As Charles XIII put it after his first personal meeting with Bernadotte (whom he was more or less forced to endorse), “I gambled and I won!”.
L’Aigle Triomphant: A Napoleonic Victory TL
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
Good questions with no good answers unless there is either serious shift on the continent (as in OTL) or a serious change of the British attitudes.
Theoretically, Nappy’s CS was going to benefit the continental Europe by removing the British imports as the main obstacle to the local manufacturing. The main problem was Nappy’s absolute inability and unwillingness to run a proper PR campaign supporting this program. 😜
[Sorry for the following lengthy deviation from the main line but I think that it may be useful for the better assessment of the situation
Take the worst case scenario among the big states, Russia (besides it being the worst case scenario by definition, I have much more data on it 😂 ).
“Traditional” view is that Russia was heavily suffering from the CS. As most of the “everybody knows” cases, this view is highly questionable.
The few years of the CS resulted in a sharp increase of the local production of all types of the fabrics (no British imports) with a resulting grows of the state’s revenues and lowering bread costs (no Russian exports, all grain goes into the domestic markets). The Dowager Empress complained to Alexander that CS is hurting the poor people, which on a comparative scale is very close to Marie-Antoinette statement about the cake: the poor people in Russia were not consumers of coffee and other “colonial goods” supplied by Britain but surely were benefitting from a cheaper bread.
The next part of the “everybody knows” narrative is that the land-owning nobility suffered from the lack of exports and, because the officers corps was 100% nobility, it reflected this unhappiness. In a reality, by 1812 Russian army had approximately 15,000 officers out of which only 500 had been from the land-owning families. 11,180 were from the families that did not have serfs (category which includes Barclay, by that time a full general, army commander and Minister of War), 1,140 had been born before their fathers got officer rank and nobility and 800 were children of the soldiers who themselves got promotion and noble status. The rest were officers promoted from various not-noble categories. So the landed nobility was not too well represented in the officers corps outside the Guards and top ranks.
Now, how about the landed nobility? Yes, it was hit by cutting the exports but (a) a growing domestic manufacturing would be consuming many of their products (flax, wool, timber, etc.) with many estate owners had been also the manufacturers and benefitting on both sides and (b) in OTL in 1809 - 1813 more than 860,000 had been conscripted into the Russian army, predominantly the serfs. Which means that the landed nobility lost at least 800,000 able-bodied male workers. A rather serious hit. Plus general hike in the taxes needed to finance a huge military buildup during 1810-12.
So, basically, we have the same issue as elsewhere in Europe: the government reflected immediate interests of a land-owning minority without any attempt of promoting the potential benefits of the system.
One more “everybody knows” thing is that government (aka Tsar) was scared of the potential unhappiness of a landed nobility and basically depended upon it. Which is one more BS because most of the landed nobility had their estates pawned in the State Lending Bank and the top aristocracy additionally depended on individual government’s handouts to pay their huge debts (a standard practice was for government to buy the palaces and/or provide pensions or lump sums to the widows to pay family debts; or just direct payment of the debts). In other words, the landed nobility seriously depended upon state’s good graces and not other way around (NI used this to the hilt).
So we are talking mostly about unwillingness rather than impossibility.
]
If in your scenario most of the Continental Europe is reasonably willing to accept the CS (Nappy has to provide some carrots, whatever they could be) than the stalemate can go on forever if Britain can substitute the lost benefits of the European trade with those of the colonial trade. But was this the case at that time? The revenue was not only in the direct imports/exports but also in carrying the third party goods and a big part of it is being lost. Could the revolting Latin America and newly conquered India compensate?
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Yes, and also very effective in psychological “charm assaults”. Look at post-Walchern interaction between Napoleon and Bernadotte. Nappy (who was one more time pissed off with B’s address to the troops) started with “indirect assault” accusing him in being too nice to the Swedes and Poles. To which B answered “But they are the only people in Europe who are truly devoted to you” - “But what about the French?” - “They are just admiring you and your successes”. After which Nappy laughs, jokingly slaps B on a forehead exclaiming “What a head!” and they are back to the good terms. 😜
This is a great post and much to digest… I still have much to ponder on how to handle LA revolts in a case where there is no Peninsular War to act as catalyst. Good points on the Russian implications of the CS… I have some ideas on a “split the baby” approach with the alt-Finnish War but I don’t know that Alexander would have been pragmatic enough to pursue it
Alexander was, as you already noticed, a very critical figure in the terms of making both rational and irrational decisions and s positions shifting. At least some modern Russian historians seemingly hold an opinion that most if not all of the Russian-French confrontation was a byproduct of his personal hate of Napoleon. I’m not sure about validity of such a position but at least to a considerable degree the facts are seemingly support it at least partially (the said authors tend to whitewash Nappy).
