Franco-Prussian War: Harsher Terms?

Is this true? I always thought, after the loss of the Hannover patrimony, the UK would be very open to having another Brit enclave on the continent to help maintain the balance of power.

Plus I don't think they renounced their claims on Calais until the entante cordialle
The claims on Calais was renounced as far back as the time of Elizabeth I.As for English farcical claims on the throne of France,that was renounced with the Treaty of Amiens with Nappy.

I'm under the impression that most British thought that the loss of Hanover was a good riddance because that thought that they don't need to be dragged into wars to protect the place(when quite a lot of the times,it was the other way around).

If the British really wanted an enclave on Continental Europe,they would have partitioned Belgium with France,Prussia and the Netherlands in 1830.
 
It also ignore the growingly better links between Britain and France by the XIXth (on which Western European military operations are still based today). It wasn't made because "hey, let's try to not fight for a change", but for various reasons : holding against Germany and Austria, and more rarely Russia (at least, during Nappie's Reign) and it served British interest well.

Britain isn't going to let that down, just for screwing up France and please Germany.
 
Is this true? I always thought, after the loss of the Hannover patrimony, the UK would be very open to having another Brit enclave on the continent to help maintain the balance of power.

Plus I don't think they renounced their claims on Calais until the entante cordialle

The claims on Calais was renounced as far back as the time of Elizabeth I.As for English farcical claims on the throne of France,that was renounced with the Treaty of Amiens with Nappy.

I'm under the impression that most British thought that the loss of Hanover was a good riddance because that thought that they don't need to be dragged into wars to protect the place(when quite a lot of the times,it was the other way around).

If the British really wanted an enclave on Continental Europe,they would have partitioned Belgium with France,Prussia and the Netherlands in 1830.

It also ignore the growingly better links between Britain and France by the XIXth (on which Western European military operations are still based today). It wasn't made because "hey, let's try to not fight for a change", but for various reasons : holding against Germany and Austria, and more rarely Russia (at least, during Nappie's Reign) and it served British interest well.

Britain isn't going to let that down, just for screwing up France and please Germany.

All this basically. Britain was very big about the status-quo, so were most of Germany's neighbors. Bismarck doesn't want to completely upset the status quo either, so a short sharp war and reparations would be his best case scenario. He had no reason to desire harsher terms.
 
The only other thing I can come up with would be to give the German Empire parts of the French colonial empire, but they weren't really interested in those yet.
 
What about the proposal of forcing France to give Nice or Corsica to Italy — is this feasible in TTL?

Only if Germany wants the Italian alliance in face of a more revanchist France. And giving how well Italy did in 1866, that's not really going to happen.

They didn't join mostly because of the same reasons that pushed Germany to not push its advantage too deeply. While Germany could get away with a minor annexation in a war provoked by France, Italy (not being, and by far, the power Germany was) wasn't going to waste its limited ressources on this war (as much Prussia defeated French army, the latter was still clearly more powerful than Italy could handle).

Eventually, keeping in mind that Bismarck wanted a short and limited war, he was not going to make it longer and undergo all what described above for the sake of Italy. Heck, I think he would have even preferred giving away land to Belgium than giving some to Italy.
 
Last edited:
Only if Germany wants the Italian alliance in face of a more revanchist France. And giving how well Italy did in 1869, that's not really going to happen.

They didn't join mostly because of the same reasons that pushed Germany to not push its advantage too deeply. While Germany could get away with a minor annexation in a war provoked by France, Italy (not being, and by far, the power Germany was) wasn't going to waste its limited ressources on this war (as much Prussia defeated French army, the latter was still clearly more powerful than Italy could handle).

Eventually, keeping in mind that Bismarck wanted a short and limited war, he was not going to make it longer and undergo all what described above for the sake of Italy. Heck, I think he would have even preferred giving away land to Belgium than giving some to Italy.

Interesting. Thanks LSCatilina. I can't recall the specifics, perhaps it was a former discussion on this board, but was Austria ever enticed to join the war on France's side. In those circumstances would Italian entry be feasible?
 
I could see some issues with an Austrian intervention :
- It was recently defeated, and not lightly. It would ask for important reforms, a restructuration that could make Bismarck feeling like Austria would be more a prioritary opponent than France.
- Opposition from Hungarians to a new war with Prussia
- French declaration of war clearly destroyed any realistic chance to appear as legit, Prussian provocation being real but french reaction disproportionate for an incident that was easily resolvable diplomatically at France's benefit.
Allying with France would have meant appearing as agressor and would have reinforced Prussia's position.

I suppose that these could change, but with a different Franco-Prussian war, which could not end with a French defeat (even in 1870, it wasn't obvious, technically speaking) critically with a Franco-Austrian front against Prussia (there's a reason why Bismarck wanted France out of the 1866 war).

Would Italy want to go in such a large-scale war, with its limited ressources? That's possible, while I doubt it go past the nationalist agitation (that said, I don't know much about Italy on this period).
 
Top