France particians Spain, Germany particians France

France goes to war against Spain in the 1850s. Spain looses Catalonia and the Basque Country to independence and Galicia to Portugal. Catalonia and the Basque Country become french satellite republics. Then in 1871 Germany deprives France of Brittany, Algeria and Occitania while the french Basque Country goes to its already independent neighbour and Corsica joins Italy. You therefore have a balkanised Western Europe.
1) How would this impact Ireland?
2) And Wales and Scotland?
3) Where would the capitals of the new countries be?
4) How would they get on with one another?
5) Could a scramble for Africa be avoided?
6) What about the First World War?
 
France goes to war against Spain in the 1850s. Spain looses Catalonia and the Basque Country to independence and Galicia to Portugal. Catalonia and the Basque Country become french satellite republics. Then in 1871 Germany deprives France of Brittany, Algeria and Occitania while the french Basque Country goes to its already independent neighbour and Corsica joins Italy. You therefore have a balkanised Western Europe.
1) How would this impact Ireland?
2) And Wales and Scotland?
3) Where would the capitals of the new countries be?
4) How would they get on with one another?
5) Could a scramble for Africa be avoided?
6) What about the First World War?

This is total ASB and belongs in the ASB subforum.

Alright now that that's out of the way, let's move on to your questions
1) Pretty well actually. The Brits have to treat them a lot more nicely, as they can't afford to keep their military preoccupied with some peasants when the German Empire is now the single most threatening power in Europe.

2) They get pressed, just like England, to give Britain as much output and power as they can get out of their isles to oppose the new German Empire

3) Depends on the territories involved. Occitan capital could be either lyons or marseilles or even bordeaux.

4) Does that matter? Unless the Germans have a limitless army for enforcement and/or a magical diplomatic ability to create strong local nationalism, then the partitioned pieces will be clamoring for immediate re-unification. Once again, you can't fracture such well-developed nations without ASB.

5) Maybe. Maybe not. That does not really depend on this situation, as it's still roughly the same as OTL; Euro great powers competing for their slice of the world market and resources.

6) A general european total war based on industrial output will come so long as great powers continue to behave the way they did historically, which is not prevented by your situation.
 
Life isn't like a Paradox game: you can't simply break a country up after winning a war and expect the status quo to remain.
While there are certainly parts of Spain that might want to hold on to independence, it seems hugely unlikely that any of them will be willing to do so at the cost of being French puppets.
You're talking about a second French occupation of Spain- and it would have to be a total occupation to dictate a peace like this- a mere forty years after the Napoleonic war. The memories of the patriotic Juntas will be running strong- if anything, French occupation would be the best possible driver of Spanish nationalism.

The French breaking up Spain would be mad enough, and would at the very least earn them true diplomatic odium. But Spain is a backwater, and France's neighbours might be prepared to watch Paris bleed in its bizarre attempt to reshape Iberia. But as for the Germans breaking up the largest state in Western Europe with the strongest tradition of nationalism and expecting to get away with it- not a chance. That's a threat to the stability of every other Great Power.

Any German regime so completely mad as to try it is a regime that will be turned on by its neighbors immediately. The Hapsburgs would be directly threatened- they're not idiots, and they would realise that they would have to be next. The British might sympathise with the Prussians and Germans before the war, but for Berlin to completely destroy the balance of power like this is beyond the pale. Expect even the arch-isolationists to look for a reason to join the French* and Austrians in the war.
Even the Russians- at this stage keen to look at anything which annoys Vienna with benevolence- will be deeply nervous.

In other words, for this to happen it requires a Europe where first France and then Germany act so completely irrationally as to destabilise the entire system of diplomacy. It's not credible.



*The Germans may announce a partition, but this will guarantee the continuation of the war.
 
I've thought about this before.

How about this?

1758 - Prussia is defeated and torn apart by France, Austria, Russia and Sweden. Germany is no longer on course for unification. No destruction of the Polish Commonwealth occurs.

1792 - 1815 - Bonaparte wins the war and rips up Austria into 6-8 countries. Polish Commonwealth, an ally of France, is given a new King and Constitution that makes it a viable and functional state again. Poland spends the next few decades strengthening its alliance with France against Russia and making sure no central European Empire like the Hohenzollerns or Habsburgs may threaten them.

1830's - Spain enters civil war. Regions break off, France offers no aid to Madrid.

1840's - France gets tired of Bonapartist rule. The Liberal Revolutions spreading through Europe hit France. Regional departments, lacking their historical autonomy and their culture crushed by the central Parisian government who wants to stamp out local languages (Breton, Alsasian, Walloon, Flemish, Occitan, Piedmontese) in favor of the center, revolt en masse. France falls apart.

1860's - Russia attacks the Commonwealth, now lacking allies. They take the Orthodox areas and reduce Poland to its largely ethnic Polish Catholic rump state. Russia now has a free hand in the Balkans and Caucusus against the Ottoman.
 
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