WI: England conquers France 100 years war
- Thread starter Fex
- Start date
The Empire will always be a massive bulwark against any such grand ambitions, and in the later 15th/early 16th century the Habsburgs are uniting not only the Empire and Spain, but also Burgundy.
This latter also explains a drawback to your unity idea - Burgundy has essentially seceded from France at this date, and not only that but Provence is an Imperial territory. So the territory of "France" is a lot less on its Eastern border than we would otherwise think.
I think it perfectly possible for a united kingdom of England and France to eventually settle down - after all it did for Castile and Aragon, and even for England and Scotland, as well as Poland-Lithuania in the East.
This latter also explains a drawback to your unity idea - Burgundy has essentially seceded from France at this date, and not only that but Provence is an Imperial territory. So the territory of "France" is a lot less on its Eastern border than we would otherwise think.
I think it perfectly possible for a united kingdom of England and France to eventually settle down - after all it did for Castile and Aragon, and even for England and Scotland, as well as Poland-Lithuania in the East.
An Anglo-French union has a few problems those unions didn't. It's a union born out of force, not diplomacy, and there's no direct land border between the two, meaning that the two crowns almost certainly have to be kept as seperatr entities.
I've always liked the idea of England winning, setting up court in France and Parliament ruling England as a de-facto independent republic paying lip service to the king in France, not the most likely but a cool idea I think.
Normandy and Aquitaine were historically linked to the English crown, even if the latter at least paid homage to French sovereignty. So, these areas have land borders with the rest of France. English nobles bore titles that related to Normandy, especially, such as Count of Eu (the Bourchiers). Brittany is also not integral to France in this period, has historic links to England, and in a later period the English would campaign there in Elizabethan times.
I could easily see that the Angevin/Plantagenet homelands are appropriated by the Crown, and dished out to loyal nobles - this would push an English zone further.
One of the main problems that any long-term King of England-France will have is that of overly powerful nobles, such as the Dukes of Bourbon (unless they are attainted)
Yes, I think getting the French nobility on-side would be absolutely vital for the long-term viability of such a union.
This, on the other hand, I don't think is necessarily problematic. After all, Ireland ended up being incorporated into the British Crown, the existence of the Celtic Sea notwithstanding.
Ireland and France are hardly comparable in this case, Ireland's population is way smaller than Englands, while France's is actually higher, Ireland is very isolated from the rest of Europe, France is extremely conected to the continent. And even Ireland, despite being in a so much weaker position, took hundreds of years to be subdued and incorporated into the UK, when it finally did become a full part it only took a century for it to rebell again.
By the time of the 100YW Normandy was lost by the English kings for few centuries so no land border there and while Gyenne was still loyal supremacy of the kings of France had been recognized even there as had been demonstrated by Charles V.
Brittany was, indeed, still just a vassal of France but fighting between French and English candidates was a prolonged affair and the Duchy’s interes did not include helping anybody because strengthening of any side would be dangerous for its autonomy.
Could the English conquer France (BTW, why is there an implication that by default everybody should be sympathetic to the English side)? I seriously doubt it by a number of reasons:
1. Even with the superior military system and extremely incompetent leadership on the other side this did not happen and when there was at least some competence on the French side, they were losing conquered territories.
2. England being a much smaller and poorer country than France, a successful conquest would need a serious local support but it started with a wholesale looting and continued this way for the next century. Of course, there were some feudals who were taking the English side but their loyalty was quite unreliable as had been demonstrated by Burgundy on the last stage of a war. Was it possible to attract enough of the leading French aristocrats to the English side to guarantee a political victory? If it was, Valois would not be elected a king Salic Law or not. Even in the best (for English) case scenario when the Burgundians and Orleans were at each other throats, the king was insane, Paris was on Burgundian side, and English controlled most of the Northern France opposition proved to be too strong.
3. Could he English conquer France by a pure intimidation? Highly questionable because their armies were too small for the task, their military system had serious limitations and even their best commanders were just good tacticians. After victory at Poitiers Esward’s Reims Campaign was a failure: he could not take Reims and he did not even seriously try to take Paris. The only thing that he and his best commanders could do was to waste a countryside in a hope that an enemy would be stupid enough to stick out his neck for a field battle. BTW, and this is a pure curiosity, were the vicinities of Chartres completely lacking villages, farms, etc. or was a need to make a camp on the “open plain” a byproduct of the usual tactics of destroying everything on the route? Surely, the soldiers placed in the houses would not suffer from a hailstorm. Anyway, on the later stages of the war the chevauchee tactics was routinely failing in its goals.
