Geopolitical impact of a surviving Orleanist France

Algeria, yes. SEA, I thought that was Napoleon III, after some Christian missionaries were killed or imprisoned in Vietnam

They'd been assisting the Nguyen Dynasty since the 1770's, actually, fell out in the 1820's, and then started getting involved again around 1847 once persecution of Christians started getting out of hand for them.
 
No Crimean War is a big one. Napoleon III style himself an defender of the Faith to win over Catholic Support at the same time of supporting Italian unification. And from that, Napoleon III and Nicholas I rivalry of who was the 'protector' of Christian peoples within the Ottoman Empire.

Without the Second Empire, you won't have the Crimean War, or something very different. You still have the British and them not wanting the Russian Empire to take Constantinople, but they be limited to naval actions. You still have Russia and it deep dream of a revived Byzantium ran deep within the Russian Empire, and would find a reason to war with the Turks.

TTL Crimean War may be an Russo-Ottoman War with British naval support.
 
No Crimean War is a big one. Napoleon III style himself an defender of the Faith to win over Catholic Support at the same time of supporting Italian unification. And from that, Napoleon III and Nicholas I rivalry of who was the 'protector' of Christian peoples within the Ottoman Empire.

Without the Second Empire, you won't have the Crimean War, or something very different. You still have the British and them not wanting the Russian Empire to take Constantinople, but they be limited to naval actions. You still have Russia and it deep dream of a revived Byzantium ran deep within the Russian Empire, and would find a reason to war with the Turks.

TTL Crimean War may be an Russo-Ottoman War with British naval support.

I'm not sure why were are assuming the Crimean War wouldn't happen. The Crimean War was driven by far more than Napoleon's own lofty catholic ambtiions and necessities at home. Not only did the Orelanists still need to please the Catholic church to maintain popular legitimacy, both Britain and France feared being displaced by a rising Russia (a Thuccyidian trap). It's conceivable that a containment confrontation would still occur because of the inexorable rules of great power competition.

Perhaps not in the same way, but there may have been a Franco-British war against Russia. Britain was actually fairly close to Orleanist France. Victoria liked Louis Phillipe and after the Treaty of London where the Belgium issue was settled the nations were on broadly friendly terms.
 
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I do not think an Orleanist France would necessary be behind a project to unify Italy as OTL. Conversely, I think it would be much less distractible versus a potential Prussian threat towards the status quo in Germany. This France, simply put, is not going to be obsessed with recapturing the lost glory of the Napoleonic era precisely because a Bonaparte is not ruler.
 
I do not think an Orleanist France would necessary be behind a project to unify Italy as OTL. Conversely, I think it would be much less distractible versus a potential Prussian threat towards the status quo in Germany. This France, simply put, is not going to be obsessed with recapturing the lost glory of the Napoleonic era precisely because a Bonaparte is not ruler.

Of this I agree. With a someone like say, Louis-Philippe II/Philippe VII being the head of state rather than Napoleon III, Italian Unification might be neutered. Heck, German unification might be made a lot harder with a France who would not be willing to side with Sardinia as much, and a France who would be more focused on the danger of Prussia from earlier on.
 
A France that stays Orleanist has a ton of potential for change from OTL.

OTL's Second Empire saw success at home but disaster on the foreign front. On the one hand, Paris was revamped with an all new city planning that remains to today. On the other hand, a failed bid at turning Mexico into a client state and a humiliation at the hands of Germany were setbacks that offset the Empire's colonial gains.
 
I wonder... if its the orleanists, they wouldn't struggle for legitimacy as much as napoleon III, especially if they put down 1848. So what if Louis Philippe tells Savoy/Italy "You can invade the papal states as long as Rome is unclaimed" to perhaps use against a certain pair of german states- a buffer on austria and a buddy against prussia?
 
I wonder... if its the orleanists, they wouldn't struggle for legitimacy as much as napoleon III, especially if they put down 1848. So what if Louis Philippe tells Savoy/Italy "You can invade the papal states as long as Rome is unclaimed" to perhaps use against a certain pair of german states- a buffer on austria and a buddy against prussia?

I can easily imagine that France might have an interest in a friendly Savoyard state expelling Austrian influence from northern Italy. It would not follow that an Orleanist France would want to overthrow the Papal States, never mind the Two Sicilies under their Bourbons. I might even imagine that Orleanist France might want some territorial compensation from Piedmont, like Nice and Savoy, or at least the 1814 frontiers.
 
