Post 1852: Danish-French defensive pact?

ben0628

Banned
Is it possible that after it's first war with Prussia, Denmark makes a defensive pact with France (who also sees Prussia as a threat)?

If possible would a French-Danish alliance be able to defeat Prussia in any future conflict during the 1860s/1870s?

How would this impact the creation of Germany?
 
Well considering Prussia brought the Austrians with them for round 2 I have my doubts the French will be terribly eager to get involved, treaty or not
 
Hindsight is 20/20 of course but I was always astonished that Napoleon III missed the threat from Prussia until it was too late. He should have seen the abortive attempt at doing the Erfurt Union as proof that Prussia was the one to watch. A FAR Alliance (France, Austria, Russia) supplemented by agreements with Denmark and some of the German states would have been better. The Crimean War was a mistake and so was backing Sardinia. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
 
Hindsight is 20/20 of course but I was always astonished that Napoleon III missed the threat from Prussia until it was too late. He should have seen the abortive attempt at doing the Erfurt Union as proof that Prussia was the one to watch. A FAR Alliance (France, Austria, Russia) supplemented by agreements with Denmark and some of the German states would have been better. The Crimean War was a mistake and so was backing Sardinia. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
I wouldn't judge him too harshly no one really saw the Prussians coming until it was too late
 
Prussia leaves a small force guarding border forts and brings its main army to bear against France, as OTL. The biggest threat would be the Danish Navy, but I don't think it was in too good a shape by the mid 19th century.
 
There was a loose "alliance" IIRC from my reading of a book on the Fall of the Second Empire, that the Danish and Austrians were both in reserve when the Prussians went to war with the French. But it hinged on the French being able to score a victory over the Prussians, that the Austrians and the Danes (navy apparently) would jump into the fray. Of course, such a thing didn't happen and we all know the rest of the story.
 
How would a Danish and Austrian navy make any difference? It was a land war, the French navy alone greatly outclassed the Prussian one, not that it amounted to much. Also, Austria was in no shape to intervene in that war, as were the Danes.
 
How would a Danish and Austrian navy make any difference? It was a land war, the French navy alone greatly outclassed the Prussian one, not that it amounted to much. Also, Austria was in no shape to intervene in that war, as were the Danes.

If Aronsohn's Bonaparte bios are right, it was the Austrian army that was to join forces with the French, while the Danish navy was to blockade the Prussian navy in order to stop troops or armaments etc being landed on the French coast.
 

Perkeo

Banned
A FAR Alliance (France, Austria, Russia) supplemented by agreements with Denmark and some of the German states would have been better.
And why should Austria, Russia and Denmark let alone German states choose to be guard dogs for French hegemony?
 
Hindsight is 20/20 of course but I was always astonished that Napoleon III missed the threat from Prussia until it was too late. He should have seen the abortive attempt at doing the Erfurt Union as proof that Prussia was the one to watch. A FAR Alliance (France, Austria, Russia) supplemented by agreements with Denmark and some of the German states would have been better. The Crimean War was a mistake and so was backing Sardinia. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
I wouldn't say Napoléon III missed the Prussian threat. The first warning, as he took it, was the Prussian threat to intervene on Austria's side during the Italian War of 1859 which convinced Napoléon III to make peace with Austrians at Villafranca, at the cost of upsetting his Piedmontese allies who expected to go further as per the Plombières agreement.
Then, he hadn't any interest to ally with Denmark until after the Second Schleswig War as he needed to separate Prussia from Austria. The fact is that by the time of the 2nd Schleswig War, they were still allies, and France hadn't yet a major continental ally such as Russia (or the UK) to hold them in respect.
So that push back the possibility of an alliance between France and Denmark to the aftermath of the War of 1866.

There was a loose "alliance" IIRC from my reading of a book on the Fall of the Second Empire, that the Danish and Austrians were both in reserve when the Prussians went to war with the French. But it hinged on the French being able to score a victory over the Prussians, that the Austrians and the Danes (navy apparently) would jump into the fray. Of course, such a thing didn't happen and we all know the rest of the story.
How would a Danish and Austrian navy make any difference? It was a land war, the French navy alone greatly outclassed the Prussian one, not that it amounted to much. Also, Austria was in no shape to intervene in that war, as were the Danes.
French navy had indeed been able to blockade Prussia on its own.
I guess that loose alliance may be on the French planned expedition to North Germany where an expeditionary corps was planned to land. The plan was aborted because of early French defeats.
 
Who else should have?

The Austrians maybe. But pre-1866 almost everyone assumed that professional armies were superior to ones like Prussia's based on universal conscription. Even after 1866 Koniggratz was widely viewed as a fluke, and attributed (with some justification) to Austrian inefficiency. The true effectiveness of the Prussian Army wasn't really appreciated until 1870/1.
 

ben0628

Banned
And why should Austria, Russia and Denmark let alone German states choose to be guard dogs for French hegemony?

Idk about Austria or Russia, but Prussia did annex a good chunk of Denmark during this time period. It'd be smart for them to form a defensive pact with France
 
Idk about Austria or Russia, but Prussia did annex a good chunk of Denmark during this time period. It'd be smart for them to form a defensive pact with France

What time period exactly?

Prussia never acquired (or even claimed) any Danish territory prior to the war of 1864. [1] And even then she had no particular designs on the Kingdom of Denmark. Indeed, she (and Austria) even conceded some frontier districts so that enclaves in Schleswig which belonged to Denmark and not to the Duchy could be made contiguous with the main body of the Danish Kingdom.


[1] except the former Swedish Pomerania which she received from Denmark in 1816. But that was by mutual agreement, in exchange for the Duchy of Lauenburg.
 
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How would a Danish and Austrian navy make any difference? It was a land war, the French navy alone greatly outclassed the Prussian one, not that it amounted to much. Also, Austria was in no shape to intervene in that war, as were the Danes.
The Austrian navy is unimportant, and the Danish navy on its own isn't that important, but the Danish offer vital naval bases. The French had significant difficulties operating in the Baltic because it was far away from their home bases and they had insufficient coal. With Danish naval bases with their coal supplies close by, and Danish naval ships as well, a blockade would become much tighter on the Prussian coast.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Idk about Austria or Russia, but Prussia did annex a good chunk of Denmark during this time period. It'd be smart for them to form a defensive pact with France

Legally, Denmark was wrong in claiming Schleswig as part of Denmark and Prussia and Austria were right in enforcing the London Protocol.
 
Is it possible that after it's first war with Prussia, Denmark makes a defensive pact with France (who also sees Prussia as a threat)?

Didn't such a deal already effectively exist - until the Danes threw it away?

Iirc, in the 1852 Treaty of London the Powers (including France) guaranteed the status quo in Schleswig-Holstein, so that had Prussia (or anyone else) tried to overthrow it, they would have had a duty to intervene. However, the Danes effectively gave up the right to this support when they themselves tried to upset that status quo by incorporating Schleswig into the Danish kingdom.
 
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