modern Bonapartist France

True. Though a marriage to a d'Orleans Princess would be much more helpful in healing some of the divisions between the Orleanists and Bonapartists (the Legitimists power will vanish when the Comte de Chambord dies).
Would the Orleanist agree with that? There is not much love between Bonaparte and Orlean.
 
Would the Orleanist agree with that? There is not much love between Bonaparte and Orlean.

Doubt it. Plus there wasn't any available d'Orleans princesses at the right age. But either Franco-Spanish or Franco-British matches would be beneficial to France, even if Royal marriages are no longer used to cement alliances.
 
Doubt it. Plus there wasn't any available d'Orleans princesses at the right age. But either Franco-Spanish or Franco-British matches would be beneficial to France, even if Royal marriages are no longer used to cement alliances.

There were actually a few. Assuming the Prince Imperial didn't marry until 1882, by which time he would have still only been 26, Amelie of Orleans,
eldest daughter of the Count of Paris would have just turned 17. She would go on to become Queen of Portugal.

Assuming the Count of Paris was too proud to let his daughter marry a Bonaparte, he might have been more willing to sacrifice a niece, Blanche of Orleans, daughter of the Duc de Nemours was just 2 years younger than the Prince Imperial. Marie of Orleans, another niece and daughter of the Duc de Chartes also turned 17 in 1882. She would go onto marry Valdemar of Denmark.

On the other hand assuming that the Prince Imperial held out a bit longer on marriage, say until 1886, when he would have still only been 30, then a great niece of the Count of Paris turned 17, Louise daughter of the Duc d'Alençon. She has the added bonus of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria being her maternal aunt.

The current Bonaparte claimant can claim descent from Louis XV and Louis Phillipe I.
 
There were actually a few. Assuming the Prince Imperial didn't marry until 1882, by which time he would have still only been 26, Amelie of Orleans,
eldest daughter of the Count of Paris would have just turned 17. She would go on to become Queen of Portugal.

Assuming the Count of Paris was too proud to let his daughter marry a Bonaparte, he might have been more willing to sacrifice a niece, Blanche of Orleans, daughter of the Duc de Nemours was just 2 years younger than the Prince Imperial. Marie of Orleans, another niece and daughter of the Duc de Chartes also turned 17 in 1882. She would go onto marry Valdemar of Denmark.

On the other hand assuming that the Prince Imperial held out a bit longer on marriage, say until 1886, when he would have still only been 30, then a great niece of the Count of Paris turned 17, Louise daughter of the Duc d'Alençon. She has the added bonus of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria being her maternal aunt.

The current Bonaparte claimant can claim descent from Louis XV and Louis Phillipe I.

But WHY would the Prince Imperial wait to get married in this scenario? OTL he waited to see if he could regain France, sense most Princesses wouldn't want to marry a penniless exile (case in point with the inter-marriages in the Orleans dynasty). Here the Prince Imperial would be the heir apparent to one of, if not the most powerful states in Europe. So no reason to wait. A match to the daughter/sister of the Monarch of Spain would be a good match (perhaps the Bonapartists aid Alfonso XII in the Carlist war?) as would the match to Princess Beatrice. Much better then a match to the deposed d'Orleans dynasty, though such a match could help reconcile the Orleanists with the Bonaparte regime. Though at this point I wonder how necessary it would be, with the Orleanists no doubt much weakened at this point.
 
Doubt it. Though the Ottoman Empire was close to Second Empire France I can't see either Napoleon III or Napoleon IV wanting to get involved in a war with Russia.

Well if we're going to impossibly revive the Bonapartists, why couldn't literal neo-Ottomans come to power in Turkey?

Oh, and I wasn't just referring to Syria when I said cleaning house in the Middle East.
 
But WHY would the Prince Imperial wait to get married in this scenario? OTL he waited to see if he could regain France, sense most Princesses wouldn't want to marry a penniless exile (case in point with the inter-marriages in the Orleans dynasty). Here the Prince Imperial would be the heir apparent to one of, if not the most powerful states in Europe. So no reason to wait. A match to the daughter/sister of the Monarch of Spain would be a good match (perhaps the Bonapartists aid Alfonso XII in the Carlist war?) as would the match to Princess Beatrice. Much better then a match to the deposed d'Orleans dynasty, though such a match could help reconcile the Orleanists with the Bonaparte regime. Though at this point I wonder how necessary it would be, with the Orleanists no doubt much weakened at this point.
I agree I don't see why he would wait, he will want to marry and have children quickly to secure the imperial throne for good.
 
Well if we're going to impossibly revive the Bonapartists, why couldn't literal neo-Ottomans come to power in Turkey?

Oh, and I wasn't just referring to Syria when I said cleaning house in the Middle East.

