The Global Economy if Napoleon Triumphs

Okay, assume that Napoleon settles down after Tilsit. He doesn't invade Spain; Russia ends up coming to terms with the French hegemony over western Europe, although relations are... tense. Nobody can really break the continent.

I don't think Napoleon would be able to (he never did in OTL after all) shut out all British commerce from the continent. But he certainly can set up a tariff wall to discourage British trade.

Would Britain launch an earlier, more aggressive push to open up Japan and China? Keep Java?
 
I think keeping Java is an effective certainty. Napoleon would have to bend ridiculously far backwards to make handing it to him seem a fair exchange.

China seems a strong possibility as well. They already have the opium; they desperately need the specie; what else is there?

In the case of Japan, though, I could easily see them leaving it be. Another power might interpose itself earlier than in OTL, but there is honestly little in Japan to attract a desperate and isolated Britain at this point.

I'd also expect a stronger and more conscious rapproachment with the Americans in this situation. That would build on the already situation in the absence of a War of 1812.
 
Okay, assume that Napoleon settles down after Tilsit. He doesn't invade Spain; Russia ends up coming to terms with the French hegemony over western Europe, although relations are... tense. Nobody can really break the continent.

I don't think Napoleon would be able to (he never did in OTL after all) shut out all British commerce from the continent. But he certainly can set up a tariff wall to discourage British trade.

Would Britain launch an earlier, more aggressive push to open up Japan and China? Keep Java?

Well a post Tilsit peace and no Penninsular War would mean that Portugal is still free to trade with Britain and Spain will put minimal effort into enforcing the Continental System. That coupled with continued British control of the seas means that the ill effects on Britain will be minimal though the Order in Council of 1807 which was Britain's retaliation will raise tensions with the USA.
As for Europe by cutting the continent off from almost all trade it will have the same disastrous effect as OTL but prolonged.
 
Okay, assume that Napoleon settles down after Tilsit. He doesn't invade Spain; Russia ends up coming to terms with the French hegemony over western Europe, although relations are... tense. Nobody can really break the continent.

I don't think Napoleon would be able to (he never did in OTL after all) shut out all British commerce from the continent. But he certainly can set up a tariff wall to discourage British trade.

Would Britain launch an earlier, more aggressive push to open up Japan and China? Keep Java?
Britain keeping overseas Dutch and French territories is pretty much a given I think. Furthermore they'll probably back the revolutions in Spanish America in a bid to open the region up to British commerce, with France backing the Spanish attempt to suppress the revolutions in exchange for concessions... Britain and the Latin American revolutionaries probably win that conflict.

So we'll see a situation where Britain is pretty much the only colonial/imperial power in Europe(other then Portugal of course, and the petty holdings of Scandinavians). And with America avoiding the 1812 war and being friendly with Britain protectionism is curtailed in America.

Interestingly this means substantially limited colonization Africa, since Britain has a monopoly on African coastal territory(they were only motivated to capture inland territory out of fear that other Europeans would if they didn't first.

Come to think of it Britain holding "Indonesia" could have interesting ramifications for the colonization of Australia... the possibility of large numbers of Indonesians being brought into Australia as indentured servants/defacto slaves. This could means a substantially more prosperous and economically important Australia in the short term(though with the obvious costs of a resentful underclass population in the long term). OTOH we never used Indians in such a fashion, so maybe not.
 
Well this gives Britain pretty much all of SEA as well as Indonesia. How this affects the World Wars and later...
 
Well a post Tilsit peace and no Penninsular War would mean that Portugal is still free to trade with Britain and Spain will put minimal effort into enforcing the Continental System. That coupled with continued British control of the seas means that the ill effects on Britain will be minimal though the Order in Council of 1807 which was Britain's retaliation will raise tensions with the USA.

It'd be a bit worse than miminal; In OTL British trade plummeted during this period, because Spain wasn't putting minimal effort into enforcing the Continental System; I would argue that only the Penninsular War and the opening of Latin America averted an economic crisis.

As for Europe by cutting the continent off from almost all trade it will have the same disastrous effect as OTL but prolonged.

I don't think France could, or would, decree "No British products at all." But I do think they'd aggressively push protectionism.

Raffles in OTL wanted to seize Deshima and open Japan by force. I wouldn't discount this happening...
 
Sweden also rejected the continental system. The Russian attack of 1808 was after French prodding, to force Sweden into the continental system that turned into a Swedish rout due to a lot of reasons, many of which will not be present here.

If Russia does not attack, Swedes smuggling colonial goods into northern Germany and the Prussians looking the other way (voluntarily or through bribery) will probably quite common.
 
If Russia does not attack, Swedes smuggling colonial goods into northern Germany and the Prussians looking the other way (voluntarily or through bribery) will probably quite common.

Why would Russia not attack? It didn't do it because it was a French pawn; it did it because it wanted Finland.
 
Come to think of it Britain holding "Indonesia" could have interesting ramifications for the colonization of Australia... the possibility of large numbers of Indonesians being brought into Australia as indentured servants/defacto slaves. This could means a substantially more prosperous and economically important Australia in the short term(though with the obvious costs of a resentful underclass population in the long term). OTOH we never used Indians in such a fashion, so maybe not.

I really doubt that. In OTL Britain held Malaya and India but there was basically zero immigration or importation of labour from there. I doubt holding Java would alter that dynamic. That said you might see WA develop faster than OTL a way station to the East Indies.
 
Why would Russia not attack? It didn't do it because it was a French pawn; it did it because it wanted Finland.

Actually, the Russians did not want Finland at the time - they thought Sveaborg to be a good forward defence of Saint Petersburg and wanted it. They were obliged to force Sweden into the continental system and attacked on Napoleon's prodding. It was only after the unexpected surrender of Sveaborg, and the capture of Åbo that taking all of Finland became an option.
 
The russian were not forced. It was part of the Tilsitt agreement to have Russia snatch Finland away from Sweden.

To come back to the question of the thread, it is a mistake to think Napoleon's goal was to shut out all british commerce out of Europe.

Napoleon"s goal was to reach peace with Britain. His problem is that Britain never sincerely adhered to a peace where the Rhine, from Alsace to Zealand, would be the frontier of France.
For the British ruling elite, the peace of Amiens was just a temporary test, to which they agreed because the country faced serious trouble and needed time to rest and rebuild its forces. They endlessly set up coalitions on the continent to undermine the french position. And since Napoleon won these wars, well he had to take more guaranties on the continent to build a balance of powers even more favourable to his country. It was a fight to the death between the two most advanced nations of the world, a real new hundred years war (this time not between dynasties but really between nations), which had started in 1688 and ended in 1815. A fight in which the british did not want to make a deal.

In 1814/1815, France definitly lost and became a second class power in the world, mainly because it did not keep control of what would become major sources of industrial power in the 19th centyry : Belgium, Luxembourg and the Rhineland.

As far as commerce is concerned, the blocus was just a mean to force the british to accept a peace in which France widely dominated continental Europe. If ever the British had accepted peace after Tilsitt, because for example Napoleon had not overthrown the Bourbons of Spain and had not invaded Spain, then what is imaginable is a kind of selective protectionnisme, like the zollverein which was soon going to be set up in Germany.

Nobody had interest to be protectionnist against the exotic goods which the British imported from all over the world and sold back to european consumers. But many countries had interest in protecting their nascent industries from british competition. Remember it was a mercantilist world.
 
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