Napoleon accepts the Frankfurt Proposals

... and promptly dies. Suppose at Leipzig or sometime between then and the proposals being posed to Napoleon he is badly injured one way or another, enough to make him worry that he will be unable to take to the field again or even be near the front and as such he decides to accept the proposals in large part due to his ego being such that his trust in his various generals being not enough that he believes they can defend France for him. To further ensure that war simply doesn't break out again, let's say the old boy succumbs to his wounds shortly after accepting the proposals, removing that great road block to European peace.

Presuming this is plausible enough, how would the the rest of Europe look in the aftermath of this event? France has essentially lost all its trans-Rhine power and influence (I am actually unsure what the deal in Italy is), but the HRE is obviously dead. Would an alt-German Confederation be established sans Rhineland? Furthermore, if Napoleon does die late 1813 what sort of government is likely to form in France? Even if Napoleon II remains on the throne, he obviously won't be wielding power for some time. Would France be able to integrate the non-francophone territories long term, at least in the urban centres via industrialisation perhaps? Finally, how are Anglo-French relations likely to evolve with this enlarged if exhausted France?
 
The problem is less having Napoleon agreeing to these conditions (even if he could be likely to accept if he could secure part of Italy) : it would be to have Britain accept these conditions, which it didn't, as a French control of Belgium would have been seen as a possible existential threat.
And as long the proposals are biding only Austria and maybe Prussia, Napoleon would remain unconvinced of the relevance giving up this much of his still important strategical presence in Europe.
 
The problem is less having Napoleon agreeing to these conditions (even if he could be likely to accept if he could secure part of Italy) : it would be to have Britain accept these conditions, which it didn't, as a French control of Belgium would have been seen as a possible existential threat.
And as long the proposals are biding only Austria and maybe Prussia, Napoleon would remain unconvinced of the relevance giving up this much of his still important strategical presence in Europe.

Well, that's the OTL outcome, no? This first stumbling block is certainly getting him to agree to them, which is why I'm proposing that he is put into a state where he is simply a lot less confident in his own (physical) ability, which I would imagine could change his mind. Or perhaps he was just so stubborn that even unable to get out of bed he would never compromise?
 
Well, that's the OTL outcome, no?
No. Britain never agreed to Frankfurt Proposals, and Russia remained largely passive on this, which explains why the military build-up of the Coalition remained intact.
Without London giving a clear proof that it would at least tolerates a "Frankfurt"-Europe, it would only make, as much Nappie is concerned, France abandoning a lot of important strategical and political territories before a more or less unavoidable new Coalition.

Or perhaps he was just so stubborn that even unable to get out of bed he would never compromise?
Well, he did showed that he was willing to get as much as he could, even during negociations leading to these proposals, true enough.
But he did seems, as well, to have backtracked on several of his "unnegociable" demands when Metternich point him that it wasn't negociable.

That said, there's things Napoleon did wanted to preserve outside the natural borders :
-While the Confederation of the Rhine was seen as an acceptable loss, the control of strategic passages on the right bank wasn't
-Similarily, the control of at least parts of North Italy wasn't that accepted : less for strategical reasons, more because the loss of late Republican acquisitions in Italy would have meant a loss of prestige in France (that saw the rise of factionalism at this point) and especially in the military (which was a main political base for napoleonic regime while abiding by the remembrance of republican victories)
- On this regard, giving up would it be only the atlantic part of IOTL Belgium would have been a huge no-no, even if it would have meant British agreement on the proposals;

Eventually, a wounded Napoleon would be pretty much about dynastical survival, and giving too much to the Coalition (even disregarding that neither Russia, and even less Britain, were bound to the proposals) would have meant a great loss of political credibility, and few chances to see his really young sons succeeding him.

Either Napoleon somehow do better in 1813, enough to push for a significant (but not all, obviously : some were just not going to happen) part of his demands in the proposals; either you manage to bring Britain on this and maybe accepting SOME arrengements.
 
No. Britain never agreed to Frankfurt Proposals, and Russia remained largely passive on this, which explains why the military build-up of the Coalition remained intact.
Without London giving a clear proof that it would at least tolerates a "Frankfurt"-Europe, it would only make, as much Nappie is concerned, France abandoning a lot of important strategical and political territories before a more or less unavoidable new Coalition.

