So, here's the scenario I'm chewing over in my head. Firstly, Britain and France don't agree to sign the Entente cordiale however butterflies are kept to a minimum so WWI breaks out as historically. Germany however doesn't violate Belgium's neutrality and Great Britain narrowly elects to stay out of the war.
The scenario plays out where France and Germany on the Western Front smash each other towards exhaustion, on the Eastern Front it progresses roughly as OTL with Germany victorious and Russia descending into Civil War. Germany creates many puppet states and goes full out revenge, there is no moderating influence to stop them.
France bears the full weight of the Germans until 1919 whereupon the troops simply desert. France is forced to sign a humiliating treaty which sees a loss of some mainland territory and colonial territory and massive reparations that she is unable to pay.
Let's imagine that France succumbs to a Socialist Revolution like Russia in this timeline. I can't work out in my mind what would happen to the remaining French colonies. Would the French socialists want a colonial empire? Would they want to get rid of them? Would some kind of Fee France administer the colonies as a continued 3rd Republic?
Ideas and thoughts welcome.