4. Could the English get a wide popular support? Unlikely, both because looting and destruction are not the good tools and because they proved to be rather inept administrators: Ed Jr. managed to get Gyenne rebellious (notwithstanding the traditional ties) by his administrative methods. Could this be changed? Unlikely, because England could not finance war forever and with a passage of time the prevails no opinion was that it should be paid for by the occupied French territories. Rather difficult to get love of the people whom you are looting. The only thing they accomplished was a raise of the French nationalism.
5. Was English military system superior enough was the task of conquest? Unlikely. Of course they did have serious tactical advantages over the feudal militia but their main strength was in a defensive battle in a prepared position. When the battle was denied, they could do little besides looting and a skilled opponent could keep squeezing them out the conquered territory as Du Guescklin was doing. When they were attacked before they could choose a good position, they were defeated as at Patay and with an appearance of the field artillery and firearms their tactical advantage was gone and they had been defeated at Formigny and Castillon.
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By the start of it maybe, but by the height of it, it is fully an English province in fact.
Well I don't think the conquest of Ireland is really comparable to an English victory in the Hundred Years' War, as the Irish conquest involved replacing the native Gaelic nobility with a new English/Scottish one, whereas an English subjugation of France would likely involve convincing a big contingent of French lords to back the Plantagenet claim. Also a lot of the problems in British-ruled Ireland came from religious differences which wouldn't be a factor in the fifteenth century, and the population disparity was a lot less till the mid-19th century, when Ireland experienced a population crash due to the Potato Famine at the same time as England experienced a massive population boom (going from just under 8 million in 1800 to over 30 million by 1900).
My real point, though, was simply that having a sea between you doesn't preclude political unification. If you don't like the example of Ireland, New Zealand, Indonesia, and Japan illustrate the point as well.
That was not the objective. If it had been, probably a lot fewer French nobles would have supported the Plantagenet cause. They fought to put a different dynasty on the throne in Paris instead of the Valois, not to submit to London.
It was loyal to the royal house of England but was not part of England. Feudalism was complicated.
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I assume you meant to quote my post? In which case, I made the comparison to show that "having no land border" =/= "the two crowns have to be kept as separate entities".
When the war began, French was the court language of both kingdoms. If the war results in personal union under the Plantagenets, presumably this would remain the case instead of English becoming the court language in London.
OTOH what the English parliament would speak would be in question. The commoners did not speak French of course, and even much of the aristocracy no longer did by the XV century. Would French regain fashion and English be regarded again as a peasant's language, or would the parliament resist? Would the kings (probably based in Paris) eventually push for linguistic uniformity? I think this personal union is probably going to be a tricky mariage to maintain.
French ceased to be the court language during the reign of Edward III, so unless the POD is very early on in the war I expect that English will be the court language in England. Unless the two crowns are integrated, I expect their respective Parliaments will continue with the linguistic status quo, i.e., English being used in the English Parliament, and French in the French Parliament. If there is some sort of integration, I expect that French would win out, since France was wealthier and more populous and French was a more prestigious language during this period.
Is it not the case that French was not fully ascendant as a spoken language in the Kingdom of the Franks? Occitan, Basque lands, Aquitaine-Guyenne, Arpitan, Normandie, etc still held their own spoken tongue. An united French and English domain, could give more legitimacy and credence to regional powers and their cultures as a way to play against the French main nobility.
Yes, it was conquered twice during the 100YW (1345 - 1360 and 1415 - 1450) but it hardly could be considered a base for starting the war or a place where population enthusiastically supported the invaders because cost of the war was up to 75% of the population. Add to this the need to pay for the war and you end up with “English” being actually “English occupied”, which is not exactly the same.
AFAIK, the English and French parliaments had been distinctively different institutions and in France there were numerous regional parlements (appellate courts with the right to make the royal edicts officially recognized within court’s jurisdiction). Equivalent to the English Parliament would be Estates General.
Check out the Victoria 2 Mod Divergences of Darkess that posits exactly that: https://github.com/Pergame35/Divergences
At least according to my playthrough, the world ends up looking like this by 1935:
At least according to my playthrough, the world ends up looking like this by 1935:
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Not even to establish a new dynasty: after a failed Reims campaign Edward’s goal was a sovereignty of Gyenne. Paris and coronation in it were a goal of the government of Henry VI and while occupation of Paris and coronation in Norte Dam became possible due to the Burgundian alliance in 1431, “the train was gone” because Dauphine was already crowned in Reims and England did not have the resourcs for a successful continued military effort (Charles alone had an income few times greater than what could be squeezed from the English held French territories and, IIRC, England as well).
Loyalty of Normandy to the English rulers at that time is anybody’s guess taking into an account English policies there. Would the local be eager to pay for the war? Would they like people responsible for the death toll amounting to 75% of a population? Were they happy being looted?