Due to New Orleans being butterflied away, this is most likely.
Imperator Francorum: A Napoleon II Timeline
- Thread starter Basileus_Komnenos
- Start date
Without Andrew Jackson, i wonder if the native americans may end up in a better position than OTL. Maybe the Trial of Tears never happens in this TL
Also i wonder what effects it will have on the issue of slavery
Jackson doesn't need to die, you just need to keep him from having won an important battle like New Orleans. Without that he's too small fries to get involved in federal politics. He could probably be governor or senator though
I'll second the video recommendation Goldensilver81 made. It gives a pretty good basic summary.
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Also, I'd recommend these videos as well:
P.S. Do you actually have trouble writing warfare? Your work in that regard seems pretty decent to me.
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Though he might still try to take Florida from Spain. With Spain's state in the 19th century, it could be relatively easy to pull off.
Thanks man! I'll definitely check it out.
Glad that you rate my writing so highly. I do have a bit of difficulty in writing some military battles. In school when I learned history we mostly focused on the wider events and their consequences, and the events leading up to it. As for how that relates to battles, it means that I'll be focusing on political and sociological events and the related fallout from the battles rather than the nitty gritty details on the field as that's not quite my specialty.
If you ever want to dabble into it, I could try and help. I'm not terribly experienced with writing battles myself, though I usually write in prose, rather than a general description which would probably be easier.
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Thanks for the offer. I'll let you know if I need help with that. Napoleon II is after all the son of the Eagle so he will have his own fair share of battles he participates in throughout France's various wars.
Sicily was a breadbasket in antiquity. The problem was that it became deforested and suffered massive soil erosion, wiping out its agricultural potential. It was a dump by the middle ages.
When in the middle Ages do you mean? The Middle Ages is a long time. Plus Sicily was a huge breadbasket for the Eastern Roman Empire then. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily based in Palermo was also highly organized and one of the wealthiest and most powerful and organized states in Christendom aside for the HRE and the Eastern Roman Empire at the time. The Hohenstaufen Kingdom of Sicily was also very powerful and wealthy. Frederick II's Kingdom and Manfred I's kingdom were very powerful and rich. I'd say that the degradation of Sicily though would likely start during the War of the Sicilian Vespers where Aragon took Trinarcia (Sicily itself) ruling as a distant King. In Naples a separate identity developed with both Palermo and the City of Naples becoming rivals with each other.
How do you think the Sicilian Bourbons could address the situation in Sicily? Do you think a reforestation program could be enacted along with improving development by attracting investment from Spain, France, and the UK?
I just realized something. If there is no Louis Philippe I and July Monarchy, does that mean there is no French Foreign Legion?
There might be something akin to it. After all Napoleon did have his Polish legion and Mamluk Cavalry after all which he used to great effect. So there's some precedent to establish something along these lines.
Barbary Legion? Idk it just sounds a badass name for an north african napoleonic elite unit, akin to the Mamlukes. Putting my thoughts into it, will be curious to see how Napoleonic France deals with natives in the african colonies. It just sounds the right nation to "elevate" native rights based on their loyalty to France and the Emperor, i can see colonial troops in general being much more prestigious than in any nation of OTL, we might see something akin to the aforementioned Barbary Legion, maybe an "Black Guard" and, of course, the Mamlukes! Napoleonic ideology just doesn't fit with the "fuck the natives no matter what" premise, they wouldn't be saints either but i can see colonial government being significantly better than IOTL, especially when it comes to native representation and most importantly the military.
But all of this depends on how imperialism will play out ITTL, do you have put any thoughts on it already? @Basileus_Komnenos
But all of this depends on how imperialism will play out ITTL, do you have put any thoughts on it already? @Basileus_Komnenos
I like the sound of that! I might just call them that, though I'm not exactly sure at the moment.
Napoleon II will generally be more progressive than his European contemporaries for sure. That's likely because he would try to envision his resurrected Empire as a sort of Neo-Carolingian and Neo-Roman Empire. The French Empire in terms of its scale and Imperial Style was only really matched by the Carolingian Empire and Roman Empire of old despite how short it lasted in otl. Though Napoleon being part Habsburg might try to resurrect the old idea of the Universal Empire and apply that principle to the French Empire. Though how successful he'd be at this remains to be seen.
Napoleon to imitate the Romans would offer the army as a means to unite the various peoples in his Empire. So maybe offering citizenship to those who serve in the army.
Even in France Napoleon I was generally conciliatory towards the disparate peoples within it. Standard Parisian French only really took over after the Third Republic enforced its use in the public schools where instruction had to be done in French. The Second French Empire though in otl relegated control of education back to the Clergy to shore up its base of Catholic supporters. Napoleon II might do something similar within other parts of his Empire. Instead of simply imposing Parisian French, he might just have it be taught alongside the local language thus providing a common language while not alienating the provincial populace against the Imperial Regime. I can see Napoleon II possibly trying this in Africa.
