WI: France to the Rhine?

[Hrvatskiwi]

Although I'm not an expert on Early Modern history, it seems pretty apparent that France was consistently a great power in Europe (and globally) from the Renaissance onwards.

As shown by the Revolutionary Wars, France was in many ways the 18th century equivalent of what Germany would become in the 20th, capable of taking on virtually all other great powers and only losing after prolonged wars on multiple fronts.

In the 20th century, massive 'continental-scale' powers (namely the USA and USSR) came to dominate the globe, as they developed their massive manpower and natural resource bases. Traditional powers like France and the UK were eclipsed.

Turning it back a little bit, it's common knowledge that the Low Countries (particularly the area that would become Belgium) were very wealthy and advanced during the early modern period.

My question is, at what point does French annexation of the Rhine, up to and including what would become Belgium and the Southern Netherlands (not worried about Frisia, for instance), not mean immediate superpower status? I've often heard that a France containing the Low Countries would be virtually unstoppable, hence why the Spanish, Austrians and English refused to allow it, but how true is this?

Would it allow France to dislodge Spain and Austria from Lombardy? It seems a Rhine border would be almost as defensible as the Pyrenees. Or am I mistaken? When is too late for France to become the dominant European power (including primacy over England)?

 

[Hörnla]

It's not as if they hadn't tried constantly......

 

[Oamlyya]

An important thing to note is that one reason for France's strength in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries was her gigantic population due to the high fertility of her lands. Prior to the late 1700s, the area encompassed by modern day France contained the 3rd largest the population in the world, behind only the area encompassed by modern China and modern India. During the 17th century, France's population was greater than the entirely united population of the Holy Roman Empire. Even by the dawn of the 19th century, which saw England making huge strides to close the gap demographically, France in its modern borders had around 3 times the population as England.

France experienced essentially a demographic disaster in the 19th century (whose cause seems sort of uncertain, but some people trace it to the French Revolution turning the peasantry into small landowning farmers rather than the tenant farmers seen elsewhere), which meant that even without losing Alsace-Lorraine, the center of mass of Europe had already shifted away from France by the end of the 19th century. Had France's 19th population growth kept up with Germany's, for example, modern day France would have a population well exceeding 100 million, and would be a far more important economic powerhouse without gaining any extra territory.

 

[LSCatilina]

The natural borders justification is relatively recent, coming from a rationalist/naturalist justification of revolutionary acquisitions. There's mentions before that, but extremely rare and without any political credence. Louis XIV's acquisitions were essentially based on reuniting recently conquered places with their countrysides and more or less twisted feudal considerations.

What bothered the great powers wasn't the border to the Rhine, but a French presence in Low Countries (altough where in Low Countries depended from who was concerned : England/Britain saw French Flanders as a big no-no, while United Provinces didn't wanted France south of their borders, and Habsburgs weren't happy seeing their provinces being slowly eaten up every time Bourbons went to war.
At the very best, you could see a successful War of the Reunions, meaning Flanders, Luxembourg, Deux-Ponts/ Zweibrücken ending as French provinces (and that is, for several reasons unrealistic IMO) but the Rhine as a geopolitical objective was essentially a revolutionnary prospect and no longer taken seriously since the XIXth (and even during the revolutionary period, there was some hesitation annexing Cisrhineland, altough quickly got over it)

"France to the Rhine", IMO, would be an aposteriori rationalisation of a series of earlier conquests, rather than any realized objective.

 

[Indicus]

Just a question on a similar note: who would have jurisdiction of the Rhine if on one side there are HRE states (mostly bishoprics) and on the other France? This question would be especially interesting in the case of a surviving First Republic.

 

[LSCatilina]

Just a question on a similar note: who would have jurisdiction of the Rhine if on one side there are HRE states (mostly bishoprics) and on the other France? This question would be especially interesting in the case of a surviving First Republic.

This is kinda why large rivers, especially navigable and/or critical for irrigations makes up bad borders to begin with. Useful as a general indication but even in Middle-Ages, it was rarely used as such (Great Powers like Romania could use Rhine as a border, because they didn't need to point they had jurisdiction).

 

[Indicus]

This is kinda why large rivers, especially navigable and/or critical for irrigations makes up bad borders to begin with. Useful as a general indication but even in Middle-Ages, it was rarely used as such (Great Powers like Romania could use Rhine as a border, because they didn't need to point they had jurisdiction).

I agree, but what would occur? Would France simply dominate the Rhine, or would some sort of neutral entity (formal or informal) be created to control it?

 

[LSCatilina]

Frankly, if France somehow manages to chase everyone off the Rhine, who's gonna argue about "might makes right"? Nobody, that's who. You might have some concessions, but a shared jurisdiction would probably appear after some political-military defeat.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

Depends in how far back we go, but different development with the Burgundians would be a big step up. Say Mary ending up married to the French king (unlikely) or the Burgundians surviving long enough to inherit (that's a lot of dead princes...).

Then of course there are various possibilities involving Belgium, primarily invoking a better performance in the 17th or 18th century.

I do not believe a French Belgium (or at the minimum, French Flanders) is especially outlandish, but for it to occur within the context of "France" as such, ie with developments from the 15th or 16th c stories, would by necessity involve thinking through the entire European scene, especially vis a vis England and Germany (meaning especially Austria).

 

[kasumigenx]

Depends in how far back we go, but different development with the Burgundians would be a big step up. Say Mary ending up married to the French king (unlikely) or the Burgundians surviving long enough to inherit (that's a lot of dead princes...).

Then of course there are various possibilities involving Belgium, primarily invoking a better performance in the 17th or 18th century.

I do not believe a French Belgium (or at the minimum, French Flanders) is especially outlandish, but for it to occur within the context of "France" as such, ie with developments from the 15th or 16th c stories, would by necessity involve thinking through the entire European scene, especially vis a vis England and Germany (meaning especially Austria).

Have Prince Joachim survive, he can marry Mary of Burgundy instead.