What if the French revolution never happens?

Would nationalist sentiment still arise in Europe if there was no revolution and France became a constitutional monarchy? Would the romantic era start if there was no revolution to idealise the classic antiquity? And how would industrialization look like if Germany for example is way more divided than after the congress of Vienna? And what conflicts would arise instead of the coalition wars?
 
Would nationalist sentiment still arise in Europe if there was no revolution and France became a constitutional monarchy? Would the romantic era start if there was no revolution to idealise the classic antiquity? And how would industrialization look like if Germany for example is way more divided than after the congress of Vienna? And what conflicts would arise instead of the coalition wars?
Nationalism as a dominant political ideology as we know it would be butterflied. Some sort of ethnic chauvinism, like there has been for millennia, would still exist, of course.
Romanticism and Germany's "Weimarer Klassik" would not exist the way we know them, too, but some sort of adverse reaction to Enlightenment culture would occur nonetheless, as has been called "Empfindsamkeit" and "Sturm und Drang" in Germany, and proto-Romanticism elsewhere. Probably with a couple of new traits.
Industrialisation of Germany would not be quite so seriously affected until well after the middle of the 19th century, I'd say.
The conflicts which would arise are really difficult to fathom. Britain and France would still be the main protagonists, I'd think, and within Germany Prussia vs. Austria. Industrialisation strengthens England, Flanders, Eastern France, Western Germany first. We'd have to take that as clues perhaps? But you never know, maybe there's a "Spanish Revolution" instead, or.. or...
 
The thing to realise is that without the French revolution the HRE would still exist, with its numerous tiny states and that Prussia would be far less powerful without the rhineland. Belgium would still be Austrian. I think those would significantly change mainland industrialisation.
 
What's the POD? Does the revolution not occur because the French did not have a budget crisis? If so then you need no American War of Independence and possibly no 7YW, or at least ones that go very well for France at Britain's expense and does not leave them skint. Otherwise you need a France that suddenly agrees to revolutionise it's backwards tax system without anyone objecting or revolting.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
What's the POD? Does the revolution not occur because the French did not have a budget crisis? If so then you need no American War of Independence and possibly no 7YW, or at least ones that go very well for France at Britain's expense and does not leave them skint. Otherwise you need a France that suddenly agrees to revolutionise it's backwards tax system without anyone objecting or revolting.

Constitutional monarchy can happen at the very last moment. Have Louis XVI instruct Necker to be humble (rather than deflective and grand-standing) in from of the Estates, and that would already do wonders. After that, the Estates would be willing to listen to Louis when he makes proposals.

At the very minimum, when Necker introduces the whole plan of "we double the third estate, but they still just get one vote", have Louis react to the backlash by siding with the Third Estate ("Yes, you are right. We will double your vote") rather than against them. That makes the king an ally of the people, in their perception. The major opponents of reform were entrenched elites. An alliance of the king and the Third Estate, backed by certain reformist clerics and aristocrats, could impose reforms. Interestingly, those reforms would in this case probably strengthen the king and weaken the aristocracy. The king would, for instance, get broad powers to impose taxes on the aristocracy.

Any "revolution" in this scenario would be a revolt of angry nobles. That could be defeated, their considerably possessions could then all be forfeited to the crown, which would more than compensate for the cost of suppressing them. That, combined with new taxes, would get France on the road to fiscal stability. Assuming that (as per the spirit of the times) French economic reforms mean a move towards free trade and away from stodgy mercantillism, Britain will do nothing but encourage all this.
 
What's the POD? Does the revolution not occur because the French did not have a budget crisis? If so then you need no American War of Independence and possibly no 7YW, or at least ones that go very well for France at Britain's expense and does not leave them skint. Otherwise you need a France that suddenly agrees to revolutionise it's backwards tax system without anyone objecting or revolting.

You could instead say that in the late 1780s France doesn't suffer repeated bad harvests.
You can also just change some policies so that there are a series of reforms but France never gets to a revolution.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
You could instead say that in the late 1780s France doesn't suffer repeated bad harvests.
You can also just change some policies so that there are a series of reforms but France never gets to a revolution.

The harvests would require a geological POD, since that was due to a major volcanic eruption on Iceland.

You are completely right about gradual reform being the best (that is: 'most stable') way to get things done, since that causes less pushback. My own suggestion above was mainly to show that avoiding a real revolution at the last moment was possible-- but obviously, the closer you cut it, the more you have to rely on eberything going just right. Any dumb thing can be the spark that lights the fire. The longer back you go and the more gradual your changes, the lower any chance of a real explosion gets.


I think the most stable way to avoid the Revolution altogether is to have some timeline where the more radical Enlightenment thinkers find other things to do with their lives, and where France decides not to get involved in the ARW (can be part of the same POD: the aristocrats who pushed for intervention were inspired by Enlightenment ideals, and a somewhat more subdued and less 'zealous' Enlightenment could easily fail to inspire that in them). Europeans as a whole are less iclined to help out the Americans, and as a result, the ARW is lost in this scernario. That means no example of a previous republican revolution to inspire the French, in addition to there being no radical Enlightenment thinkers suggesting drastic upheavals. That in turn lets the moderate Enlightenment thinkers predominate, and they argue for reforms (including fiscal and economic ones) and a parliamentary monarchy based on the example of Britain. Since 'Enlightenment' isn't seen as intrinsically linked to certain radical thoughts, these ideas find more support among the elite. The failed harvests of the 1780s are a major wake-up call rather than the straw that breaks the camel's back, and in the following years, France sees a series of gradual reforms, at least in part based on the ideas of Voltaire (constitutional monrchy, religious tolerance), Montesquieu (legal reform, constitutionalism), and physiocrats like Turgot and Quesnay (tax reform, free trade, deliberate steos to eliminate the national debt over time). This then accelerates a decade later, when men like Condorcet become the face of the modern, revitalised French state.
 
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