This is why I offered to “off” him and Constantine as well to make situation more manageable and logical. Nicholas is on the throne and he is still too young to do something truly drastic in the immediate future. 😂
The Finnish War was, of course, a byproduct of an attempt to force Gustav IV Adolf to join the CS but it was also a byproduct of Alexander’s need to improve his image after the loss of the 4th Coalition War (which, as the 3rd Coalition, was a byproduct of his personal attitudes and had nothing to do with the Russian interests as a state).
Not sure what do you have in mind regarding the alt. approach to the Finnish War but, IMO, while in OTL Alexander may blame Napoleon for not actively participating, he could be even more pissed off if the French did participate because domestically this could deprive him of a big part of a glory (something along the lines of “Yes, our soldiers and generals acted heroically and successfully but it was Napoleon who forced Swedish capitulation and agreement to cede Finland”). As was demonstrated in OTL the French direct help was not needed and it would be much more beneficial if Napoleon stopped encouraging the Ottomans to continue the war, which would allow to move some troops from South to North (major Russian military buildup did not yet took place and Barclay was just going to be promoted and assigned Minister of War).
Rather unrelated, the main Russian OTL problem in the Finnish war was an attitude. During the 1st stage of a war the Russian commanding officers belonged to “Suvorov’s school”, which stressed aggressive tactics over everything else including logistics and numeric odds. As a result, they tended to over-extend their forces and to issue the orders that pretty much ignored the enemy as a military factor. After the resulting offsets the attitude changed to its opposite, a fear of the risky actions. To Alexander’s credit he made two correct decisions: (a) put the new people in charge and (b) sent Arakcheev (a rather obnoxious but not single-dimensional figure) to deliver a strong message about conducting the aggressive war.
But my considerations aside, this TL is strictly yours to develop as you see fit. I’m just providing a food for your thoughts.
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No no, food for thought is good in areas I’m not super familiar with.
Though I will say, offing Alex and not Constantine is the kind of butterfly-shaped hand grenade I like to lob into the midst of my TLs… 😏
The Peace of Stockholm
The Peace of Stockholm
"...what ruin, what ruin! Oh, what terrible circumstances, what humiliation we have received! My soul weeps even as I sign this document with dry eyes..."
- Charles XIII of Sweden
Stockholm, like Tilsit two years prior, suggested once again to Tsar Alexander that Napoleon was a man who was difficult to trust and who made decisions erratically and arbitrarily, with little thought as to their impact on the European order and the regimes on whom "French peace" was imposed at gunpoint. That all being said, the terms of the Peace of Stockholm were so absurdly favorable to St. Petersburg that Alexander protested little, choosing instead merely to pocket his substantial wins and the goodwill he had engendered at Erfurt and assess his options in the future.
The Treaty that was signed at Stockholm Castle were not as harsh as Tilsit only by virtue of Sweden being a weaker minor power; the terms ceded the entirety of Finland to Russia, sans the Aland Archipelago, thus ripping the kingdom in two, and in addition ordered substantial indemnities be paid to Russia, Denmark, France, Westphalia and Mecklenburg-Schwerin in the form of both cash and naval assets, depleting the remainder of the Swedish Navy to the point that it had only 1 in 10 ships left from the start of the war. The terms of the agreement bound Sweden to the Continental System, assigned Danish prince Christian August, the former Viceroy of Norway, to be the heir of Charles XIII and severely restricted the size of the Swedish Army and Navy moving forward. Danish garrisons would be placed in Gothenburg and Malmo to enforce the terms of the treaty, and a combined force of Westphalian and Mecklenburger [1] men would garrison Pomerania until the indemnities were paid.
