Stability through division in the Twentieth Century?

How does France keep divided? It doesn't seem it's split between two antagonistic blocs, and it sure isn't along cultural/religious lines either. With both Vichy and Gaullist France relying on patriotism, shouldn't we see a convergence (which, if Gaullist France controls Paris, should be from Vichy to Free France)?
 
Hello again Scholar, yes in my AH (if ever I rewrite it) there are going to be undoubtedly many wars, when are there not? - But (I hope) no world wars. This AH is intended to be the old European balance-of-power real politik applied to all the world. It is possible that the decolonization of southern Africa (in my AH) can be dragged out several decades.

But doing so reveals the impotence of the communists. And that makes the reunification of China by the Republican Chinese inevitable. On the other hand, if Red China gets involved, big time, in decolonialization efforts in southern Africa it feeds the communism/anti-communism hysteria and that serves to keep China separate. However, this destabilizes the European powers. I need to decide which way to go.

The problem, of course, with applying European balance-of-power politics to the whole world is, as you correctly point out, the problem of expansion. Post-Napoleonic balance-of-power politics managed to work fairly well (for a while) thanks to the facts of colonialism. The European powers expanded elsewhere. It was the great power that couldn't successfully expand elsewhere, Germany, that kicked over the apple cart. I have essentially allowed southern Africa to remain under colonial rule in order to maintain, I hope, the stability of my world-system as a whole.

Hello Atlantic Friend, thanks for chiming in. In creating and dividing my various states and alliances as I did I tried to take into account not only geopolitical factors but also anthropological factors. The latter includes language and family type. For kinship, I followed Emmanuel Todd's "The Explanstion of Ideology". There he argued that France was divided between several types of kinship families. I used that, plus the geopolitical fact of troops on the ground, to end WWII with the divisions that I did.

And so I end up with a fascist Vichy France allied to Germany and a Fourth Republic 'free' France ultimately dependent on the will of non-continental powers, mainly GB and Quebec, to defend her. Divided France consists of two very antagonistic ideological blocs, which follow the division between Petain and De Gaulle.

Of course, in a different AH in which one has the Soviets advance through Germany into France one could again plausibly divide France between communists and a 'free France' using the same combination of geopolitical facts and family types. The problem of course is always that these divided states have a common language and a shared national history. In order to keep France apart one must rely upon the different regimes keeping the ideological temperature high. And I do so assume this will be the case.

Again, I thank everyone for their comments upon my little thought experiment,

Joe
 
It's just that a lasting division would make more sense if it was enforced (à la DBR/DDR) by antagonistic occupying powers.

Without it, and given the importance of a common national identity in French culture (an idea that would only be reinforced by the fact Pétain and de Gaulle would both appeal to a French, and not a Northern French/Southern French, identity, history, glory, etc), I don't think the division could last, as it would be quite artificial.

One Revolution, two Empires and three Republics have done a pretty good job in stamping out regional cultures and identity actually.
 

Warsie

Banned
Also why do the countries have such low percentages of religious eg Vietnam, Malaysia, etc. Think op forgot an 0 or so....

Edit: also Turkic countries will have a lot of internecine violence probably as the soviets were able to get them to be less violent and nomadic and give them some decent border demarcations and population transfers limiting that violence.

Edit 2: the Philippines would be smaller in this timeline as the us forced the other islands into the Philippines...err nade them stay. Perhaps Luzon would be coherent but the Philippines will be looser Otto if not altogether fractured.

Edit 3: odd that you use family ties ad an argument for division I'd think that would nt bother diplomats and politicians much ad they're used to differences.
 
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