WHY is a Bonapartist Empire impossible? Napoleon III was very close to intervening in the Austro-Prussian war OTL and was only stopped by the quick peace. So, if Austria fairs a bit better, then the French will enter the war on the Austrian side. Between France, Austria and the bulk of the German states I think they could defeat Prussia.
 
Oh, I didn't mean it was impossible to devise a timeline in which the various Napoleonic empires manage to exist into the 20th and 21st centuries. I just mean the idea of "modern Bonapartist France" in the sense of one of those "modern Roman Empire" threads where one hand waves butterflies and imagines what the United States would do about Caesar Julian Augustus Cicero the Eightieth or something.

The problem, I think, of these threads in general is that the "modern day" will not resemble anything like we know. Technology, economics, political structures, social trends, and culture will have evolved differently. So while it's fine to imagine how Napoleonic France might have managed to last, don't expect that the world it will come to dwell in will look much like ours.

Me, I just wanted to go full gonzo and imagine neo-Napoleonic France and the neo-Ottomans get embroiled in "our" modern day Egypt. Maybe kick out some fascists in the Balkans, too. And then end up fighting with each other over who gets to puppetize it all.
 
Well if we're going to impossibly revive the Bonapartists, why couldn't literal neo-Ottomans come to power in Turkey?

Oh, and I wasn't just referring to Syria when I said cleaning house in the Middle East.

This is a plausible scenario where Napoleon III does not abdicate. Napoleon I is not wanked. The modern world is not changed too much.
 
The return of a classic King is perhaps impossible by the end of Napoléon 3's reign and the republic then... There was a movement from the bourgeois and all that more or less bluntly stated 'we have REALLY more interests in a faux popular republic who will defend more our own interests' and the Orléanistes and Légitimistes union was screwed (by their own actions as much).

The République des Républicains theory of Henri Guillemin, noted french historian.
 
This is a plausible scenario where Napoleon III does not abdicate. Napoleon I is not wanked. The modern world is not changed too much.
If the second french empire does not fall or that the franco-prussian war does not happend or is won by France then it could maybe last to this day. But I do think a early pod then the Franco-prussian war is needed. A pod that show the need to reform the french army. Then again with a strong french army would Prussia even try to provoc France?
 
If the second french empire does not fall or that the franco-prussian war does not happend or is won by France then it could maybe last to this day. But I do think a early pod then the Franco-prussian war is needed. A pod that show the need to reform the french army. Then again with a strong french army would Prussia even try to provoc France?

I thought we decided on an POD during the Austro-Prussian War: Austria does a bit better, keeping them from being forced into an early peace. Napoleon III, concerned with the power of Prussia, forms an alliance with Austria and attacks the Rhine. Between the French, Austrians and various German states, I think the allies will defeat Prussia. There's the POD.
 
Best thing would be to have the Austrians not be completely defeated at Königgrätz, giving the French time to join in on the Austrian side. France and Austria manage to defeat the Prussians. Germany remains a Confederation under Austria, and perhaps France gains parts of the Rhineland. Hell this would also butterfly the Austro-Hungarian compromise, making Austria more stable.

France gaining parts of the Rhineland would already weaken the position of Austria and the other victorious states, since the same movement which contributed to the re-unification of Germany, will heavily criticize them for it. In fact that might well be the TTL German equivalent of Alsace-Lorraine...

Another issue is that France wasn't that popular in Vienna after the Austro-Sardinian war were France had supported Sardinia.
Also by this point Austria still controlled the Venetia part of the kingdom of Lombardia-Venetia. IOTL Italy joined Prussia in this conflict and also attacked Austria.
So maybe instead of direct French territorial gains, Austria much instead cede Venetia to France, who in turn transfers it to Italy. This would result in Austria basically leaving Italy, something France wanted, though they will keep more or less the same territories they kept IOTL in 1866 (most of which had been 'Austrian', Hungarian and/or Habsburg for centuries).
However without an armed conflict with Italy, Austria will be able to deploy more men against Prussia.
Also a more divided Germany will also be in the interest of France. The house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg might also be able to now rule Schleswig-Holstein, which would be a member state of the German Confederation.
 
I do wonder what France would get in a successful intervention in 1866? I don't think France could take a lot of Prussian land. It all depend what kind of victory they get.
 
So, Austria wins the Franco-Prussian War. The North German Federation would be dissolved and Austria would gain dominance over the Southern states.
 
So, Austria wins the Franco-Prussian War. The North German Federation would be dissolved and Austria would gain dominance over the Southern states.

Actually the North German Confederation only came about after the Austro-Prussian war, which is the one you would need to change. By 1870 there was to big of a gap between the Prussian and French armies. So the German Confederation would mearly continue, though probably a bit more centralized.
 
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