Napoleon Lives and Europe Prospers.

NapoleonXIV

Banned
This has probably been done before, but I'm trying a little different emphasis (maybe)

WI Napoleon's France and continental Europe had stayed together, finally defeating and incorporating the UK around 1816 (after the smashing defeat at Waterloo softened them up) and having Prussia, Russia and all the rest Europe join about 1820.

Boney dies about 1850. (He would be 81) He's ruled long and well, the Empire is stable and prosperous, his successor assured. The idea that European countries once fought one another is becoming a distant memory

What happens over the next 160 years (until now) if the EU is founded, and works, over a century earlier?
 
Assuming his son, doesn't die in 1832, as in the real world, he would be around 40 if Napoleon dies in 1850, assuming he marries into Royal Blood, he would already have a heir himself, so the Bonapartist dynasty that Napoleon had always wanted would be assured.
As for Europe, a common currency based on the Franc, a European Council of Ministers, and a style of European Parlaiment, things that Napoleon had always wanted to do in Europe.
Also there is the social progress in areas such as the Railways, medicine, Schools and public health all areas which Napoleon helped me France during the early 1800's, imagine a Europe in the 1830's and 1840's under his regein.
If Engalnd had become a state part of the Empire of Europe, then it might have in the countrys actual good, in terms of social improvements.
 
Well despite the scenario being ASB (If we're looking at Waterloo as the POV) then the Empire wouldn't be able to cope with the Nationalistic movements of the European countries. Look at Spain to what happened when France tried to completely annex a country.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Well despite the scenario being ASB (If we're looking at Waterloo as the POV) then the Empire wouldn't be able to cope with the Nationalistic movements of the European countries. Look at Spain to what happened when France tried to completely annex a country.

While not strictly ASB territory, you're generally right that Waterloo is too late a POD for a complete Napoleonic victory. I think the option of having Napoleon "slow down" after the Treaty of Tilsit makes sense. My favorite POD is having the Czar's mother die early, thus removing the main opposition to having Napoleon marry a Russian, rather than Austrian, princess. Perhaps in this case, there would be no breakdown of the Franco-Russian alliance as IOTL.
 
While not strictly ASB territory, you're generally right that Waterloo is too late a POD for a complete Napoleonic victory. I think the option of having Napoleon "slow down" after the Treaty of Tilsit makes sense. My favorite POD is having the Czar's mother die early, thus removing the main opposition to having Napoleon marry a Russian, rather than Austrian, princess. Perhaps in this case, there would be no breakdown of the Franco-Russian alliance as IOTL.

Well, Napoleon married that Austrian princess IOTL and they had a son, yet that didn't stop the Austrians from fighting Napoleon. There surely is the possibility of a stable alliance between France and Russia - yet there's also a great chance that marrying a Russian princess instead of an Austrian one would change nothing at all...
 
Well despite the scenario being ASB (If we're looking at Waterloo as the POV) then the Empire wouldn't be able to cope with the Nationalistic movements of the European countries. Look at Spain to what happened when France tried to completely annex a country.

Nationalism is just a word in the 1810s, and IMO if the empire prospers and distributes its wealth might never be born. The idea of empire and progress would subsume everything, and Napoleon will be compared with Augustus.
This is the rosy view to a Napoleonic age. The dark view would be a Napoleon who becomes more and more paranoid, and rules all over Europe with the bayonets of his soldiers. The wealth of nations is robbed to increase the glory of France. If the latter scenario prevails, there will be continuous insurrections, repressed in blood, and the empire would never last so long.
 

HurganPL

Banned
Napoleonic Victory scenario's are rare for some reason.
They interest me because of my Polish origin, but I have hard time finding any serious one.
I wonder what's the cause of this.
 
Napoleonic Victory scenario's are rare for some reason.
They interest me because of my Polish origin, but I have hard time finding any serious one.
I wonder what's the cause of this.

They're so random.

Either it's Napoleon, prince of darkness, or Napoleon builds an early European Union.

I lean towards the latter, but can see why others would disagree.
 
Napoleon had a family history of colon cancer--he might not live all that much longer than OTL, although fewer campaigns and nasty pickled food might delay that.
 
Napoleon had a family history of colon cancer--he might not live all that much longer than OTL, although fewer campaigns and nasty pickled food might delay that.

I also would not bet a dollar on Nappy living up to the ripe age of 81: the stress of the early campaigns and of governing an empire will take his toll (and this does not take into account the likelyhood of a cancer or of getting assassinated :D).

IMHO the Napoleon scenaries are quite random since they are predicated on the impact of the "great man", and as such they can easily go either way: very good, or very bad, according to the writer's personal feeling.

Another thing that makes me wonder: Napoleon grasped power through a military coup. What are the chances that one of his marechals will try and go the same way? The legitimacy of napoleon is based on his military victories, at least for the first period of his assumed reign.
 
They're so random.

Either it's Napoleon, prince of darkness, or Napoleon builds an early European Union.

I lean towards the latter, but can see why others would disagree.

