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Louis A. Blanqui & his comrades decide to withdraw all funds from the French Treasury to secreted locations throughout Paris...the result...The Commune does not fall!

This AH is a tale of a world where Modern French history takes a few bloody turns & major fractures that did not happened in our world. The POD for this is that the Communards decide to empty the French treasury of billions of francs. Thereby denying the cash reserves that the Republican Gov't would/did use to finance its' military in destroying the Paris Commune along with other Socialist uprisings in 1871.

By confiscating this money, the Commune now had sufficient means to pay its troops & finance its' revolutionary government & programs. Other aspects of this timeline: In 1859, Glasgow, Scotland two businessmen; (I'm calling them the Fraser brothers because....Fraser sounds like it may be a Scottish surname that doesn't have 'Mac' or 'Mc' in front of it; sorry if I'm wrong but I'm an American :D) Walter & Daniel Fraser have a rubber belt manufactory & they discover a process & invent a machine to mass produce pneumatic tires and more importantly, they invent an air valve for putting air into a tire they name it the: Fraser Valve. IOTL it is called the "Schrader Valve". I am not sure if it was in fact invented prior to my AH timeline, if it was c'est la vie.

In any case, in 1862 the Fraser Brothers Rubber Company move their operations to Nottingham, England. Second divergence: The Penny Farthing bicycle is invented in 1850, by 1859 improvements and further refinements lead to the 1860 invention of the Safety Bicycle.

Third divergence: Fraser Brothers Rubber Co. become Fraser Tire Company in 1863, and as a result the bicycle mania begins in Great Britain in 1864-65 & lasts until late 1890's with intro of the Automobile.

Fourth Divergence (A BIG one) The Brazilian Rubber Boom begins in 1866-67 & because of this, Brazilian coffee, sugar, & tobacco planters transfer tens of thousands of their slaves to the Amazon to tap wild rubber trees to satisfy the demands of the Rubber Barons of Nottingham.

Fifth Divergence (Another HUGE one) Prince Albert recovers from his bout of typhoid fever, (I've also read where he may have been suffering from cancer yet it was diagnosed as typhoid by the physicians of the day, in this AH of mine it will be typhoid not cancer) and not only lives a long life, he will also outlive Queen Victoria by 4-5 yrs, she will continue as normal OTL until 1901.

Sixth divergence: Since Prince Albert lives; expect to see HUGE changes in the division of Africa at the Berlin Conference. Small hint: Island nations with big navies are not well suited to hold large pieces of territory even though they believe they can as per India.


Better that they hold onto coastal islands and small fortified ports; even better still, it's far better to let traditional land based powers who've recently had their "feelings hurt" and have been humiliated & embarrassed in a recent war to let them get distracted in large overseas territories that they can barely afford or administer ;)


That concludes (so far) all the smallish PODs prior to the seizure of the French treasury by the Communards. The Austro-Prussian War, The American Civil War, death of Maximillian etc are unchanged as are all other historical events throughout the 1860's & up until 1871.

Although I have mentioned things about Great Britain, Brazil, slavery, the future of Africa etc, this is mostly involving France from 1871 up until possibly (if I get that far) the 1970's? I welcome all comments & critiques if I make an ahistorical mistake, please let me know so I can make changes to this story.:)
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