Most likely outcome if Napoleon does not invade Russia.

I know that this is probably the most common subject to talk about pre 1900 alt history apart from the byzantine empire surviving, but I want to know what could happen if Napoleon allows russia to break from the continental blockade and keeps his defensive posture in Europe, maybe using Le Grande Arme to fight in Iberia against the british and Portugal. Could he stall the war for enought time for a definitive peace treaty be signed? And what would happen to the continental bloc eventually?
 
The thing is, if he allows Russia to get away with flouting his authority, then why should other nations not do the same? Before you know it, his entire authority could collapse like a house of cards when one of its key supports has been removed.

He had backed himself into a corner, by overbearing demands such as refusing to allow any of the conquered nations to trade with Britain. While this made sense from a military perspective, politically it was unwise. He would have done better to allow nations like Russia the illusion that they were free, to better preserve his own power.

Had he never devised the continental blockade system in the first place, he could have turned to Spain and that might have indeed been a far better use of resources for him. A few defeats for the British there, and they might eventually come round and realise the war was pointless.
 
The Austrians and Prussians see this as a sign of weakness and prepare to strike again. As time went on Napoleon's enemies became stronger and more capable while his abilities declined somewhat so it's a question whether this coalition can be the one to finally beat him.

It only takes one major defeat for Napoleon to lose that mystique of invincibility.
 
The thing is, if he allows Russia to get away with flouting his authority, then why should other nations not do the same?

He can crush the other nations who rebel against him. Prussia is way closer and more feasible to repress than Russia, the same for Austria (and he got a royal marriage with Austria too).
 
He can crush the other nations who rebel against him. Prussia is way closer and more feasible to repress than Russia, the same for Austria (and he got a royal marriage with Austria too).
Not even Napoleon could go around stamping out dissent for all time in Europe (look at Spain). If a regime becomes unpopular and ineffective, force only holds it together for so long. As it was, Germany was already starting to become a hotbed for nationalism and anti-French sentiment.
 
He can crush the other nations who rebel against him. Prussia is way closer and more feasible to repress than Russia, the same for Austria (and he got a royal marriage with Austria too).

"You can not defeat me. I spend 30,000 lives a month" only works so long as you can keep drawing that much fresh blood from the bank. Sustaining the kind of military effort required to maintain the Imperial structure on its peripheries by force of arms is slowly sapping the resources of the French homeland, and shifting more and more of the burden on the satellite states will only produce more resentment and feed into a vicious cycle. Prussia, for sure, is prostrate and so will find rebelling difficult, but its important to remember that Russia (if she wants to expand her own sphere of influence, and push back the French threat including Poland once and for all) has an unmolested army she can send in to support the Germans to back them up.

Ultimately, France and Russia are bound to clash at this point: Napoleon has pushed his sphere of influence too close to Russia's strategic heartland for her to tolerate lying down, while on France's side the existence of Russia as an "Army in Being" means she can't safely demobilize/reduce the defenses on the eastern reaches of her SOI: which in the long term is prohibitively expensive and strechs French resources too thin. The question is only really weather the fight is going to take place in Russian or Napoleonic territory, and based on that iniative on who's side the peripheral/unreliable powers of Austria and Prussia are going to be fighting. From the French point of view, making a show of strength and pushing the fight into enemy territory not only encourages those allies to stay on their side and push the expenses of the war onto the enemy via requisition/looting, but essentially takes their armies as captives by integrating them among more reliable forces in the formation of the Grand Armee. If France isen't going to go into "Hot" war with Russia, than she'd need to adopt a policy of competing via containment: limiting Russian ability to export (Aligning the Turks and Sweden more tightly to the system would help), backing insurgencies in Eastern Poland and the Ukraine, and the like. However, Russia would also be doing the same, and she's likely to have an advantage in the long term in this kind of game especially as Napoleon would need to be holding back British attempts to undermine the Empire elsewhere.
 
The thing is, if he allows Russia to get away with flouting his authority, then why should other nations not do the same?

The funny part was that quite a few nations, France including, already had been violating the system by finding the convenient ways around it: using the neutral ships, using the privateers (who, formally, had been stopping the blockade runners but in fact were officially reselling the "confiscated" cargo after paying a minimal tariff).

Another funny thing is that, objectively, in a long run the European continent would benefit from that system because it made development of the local industries possible due to the absence of the British competition (in Russia there was an extensive development of the textile industry during that period). But in a short term it was going against the existing economic interests (selling the raw materials to Britain).

Had he never devised the continental blockade system in the first place, he could have turned to Spain and that might have indeed been a far better use of resources for him. A few defeats for the British there, and they might eventually come round and realise the war was pointless.

If the system was not there, one of the main reasons for his invasion of Portugal and then Spain would be gone and so would be a need to fight on the Peninsula.
 
Sure, Napoleon's authority on Europe might be weakened if he lets Russia go away with it, and then Austria and Prussia will likely get ideas, and Russia might support them (through material help) but...

1 ) While problematic this is better than disaster in Russia
2 ) Austria and Prussia can be defeated if they rise again
3 ) Yes, France can't fight little wars against Prussia, Austria and smaller states forever but those states can't afford to fight France (and take big defeats) forever either... France has limited human and material resources and endurance but so do Austria and Prussia (and Britain for that matter).
 
Sure, Napoleon's authority on Europe might be weakened if he lets Russia go away with it, and then Austria and Prussia will likely get ideas, and Russia might support them (through material help) but...

1 ) While problematic this is better than disaster in Russia
2 ) Austria and Prussia can be defeated if they rise again
3 ) Yes, France can't fight little wars against Prussia, Austria and smaller states forever but those states can't afford to fight France (and take big defeats) forever either... France has limited human and material resources and endurance but so do Austria and Prussia (and Britain for that matter).

What is the best, worst and the most likely scenario for France?
 
Sooner, or later, he's going to need to deal with Russia. However, Napoleon can use this time to smash the British in Spain. Russia might attack first at the Grand Duchy of Warsaw to try and annex it, but Napoleon had plans for such a event. Have France annihilate the Russian Army in Poland and you can very well kill the Sixth Coalition before it can even start.
 
Shockingly, not as commonly proposed as you might think: ACW scenarios are the most common suggestions not involving Nazis.

As for Nappy, depends.

Case in point, I like having Napoleon ditch his first wife for a Russian bride, make the Russians more his partners. A Franco-Russian invasion of the Ottomans brings every nation in Europe under heel save Brita8n.
 
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