Francization of the Rhineland and Belgium

[Hellespont]

For some reason, France managed to keep its natural borders, acquired in 1797, along the Left Bank of the Rhine. Would the brutal francization of the 19th century, applied on these new territories as on the rest of the French territory, succeed in breaking the Dutch and German cultures ? I think that the definitive integration of Wallonia, Flanders and Luxembourg in the french nation would be quite simple, but that the integration of the Deutsch territories would be much more difficult...

 

[Gloss]

For some reason, France managed to keep its natural borders, acquired in 1797, along the Left Bank of the Rhine. Would the brutal francization of the 19th century, applied on these new territories as on the rest of the French territory, succeed in breaking the Dutch and German cultures ? I think that the definitive integration of Wallonia, Flanders and Luxembourg in the french nation would be quite simple, but that the integration of the Deutsch territories would be much more difficult...

I doubt Flanders would be much more Frenchified than it was under Belgium, internal migration with a more dominantly French country might help somewhat.

 

[aben]

I don't think the German lands East of the Rhine would be gallicized. The German language is much more different than the regional romance dialects and the Rhinelanders had a long history of resisting French expansion.

 

[SlideAway]

I suppose it would depend on what the POD is -- why is France keeping its Rhine boundaries? (Napoleon accepts the Frankfurt Proposals? Some 1800 POD?)

But not clear at all why this would particularly brutal. Promotion of the French language within France's OTL boundaries mostly happened by promoting the French language through education and administration. And Rhineland elites and towns were generally pro-French during the Napoleonic wars, plus the Rhineland in France might well impede the creation of a unified Germany. I don't see why the Rhineland or Belgium in this scenario couldn't be mostly French-speaking today.

 

[Gloss]

I suppose it would depend on what the POD is -- why is France keeping its Rhine boundaries? (Napoleon accepts the Frankfurt Proposals? Some 1800 POD?)

But not clear at all why this would particularly brutal. Promotion of the French language within France's OTL boundaries mostly happened by promoting the French language through education and administration. And Rhineland elites and towns were generally pro-French during the Napoleonic wars, plus the Rhineland in France might well impede the creation of a unified Germany. I don't see why the Rhineland or Belgium in this scenario couldn't be mostly French-speaking today.

No, no they weren't. There was plenty of pro-Austrian sentiment during the period.

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

We can't assume that assimilating several Romance dialects into a standard French is the same thing as getting Germans and Flemings to drop the usage of their respective languages in favor of French.

 

[funnyhat]

I doubt Flanders would be much more Frenchified than it was under Belgium, internal migration with a more dominantly French country might help somewhat.

It would very likely be francophone today, like the rest of Metropolitan France.

In Belgium, the Flemish are over half the population, so once the country became a democracy, the government could not ignore their wishes. In France, they would be only about 10 % of the population, most likely not enough to win legal recognition of their language.

 

[funnyhat]

We can't assume that assimilating several Romance dialects into a standard French is the same thing as getting Germans and Flemings to drop the usage of their respective languages in favor of French.

Alsatian, Basque and Breton are not Romance languages and still they all declined in favor of French.

Similarly, Irish does not resemble English very much but it declined in favor of the latter.

If only one language is used in the public sphere (education, media, government etc) the rest will be reduced to the private sphere and it will become hard for them to survive in the long run, regardless of how much they do (or do not) resemble the official language.

 

[Janprimus]

For some reason, France managed to keep its natural borders, acquired in 1797, along the Left Bank of the Rhine. Would the brutal francization of the 19th century, applied on these new territories as on the rest of the French territory, succeed in breaking the Dutch and German cultures ? I think that the definitive integration of Wallonia, Flanders and Luxembourg in the french nation would be quite simple, but that the integration of the Deutsch territories would be much more difficult...

I somehow have problems with those borders being described as 'natural'. Then again French expansionism has been issue for the Low Countries since at least the Burgundian era. IMHO the most natural border is the relatively stable language border between Romance and Germanic.

 

[Aghasverov]

One thing about the French language policy over the years (which, IMO, hasn't been very positive or "progressive", no offense ) , is that there's been relatively few non-French speakers in France since 1815... unless you count Occitan and other "non-standard" dialects. I'm not sure what the proportions of Basques, Bretons, Flemish, Alsatian Germans, Italians has been historically, but it's been just numerically overwhelmed by the broader French-speaking (or "near-French-speaking") population.
I think that it's possible that, had France *somehow* retained its "natural borders" post-Napoleon, that the presence of millions of additional non-French speakers may have forced the French government, whatever form it took, to approach the language issue a bit differently, perhaps establishing bilingual zones in those Departements where a majority or large minority of the population spoke a mother tongue other than French...

 

[Janprimus]

It would very likely be francophone today, like the rest of Metropolitan France.

In Belgium, the Flemish are over half the population, so once the country became a democracy, the government could not ignore their wishes. In France, they would be only about 10 % of the population, most likely not enough to win legal recognition of their language.

