Here's the first part of a TL I have taken quite a liking to that I've come up with. If it's not obvious, the POD's a French victory at The Saintes, although this is really a result of an earlier, more subtle POD, which is the Navy not giving funds for the copper sheathing of her ships.
A Brief Preamble.
At the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in 1763 Great Britain emerged as the strongest nation on earth. The Royal Navy was the most powerful military force that could be put to sea, having pounded the French into submission from the East Indies to Patagonia. In the Americas, France had been forced out of Canada and New France, and the Thirteen Colonies were secured, their borders drawn up at the Appalachians and alliances concluded with neighbouring native tribes. In India, Britain had gained a crucial foothold in Bengal, having ousted the French ally the Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah and the ruler of Hyderabad had defected to the British ranks. France had been able to keep most of its ports, however their fortifications were destroyed, thus ending France’s ability to project power in the sub-continent.
Once hostilities were ended, the vastly inflated Royal Navy was cut back. Its budget was reduced to under pre-war levels and many ships were left in dry docks to rot. Over 1000 ships had been built and outfitted, and now they were laid up and made useless if not scuttled outright. Successive Parliaments were content that the Royal Navy scout and explore new lands and seas. Botany Bay, Easter Island, all were claimed in the name of the King. All this was well, for there was no power capable of standing against Great Britain. France was heavily in debt, Russia still reeling from its enormous losses and sliding into the stagnation that would mark it for decades to come. Prussia, fresh faced and strong was badly bloodied, with their polymath king Frederick the Great crushed by the strains of war. Out of the crucible of war Britain had emerged the economic, military and imperial hegemon.
In June 1775 the Cathedral of Rheims was filled by thousands of French nobles and clergymen to witness the coronation of their new King. Louis XVI was 21 years old and impotent. He had also grown up in the magnificent courts of his two successors who had guided the grand old ship of state for almost 150 years between them. Louis’s domestic and foreign policy can therefore be seen through the lens of one suffering from the crushing weight of an inferiority complex that ironically fell upon the head of the divine autocrat of Europe’s first rate land power. He appointed capable ministers and advisors to whom he delegated much responsibility yet he was the ultimate architect of the future of France and her people.
Despite the country’s heavy debt, Louis began a programme of ship building that, in conjunction with the Spanish (with whom the French co-operated heavily), was meant to be a counter-balance to British command of the seas. Meanwhile the Royal Navy languished in Portsmouth and Chatham, eaten away by worms and barnacles.
That Ruinous War.
The ostensible spark that ignited the American powderkeg was a series of riots and public demonstrations in the port of Boston in the early 1770s. The colonists demanded home rule, which later became a call for outright independence. This revolt grew and spread so that soon a full-scale war was being fought. The leaders of the revolution were an odd mix of soldiers, intellectuals, landowners and aristocrats. One of these, a particularly distinguished gentleman name Benjamin Franklin, was sent by the Congress to France with the aims of securing an alliance with the French. This request was easily granted and in February 1778 the Treaty of Alliance was signed.
The signing of this alliance virtually guaranteed American independence. The new French navy proved its worth, and a blockade of North America to the British was affected. Many land battles were fought, and the names of great and heroic battles as well as great and heroic men will live forever, however it was this blockade that prevented Britain from reinforcing its armies, and eventually led to the surrender at Yorktown at Chesapeake on 19th October 1781.
However, war still raged between Britain and France especially in the West Indies. The Seven Years’ War had seen France lose several of its rich sugar islands and had seen Britain strengthen its hold on the Caribbean. In 1782 Admiral de Grasse headed for Jamaica with 30 ships of the line and 4,000 soldiers. All that stood against them was the fleet of Admiral Rodney, some 33 ships of the line, all of them worn out and having accrued rather too many barnacles.
The Battle of Les Saintes was the second turning point in the Revolutionary War. The two lines of ships engaged normally, however the French ships were newer and thus had fewer barnacles and the likes, which made them more manoeuvrable. After two days of engagement neither side was victorious. They engaged for a third day on the 12th April 1782. It was then that a sudden gust allowed de Grasse and three other of his ships to cross in front of the British line and rake their decks. They then cut the line in two and encircled it. Later that afternoon, Admiral Rodney surrendered to de Grasse and all of his ships as well.
A landing was made on Jamaica on the 16th April and its Governor surrendered three days later. Kingston was occupied and the British garrison was allowed to leave on 10 Royal Navy ships along with Rodney and most of his officers. The rest of the crews and the ships were pressed into the French service and sent to France. On board one of these was one of John Harrison’s chronometer clocks, or at least a copy. This was closely studied and replicated by the Royal Academy in Paris and again by the Admiralty. It was eventually decided that more of these should be made.
The fall of Jamaica saw shockwaves emanate through the nascent British Empire. De Grasse went and occupied the British sugar islands in the Caribbean throughout April, May and June of 1782. The los of the sugar islands and their immensely profitable crop meant that almost one quarter of Britain’s national income was stripped from her. Furthermore, and more devastating, confidence, the basis of English capitalism and her economy, collapsed. The Royal Navy could no longer be trusted to protect commercial interests, and thus merchant stocks collapsed. The stock market had to be closed before noon on the 4th May after the fall of Antigua to prevent the market collapsing. In Parliament the Tories lost power and Lord North was forced to resign. His replacement, the head of the peace party and a Whig the Marquees of Rockingham, opened talks with Louis immediately.
