Until Napoleon dies/gets overthrown and an opportunity appears for everyone to turn on a France which is now the principal enemy of all nationalists (except of course French ones).
Until Napoleon dies/gets overthrown and an opportunity appears for everyone to turn on a France which is now the principal enemy of all nationalists (except of course French ones).
Does that matter? It would still benefit from encouraging a lingua franca, irrespective of its political character.
Would it have helped if they had?
Support for it from the victor powers (and who else would have an interest in doing so?) would only discredit the Status Quo campaign even further, by associating it with Germany's enemies. It would recall those characters who tried to collaborate in setting up a French client state in the Rhineland during the 1920s.
The sooner he dies, the more likely this option of course.
If he lives many years longer, though, it's all gettin a lot more complicated. A disgruntled Prussia forced into submission may continue to secretly nurture national resistance movements - and that will bring them into conflict with other political entities in Germany, old or new. Both sides will try to win over "the people" without making too many real concessions - and both sides will succeed to some extent (why would they not). The more this becomes ingrained, the less likely is a wide and almost unanimous anti-napoleonic avalanche like that of 1813-15.
Another thing that should be noted is that the Napoleonic Empire had a quite good school system which indoctrinated children quite well. This is one reason that liberalism was so strong in nineteenth-century Europe. In this scenario, there would be a lengthier period of indoctrination, further making an 1848-style uprising more unlikely.
Not sure. Either way, I just wanted to say that the playing field was so far from level that quoting the results as an example of modern man's inclination for nation over everything else is highly questionable to me. It was the Nazi propaganda which declared the result the natural will of the Saarvolk. What it really was was the Triumph of the propaganda machinery of the Nazis, their powerful machinations and the psychological effects of its totalitarian shadow looming over the Saar over a new, poorly organised campaign of people who had to prepare their emigration as a Backup plan.
Germany had a pretty good school system as well. Did it make Poles or Alsace-Lorrainers any happier with Prussian/German rule?
Different time frames and educational contexts. Alsace-Lorraine was French before and after 1848, while Posen was indeed Prussian. Prussian education pre-1848 had no concept of "German Volkskunde" or anything remotely similar, except at universities. As far a it pursued an ideological agenda, it was still primarily "christian". French revolution-era education had some much farther-reaching and diffferent ideas.
Josef II tried to do just that, and failed. He wrote his own epitaph that said "Here lies Josef who failed in all he undertook". Now, Josef was a micromanager at the worst level, but maybe if Leopold II had lived longer/succeeded earlier and tried to implement such a plan (in a similar manner to how he pushed reforms through in Tuscany), and the French Revolution hadn't been going on, it might've been successful. Though I doubt it. Maybe if it had been done a whole lot earlier 16th-17th century perhaps. But I'm getting off topic for this thread. Don't wanna derail it.
You're not that far OT.
Your point that it would take generations rather than years is the key one. Thus Alsatians, though speaking a German dialect, had been French subjects since the Thirty years war, and had come to think of themselves as such. In the same way, if the Napoleonic Empire had lasted a century or two it is conceivable in theory that non-Francophone elements might have become reconciled to it.
In practice though, it is most unlikely that this would get a chance to happen. Nationalism was the rising force everywhere. Frex, in 1815 to all appearances Bohemia and Moravia were German. Czech nationalism was barely a glimmer on the horizon. By 1848, OTOH, it was rapidly emerging, despite the fact that the Czech lands had been Austrian for centuries, giving them a long common history with the other Austrian lands. Napoleon's Empire, by contrast, was just a collection of odds and ends with no common history or tradition, arbitrarily cobbled together at the whim of one man(and this well within the lifetime of most people alive in 1848), so much more vulnerable to nationalist forces as these arise over the next generation or so.
I think it would depend heavily on how well everyone is treated in places like Austria and the Confederation of the Rhine. People don't fight the administration if they are content with what it is doing. If in TTL Napoleonic France is seen as "first among equals" and people have a high standard of living, revolutions in places like Germany won't happen. If in TTL there is just constant war or Napoleon is seen as an overlord (and a suppressive one at that), there could be uprisings well before 1848.
However, in the case of Hungary I think it is pretty much inevitable. Unlike the Germans, they were quite far out of the Napoleonic orbit, and Austria had its butt kicked twice in 1805 and 1809. If Austria loses again, the Empire is pretty much done for without a Bonaparte marching in with half a million guys to keep them stable.
- BNC
However, in the case of Hungary I think it is pretty much inevitable. Unlike the Germans, they were quite far out of the Napoleonic orbit, and Austria had its butt kicked twice in 1805 and 1809. If Austria loses again, the Empire is pretty much done for without a Bonaparte marching in with half a million guys to keep them stable.
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Deleted member 97083
What do you think of the possibility of French settlement in western Germany and the Netherlands, or German and Dutch immigration to France with the immigrants being assimilated and seen as French?
Also, is it possible that the French would have not puppetized the whole Austrian Empire, and instead they break off Hungary as its own realm?
If say the Netherlands is held by France for a long time, it will definitely be seen as French. 1848 is probably *just* too soon (I would think 50 years after it was taken), for this to occur, but it will have been long enough that there won't be huge independence revolts or anything unless someone screws up really badly.
They didn't do that in 1805 nor 1809. To do it with an 1812 PoD, you would need another France-Austria war, and if Austria goes through another one of those Hungary would probably leave just to avoid being "shackled to a corpse".
In general though, puppetising huge territories is pretty difficult and makes a lot of people hate you. I think the Napoleons by the 1820s would work out that they don't need any more enemies.
- BNC