What If:Succesfull Invasion of Britain From France ? What is needed to for it to succeed ?

There Is a bit of Disagreement if it Was Possible for Napoleon to succesfully invade and conquer Britain if he won the Naval Battle ? Is it Possible or not ? And If so What would be needed for it to succeed ?
 
The main thing about invading Britain in the Age of Empires is:
1. To do so, you need to beat it's Navy or at least gain local supremacy in UK Home Island waters.
2. If anyone manages to do so, they don't need to invade anymore. Britain is screwed without it's trade lanes and will have to swallow whatever peace conditions you want to impose short of occupation.
 
The main thing about invading Britain in the Age of Empires is:
1. To do so, you need to beat it's Navy or at least gain local supremacy in UK Home Island waters.
2. If anyone manages to do so, they don't need to invade anymore. Britain is screwed without it's trade lanes and will have to swallow whatever peace conditions you want to impose short of occupation.
Not necessarily. In the age of sail, there were all sorts of factors to consider. As I recall at one point (I forget actually when, 18th century, I think) a combination of weather and British mistakes left the French in complete command of the Channel for about a week. But they didn't have any army ready and waiting to invade, so the chance was missed. I think the question is: Given a short period of control, could an army be landed, and would that army, once ashore be enough to defeat England?
 
It isn't enough to just land an enormous army, but the supply lines across the channel to the Continent have to be maintained, and that will always be difficult. If Britain is invaded, you can bet that the Royal Navy will stop at nothing to attack the supply lines and any ship they even suspect is trying to supply an invading army. It needs to be badly damaged enough that it would take a significant amount of time for the Navy to rebuild it's fleets and train more sailors, to provide enough of a window to launch a true campaign with effective supply and reinforcement lines, as there will undoubtedly be several units bogged down by British guerillas, possible scorched earth tactics, and a dogged, determined army that will be swelling with new recruits looking to throw the foreign Invaders off their shores.
 
I think a POD before Henry VIII might be needed for this.
By 1814, the French navy now held the numerical advantage in terms of amount of ships of the line.
It might actually have been cheaper for France to not rebuild its navy and just fill in the channel between Calais and Dover during those ten years.
 
By 1814, the French navy now held the numerical advantage in terms of amount of ships of the line.
It might actually have been cheaper for France to not rebuild its navy and just fill in the channel between Calais and Dover during those ten years.

The problem in this time period was less ships than sailors trained in war. British sailors were far superior because they started every war with supremacy and then got more practice using that supremacy sinking French ships. While the French novices kept on dying before they get experience.

I think you need a pre 1760s POD.
 
After Trafalgar, you will need a pinniped of sufficiently massive size with which to bear to whole of the Army of England on its back across the Channel in a single trip, where they will be safe from the guns of the Royal Navy through the grognards' superb taunting skills.
 

Art

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No. What you need is the ability to send airborne armies in strengths of excess of 300,000 with their entire logistics trains in 1 day or less. I other words, technology that won't exist until the 1930s at least. In order to land armies across the English Channel with the technology of the time, you have to deal with the English navy. And the French navy in the period of the French Revolution, had executed or sent into exile thousands of its officers. That was not fatal to the French Army because noncommissioned officers were not affected by the Terror. But at the beginning of the Revolution the Navy lost dozens of ship captains and officers at the rank of naval lieutenant. The revoutionaries employed merchant captains, which didn't always work.
 
The only way for an invasion to work is to fill the narrowest point of the Channel with enough rocks for the entire Grande Armée to cross.
 
The problem in this time period was less ships than sailors trained in war. British sailors were far superior because they started every war with supremacy and then got more practice using that supremacy sinking French ships. While the French novices kept on dying before they get experience.

I think you need a pre 1760s POD.

The French navy under Louis XVI was quite strong and a solid rival for the British. It was the Revolution that devastated its ranks.
 
The French navy under Louis XVI was quite strong and a solid rival for the British. It was the Revolution that devastated its ranks.

