WI France Partitioned/Split after Waterloo

[tallthinkev]

France had been a right pain to most of Europe for nearly 200 years before Nappy was finally defeated at Waterloo. If the countries of the 6th/7th Coalition make sure they will never do it again, what happens.
Now how many countries could there be in place of France? I'm thinking four each under the watchful eyes of the victors.
One - Brittany, Normandy and Lands of The Loire. UK
Two - Upper France, Island of France, Grand Est and Valley of The Loire. 'Germany'
Three - Burgundy, Auvergne and Provence. 'Italy'
Four - Acquitaine and Occitania . Spain

I don't think any outright annexation would be viewed very well by others, but once they can be trusted they are left to get on with it.
Who will be in charge in X years, dukes become kings, republics, parliamentary democracy, something else?

Over to you and type about this for a bit

 

[The Tai-Pan]

France is too legitimate to be divvied up like that. This isn't Poland but the heart of Western Europe, the land of Charlemagne, the Bourbons and Julius Caesar's triumphs. The people are French and consider themselves French. Such a move would re start the fighting and that's the last thing anyone wants.

More importantly however, your own post shows the problem. 'Italy' and 'Germany' don't even exist in this time period. Spain is a burned husk of itself, far more worried about the overseas empire then some bit of France. France is needed to maintain the balance of power. Why on Earth would Russia and Austria agree to break up France and give it to the UK? The ideological reality is also not there. France was seen not as an implacable enemy to be destroyed but a legitimate nation under an disruptive government.

 

[Anneessens]

In a sense, France was partitioned, albeit not so much after Waterloo as in 1813-1814 . It lost, if I'm couting correctly, 44 of its departments in 1814. from Jemappes (numer 86) to Lippe (number 131). Giving more to the other great powers would seem difficult (with the exception of marginal gains along the border, the restoration of some smaller principality à la Bouillon or Salm, or perhaps some Caribbean island), as it would upset the balance of power too much.

 

[Comte de Geneve]

The focus at Vienna was on legitimacy and restoration. Taking away the conquests qualifies as restoration. I hate to call any thing ASB but an allied partition of France at Vienna qualifies as such.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

The focus at Vienna was on legitimacy and restoration. Taking away the conquests qualifies as restoration. I hate to call any thing ASB but an allied partition of France at Vienna qualifies as such.

I don't think it is totally ASB. That implies magic.

Poland was just swallowed up less then half a century before. It could happen, it just isn't going to unless we really change things.

 

[Socrates]

Could you move it back to the border of circa 1600?

 

[Post]

In a sense, France was partitioned, albeit not so much after Waterloo as in 1813-1814 . It lost, if I'm couting correctly, 44 of its departments in 1814. from Jemappes (numer 86) to Lippe (number 131).

Weren't a lot of those departments conquests anyway, like the whole of the Netherlands, the Rhineland and parts of Italy and Spain? So that's not really losing them.

 

[wwbgdiaslt]

I think you take a few princes or dukes from the relevant nations, hand the Bourbons a rump state around the Ile De France, Southern France goes to Spain or Portugal as a defacto Kingdom of Occitania, Normandy falls under British crown jurisdiction, and much like Greece and Belgium later, there will be a German Prince hanging around to place on another throne.

Perhaps stick the Orleans dynasty on one.

 

[Ciryatur]

Resurrect Burgundy? It really doesn't matter which one, either.

 

[Enigmajones]

Italy wasn't a country at the time of Waterloo. Unless you're counting the Napoleonic Italy, but thats not an enemy of Napoleon's France.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I made a couple threads about this

France balkanized/partitioned during the French Revolution

Just took a look at Tony Jones' classic Monarchy World. This is what happens in France. 1798 - THE DISSOLUTION OF FRANCE Although they have had good trade with China, France still has problems with its rising national debt and with unrest in the country caused by the high level of taxation on...

www.alternatehistory.com

Could more countries have survived Napoleon?

What if the following occurred: * Venice declares for Napoleon, then later undeclares for him once defeat is clear, and so the Republic survives that era. * Genoa is allowed to be reestablished as a republic at the Congress of Vienna. * Corsica, under the British client kingdom, is also...

www.alternatehistory.com

Speaking of the Versailles- level punishment for France:

1. What about an independent Brittany? For a crazy twist, have it and the Vendée be under the control of a Legitimist, while the rest of France under an Orleanist.)

2. Bonapartist Elba.

Also too bad the British weren't interested in taking back Calais.

 

[tallthinkev]

Also too bad the British weren't interested in taking back Calais.

I'm not talking about taking things, more like occupation zones. Troops there for 5 years or so, or until a stale government can be maintained.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Well sure, but if they're going to be partitioning things they might as well take back the bits that used to belong to them, Calais being one of them.

I do think now that you've explained that you meant a post WWII-type occupation, all of the other responses in this thread should probably address that concept.

 

[Emperor Constantine]

Partition France? In 1815? Do not pass go, do not collect $200 and instead go straight to ASB. At this point France has been a nation for nearly thirteen CENTURIES (dating back to the Merovingian dynasty) and is older than ANY nation in Europe, so the idea that, somehow, the other great powers would be able to partition France up like the Kingdom is a cake is insane. And that's ignoring the how, because the French would in no way accept the partition of their nation. So somehow the bankrupted European states would have to fund occupation armies of hundreds of thousands of men to keep any kind of order.