What do you think?
Napoleon II for example would probably try to get the elites of the various colonies on his side rather than imposing a top down French system inflaming and alienating the Empire's new subjects.
Though Imperialism will certainly be different from the otl Scramble for Africa. France's otl borders in Africa for example were largely taken to make up for France's humiliating loss to the Germans in the Franco-Prussian War. While Napoleon II will likely try to focus on Africa, it'll likely be to relieve pressure and the desire for Imperial Zeal when France has pushed as far as it could in Europe without sparking another coalition.
Citizenship by service it's exactly what i was thinking about, and the consequences of it end up being enormous, especially if ya see some colonial troops being employed in Europe because of pure need
, these german bastards didn't see our Black Guard flanking them!I think it's totally acceptable, this might create some interesting results, like the proeminence of local languages in France over the standard, with an earlier push for the standardization of the own local languages, especially when it comes to Africa, depending on the colonies that the french get, i might see them playing around with local languages, especially in arabic areas, e.g choosing the local dialect instead of the standard for division purposes (i can see he using that in regions like Alsace-Lorraine, promoting the non-standard identity), while using standard french as the imperial lingua franca. Another interesting effect will be the non-negligence of Southern France, that was really forgotten by all governments post-first empire (especially the third republic), resulting in a more linguistically distinct albeit culturally (and economically) more united France.
With that i think he'll probably use the top-down system for his own benefit, assimilating the local elites into the empire after get them on his side, and after that using them to assimilate the general people. This way some french colonies might even have better quality of life than before they were established and ironically actually achieving the promise of "promote civilization and progress".
The Barbary Legion idea led me to wonder, will the French still take Algeria? I know next to nothing of the OTL circumstances of the French capture of Algeria so I don't know about the plausibility, but if Algerian corsairs continue to interfere with French shipping in the Mediterranean, the French would have no choice but to intervene, sort of like the US in the Barbary wars.
The map of 1812 on the opening post depicts Tunis as an Ottoman vassal. Perhaps if the Ottomans implode or are preoccupied due to Muhammad Ali's uprising (if/when this happens) perhaps, that gives the French an excuse to attack Tunis? That would probably a neo-Punic War scenario which would be interesting to see unfold. Again, don't know how plausible this is, hopefully someone with better knowledge can provide input.
The map of 1812 on the opening post depicts Tunis as an Ottoman vassal. Perhaps if the Ottomans implode or are preoccupied due to Muhammad Ali's uprising (if/when this happens) perhaps, that gives the French an excuse to attack Tunis? That would probably a neo-Punic War scenario which would be interesting to see unfold. Again, don't know how plausible this is, hopefully someone with better knowledge can provide input.
Almost certainly yes, the barbary pirates were a big torn in the french neck, and even with multiple interventions they didn't stopped their stuff, just an outright conquest would stop them. And IOTL it proved fairly easy to conquer them, the Regency of Algiers had an institutionally weak leader with power outside the city being delegated to powerful lords, with the capture of Algiers the rest just simply fell swiftly for the french, as the lords just changed their loyalty (actually, this was the main reason for Algeria being outright annexed instead of being a colony). Independent it's problematic, it's easy to conquer and it's resourceful in many ways, the perfect imperial just-for-the-sake-of-prestige conquest.
Well they can’t just attack without a cause beli. And Europe, even Russia wanted an intact but weakened Ottoman Empire during this period to maintain the balance of power. That’s why they propped it up and intervened against Muhammad Ali in otl. This gave the Ottoman breathing room to enact the Tanzimat Reforms.
I don’t know if he’d be able to sell it as a Neo-Punic War, but something closer to France would be a sort of Neo-Eight Crusade might be used for propaganda. That was where Louis the Lion allied with his brother Charles d’Anjou in a Crusade for North Africa.
Well the Bpurbons would be looking for a means to shore up popular support through conquest somewhere to retake some of it’s national pride capitalizing the growing feelings of French Nationalism. This was what Alfonso XIII de Bourbon, King of Spain tried to do with Morrocco in otl.
Though France spent decades trying to pacify the interior under Louis-Philippe, Napoleon III, and the Third Republic. There was quite strong guerrilla resistance in the interior that the French had to brutally suppress. Some of the atrocities were so bad that many prominent Frenchmen who were once openly supportive of the conquest, began to turn away from it and criticize it.
Interesting. I can also see the Algerian lords you mention supplying men for the "Barbary Legion" if such a unit comes to pass.
Very true. Perhaps initial conquest would be focus solely on the coastal cities (Algiers, Bona, Bugia, etc.) as a way to stop the corsairs. Eventually a "soft power" control over the interior would develop. The interior would not be part of the empire in this case.