Didn't the French Navy generally outperform the British Navy during the American Revolution. I sure know that the Americans might not have even sniffed victory had the French not managed to successfully contest the local seas, even if they didn't outright defeat the British Navy.
 
The problem in this time period was less ships than sailors trained in war. British sailors were far superior because they started every war with supremacy and then got more practice using that supremacy sinking French ships. While the French novices kept on dying before they get experience.

I think you need a pre 1760s POD.
I think that if Napoleon had been able to maintain continental dominance, with large armies of observation permanently billeted in Germany to keep watch on Prussia and Austria, he could spend the next decade building up the navy until they could simply overpower the British, controlling as he did all the major shipyards of continental Europe. Napoleon's strategy against Britain was somewhat incoherent, in that he attempted a Continental blockade intended to compensate for France's naval inadequecy at the same time he undertook a massive shipbuilding program; if either effort worked, the other would be redundant. The Continental blockade, meanwhile, led Napoleon into two unnecessary wars than ended in devastating defeats. Without the Continental System, he probably could just sit on Europe and bide his time until his empire completely outstripped British shipbuilding. It would be the work of decades, but Napoleon in 1807 still had a long career ahead of him. There was a path forward, even if it would be a hard road.
 
Had Napoleon focused on the Spanish campaign rather than the disastrous Russian expedition, I do not think it impossible for him to have taken Gibraltar. From there, he can use the Mediterranean as essentially a giant training-ground, free from British experience.
 
I think that if Napoleon had been able to maintain continental dominance, with large armies of observation permanently billeted in Germany to keep watch on Prussia and Austria, he could spend the next decade building up the navy until they could simply overpower the British, controlling as he did all the major shipyards of continental Europe. Napoleon's strategy against Britain was somewhat incoherent, in that he attempted a Continental blockade intended to compensate for France's naval inadequecy at the same time he undertook a massive shipbuilding program; if either effort worked, the other would be redundant. The Continental blockade, meanwhile, led Napoleon into two unnecessary wars than ended in devastating defeats. Without the Continental System, he probably could just sit on Europe and bide his time until his empire completely outstripped British shipbuilding. It would be the work of decades, but Napoleon in 1807 still had a long career ahead of him. There was a path forward, even if it would be a hard road.

The problem with this is that Britain is well underway for the industrial revolution at this stage and is pulling away from France economically and technologically. Napoleon conquering Europe and putting down revolts before a 10 year naval program puts us into the 1820s. Britain has so much more economic resources than even an uber France by that point, it could build a lot more ships.
 
Had Napoleon focused on the Spanish campaign rather than the disastrous Russian expedition, I do not think it impossible for him to have taken Gibraltar. From there, he can use the Mediterranean as essentially a giant training-ground, free from British experience.

Gibraltar isn't takeable by land when you are being bombarded from the ocean. And even if you have a base there, you need to get the ships out of port, which doesn't happen when you are blockaded by British ships.
 
I think that if Napoleon had been able to maintain continental dominance, with large armies of observation permanently billeted in Germany to keep watch on Prussia and Austria, he could spend the next decade building up the navy until they could simply overpower the British, controlling as he did all the major shipyards of continental Europe. Napoleon's strategy against Britain was somewhat incoherent, in that he attempted a Continental blockade intended to compensate for France's naval inadequecy at the same time he undertook a massive shipbuilding program; if either effort worked, the other would be redundant. The Continental blockade, meanwhile, led Napoleon into two unnecessary wars than ended in devastating defeats. Without the Continental System, he probably could just sit on Europe and bide his time until his empire completely outstripped British shipbuilding. It would be the work of decades, but Napoleon in 1807 still had a long career ahead of him. There was a path forward, even if it would be a hard road.

It doesn't have to be that hard. He just needs British opinion to turn against the war. That happened in 1802 when he made peace with the British, and they made overtures again in 1806. It might have happened again if the Russian campaign had not been such a disaster.

In hindsight, the 1806 negotiation was a golden opportunity for him. That would be an interesting TL.
 
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