HOWEVER, with all that said, I think it would be possible, under a certain set of circumstances, to see the great powers slice off parts of France for themselves. Back in 1795, when Madame Royale (the only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette) was ransomed to the Austrians, her cousin Franz II had prepared a document for her to sign, in which she would assert her rights to Brittany, Lorraine, Alsace and Franche-Comté, all pivotal territories to the Habsburgs and France. Obviously, Madame refused to sign. Also during the revolutionary period, the Spanish attempted to assert Louis XVII's right to rule an independent Navarre, as part of peace negotiations with the Revolutionary government. What I'm getting as is one could, potentially, see some of these proposals advanced during a potentially worse-off Waterloo campaign for France. So, for example, Austria would regain Lorraine, likely augmented by the three bishoprics (or at least a separate state created for one of Franz I's brothers); Spain would take Lower Navarre and maybe Roussillon; the Netherlands could gain French Flanders and Cambrai (possibly other territories of the former Seventeen provinces, but not sure if the Dutch would want to add that many Catholics); and Brittany could be detached into an independent Kingdom (maybe under the Rohans? They had emigrated to Austria by that point and had a legitimate claim on the old Duchy). But the "core" of France would be inalienable. Finally, such a dismemberment would permanently poison relations between France and the rest of Europe, destroy any chance of a stable Bourbon rule, and contribute to further revolutionary disorders.

 

[Grey Wolf]

I once wrote a little story/timeline on this called Aquitaine

No idea if it even still exists

People didn't think much of it

 

[funnyhat]

France had been a right pain to most of Europe for nearly 200 years before Nappy was finally defeated at Waterloo.

This is UK-centric thinking. France in the 75 years between Utrecht and 1789 was no more of a threat to the general European order than any of the other great powers. Russia, Austria and Prussia didn't care much about France's borders, they just did not want Napoléon back on the throne.

It was the UK that had a perpetual fear of French control of the Southern Netherlands and this was at the root of most of their conflicts in the previous century. But even they had no desire to rule French territory. What would they do with this population? If you give a big chunk of France to the UK, then half (or more) of the "British" population is going to be compromised of hostile subjects, when you take Ireland into account as well.

The coalition goal in 1815 was to have a stable French government that would not instigate more wars, and to give them some money for their trouble (France paid 700 million francs in reparations).

 

[Intosh]

France had been a right pain to most of Europe for nearly 200 years before Nappy was finally defeated at Waterloo. If the countries of the 6th/7th Coalition make sure they will never do it again, what happens.
Now how many countries could there be in place of France? I'm thinking four each under the watchful eyes of the victors.
One - Brittany, Normandy and Lands of The Loire. UK
Two - Upper France, Island of France, Grand Est and Valley of The Loire. 'Germany'
Three - Burgundy, Auvergne and Provence. 'Italy'
Four - Acquitaine and Occitania . Spain

I don't think any outright annexation would be viewed very well by others, but once they can be trusted they are left to get on with it.
Who will be in charge in X years, dukes become kings, republics, parliamentary democracy, something else?

Over to you and type about this for a bit

Cool, you have just reunited France royalist, republican and bonapartist under anybody wanting to unite them and gave them an will to fight that even the Volunteers of 1792 haven't.

You have barely defeated the dragonand you want him to rewoke again.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Austria would regain Lorraine, likely augmented by the three bishoprics (or at least a separate state created for one of Franz I's brothers); Spain would take Lower Navarre and maybe Roussillon; the Netherlands could gain French Flanders and Cambrai (possibly other territories of the former Seventeen provinces, but not sure if the Dutch would want to add that many Catholics); and Brittany could be detached into an independent Kingdom (maybe under the Rohans? They had emigrated to Austria by that point and had a legitimate claim on the old Duchy).

I'd look at this map.

 

[kham_coc]

This was the early time of nationalism, so you could maybe carve away more parts of the exterior (two obvious contenders are AL and corsica).

 

[FouDuRoy]

As incredible as it seems, such a partition was not that far to become reality in OTL.

In 1815, some royalists from south-west of France actually wanted to create an independant kingdom of Aquitaine with Louis-Antoine, duc d'Angoulême, as its king.
I always found it quite weird, though, as Louis-Antoine was supposed to become king of France one day, after his uncle and his father.
Either the Aquitaine separatists planned to give the throne of Aquitaine to his brother or to another Bourbon prince when Louis-Antoine would become king of France (assuming several Bourbon princes would be born in the meantime), either they were okay with France and Aquitaine having the same king and their main purpose was only to put Aquitaine out of the authority of Parisian parliaments.
What is pretty clear, however, is that is was a rejection of the centralized jacobine France.

Had this project concretized, other regions may have wanted independance.
I think especially to north-west. Revolutionnaries had performed there terrible massacres during the Wars of Vendée. Now, there is even a controversy to know if it qualifies as a genocide or not.
I have no doubt that most people from this part of France, in 1815, would've been glad to be independant from Paris. An independant extended Brittany with a Rohan as its king would make sense.

I think south-east is more unlikely to want independance. But who knows?
We can imagine a restored kingdom of Burgundy. A Bourbon-Anjou may be the king, being both a Bourbon and an heir of the Habsburgs' claim to Burgundy.

What would be unacceptable, however, is the jurisdiction by neighbouring countries.