Well this is unfinished, but I don't really have the inspiration to do much more, so here this is.
It is May 1914. Napoleon IV, Emperor of the French, Protector of the Rhine, and King of a dozen countries sits in his palace at Fontainebleau fuming. News has just reached Paris that the United States and Marathas, long friendly, have publicly signed a treaty at New Orleans, letting the whole world know of their friendship and that they will no longer bow to the French - even if it means war. Even if France still rules lands from Guiana to Australia, this agreements clearly marks the end of an era. For nearly a century, France has been the dominant power in the world, but an alliance between these two rising powers has the potential to knock the French off their long-held pedestal. But France cannot be angry at others for this fate: a look into its own past will show that, far from being natural creations, the United States and Marathas are products of the strategic genius of the 1st Duke of Talleyrand nearly a century prior, creations to distract Britain on the other ends of the globe. But times have changed. France is no longer the undisputed master - United States and Marathas now are eager for a slice of the French Empire.
In the Hôtel des Invalides, home to the high command of the Grande Armée, the marshals and generals of France go about their business. The news from America is indeed a development, but not one that was totally unforeseen. For years, the general staff has warned the Emperor and Sénat of the rising power of the Americans and Marathas. In a sense, these men are pleased that a formal alliance has been signed as it will force the government of France to get its head out of the sand and take steps against its new enemies.
In the streets of Paris, newsboys shout the to the heavens the developments in New Orleans. It is the end of the Empire, they say. The way they say it, one gets the impression that American Zouaves will be marching down the Seine in a matter of days, with Maratha elephant-borne artillery following close behind. In a cafe, the proprietor, a grizzled veteran of the Grande Armée, a man whose prime was spent in the sands of the Sahara and jungles of the Congo fighting for le petit chapeau, the father of the current Emperor, nurses a bottle of wine. Could this be the end of the imperium he gave his left hand to serve? Empires come and empires go, just as Rome and Spain fell, so too will France. Perhaps now is its time. "C'est la vie" he murmurs as he sets down his wine and moves to greet several newcomers to the cafe.
- The exact POD is uncertain, but it appears to be somewhere between 1809 and 1812. The French did invade Russia, but rather than attempting to conquer it fully, a more forward-thinking Napoleon opted to invade the borderlands in an attempt to knock Russia out of the war early and avoid wintering in a foreign country. Napoleon appears to have been successful, with the southern Baltics put in the French sphere and an alliance signed between France and Russia.
- After the defeat of Russia, France turned south to dismantle the Ottoman Empire. Utilizing its new ally Russia, Continental forces streamed into the Balkans. Much of Europe fell quickly as local nationalists flocked to the French tricolor. Istanbul fell after a six-month siege and Mahmud II was forced to sign away much of his empire at the Peace of Moudania. Napoleon I and his armies marched further east, pacifying the newly-ceded Levant and Mesopotamia over the next few years. In 1816, plans for a march across Persia to India were scrapped and Napoleon returned to Paris, finally content with his conquests and prepared to live in peace. It was not to be. The next decade was filled with tensions and skirmishes on the border of the Empire as well as revolts in outlying provinces.
- War would come in 1828. The Seventh Coalition, formed by Britain and including Russia and Austria, attacked France. The Continental System, now including the Rhenish Confederacy, Italian, and Iberian kingdoms as fully loyal members beat back the invaders. A French force marched on Vienna and burnt it to the ground. The Russians were cowed by the bombardment of Saint Petersburg from the sea. Napoleon again dictated peace, this time from the Festetics Palace in Hungary. The Habsburgs were dethroned and in their place, Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia were created while the loyal French allies of Serbia and Prussia were rewarded with Slavonia and the Sudetenland, respectively. The Russians and British came out relatively unscathed, but were traumatized by their quick losses.
- The dramatic defeat of the Seventh Coalition solidified the place of the House of Bonaparte in Europe. Though Britain continued to view him as an imposter and adventurer currently holding the French throne, they were forced to in theory recognize him as the rightful Emperor of France. Elsewhere, the Bonapartes came to be viewed as legitimate as the Hanovers and Romanovs.
