The French Winning 1871

In July 1870, France declared because of several reasons war on Prussia. Somewhere I've heard that Austria nearly joined the conflict but only if Italy also supported France, which they didn't. It ended with some great prussian victories and Austria and Italy staying out of the war.
What would have happened if Italy did support France and Austria joined to revenge the former loss to Prussia?
What should France demand and would the WWI we know have happened ( probably not ).
To spice it even more let's say that France didn't have a population decline ( as they had ).
 
Didn't Italy take Rome during the Franco- Prussian war??
nope that had nothing to do with it, even though it happened around the same time!!
Thus making it implausible for Italy to support France, they were otherwise occupied!
In addition to that: Austria and Prussia had been to war with each other only 4 years before, and William I hadn't allied with Asutria during his whole reign! That was something his grandson started!! :cool:
 
In July 1870, France declared because of several reasons war on Prussia. Somewhere I've heard that Austria nearly joined the conflict but only if Italy also supported France, which they didn't. It ended with some great prussian victories and Austria and Italy staying out of the war.
What would have happened if Italy did support France and Austria joined to revenge the former loss to Prussia?
What should France demand and would the WWI we know have happened ( probably not ).
To spice it even more let's say that France didn't have a population decline ( as they had ).
To be more precise: Austria had just miserably lost to Prussia, the German Army not parading into Wien out of sheer mercy. Italy had become a unified state only 9 years ago and didn't really have an army. Bismark, the German Chancellor, baited the French into declaring war on Germany; IOTL, Prussia uber-pwns France and the Germans occupy Paris after defeating the city's own militia (Paris had kind of declared itself a city-state).

If Italy chose to support France, I bet it couldn't have changed anything. The Prussian army was vastly better trained, organized and equipped than the italian army, not to mention numbers; the German victory against France was due to good strategic decisions which prompted the collapse of the French army; italian intervention couldn't have made a difference.

I don't see an Eastern Front making a difference either. The fall of France was so quick that German division could have been immidiately moved East by train to repel the Austrian back; and let's remember that the Austrian army was still licking its wounds.
 
I agree that Italy and Austria cannot really do anything to help france. Austria recently got crushed by Prussia, and were still rebuilding. Italy was a fledgling nation, unable to intervene that far beyond it's borders in a clash of titans. Not to mention that Italy sided with Prussia against Austria (and was not entirely thrilled with the french either). France effectivly stood alone during 1871, thanks to the past few decades, geopolitical realities, and Bismarkian maneuverings.

Now, france can still win the war on its own. The army itself was far better than its failures suggest, with equipment on the whole probably being better than Prussia's. The problem was in large part a grosly incompetent officer corps. Give france some more competent generals, and the war is far from a foregone conclusion.
 
Well, Wiki says that in this war France had about 400 000 active troops and 300 000 'Garde Mobile' while Prussia only had about 300 000 active but up to 900 000 reserves. Than there must be the leaders or the equipment but they were more in numbers right?
 
Originally posted by Antiago:
Well, Wiki says that in this war France had about 400 000 active troops and 300 000 'Garde Mobile' while Prussia only had about 300 000 active but up to 900 000 reserves. Than there must be the leaders or the equipment but they were more in numbers right?

Yep, France started with more troops, but Prussia/Germany was able to use their railway network better and thus brought more troops faster at the french border (also, dedicating whole companies just for logistics was neither a bad idea)

As for what France would have wanted:
-Preventing the formation of the German Empire, though this might be a bit difficult and depends on what the south german Principalities do during the Franco-Prussian War (fighting and losing alongside with the North German Federation, just staying neutral or even [although very unlikely] joining on Napoleon IIIrd's site)
-the Saar area and the Palatinate, maybe Luxembourg. In the long run basically everything west of the Rhine (including Belgium and thus pissing off Great Britain :D)
 
nope that had nothing to do with it, even though it happened around the same time!!
Thus making it implausible for Italy to support France, they were otherwise occupied!
The two weren't exactly unrelated; the main reason Italy hadn't taken Rome sooner was the presence of healthy contingent of French troops protecting what was left of the Papal States. Naturally, the Franco-Prussian way neccessitated the withdrawal of those French troops to defend the homeland, enabling Italy to take Rome and complete the Unification.

Also, as others have said Italy doesn't really have anything to gain by fighting Germany, but does have its own irredentist claims against France (Nice, Savoy, Corsica) as well as some conflicting colonial interests. The only way I could see Italy choosing to enter on the French side is if France were willing to concede at least some of the Italian claims in exchange for entry.
 
Denmark also might join the war against Prussia, to regain Schleswig-Holstein.

The southern German states might stay neutral instead of joining Prussia. Maybe if Nappy III supports Ludwig II of Bavaria with some millions for building new castles before Bismarck does it?

