What if France wins Franco-Prussian war?

[Saphroneth]

Nowhere it was stated that Austria would join the war, especially a war where the french blundered themselves in and scared the **** out of the south german states.

Your question was predicated on the "defend themselves" point, I thought?

It's still a long way from a victory. More like a stalemate that is going to be seen as a huge failure of Napoleon's foreign policy.

I'm not so sure - especially if Bismarck's doctoring of the correspondence comes out. But it's not necessary to instantly win an offensive war to look like a victor - you just have to come out, well, victorious.

France, in 1870, was seen as the clear superior to Prussia. The only way the french could've called that war a success is if they were to decisively beat the prussian army in the field in order to enforce that notion.

Given that the French in OTL pretty much destroyed one Prussian army as it attacked them (then had ammunition problems and being outflanked) any TL where they don't get outflanked and don't lose their armies is one where they've probably done serious violence to the Prussian army - remember, OTL the French riflemen shredded the Prussian Guards, who didn't even get to their own firing range.


See the note I had about mobilization. If the Prussians take heavy casualties from Chasspot and Miltrailleuse fire, the French withdraw in good order despite being heavily outnumbered in the opening phases, then redress the numerical balance by completing their mobilization and manoeuvre against the Prussian flanks to peel them off the fortresses - that looks like a victory.

 

[Tito Andronicus]

I doubt France would be able to win in 1870, unless they had some luck with them and the Prussian forces crumbled (maybe without Moltke?). The armies of the North German Confederation - and the southern states as well - had superior weaponry, numbers, and morale, what with the surge of German nationalism. On a related note, though, would France have more of a chance if war broke out in 1867 over the Luxembourg Crisis?

 

[dandan_noodles]

I think you'd want a better prepared and organized French army to have a good chance of winning the war. As it was, Third Army's advance from Wissembourg to Wörth widely split I and V corps from the Army of the Rhine's center, opening up their right flank; the line of communications from their position on the border diverges widely from the French Left and Center. Hell, if First Army hadn't driven the French back preemptively at Spricheren, Second Army could handle their right flank while Third Army attacked Metz with the bulk of the French army still on the border, which would have compelled its immediate surrender. With the seven corps in the original Army of the Rhine, they can't simultaneously block First Army (3 corps) advancing towards Metz and Second Army (7 corps) turning their position from the South once the strong German left wing (4 corps) has split the French right (2 corps) from the main body. Five French corps against ten or fourteen German is not an inviting proposition for a defender, let alone an attacker (the war happened because Bismarck wanted France to attack the German alliance).

You'd want a strong enough French right that German pressure couldn't split it off from the main body of the army, but I don't know what the French rail net could actually handle in terms of supporting a larger army (or maybe two armies) on the border with Germany. I suspect from the position of French VII corps in the middle of nowhere that they couldn't have supplied a larger Army of the Rhine with their OTL rail net. This would push the PoD back a ways to facilitate better organization of military districts and a beefier rail net.

 

[Roland Traveler]

Britain would pull a veto on any french troops west of the Rhine, not mentionijg any kind of french client-state, before someone could even end to say "natural bor...."

I am now imagining the French trying to cram their entire army either into transports or into the parts of the Netherlands east of the Rhine.

 

[Alexander George]

I think France could only escape defeat, if some other power intervenes on their side.