- The century from 1829 to 1914 would later be known as the Festetican Era. France sat atop the Earth as the strongest power in the world. Its armies dominated Europe and Northern Africa, while its navy was more than a match for that of any other nation. Europe knew relative peace (though there would be colonial skirmishes between the great powers) This era is considered to have come to a close with the signing of the Treaty of New Orleans, which set in stone the rising Maratha-American alliance and made it an official counterweight to the French system.
- The Festetican Era was not to be without its turmoils however. Though the dominant chord of the period was that of enlightened, semi-despotic imperialism as exemplified by Napoleonic France, other ideologies came to oppose this. Nationalism would rear its head from time to time, particularly in the Bloody '50s and 1870s, when Germans, Croats, Spaniards, Italians, and even Frenchmen rose up against the House of Bonaparte. Nationalists would frequently portray themselves as the opponents of the French Empire, which embraced a sort of pan-European identity. In addition, Guildisme, a sort of council-based anarcho-communism became prevalent in the 1800s, though has remained more theoretical than a practiced form of government. A sort of "third way" between monarchism and liberalism was proposed by the Duc de Tyrol in the late 1860s, a form of pan-nationalistic government in which each ethnic group is given its own constituent state in a larger federation. This Tyroleanism has agrarian undertones, and has become popular amongst the Rhenish and French Saxon nobilities.
- France has evolved into a much more nuanced form of government, with the Emperors growing weaker after the death of Napoleon I. The three institutions with power are the Sénat (the upper house of Parliament and the only one of them to have any power at all), the General Staff of the Grande Armée, and the Imperial Household. These three cliques fight for power within the empire, and their levels of control wax and wane. The army (officially renamed the Grande Armée in 1855) is extremely powerful, and perhaps the largest and most well-trained on Earth. Though by no means outdated, the research division has fallen into a rut with French dominance, and other states have become more dynamic in their military inventions. Ever since the days of Joseph-Napoleon, the capital of the Empire has been Aix-la-Chapelle. The Parliament meets there, though despite the move being 43 years ago, many ministries are still headquartered in the heart of the Empire in Paris.
- The Continental System still exists and is the name for France’s alliance on the European mainland. The System was founded as a way for Napoleon I to enact an embargo on Britain, and while trade with Britain is still forbidden (except under certain circumstances) the System currently is part customs union, postal treaty, and military alliance. To varying degrees, the states of the System are in the French orbit. They range from Spain, which under a branch of the House of Bonaparte is nearly a province of France, to Prussia, which exercises considerable autonomy especially in regards to religion. In general, the states of the System are only semi-democratic and have strong military traditions.
- Over the rest of the 19th century, Russia would enter a cycle in which it drift away from the Continental System and align itself with Britain before succumbing to Continental economic pressure and realign itself with France. This cycle has continued into the 20th century. However, Russia has attempted to establish itself in China so as to decrease its reliance on European goods. This has not been fully successful, but Russia has put most of China into its sphere.
- Though never invaded by any more than loot-hungry landing parties of enemy navies, the twin defeats of Britain by the United States and France in the 1810s did serious damage to the country's self-image. Britain fell into a funk that reached its lowest point when the Marathas overran the last outposts in Kerala in 1842. Afterwards, Britain slowly rebounded with the rebuilding of its military and establishment of colonies in Africa and the Pacific as well as the renewal of the old alliance with Portugal. The Britain of 1914 is by now means a democracy. A stunted reform movement was never able to fully abolish rotten boroughs or break the House of Lords. The franchise has been expanded to all men in theory, but there are numerous factions of British Guildists opposed to the regime on the grounds that it is thoroughly undemocratic.
- After the defeat of Russia, France formed an alliance with the Marathas in hopes of distracting Britain from Europe. The Maratha Empire was eager for French weapons and military training as a means to strike back at their British enemies. The Marathas and British would fight a series of wars over the next half-century and with Continental help, the British were driven out of India at the conclusion of the Anglo-Maratha War of 1842. In subsequent decades, the Maratha Emperors turned their arms to the north, carving out most of the subcontinent as their own. With French help, they quickly built railroads and industrialized. However, by the end of the 19th century, Maratha industry was largely on par with that of Europe's, leading to a cooling of relations as the Marathas began to view the French as a rival with nothing more to offer them. They then began to reach out to the United States in hopes of securing an anti-French alliance there.