And the French might have used their new weapon, the mitrailleuse (a kind of early MG), in a better way. (I read that they kept it so secret that they didn't even give their soldiers manuals for it.)

What could Italy gain? They definitely had an army, after all they fought in the war of 1866 too, at Prussia's side. If the French agreed about Rome, or made the Austrians sell south Tyrol and Istria... but that's probably too far-fetched.
 
Couldn't France in some way come to an aggreement with Italy to leave Papal States in the hands of Italy if they helped France in the war?
And why did the South German Fed. join? Wasn't Austria the 'leader' over them and Austria wouldn't become friendly with Prussia until some year later right, and so, SGF could with some Franco-Austrian aggreement where austrian influnece of Germany was guaranteed stayed out of the war.

As earlier, correct me if I'm wrong
 
Couldn't France in some way come to an aggreement with Italy to leave Papal States in the hands of Italy if they helped France in the war?
And why did the South German Fed. join? Wasn't Austria the 'leader' over them and Austria wouldn't become friendly with Prussia until some year later right, and so, SGF could with some Franco-Austrian aggreement where austrian influnece of Germany was guaranteed stayed out of the war.

As earlier, correct me if I'm wrong
I dont remember the exact circumstances, but as I recall it was basically Bismark. He did a good job of isolating the french, so that when the direct conflict came around, the french were seen by most of europe as the party at fault.
 
Couldn't France in some way come to an aggreement with Italy to leave Papal States in the hands of Italy if they helped France in the war?
And why did the South German Fed. join? Wasn't Austria the 'leader' over them and Austria wouldn't become friendly with Prussia until some year later right, and so, SGF could with some Franco-Austrian aggreement where austrian influnece of Germany was guaranteed stayed out of the war.

As earlier, correct me if I'm wrong


The thing is, Bismark's mad skillz made it seem as if France was the aggresor. Bascially, Spain wanted a new monarch, and offered it to a Prussian noble. Nappy III couldn't allow that, because he would be surrounded by Prussians, so he sent a harshly worded telegram to the Prussians saying so. Bismark took the telegraph, reworded it, and released it to the press. The new edited telegraph was very insulting, and infuriated the German people and press, which in turn said mean things about the French and even Nappy III himself. War broke out over the issue, and the first action was France invading Germany. Bad move. This forced the Southern German states into the Prussian camp to fight the aggresor of France. The funny thing is, in the end, the Prussian noble refused the Spainish throne, although there is a good TL floating around on this site about if he had taken it.

As for allies, Italy and Denmark can't really turn the tide against Prussia, but Austria could. Austria wasn't really hurt terribly, and probably could have fought another war. One of the reasons Bismark agreed to the end the war after early Prussian victories is that he was afraid Austria would defeat Italy and turn the whole army at Prussia. But again, this was seen as Franco-Prussian conflict, with the French as the aggresor.
 
I would say that it would have been, to quote Bismarck, a near mathematical impossibility for the French to have won 1871. They could have done a lot better, not to win? Nearly impossible. The simple reason is that the French army was too small, less than 300000 men against 1 million+ men the NGF could bring about. Italy could add nothing to the mix, for it shared no border with Germany. Austria was utterly not ready for war at the time. This was one of the reasons why Beust was unable to carry Emperor Josef for even armed neutrality; in any case, Moltke had estimated that he had enough men to cover Austria and take on France. Furthermore, the only French chance for even remotely close to victory was a rapid deployment and disrupt German mobilization; unfortunately, French mobilization was simply too slow. For there to have been any chance of French victory, a number of factors must be butterflied away. Even the best scenario, if based on unchanged facts on the ground, would have resulted in a draw.In fact, the war should have resulted in a draw, but for the incompetence of both the Empire and the Republic. Because of their incompetence, France ended up totally defeated and gave up A-L.
 
I think Austria wasn't that damaged either, Bismarck didn't want to hurt Austria badly. If he wanted that, he could have taken most of Bohemia I think. Instead, he just ended Austrias officiall influence over Germany which must have mad the guys in Vienna pretty angry.
 
I think Austria wasn't that damaged either, Bismarck didn't want to hurt Austria badly. If he wanted that, he could have taken most of Bohemia I think. Instead, he just ended Austrias officiall influence over Germany which must have mad the guys in Vienna pretty angry.

In a way, Bismarck did destroy Austria. Before 1866, it was an Austrian Empire; after 1866, it was Austro-Hungary. A-H had different priorities than Austria and the people who wanted to humble Prussia were only a part of the ruling class. There was another group that wanted only peace with Prussia, and these people controlled half of the kingdom: Hungarians. And the Hungarians who wanted peace were more politically powerful than the Austrian Germans who wanted revenge.
 
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