I imagine that the U.S. is going to want a Pacific coast one way or another.
L’Aigle Triomphant: A Napoleonic Victory TL
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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the map is set in the 20th century and as you can see it is not finished
as I said before great map, I have some criticisms/suggestions for the map and I would like to hear not only your opinion but that of the rest of the group about them.
North America:
alaska russian ok
canada ok
usa should have florida and more in the west (not much, but at least part of texas)
mexico probably go from california to yucatan
Central america;
it is very likely to occur as otl in central america
The caribbean:
will be independent (especially islands like cuba and haiti)
South America:
Gran colombia (either it splits into three which is more likely or it stays together)
Guyanas are part English and part French (the Portuguese returned that part for some reason , they probably won't return and france is not interested)
Peru will remain the same due to geography
Chile with possible changes in the Tierra del Fuego region
bolivia (probably the same size, but on the map it looks like brazil ate part of the nation. boliva can lose a lot of territory if it goes to war)
Then we have Argentina/Paraguay/Uruguay/Brazil. That we don't have defined borders, the portuguese can annex uruguay and parts pf argentina and that prevents the centralization of argentina (creating buenos aires and other nations in the region).Paraguay can be bigger if it take part of Argentina. Portugal can also invade and annex part of Paraguay.
Europe: is great
Excluding g
ermany (which will not unify itl)
Norway is independent of Denmark (if it is annexed by someone it will be Sweden)
The Ottomans have the Balkas which, considering their decadence, will be independent.
Africa:
In Africa, France has too many colonies. The colonies will be close to France (North Africa) Tunisia should be French. The horn of africa will be colonized by a smaller nation like italy(otl) or uk colonizes. i doubt spain will have a colony so far away (if it has one it will be morocco). the congo will either be conquered by the uk, divided or given to a nation that can be attacked by france and the uk. Denmark would be a good choice. madagascar due to coal will likely be conquered by portugal.
Asia:
uk has all of india, i don't see a problem with that.
The uk having the eastern indies is very unlikely. it is likely to be given to a third party (I gave the idea of Portugal, but it would have to be an independent one)
France being part of Australia is very unlikely
british NZ is likely
the philippines will either be independent or be conquered by another nation (a modernized japan probably)
Viatnam, hainan and formosa the same thing.
Korea was only colonized by Japan, outside of it, no one will colonize.
japan was colonized which is unlikely considering it was the nation that has always been the best at adapting western technology
Manchuria will be conquered by Russia or Japan
hawaii will be dominated by the UK or Japan
Florida is currently a very autonomous dominion and has a good chance of joining the US or becoming independent, for French Guiana it's for simplicity's sake I had thought of a status quo, otherwise for the rest of America I pretty much agree. I'm not sure if I'm right about the rest of the Americas, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about the rest of the world, and I'm not sure if I'm right about the rest of the world. On the map Tunisia is French, Italy is a confederation led by the kingdom of Italy which has a Bonaparte and therefore Paris was against the fact of seeing Italy come to Africa, for the East Indies... it's complicated theoretically it's always the government in exile of the kingdom of the Netherlands which leads, but England decided to integrate them into the Commonwealth, for Korea it happened following the massacre of Christians that France made it a protectorate
It looks as if Poland lost its part of Silesia and a significant part of Greater Poland to Austria and most of Pomerania to Danzig with some small compensation in the east (Białystok).
Poland has been partitioned again it seems, I'm surprised the Russians didn't take Galicia
I'm surprised that france didn't take libya, as i said spanish america will hardly become a domain it's likely they will declare themselves independent.