I can easily imagine that France might have an interest in a friendly Savoyard state expelling Austrian influence from northern Italy. It would not follow that an Orleanist France would want to overthrow the Papal States, never mind the Two Sicilies under their Bourbons. I might even imagine that Orleanist France might want some territorial compensation from Piedmont, like Nice and Savoy, or at least the 1814 frontiers.
maybe in exchange for the sicilies, we get a marriage between Emanuel's heir and one of Philippe's daughters? Not the same as a shared dynasty i know but it would likely help. Plus i imagine Prussia's rise would take greater precedent over the bourbons keeping a second rate agrarian kingdom in the Med.
 
maybe in exchange for the sicilies, we get a marriage between Emanuel's heir and one of Philippe's daughters? Not the same as a shared dynasty i know but it would likely help. Plus i imagine Prussia's rise would take greater precedent over the bourbons keeping a second rate agrarian kingdom in the Med.

OTL even the Savoyards did not want the Two Sicilies; their hand was forced by Garibaldi.
 
Perhaps not in the same way, but there may have been a Franco-British war against Russia. Britain was actually fairly close to Orleanist France. Victoria liked Louis Phillipe and after the Treaty of London where the Belgium issue was settled the nations were on broadly friendly terms.

Treaty of London was 1839, Louis Philippe screwed up any "good will" between London and Paris with the Affair of the Spanish Marriages in 1846. By 1848 the relationship had still not "settled".

As to Victoria's personal feelings about Louis Philippe she DIDN'T like him. ISTR in one of her letters she contrasts Charles X who is a "good man, but not a good monarch" while she describes Louis Philippe as "utterly false". Sh really only "tolerated" Louis Philippe on a personal level due to him being the father-in-law of her uncle (and she liked Louise d'Orléans).
 
maybe in exchange for the sicilies, we get a marriage between Emanuel's heir and one of Philippe's daughters? Not the same as a shared dynasty i know but it would likely help. Plus i imagine Prussia's rise would take greater precedent over the bourbons keeping a second rate agrarian kingdom in the Med.
“Second rate agrarian kingdom in the Med” is a pretty inaccurate description of the Kingdom of Two Sicilits under any circumstance... pretty likely who with friendly France, Austria, Spain and Russia neither England or Savoy will find space for going against the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
In any case both the main branch of the French Bourbons and the Orleans are closely related to the Kings of the Two Sicilies (Ferdinand II is nephew of Queen Marie Amalie and half-brother of Madame Royale/Duchess of Berry)
 
The fall of the constitutional July-Monarchy might have been avoided if the pretty popular heir to the throne Ferdinand Philippe, Duc d'Orléans hadn't died in a tragic carriage accident when the carriage's horses ran out of control and he was thrown head on into a wall fracturing his skull. Louis-Philippe was nearly 77 years old when he died in British exile IOTL.
...in 1850.

Suppose Ferdinand Philippe lives, and Louis-Philippe dies a few years early. Then in 1848, FP is King. Could he ride out the storm? That seems like a least-effort way to preserve the July Monarchy. FP married in 1837, and had two sons before his death, so the dynasty is secure till 1900 or so.

As noted, Orléans France would be less adventurist than the Second Empire. Internally... N III wasn't a great liberal, either. FP was born in 1810, and would reign till about 1875. Would he back Haussmann's grand reconstruction of Paris?
 
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Maybe Italy is united more in the line of Germany- a confederation. So we have a Savoyard (or maybe the Pope) as King of Italy, and every small state (or maybe just Savoy, Sicily and the pope) keep its king, just like you had the German emperor and the king of Bavaria.
 

Grey Wolf

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The fall of the constitutional July-Monarchy might have been avoided if the pretty popular heir to the throne Ferdinand Philippe, Duc d'Orléans hadn't died in a tragic carriage accident when the carriage's horses ran out of control and he was thrown head on into a wall fracturing his skull. Louis-Philippe was nearly 77 years old when he died in British exile IOTL. He might have survived somewhat longer without the stress of having to go into exile, but we can safely assume that Ferdinand Philippe would have succeeded him somewhen in the 1850s, if he wouldn't have already succeeded him in the 1848 February Revolution as King of the French.

I think I used this as the main POD for A Feast of Eagles, though it was kind of written backwards
 
Maybe Italy is united more in the line of Germany- a confederation. So we have a Savoyard (or maybe the Pope) as King of Italy, and every small state (or maybe just Savoy, Sicily and the pope) keep its king, just like you had the German emperor and the king of Bavaria.
In that case (and still is pretty unlikely to happen) you will see either the Pope or the King of Two Sicilies as head
 
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