The peace treaty of the 8th February 1783 was a humiliation for the no-longer ‘Great’ Britain. Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, Trinidad & Tobago and the Virgin Islands (and the Lesser Antilles) being ceded to France. The Bahamas were given to Spain after a fleet occupied Nassau. Britain was also forced to recognise the legitimacy of the United States of America as an independent nation, although her possessions in Canada, New France, the Maritimes and Rupert’s Land were recognised. Some in the American delegation pressed for reparations, although the French did not support them. Instead, France loaned the American government 100,000 livres for the facilitation of commerce.
Claudius II
Following the war France’s economy had a massive revival. The sugar islands that had once poured capital into English industry now did so for French commerce and manufacture. With income from the new sugar islands going directly to the public treasury, the government’s creditors gained confidence in the system. They were steadily repaid and eventually by 1788 Necker could boast that the government was running at a budget surplus.
To the victors fell the spoils, and also the burdens of the world. For now unrest that had been building in France for decades rose to the surface. As commerce and industry grew, the newly rich capitalists demanded political rights equivalent to the old aristocracy. These numbered lawyers, businessmen, craftsmen and other professions who at once looked up at the landed gentry and down at the sans culottes. They demanded firstly that their own taxes be decreased, secondly that the other Estates be obliged to pay tax, and third the abolition of internal tariffs and sales taxes that hindered commerce and the movement of goods.
Louis was a long time in responding. He was a beloved monarch, and the people loved him as a reformer and a victor. He had reintroduced the provincial parlements as courts of appeal that had sped up justice in the provinces of France and earned him much favour with the common people. However, he feared that by bowing to the Third Estate he would alienate the other Estates (clergy and nobility) and thus undermine his own position. Several of his ministers encouraged him to ignore the demands and to enforce his rule as an absolute monarch. The army was dominated by the nobility- it would be easy to suppress any unrest.
It was then that the comte Lafayette, a general in the Revolutionary War, friend of George Washington and now diplomatic envoy to the new Republic. He had returned to France to present the new trade treaties signed by Washington and Jefferson to Louis. Now, however, he offered his advice. He told the King that unless he wished popular resentment to explode like it had in America, that he should re-convene the Estates General. Furthermore, he reminded the King that unlike King George, he did not have the luxury of being thousands of miles from his disgruntled people, and that if conflict did come, he would be in the front lines of battle.
This made up Louis’s mind, and on 24th April 1790 he called the Estates General to Paris. The First Estate comprised the clergy, about 10,000 men, who controlled 5-10% of France’s lands. The Second Estate was the nobility, who numbered some 400,000. Then there was the Third Estate, the commoners, which lumped together the bourgeoisie and the peasants in a manner alien to any 18th century, enlightened, ideal. After (fairly) fair elections the delegates, who numbered 1,200 in total, met at Versailles.
The Third Estate immediately demanded double representation. Almost professional to a man, they demanded that their votes, which represented a growing section of France’s economy, be more valuable than the stagnant high estates. After much wrangling, this was granted. The leaders of the Third Estate could therefore sit smugly in their dapper outfits as the nobles and clergy processed in their ancient costumes, for his was the deciding vote. Despite the fact that the first two estates could still outvote the Third Estate, its power had grown enormously.
On the 1st May Louis presided over a joint session of all three Estates where he outlined in a faltering voice his vision of a France strong, independent, wealthy and monarchical. The first motion debated was introduced by the First Estate, and it was the formation of the Royal Parlement. The nobles had resented the power of the King’s informal advisors, and had removed one, Turgot, because of his policies. Some compared the advisors to Pallas and the other freedmen who dominated the elderly Emperor Claudius, a figure Louis was often compared to. The motion was vehemently opposed by the King’s advisors, however once against Lafayette persuaded the King to support the motion. Finally on the 17th May it was passed.
The Royal Parlement was made up of 8 Ministers and their Secretaries. These would represent the Army, the Navy, the Provinces, the Treasury, the Parlements, the Colonies, the Privy Councillor (the head of the king’s household) and then the Viceroy, who would represent the King at the estates General when he could not be present. The King was free to choose these men, although they would be ratified by a vote from the Estates. On the 4th June Louis proposed his choices and they were all ratified. Necker was in charge of the treasury, and most surprisingly of all, Comte Lafayette was the Minister for the Army.
On the 19th June the Estates General voted themselves into permanence. From then on the Estates General would be as insoluble as the English Parliament. Louis would be France’s first constitutional monarch, although he still maintained most of his former executive power, and his recommendations were generally accepted by the Estates. This delegation of power meant that the indecisiveness that had marked Louis’s reign was immediately removed. The French government would from then on be a far more efficient affair.
What do we all think? Do you agree with me and think Louis really has been given the short end of the stick by history, or do you agree with the sub-heading, that he was a second Claudius?