I did do a timeline that I don't think anyone posted for me in my absence, where Napoleonic vassal kingdoms stretch into Central Asia, and which IIRC was based on plans Napoleon had for how to rule his super-empire after the defeat of Russia. In time, and after Napoleon's death, these would become independent kingdoms in loose alliance with each other and the normal power politics of Europe would resume, albeit with a radically different map

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
After the disasterous Russian campaign, Napoleon was always stuggling to raise enough troops to continue the struggle. Little was left to draw from besides France, which had suffered over 1,000,000 dead. The rest of Europe had lost considerably less in proportion. England stil had enough money to fund more campaigns. There is no way Napoleon could conquer Europe at this time.

If he was successful in 1815 (and for a few more years), he could have forced the other powers to leave him in charge of a "Greater French Empire". France would reign supreme as the first state in Europe, but his health, already failing due th the rigors of 20 years of campaigning, would not allow him to live to anywhere near 80. His son is an unknown for succeeding him, but there was always his nephew, who did a fair job for 20 years at least.
 

HurganPL

Banned
I don't think he would establish an World European Empire.
Most likely after Russian campaign he would face after a couple of years-two-three-another coalition against him made by the British, Prussia and Russia. If he would win, then France would become the dominant power in Europe.
Russia would turn towards Asia, China and Japan, while England perhaps would turn more towards USA, India.
I don't think France would be able to totally control Europe.
Most likely it would need the help of Austria and restored Kingdom of Poland.
I think Napoleon would die in 30s of XIX century.
 
I'd say Napoleon subjugating Russia and Britain both border on ASB.
The beginning of the end for Napoleon was 1812; if we change this, we may keep a Napoleonic Europe.
Let's assume Napoleon attacks Russia in 1812, but he doesn't march on Moscow, but to the North, on St. Petersburg. He occupies the city, and the Baltic territories. A Southern army (or a separate campaign next year) marches on Kiev, supported, in the former Polish areas, by the local Polish nobility. Seeing his successes, Sweden and the Ottoman empire join the fray; as a result, Alexander has to come to the negotiation table. Finland is rejoined to Sweden, Livonia and Estonia are made principalities under rulers from the Bonaparte clan, and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw is turned again into a Kingdom of Poland with Napoleon (or one of the Bonaparte clan members) as King.
I think that's about the optimum Napoleon could get; but that would demand him to be more prudent and restrained than in OTL.
 

HurganPL

Banned
wasn't Poland one of France's vassals?
Kingdom of Poland was to be restored by Napoleon after the war with Russia. During the war there was still Duchy of Warsaw, naturally under protection of France. Could be called a vassal, but as France restored it, there was never any serious need for France to dictate its desires to Poles.
 
I tried, for fun with some friends, to set up the conditions to make Napoleon don't get at war with Russia, so that the Spanish ulcer would not be so decisive.

The result of it all was that as long as Napoleon lived, the remaining European absolute monarchies threw coalition after coalition, for one or other detonant.

Our idea was that Alexander never got to be Tsar, and Paul I survived. Russia, allied with Napoleon, meant the crush of Austria and Prussia and the establishment of a fairly stable liberal government in Spain, which would be the hardest situation Napoleon should face.

We set up two English attempts of disembarking in Europe (one in Spain, which would lead to a long and hasting war between Napoleon and the liberals against Fernando VII's defendants and the reactionaries; and one in Italy, which Murat would defeat), and several rebellions in Austria. Poland would be free, which Russia would accept in exchange for key parts of the Ottoman Empire.

Russia would start to feel the problem of being an absolute opressive feudal empire allied with a liberal enlightened monarchy: rebellion, nationalsm, revanchism...

At this point, my friends and I were divided. Should Russia de drowned into rebellion, leading Napoleon to become a little paranoid, making his rule not so enlightened...? Or would this just be a long internal struggle for Russia, which would last decades, but would not affect much of Tzar Paul's aggenda?

Because in 1825, we found another big turning point: the Greeks claim for freedom. Napoleon is the garant of freedom, but he also rules over a multicultural empire. Should he help the Greeks or should he ignore them...?

If Russia doesn't fall apart soon, they would still want France's help to get the Bosphorus, and so Greece would be free, but the Greeks would want Istanbul as well...

The problem is that, when we get to this point, most of it doesn't matter anymore, since it becomes a tale in which you can do what you want.

But four things are sure, from my point of view:

- Nationalism rises for sure, its bases are set even before 1789, but with the French Revolution, they are undeniable. Joseph tried to act enlightened in Spain, much like Carlos III, but many Spaniards just didn't want him, however good for them he was. I don't discard a good propaganda work from the ruling borbonic elites, but still: nationalism is irrational. And you can see it even nowadays. The period 1820-1850 would be full of troubles and turmoil for Napoleon and for Napoleon II.

- If Napoleon doesn't destroy the Prussian and Austrian monarchies, there will be colaition after coalition against him, for as long as he may live.

- The Colonies. Would France help Spain recover the colonies? Would France want more colonies? We're getting to the point in which colonies are important for prestige, but most of them are pretty useless. African colonies were never profitable. Only the Caribbean and American colonies, as well as India and Indonesia, were still profitable colonies.

- Napoleon could not land in Britain.
 
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