalition generals won't trust French generals when they ask for things like ceasefires or prisoner exchanges and will probably cost France in the long-term more than the short-term victory at Vienna.
Napoleon wouldnt even fight at Vienna. He would have gone to Berlin first, but from the North, to catch the Prussians off guard and simultaneously retake Swedish Pommerania.
XL: THE GREAT EUROPEAN WAR III
THE GREAT EUROPEAN WAR III
Napoleon II brought Archduke Ferdinand to Paris after the Battle of Vienna, the humiliated Habsburg was brought inside a cage with the people throwing tomatoes at him. He would soon discover that the new Emperor of the French was much less merciful than his father, and he wanted to send a message to the traitors in Berlin and Stockholm. Napoleon II awaited inside the Tulleries, his mother by his side, the Russian Grand Duchess was still young for a Dowager Empress and she was one of the people of trust of Napoleon II, with some generals concerned that a Romanov had such influence during a war with Russia. When Ferdinand’s humiliation was over, the soldiers of the Imperial guard brought him inside, with him ashamed of even looking at the son of the old Ogre Bonnie. Napoleon II would come in the hall, dressed in his father’s trademark blue and white uniform and accompanied by his sister, he stopped in front of Ferdinand that was down on his knees.
“That’s no way to treat a head of state.”
“No, that’s a way to treat a traitor, and that’s something that should’ve been done before.”
“You are nothing but a snake, and your soldiers fight like ones, betraying agreements and stabbing our backs.”
“Only after you stabbed mine, my Father was merciful enough to keep your father in his rotten throne even after he attempted to destroy his nation and himself. If there is one mistake that my father did was leaving your bunch of incestuous degenerates in charge of Austria. No more, I should have dissolved the throne and made every city into a small kingdom but instead I will spare your people, but not you. Swear loyalty to your new Archduchess.”
Ferdinand looked up, seeing the face of the young Emperor and by his side his sister, the 17th year old Anne-Louise Bonaparte, one of the most desired bachelors of Europe, daughter of Napoleon I and known to be a woman of great knowledge, being officially educated by her father’s tutors. The ex-Archduke of Austria couldn’t believe what was happening, the Habsburg throne held by over 500 years was gone by the whims of the Master of Europe that desired to give his sister a birthday gift. On the 12th of September or 1836, 20 days after the Battle of Vienna and ironically on the same day that Vienna and the Habsburg throne were saved from the Ottomans, the house of Habsburg would be kicked from Vienna, becoming prisoners of the Emperor in a house arrest in the city of Verdun. Napoleon II sent a message: Traitors shall be dealt accordingly.
Archduchess Anne-Louise I Bonaparte
Meanwhile, war raged on Europe. Until the arrival of the winter, titanic armies would continue to clash, Norway would fall with the capture of the city of Bergen in August, Hungarian troops would retake the Austrian occupied territories and the remnants of the Austrian army would refuse to accept Anne-Louise in the throne. The Austrian troops would hold the city of Prague, inviting the Prussians to occupy Bohemia until Vienna was liberated. The Armee D’ Allemagne would attempt a double approach to deal with Prussia, with the main French army continuing to push south from Vienna into Bohemia to fight the main Prussian forces, meanwhile an army led by Marshal Ludwig von Essen would form a united army of the Rheinbund to attack the Prussians into Magdeburg and take Berlin. The plan would be put to action on the 25th of September as the French marched south to meet the Prussians.
In the East, Davout’s Kingdom continued to be attacked from two sides, the Prussians would take Plock and the Russians would reach Brest-Litovsky after beating back the Alliance in the Second Battle of the Pinsk Marshes. The Russian and Prussian forces would fight one of the most brilliant defensive campaigns in history. With King Louis taking the charge of the army and personally leading it, and in a series of hit and run attacks and fast maneuvers, he showed why he was a Marshal of the Empire. During the campaigns of late 1836, 43,000 Poles would fall in a series of battles while inflicting over 267,000 losses to the Russians and 52,000 on the Prussians. But that wouldn’t be enough to save Warsaw and Vilnius, with the dual capitals falling to the Prussians and Russians respectively and Davout being forced to conduct an essentially guerrilla campaign in the Central Polish plains with his army while the Hungarian forces managed to secure Galicia and Krakow for their Northern brothers. By the Christmas of 1836, Davout would say a phrase to symbolize the Polish spirit: “Poland is not yet lost”.
Meanwhile, rains would delay the French attack to October, and Mercer’s army was once again on the move, this time he was meeting an equal in the field, led by one of the most capable military commanders and theorists of the Post-Napoleon Europe: Carl von Clausewitz, and the campaigns in Bohemia and the incoming attack in Magdeburg would be the most decisive frontlines of the Great European War.
The Emperor’s sister is no joke when talking about beauty (at least for me), and we also have to decide the Emperor’s marriage.
And also that almost a million men are about to throw themselves against one another in Prussia and Bohemia, but who cares, let’s talk about royal marriages.
And also that almost a million men are about to throw themselves against one another in Prussia and Bohemia, but who cares, let’s talk about royal marriages.
The lack of Austria in this timeline is going to make Russia a absolute power house if they win. I imagine Russia getting what they got in otl and also galacia to counteract this Prussia and Britain might want to keep France at its “natural” borders but I doubt they would out of spite.
You are bold to assume that after what happened between 1816 and 1819, Britain would allow France to exist if they had the power to do so.
It’s going to be a hot mess, nobody wants Russia to be to powerful and no one wants France to be to powerful but with out the Austrians there’s no middle power to check the two unless..... a united Germany formed that could check Russian ambitions in the east and check French power in the west while leaving Britain to her own sphere of influence and colonies.
Even if Brittania wanted to stop Prussia from forming a United Germany, I doubt they could. Russia and a new Germany I think do not have too many overlapping Interests, so I see an alliance working out.
If it would be Prussian led would yet to be seen. This hypothetical congress of Vienna could see the von Hapsburgs become emperor with the empire also incorporating Austria and Bohemia.
First off gotta say I love the TL, its what made me get an account on here. Second off
Given that it's Prussia doing the heavy lifting I doubt that it's gonna be the Hapsburgs in charge of Germany. I do easily see them getting Austria back but with very much reduced prestige due to having lost the crown unlike OTL.
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