A rough sketch of an outline of a bunch of ideas I have on how Napoleon could have secured a position for France as the premier continental power:
1. Don't bother with the Continental System. It doesn't and wouldn't work, and only serves to create hostility among your client states
2. Do not invade Spain (and Portugal). With no C.S., Portugal can be left alone as long as no British armies are there. This butterflies into no invasion of Spain. If need be, keep a French army in Spain to help the Spanish drive off any British incursion.
3. Dismantle the Habsburg Empire and Prussia. They are never going to like you, and they are strong enough to back-stab you at the first possible opportunity.
- form the Kingdom of Hungary
- form the Kingdom of Bohemia
- half of Austria goes to Bavaria
- the other half (including Vienna) is kept under military occupation and some sort of collaborationist local government councill
- divide remaining Prussian lands in the west among Saxony, Westphalia and Denmark
- Berlin kept under military occupation
- all Habsburg and Hohenzollern property is confiscated and distributed as seen fit
4. Russia is too big to be conquered, so don't bother. Create a sort of 'cordon sanitaire' around it:
- form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (OTL Duchy of Warsaw + Grand Duchy of Lithuania + Galicia+as much of Prussian lands in the east as possible)
- form Kingdom of Romania (Wallachia+Moldova+Bessarabia)
- provide these two with the means to build their own armies to fight the Russians so you don't have to.
- keep a good part of the Grand Armee in between the two new buffer states, and use it to counter any offensive Russian move, until Tsar Alexander gets tired of losing armies and goes home.
5. Keep a central reserve which can be deployed wherever the British try to land on the continent
6. Profit!!
Now of course, in the long term, the forces of German nationalism cannot be stopped. However, it would be many decades before the above arrangement would be threatened by them, and more still before the French military would be forced to withdraw behind the Rhine on account of them.
Thoughts?
1. Don't bother with the Continental System. It doesn't and wouldn't work, and only serves to create hostility among your client states
2. Do not invade Spain (and Portugal). With no C.S., Portugal can be left alone as long as no British armies are there. This butterflies into no invasion of Spain. If need be, keep a French army in Spain to help the Spanish drive off any British incursion.
3. Dismantle the Habsburg Empire and Prussia. They are never going to like you, and they are strong enough to back-stab you at the first possible opportunity.
- form the Kingdom of Hungary
- form the Kingdom of Bohemia
- half of Austria goes to Bavaria
- the other half (including Vienna) is kept under military occupation and some sort of collaborationist local government councill
- divide remaining Prussian lands in the west among Saxony, Westphalia and Denmark
- Berlin kept under military occupation
- all Habsburg and Hohenzollern property is confiscated and distributed as seen fit
4. Russia is too big to be conquered, so don't bother. Create a sort of 'cordon sanitaire' around it:
- form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (OTL Duchy of Warsaw + Grand Duchy of Lithuania + Galicia+as much of Prussian lands in the east as possible)
- form Kingdom of Romania (Wallachia+Moldova+Bessarabia)
- provide these two with the means to build their own armies to fight the Russians so you don't have to.
- keep a good part of the Grand Armee in between the two new buffer states, and use it to counter any offensive Russian move, until Tsar Alexander gets tired of losing armies and goes home.
5. Keep a central reserve which can be deployed wherever the British try to land on the continent
6. Profit!!
Now of course, in the long term, the forces of German nationalism cannot be stopped. However, it would be many decades before the above arrangement would be threatened by them, and more still before the French military would be forced to withdraw behind the Rhine on account of them.
Thoughts?
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