Just on this note tonight (late where I am) I was under the impression that London did 'accidentally' accept the proposals via Lord Aberdeen, at least this is what the wiki article says. Now, I've seen your posts plenty of times and suspect you're rather more informed than wiki so I'll take your word on this, but as this is an interesting area could you point me to a reliable source on the Frankfurt Proposals?
 
Well, from what I saw elsewhere (including on this board and Passion-Histoire) I don't really interpret the wiki page the same way than you seems to do.

The Allies, meeting in Frankfurt, drafted the proposals under Metternich's close supervision. The British diplomat in attendance, Lord Aberdeen, misunderstood London's position and accepted the moderate terms
It seems to imply that Lord Aberdeen was a bit clueless about what positions he should get (or rather, that he let Metternich get what he wanted), and misrepresented Britain during the drafts of the proposals.

Furthermore, it seems, still the same wiki article, that
London rejected the terms because they might allow Belgium to become a base for the invasion of England.
that London objected the terms less because of the geopolitical situation, than it rejected any power with a presence in Flanders.

Anyhow, here's a note (that I found only in french, so it's possibly a bad retro-translation) sent by Lord Rovert Stewart Castlereagh the 27 November.

Lord Aberdeen will not be surprised that, after such succeeding victories, the english nation would probably look with disdain a peace that wouldn't strictly confine France within its old boundaries; even at this condition, peace with Napoleon will never be popular, because it would be believed that he might have wanted to maintain it. Cabinet is decided to use all of its influence to prevent Allies to both an agreement that wouldn't present solid guarantees. Consider that taking Antwerp from France, it's, beyond any other reason, the most essential to british interests.

When Abderdeen pointed that the peace proposals were made in the spirit of a peace of compromise, Lord Castlereagh's answer is clear.

I can't hide you the uneasy look of the government on Saint-Aignan notes, and, most certainly, such a document, if published by the ennemy, without a counter-document on our part, will provoke painful impression in this country.


I spare you the rest of the exchanges (you can find them there), but London doesn't seem to be bound by the talks at this point, and Napoleon knew that.
 
@LSCatilina fair enough, interesting post. Should I take it then that you don't really think that peace between France and Britain was possible without France being reduced to its pre-war borders, and of course being without Napoleon?
 
At this critical moment, Metternich was reinforced by a powerful new ally. On 18 January, the English foreign minister, Lord Castlereagh, joined him at Basel after a gruelling three-week journey from London in freezing winter weather. Temperamentally, the serious, taciturn Castlereagh was very different from his extrovert Austrian counterpart, but politically both men were cautious and pragmatic, and to Metternich’s delight soon found common ground on the questions before them. ‘I cannot praise Castlereagh enough’, Metternich wrote on 30 January. ‘His attitude is excellent and his work as direct as it is correct... his mood is peaceful, peaceful in our sense.’4


The essential point was that Castlereagh found the prospect of Bernadotte as king of France as unacceptable as did Metternich. The two differed about the alternative: Castlereagh supported a Bourbon restoration as the best guarantee of peace, whereas Metternich’s preferred option remained a Napoleonic France reduced to acceptable limits. Faced with the threat of Bernadotte, however, they swiftly arrived at a compromise. They decided that there were only two choices to rule France—Napoleon or the Bourbons. Which one was a matter for the French people. If the allies were seen to interfere, it could cause a patriotic backlash which Napoleon would be sure to exploit. In the meantime, unless and until Napoleon’s authority was successfully challenged from within, the allies should continue to negotiate with him.5



Other critical questions were discussed in the same spirit of cooperation. Castlereagh’s main aim was to ensure, in the wake of Aberdeen’s blunder at Frankfurt, that England’s maritime rights were maintained intact in any peace settlement. Recognizing the English government’s intractability on this point, Metternich gracefully conceded it. On the issue of France’s future borders, however, there was a wider gap. Metternich had endorsed the ‘natural frontiers’ at Frankfurt, while Castlereagh followed the policy set out by his mentor Pitt the Younger nine years before. This favoured returning France to her ‘former limits’ of 1792, before the revolutionary wars.6



Both men, however, were prepared to make concessions. With the crossing of the Rhine, France’s ‘natural frontiers’ had already been breached, and Metternich realized that it was now probably impossible to obtain them in their entirety. Castlereagh too was willing to be flexible, provided Antwerp was taken from France and a solid ‘barrier’ created in the Low Countries to protect England from future invasion. This was perfectly in



Keeping with Pitt’s policy, which had been less committed to imposing France’s ‘former limits’ than is generally acknowledged.7 Even Pitt had accepted that this could prove impossible in practice, and that part of the Netherlands and the left bank of the Rhine might have to remain in French hands.