- The United States has developed similarly to OTL. The Federalists faded away, leading to a two party system of the Democrats and Nationalists by 1870 that has endured to 1914. A civil war was fought in the 1850s, but with more free states, was shorter and saw a more successful reconstruction that included voluntary migration by freed slaves into states where they would be the majority. An alternate progressive era was ushered in by the Nationalist Party after the 1899 presidential election (a bout of plague killed a President and his Vice early on, leading to elections on the year proceeding OTL elections) and has brought reforms even further than IOTL despite opposition from the conservative Democrats. Owing to different control in Europe, patterns of migration have been different. Without a British Ireland, Irish Catholics have been less prominent in American history, while Ulster Protestants have emigrated at a much higher rate. Dutch, Catalans, and Croats fleeing Napoleonic rule have been influential while a Balkans that has integrated itself into the Continental system has also provided more immigrants to the US.
- The Portuguese Court departed Lisbon in November of 1807, shortly after the French invasion of their country. They arrived in Rio de Janiero early the next year, establishing it as a temporary seat of government while the French were being expelled from Iberia. As that never happened, the monarchy remained there indefinitely and has transformed itself into a new form of the Portuguese state. The so-called Kingdom of Brazil, Portugal, and the Algarves is a Latin American power, ruled as an absolute monarchy by the House of Braganza. The royal family may be 100% white, but Brazil is a mixing grounds of European, African, American, and even some Asian influences. Brazil inherited much of Portugal's old colonial empire and has carved out a condominium from Angola to Mozambique. Internationally, Brazil is aligned with the British. The rest of South America is largely in the Brazilian shadow: the Andean states are more or less divorced from the dealings of the rest of the world. Elsewhere in South America, France and Britain vie for influence in Guyana while the Americans have some ties to Colombia and, of course, the British foothold in Patagonia, but none of these are powers of their own. Brazil is unquestionably the strongest nation in South America.
- Since the days of Pius VII, the Papacy has largely been a French puppet. Following Pius’ death, the Pope was allowed to return to death, but as a ward of the Continental System. As a result, the Catholic Church is largely seen as a puppet of France. France itself is primarily Catholic, though the religious freedom instituted in the time of Napoleon I retains. Though many Catholics outside the Empire retain their faith in spite of the Pope clearly being a vassal, in many areas Free Catholic Churches have sprung up. Rather than prop up an anti-pope, a number of Archbishops opposed to the influence of the French over the Pope have refused to recognize the Pope, yet otherwise declare themselves loyal to the Catholic Church. The existence of the Free Catholics is very complicated and there are many laymen that are unaware of the political leanings of their clergymen. Some of the most notable Free Catholic Churches are those of Brazil, Argentina, and the North (found in Scandinavia).
- The Festetican Era had no major wars in Europe, with only several internal conflicts and Wars of Succession in the Balkans. With being more peaceful as compared to OTL, there has been some stagnation as the French bloc feels itself untouchable. While that was undoubtedly true from 1830 to 1900, the power of other states are growing. The conventional weapons of the militaries of this 1914 are actually similar to those of OTL in the same year. What is different are the uniforms and military theory. While the British, Marathas, and nations across the Americas have pioneered the use of drab, earth-colored uniforms as a result of experiences in recent wars, the conservative nobility of the French Empire have overruled the more astute Grande Armeé General Staff and have ordered the French military to keep the colorful uniforms of the 19th century. Many military planners fear the French military will suffer intense casualties in the next major war because of this. In addition, without the lessons of the Franco-Prussian War, the French military largely thinks along the lines of the 19th century. While Napoleon’s planning worked well in 1812, it is not suited for an era with modern weapons. There are some notable differences, however. Lighter-than-air flight has taken off at the expense of heavier-than-air flight, which is considered wholly unfeasible. Every nation retains a corps of dirigibles for reconnaissance and, in theory, air to air combat, though that has never happened before. In addition, due to the system of roads built across Europe by France during the Festetican Era, automobiles (called Davins, short for Engins Da Vinci) have exploded in popularity. While they are used for transportation of soldiers and equipment, the cavalry of the Empire have looked down on them with disdain and ruled out the possibility of using them in battle. In the armies of other nations, something similar to the OTL armored car has become popular.