Apart from that, there are colonies in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa that I doubt France can have. Considering that france already has iberia, a mega france and italy.
even though spain was not invaded by france it is still a half dead nation. It will need some 50/70 years of renovation/reforms and recovery to get on the right track. fight to keep the colonies does not help the nation in decay. The ideal for spain would be to keep cuba and islands in the caribbean, reform and then advance in the morocco region
Apart from that, there are colonies in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa that I doubt France can have. Considering that france already has iberia, a mega france and italy.
even though spain was not invaded by france it is still a half dead nation. It will need some 50/70 years of renovation/reforms and recovery to get on the right track. fight to keep the colonies does not help the nation in decay. The ideal for spain would be to keep cuba and islands in the caribbean, reform and then advance in the morocco region
For Libya it is because France maintains good relations with the Ottomans (allies against Russia) and that they did not want to sell it to Algeria and Tunisia, and as you can see on the map Egypt is a condominium.
Above all, don't forget that three quarters of the map is just speculation based on my own judgement (I have failed to partition China)
yes, it would be just to understand the thought behind
how does the codominium work something similar to the egypt of the british?
A condominium is, in public international law, a territory over which several sovereign states exercise joint sovereignty by formal agreement. So yes, that's about it
The Congress of Aix - Part III
The Congress of Aix - Part III
The most difficult settlement of all, of course, would be that of the matter of Britain. Napoleon's entire government, even Talleyrand, as well as the preponderance of his allies had come around to the position that whatever terms were imposed at Aix must in the case of the British be incredibly harsh; in his notes, Metternich described the attitudes of the French, Spanish and even most German delegates as "fanatical and lusting for vengeance; there was no reason nor logic that could be applied to their aims to exclude entirely from the Continent, and if possible the world, the British state."
Talleyrand had designed most of the articles of the Congress to this point but when December turned to January and attention turned from the European continent to Britain, Napoleon took over personally, as he had done at Potsdam (best seen in the bizarre Oder River border that bisected Breslau). In famous (or, to some, infamous) remarks, the Emperor of France laid out a lengthy, robust case not for a general peace with Britain but his view that London must be punished: "Every coalition assembled against France in these last twenty-five years since the Republic's first creation was financed and directed by London; every peace that was struck was brief because it was broken at the instigation of London; every drop of blood shed to attempt to destroy France during a quarter-century, regardless of blade or gun that may have shed it, was at the end fired at the behest of London. If this Peace that emerges from this Congress is to last, it must be Westphalian; it must thus enjoy guarantees of sovereignty and independence for all signatories from interference and intrigue by the anti-Continental power who has performed all such interferences and intrigues in the past!" Another Amiens would certainly not be good enough for France now, with that peace's collapse laid wholly at British feet.
The issue of course was that France had no way to enforce terms on Britain. Thanks to Trafalgar, the Royal Navy dominated the high seas and could interdict shipping at will with little pushback; Napoleon's brilliance as a tactician and strategic thinker on land did him little good when Britain sat behind "the world's greatest moat." Talleyrand as much as anyone was aware that Britain had taken a hard line at the aborted peace agreements at Wismar precisely for that reason, and suspected they would endeavor to do so again. The Britain of Aix, however, was a much less hard-edged one than four years past. The period 1810-14 had, after all, seen a concentrated run of foreign policy and domestic disasters for Britain that had badly eroded her hand. The Fernandine Gambit in Spanish America and pursuant expeditions to various colonial holdings in the New World had been not dismal failures but utter fiascos that had left thousands of British soldiers dead; similar intrusions into the Netherlands and Italy had outraged potential allies and ended in either total rout or deliberate retreat. Other than the Sardinian Savoyards and Sicilian Bourbons, Britain lacked any friends on the European continent whatsoever; their increasingly thinly-spread blockades had denied them access to European markets while France consolidated overland and short-haul coastal routes and the Baltic became, commercially, a Russo-Danish lake. Spain was perhaps even more bloodthirsty than France, Portugal was now under a puppet boy king, and Austria exhausted after reversal after reversal, while Russia - last seen fighting a war against Britain in 1809 - was fat and happy with its considerable gains for little effort even as it kept a skeptical eye on semi-independent Warsaw. There was no path for a British resurgence.