Russia's bounty out of the treaty designed by the Duc de Cadore, Napoleon's new foreign minister, was substantive. Between Tilsit and Stockholm, the former a treaty signed in a war she had lost, Russia now controlled both shores of the Gulf of Finland and thus all approaches to St. Petersburg; Prussia had been eliminated as a potential competitor on land and Sweden at sea; within the confines of the Continental System the Baltic was now effectively a Russian lake, with Denmark's hostility to Britain effectively creating a guard on their behalf at the Danish Straits that opened to it, and Tsar Alexander had won considerable prestige in his conquests. The only price he had truly paid was the formation of the Duchy of Warsaw on his border; the reconstitution of a proto-Polish state supported by Napoleon concerned him, and many of his court ministers, but it had not come at the expense of Russian territory and with the Swedish frontier now far from St. Petersburg, he could adequately draw down northern garrisons.
If Alexander was surprised by how substantive his advantages in the Peace of Stockholm were, perhaps he shouldn't have been; the reality was that after six years of war, the Continent was exhausted, with only Britain ready to campaign on at sea. Prussia had been defenestrated at Tilsit, Austria humbled at Pressburg; the Holy Roman Empire was no more, now a patchwork of client states to Napoleon. Italy had been brought to heel, though Napoleon turned his eye toward Rome next, and the Iberian Peninsula had pliant Bourbons who would cause Paris little trouble. Russia was, though skeptical and wary, for now sated with their gains and satisfied that France had no interest in projecting war that far east. The Third and Fourth Coalitions had ended in disaster; there was little appetite for a Fifth, at least not beyond cursory sounding-out from London's financiers who eagerly hoped for one.
As Napoleon's armies began to shift their attention southwards, it was in fact only a portion of them, under Bernadotte and Ney, that were massed to head to Italy. For the first time since the Amiens Interlude was ended ("interrupted by the British," as the French would say), the weight of Napoleon's professional corps in his Grand Armee were going home, to workshops and wives, farms and families. A reconciliation with both revolution and Empire seemed at hand, the reactionary forces arrayed against France for nearly twenty years defeated in every attempt to impose the Ancien Regime on a people who outside of Bourbon restorationists had little use for them. France was tired, but victorious - and, for the first time since Amiens, happy. The consolidation of the Napoleonic order in both France and the rest of Europe, with the reluctant stroke of Charles XIII's pen in Stockholm, had begun...
[1] Is this the right terminology?
Authorial Interlude/Breaking the Fourth Wall:
I'm hedging a bit on Italy. I can't find much in the way of resources explaining why it was in 1809 that Napoleon decided to annex half of the Boot to France, arrest the Pope and cause all kinds of political complications for himself. High on his own supply? The same Continental System frustrations that made him kick his own brother out of Holland and annex the entire North Sea coast? Trying to ward off Austria after the War of the Fifth Coalition started?
I'm hedging a bit on Italy. I can't find much in the way of resources explaining why it was in 1809 that Napoleon decided to annex half of the Boot to France, arrest the Pope and cause all kinds of political complications for himself. High on his own supply? The same Continental System frustrations that made him kick his own brother out of Holland and annex the entire North Sea coast? Trying to ward off Austria after the War of the Fifth Coalition started?
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(*) Unless somebody believes in the deadly hemorrhoids' colic.
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Thank you! Hope you’re still enjoying CdM, that is still happening even as this one gets fleshed out more
Era of a Majority of things going well for Napoleon, written by KingSweden=good TL
Deleted member 143920
He had annexed Holland because his brother was supporting Dutch, not French interests; as well as somewhat ignoring the Continental System. Then you have Hannover, which by the time it was annexed, had no purpose left as Britain wasn't negotiating. Thus, to strengthen France, impose the Continental System and scare Austria he just annexed more and more land from other countries as the Napoleonic wars progressed. For example, there was almost no need to annex Etruria in 1807 other than that a child was its King. But at least they were compensated with Portugal in TTL.
Hmm interesting. More or less what I suspected.
At least here the circumstances of needing to desperately ratchet up the Continental System aren’t quite there… yet
This actually predates the formal creation of the CS. During the Consulate he argued (you can guess with whom 😜) that the offensive strategy is actually a form of the defensive one because moving the borders further away from France proper is going to defend it from a foreign aggression. The CS was just a further development of the idea and its adoption to the changed circumstances.