How Could Napoleon Succeed?

hey, all. im working on my ASB ATL again and have decided to try rewriting the Napoleonic victory scenario that is a part of it. what i had before detailed that Napoleon doesn't invade Russia and thus doesn't lose soldiers there needlessly, and instead uses them to secure control over the German states. originally, he goes into exile on Elba like before, and the British end up essentially taking his place on the continent, so Napoleon has much more support when he returns from exile while the British have less. Napoleon wins at Waterloo and ends up being able to lay siege to Britain itself, but never successfully invades the island and Napoleon I dies at the same time as IOTL of cancer, and his successor sues for peace because of the horrific deathtoll of the "channel wars"

however, since im going over everything, ive decided that i want to try to make this more realistic. any ideas for how i can do this?
 
Are you looking for any old "Napoleon succeeds" TL, or does it need a PoD as late as the Russian invasion? As a PoD, I like having him leave Touissant in place and try to make Amiens work myself...
 
some napoleonic victory TL references would be nice, but im also going for a pretty specific end-goal so i'd like to keep discussion at to that open. an earlier POD might be necessary, but a major one that i wanted to include was napoleon not invading russia, basically so that he keeps some of his manpower for later in the wars
 
Simple: SETTLE FOR LESS

There were different periods where Napoleon could have achieved a settlement with at least Austria. It would have required giving Austria land back, and thereby reducing Vienna's grievances. He would have needed to stay out of Spain and treat Russia like a real ally.

Basically, Napoleon would have needed to have defined the French Empire as a satiated state at some point below his maximum conquests, and negotiated a settlement based on that. It would have left a hostile England, but it's hard to see that mattering much if both Austria and Russia refuse to continue the war and French strength isn't drained away by the Spanish ulcer.

The thing is that Napoleon was never satisfied. Even if he had won Waterloo, it would have only bought a breathing space before he went at another bid for European domination.
 
do you all think that a successful napoleon TL would require that he not be sent into exile? i imagine that this would require there to not be a battle of waterloo for all this to work, due to butterflies, but a rough analogy could come up where napoleon essentially controls all of europe until his death, and afterwards something of an earlier cold war springs up between france on one side and britain and russia as frenemies on the other

and what does everyone think about the other european countries? an alliance with austria i could see, and perhaps italy and spain as well, though i doubt portugal would be very friendly if france is against britain, and what about the eventual fate of the german states? a long time ago, i had also looked into how realistically large france could get in a napoleonic victory and the conclusion was that it could hold everything west of the rhine with the inclusion of the low countries
 
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