10% of the population is still a considerable minority, which a French democracy can't ignore forever. So there too I can see legal recognition. So goes for the Rhineland, especially once Germany gets their act together, Austria and Prussia together with the other German states will become interested in the fate of the German speaking minority in France. And they unlike the Netherlands for Flanders, have the military potential to persuade France, to not act foolish. Since if German nationalism still is awakened by the French, then after Schleswig-Holstein, the Rhineland will be one the list as well.

 

[Reyne]

10% of the population is still a considerable minority, which a French democracy can't ignore forever. So there too I can see legal recognition. So goes for the Rhineland, especially once Germany gets their act together, Austria and Prussia together with the other German states will become interested in the fate of the German speaking minority in France. And they unlike the Netherlands for Flanders, have the military potential to persuade France, to not act foolish. Since if German nationalism still is awakened by the French, then after Schleswig-Holstein, the Rhineland will be one the list as well.

A France that has both Belgium's and the Rhenish resources is going to be much harder to beat, however. Such a massive industrial potential might tip the scales of France's famous drop in births in the 19th century to do a simple need for more people and a heavier interest in the government in gallicizing the population. And a Germany without the Rhineland is going to have massive handicap.

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

We can't assume that assimilating several Romance dialects into a standard French is the same thing as getting Germans and Flemings to drop the usage of their respective languages in favor of French.

Why? Britain did it with Afrikaans in South Africa. It didn't stamp it out successfully, but their policy that "Afrikaans was only to be used to teach English" resulted in a mentality among some Afrikaners that "English is the language of the enemy". But it's worth noting that South Africa today is majority English, not majority Afrikaans speaking (despite Afrikaners having control of the government for over fifty years).

Its not identical - and I'll admit unfamiliarity with French language policy - but AIUI this was why Alsatian has essentially no native speakers left.

 

[Jo6]

I do think it's possible for french to become the dominant language in a french Belgium and Rhineland. But there would probably still be a large minority that speaks dutch and german.

Brussels (in flanders) is a good example, it has both dutch and french as official languages. But in my opinion french has become very dominant in an original dutch speaking city.

With an aggressive policy in education and internal immigration to french Belgium/Rhineland, french will probably become the most spoken language.

 

[LordMartinax]

Its not identical - and I'll admit unfamiliarity with French language policy - but AIUI this was why Alsatian has essentially no native speakers left.

It does? I will have to check as its been some time, but I believe that while a declining language, around half of population of Alsace still speaks it.

For some reason, France managed to keep its natural borders, acquired in 1797, along the Left Bank of the Rhine. Would the brutal francization of the 19th century, applied on these new territories as on the rest of the French territory, succeed in breaking the Dutch and German cultures ? I think that the definitive integration of Wallonia, Flanders and Luxembourg in the french nation would be quite simple, but that the integration of the Deutsch territories would be much more difficult...

Kinda depends on the form of government that France itself has. A surviving empire or some kind of surviving style of republic would likely keep those policies, and expand them to the Rhineland (which would be a right big mess when nationalism comes swinnging around). If a French kingdom of some kind is allowed to have these borders (quite unlikely, I admit), then its a toss, as I am frankly unsure of Bourbon or Orleanist position on this issue.

As for the level of sucess, it quite depends. After all, while the minority languages inside France itself were rather left alone, attempting francization of this many German and Dutch speakers, especially in the age of nationalism, would be highly difficult (though sucess of such process in Wallonia and Luxembourg is rather more possible).

 

[Comte de Dordogne]

I somehow have problems with those borders being described as 'natural'. Then again French expansionism has been issue for the Low Countries since at least the Burgundian era. IMHO the most natural border is the relatively stable language border between Romance and Germanic.

The border is described as "natural" because it allows the defence of the entire national territory (or at least should allow it) without great difficulties.
Moreover, if we still use the term "natural frontier" it is because it is a historical logic that has marked French political ambitions over several centuries.
I don't think anyone in this discussion is really defending an annexation of the left bank of the Rhine by France.
Finally, the natural border you propose is just as natural as the one developed historically, it is simply based on other elements (which demonstrates at the same time that nothing is really natural in human and political construction).

 

[Xavier]

This discussion sounds really familiar to me. Most of my comments in that thread apply just as well in this one, so no need to repeat them. The short version is that while France would likely have more success with francization in Flanders (and possibly the Rhineland, don't know how much success they had there OTL) than OTL 19th Century Belgium did, full assimilation is very unlikely to happen. Essentially not enough time to do it before Flemish and (presumably) Rhinelandish/German nationalism/regionalism either forces France into linguistic/cultural concessions or fuels a revolt once a good opportunity presentes itself.

 

[Jürgen]

I don't really see how France would do better than Belgium. Yes, Alsace have fallen to the French language, but there has been a unique history behind it. The Germans/Flemish had a higher birthrate, a more rural population, high literacy and the region a high industrial potential.

 

[AlternateEagle]

Maybe this is not appropriate for western Europe, but could population transfers work? Especially if there is a war, couldn't France just encourage resettlement by French and move Germans deeper into Anjou or something?

 

[Gloss]

Maybe this is not appropriate for western Europe, but could population transfers work? Especially if there is a war, couldn't France just encourage resettlement by French and move Germans deeper into Anjou or something?

That didn't really happen in Eastern Europe either, among Christians anyway.