On this basis, in the course of a week in Basel, Metternich and Castle-reagh discussed the outline of new frontiers for France, marking a compromise between her ‘natural’ and her ‘former’ limits. She would lose Mainz, but retain a substantial chunk of territory on the left bank of the Rhine up to the river Moselle. Holland would be given a strong barrier against France, including Antwerp. No precise line for the future Franco-Dutch border was mentioned, but shortly afterwards Castlereagh proposed that it should be the river Meuse. These discussions were soon overtaken by events, but show that Castlereagh was at least prepared to consider a significantly more generous settlement for France than her pre-1792 boundaries.8

I found this on the Congress of Chatillon that was held in 1814, I believe that Castlereagh and Metternich (the emphasized portion) grasped the situation quite clearly of what a hole they were in, in spite of having invaded France.

Now, IDK if this would make a difference, but after the Bourbons were chased out during the Cent Jours, a British soldier (Wellington, I think) actually commented that the French had decided which king they wanted. One just needs a way for the British public to get to that opinion sooner.

Basically, one of the key reasons Napoleon refused, that I can make out, is because of the borders that they gave on February 7, which in spite of Metternich and Castlereagh's promises, were pushed back to what they were in 1792. Napoléon was scared that if this happened, his regime wouldn't survive since he had violated his coronation oath about maintaining the borders of the republic.
 
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@LSCatilina fair enough, interesting post. Should I take it then that you don't really think that peace between France and Britain was possible without France being reduced to its pre-war borders, and of course being without Napoleon?
I think it might have been possible, with a different situation tough : no French ruler would have abided by a return to 1792 borders, but giving enough guarantees to Austria, Prussia and Russia could have done the trick : it means a massive abandon of everything past Rhine, the reestablishment of most big German states, and at least abandon of the Kingdom of italy.

I'm not sure Napoleon could have pulled that, less because of "he couldn't stop" narrative, but because as Kellan pointed it, it was likely to be a threat to his power and dynastical survival, both things that he cared a lot about.

You'd need Britain agreeing to be more compromising as well, maybe with a better situation for France in the late 1813 but not better enough to see a flat refuse of proposals : it's a narrow window of opportunity.
 
I thought that the final paragraph of the page I quoted above was pretty telling. Caulaincourt and Flahaut had the means within their grasp, but it also shows how...unreasonable seems like a clumsy word to be used...the Austrian, Russian and British were. After twenty years that France had rolled up the map of Europe, to just expect her to give up everything she had gained, simply because you were on her soil (and Napoléon defeated both the Russians and the Prussians seperately in minor encounters on home soil) and she was on her knees, was a bit stupid.

The last act at ChatiUon could now begin. On 28 February, the conferences resumed; Caulaincourt again asked for more time to consider the preliminary treaty, and was given a deadline of 10 March. At 9 that morning he read out to the assembled diplomats a long memorandum repeating that the natural frontiers offered the only acceptable formula for peace. A long silence followed. Stadion and his colleagues realized the end had come, but they made one last effort. Caulaincourt was asked to produce a detailed counter-project to their own proposals, which he did five days later. This took the form of a full draft treaty, which still ceded almost nothing of the natural frontiers: Holland was given a barrier to the south, but France would retain Antwerp, most of Belgium, the left bank of the Rhine and Savoy. Beyond her borders, the kingdom of Italy would go to Eugene de Beau-harnais, and the king of Saxony would lose none of his territories. All the allied diplomats rejected this, and on 19 March the congress of Chatillon was formally closed. The last peace negotiation between Napoleon and his opponents had failed

The terms the French were asking for - besides the Austrian Netherlands which the Austrians didn't want and nobody else (Britain) wanted France to have, and that Prussia would've been smaller without acquiring large parts of Saxony (I'm sure she could've been recompensated in other ways, although she was pretty much Russia's mouthpiece at that point) - they weren't being unreasonable. Metternich had made the offer of territory to Eugène twice before, I'm sure it would be a case of third time's the charm.
 
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