Domestically, too, the situation was even more dire. Food riots had begun as early as 1811 and the Prime Minister had been assassinated the next year; Canning's brief tenure as successor had been calamitous. Unrest had spread from England to Scotland and now Ireland, where Anglophobic sentiment was running higher than ever. The finances of both the state and the banking establishment were thin, the resources of the Royal Navy scattered (that war scares in 1812 and 1814 with the United States had forced considerable military assets, including thousands of soldiers, be deployed to the Colony of Canada did not help matters) and the economy of Britain in deep depression. The Cabinet learned of mutinies on four Royal Navy vessels occurring independently in the lead-up and early months of Aix; there was nothing left to fight for. Britain, unmolested at home and at sea since 1805, had been defeated in the only theater that counted.
It was for that reason that Bathurst, aware that he would need to give imprimatur to a Congress that would be extremely unpopular in Britain, sent Castlereagh to Aix to treat with Talleyrand, and Talleyrand alone, to develop a settlement that Britain could stomach but which France would accept. The alternative was economic collapse and the potential exclusion from Europe for a generation. London would pay indemnities to Spain and France (the former would receive a larger one) and return the Cape Colony to the Netherlands (though not the East Indies) while acceding to the commercial terms of the Rome System; France would see her African, Indian and Caribbean outposts returned, with the exception of French Guyana, which would remain on paper in the hands of Brazil. Britain would also deliver the acquiescence of Sicily and Sardinia to the conventions of Aix, stand by the same agreements made by Austria and Russia not to interfere in the internal politics of states that had accepted the Napoleonic Code even while not adopting any such measures themselves, guaranteed the territorial integrity of all states of Europe, and agreed to compensate Denmark for the terrorism of Copenhagen by transferring a number of warships to be used exclusively by the Danish Navy. Confiscated vessels would be returned to their rightful owners or a small indemnity paid. Britain's position in Gibraltar and Malta would remain uncontested, and no permanent solution to the "two Portugals" was found, which seemed to suit Talleyrand just fine.
Spain in particular was furious over the generosity of the terms, and Napoleon deeply skeptical himself, but Talleyrand aggressively Napoleon's brothers Louis, Jerome and Joseph to accepted on their own behalf these terms and form a "pro-compromise" lobby. Austria, Russia and, to little surprise, Denmark also leapt at these terms; Napoleon begrudgingly accepted the Castlereagh Compromise, aware that France had little recourse and that the people were restive after so many years of endless war, and with that the final pieces of the Peace of Aix came together, hideously unpopular as these last articles were in London, Paris and Madrid.
It was a frustrating, unfulfilling peace struck for many of the parties at Aix - but it was a peace.
I'm setting the over/under on to when another war breaks out at 5.5 years and taking the under.
Good update!
Honestly, it's the better peace Napoleon could've realistically asked for, he gets indemnities, a Britain who has its navy weakened and diminished which allows him to build his own to counter theirs (they did have the world's second largest navy after Britain before the revolution), a route to India so he can secure and rebuild French presence on the subcontinent (faster and more efficient to Britain's because they'll be stronger) and have the diplomatic coup of having defeated the whole of Europe.
Interesting update as always!
Just a question: does this imply that the sicilian bourbons renounce their claim on Naples? OTL both Sicily and Naples (whose formal name was Two Sicilies BTW) continued to claim each other territories quite stubbornly.
It also means that Nappy has potential Indian allies in the Maratha Confederacy and Kingdom of Nepal (which may not be at war with the EIC due to the chaos in Europe). If the Confederacy can centralize and actively get the sub rulers of it's fiefdoms to co-operate with each other, then France has an Indian ally that can realistically threaten all of British India
World Map - 1815
This was an excellent conclusion to the peace negotiations! I'm interested to see how France, its allies, and its enemies will develop in this new postwar reality. I made a quick WorldA map of the world in 1814, so if anyone notices any particularly glaring errors, please do point them out—it's been awhile since I've read the earlier updates.
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