WI: France victorious at Sedan

[JonasResende]

Austria and Denmark were both (theoretically) supposed to side with France in crushing Prussia - however, that hinged on a French victory. That said, if France wins at Sedan, and Austria sends her army running and Denmark's navy comes steaming along (I'm not sure of Danish naval capacity at the point), the possible side-effects are as follows:

-Italy marches against Austria and France (the former because she's allied to Germany, the latter because she's preventing them from taking Rome).
-The South German states (Württemberg, Bavaria etc) look to Austria for leadership, because Bismarck promised a teacup war. (Note: IDK what Baden's stance was, since the Grand Duke was married to a Prussian princess namely the Emperor's daughter).
-Prussia looks as though it might be going down under this league, so Russia (who has no love for Imperial France) jumps in to the fray.
-Britain looks at this, shakes her head and sighs about those damn continentals. Her relationship with France is in tatters due to the fact Britain is more easily pro-German than pro-French. So she'll probably either withdraw behind the Channel and not dabble in the continent's politics, or she'll add her weight to Prussia-Italy-Russia.

 

[LordKalvan]

A French victory at Sedan is both impossible and too late.
The two chances for France (Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte) had come and gone (mostly thanks to the indecisiveness of Bazaine, but then the chance for the French originated from blunders of the worst Prussian generals); moreover on both cases the French were on the defensive, which makes things a bit easier for them. A French victory in an open-field engagement where the French arrive already tired after a very long march and the Prussians field the A-team is a pipe dream. The fact that the Prussians fielded 200,000 men against the 120,000 soldiers and had a 3 to 2 advantage in artillery (and much better guns) should mean something. Not even the original Napoleon could have pulled such a big rabbit from his hat.
However let's suppose that some Asb intervenes and the French army getz a draw (or even a tactical victory) with heavy losses. What does it change?
Bazaine is still besieged in Metz and cannot break out (my take is that he would not make even if the situation were better: Bazaine has a chip on his shoulder and feels ill treated by N3. His strategy is to keep the Metz army in being and let the empire go bust). What should Mac Mahon do? March another long way and at the end try to lift the Metz siege?

The only reasonable strategy is to march toward Paris, protecting the capital from the outside while N3 tries to put some spine in the regime. Which is really what Bismarck wanted: his great disappointment after Sedan was that the victory had been too massive, and the emperor had been captured. Otto's plan was not to topple the second empire, rather the contrary.

There is no hope in any external intervention, btw: Russia was committed to support Prussia if Austria intervened; Austria was still licking the wounds of 1866, and the Hungarians were deadly against a new war against Prussia; the Southern German states were still dancing at Bismarck's tune and it would have taken much more than a French better performance at Sedan to change their mind; the UK was certainly not interested to enter the war to prop up a losing French side; Denmark had sternly refused any French approach in better times, and would not enter the war anyway.

 

[TFSmith121]

But nations have no friends, oui?

Power politics don't make you back the losing side and throw your best friend under the bus for no real reason.
The Russian Empire would need to be convinced that a united Germany would be bad for their own interests - but they had no reason to think so at that point in time.

The Franco-Prussian war was hilariously one-sided. Even if the German alliance suffers a defeat at Sedan, they are still winning everywhere else and France is still in an almost hopeless military situation. It's much more likely that Prussia rallies and redeploys more troops to engage the French a second time soon after than it is for Napoleon III to turn the war around and successfully throw the Germans out of France.

But nations have no friends, oui? I understand the French made the wrong calls throughout, but the central story in all this is which of three empires (existing or incipient) comes out on top of Central and Eastern Europe... The Prussians et al were nice enough to knock down the Austrians for the Russians; from a strictly Machiavellian point of view, it was time for the Russians to return the favor with regards to the Prussians.

Best,

 

[cracou]

If you kill Bazaine early you can expect the conflict to last longuer.

Many people overlook the fact that after the first battles French began to massively product much better artillery. They also understood better how to use machineguns.

As long as you keep them in the field Germans will have much worser losses.

 

[Basileus444]

But nations have no friends, oui? I understand the French made the wrong calls throughout, but the central story in all this is which of three empires (existing or incipient) comes out on top of Central and Eastern Europe... The Prussians et al were nice enough to knock down the Austrians for the Russians; from a strictly Machiavellian point of view, it was time for the Russians to return the favor with regards to the Prussians.

Best,

You are not providing an actual reason for Russia to intervene against Prussia in support of Austria, a major rival in the Balkans, and France, the chief enforcer of the Crimean war restrictions. If Russia followed your plan, they would have a vengeful Prussia, a more powerful Austria better placed to interfere with Balkan expansionism, and a France better able to force Russia to comply with the restrictions on its Black Sea fleet.

And for what, some more rebellious Poles?

Also one of the big issues of the Franco-Russian alliance before WW1 was that while France wanted to focus on Germany, Russia was more interested in Austria.

 

[LordKalvan]

You are not providing an actual reason for Russia to intervene against Prussia in support of Austria, a major rival in the Balkans, and France, the chief enforcer of the Crimean war restrictions. If Russia followed your plan, they would have a vengeful Prussia, a more powerful Austria better placed to interfere with Balkan expansionism, and a France better able to force Russia to comply with the restrictions on its Black Sea fleet.

And for what, some more rebellious Poles?

Also one of the big issues of the Franco-Russian alliance before WW1 was that while France wanted to focus on Germany, Russia was more interested in Austria.

When the great Polish insurrection of 1863 broke out the Prussians were the only ones to show sympathy (and provide some help) to the Russians.
The Austrians however failed to repay in the war of Crimea the help received by the Russians during the Hungarian upraising of 1848-49 and the Russians never forgot or forgave this apparent betrayal.

On more practical ground, Austria was also perceived as the true Russian competitor in the Balkans.

It makes a lot of sense for Russia to support Prussia (as promised in the secret treaty of 1865 and reconfirmed in 1869 IIRC). Relations between Prussia and Russia had always been good since the partitions of Poland and the Napoleonic wars, and stayed good until Wilhem II decided to sack Bismarck and scrap the reinsurance treaty with Russia in the early 1890s.
Only after that the relations between France and Russia became truly warm and developed in the alliance treaty against the Triple Alliance.

In 1914 the Russian perception was that Austria was the first target in order to support Serbia. The fist (partial) Russian mobilization involved just the southern Russian military districts and there was a belief that war might be limited in scope. This changed later, with the German declaration of war against Russia and France. Contrary to the popular belief, France was not eager to go to war in 1914. Even after the German ultimatum and the French mobilization, French troops were ordered to stay 10 km away from the German border to avoid provocations (it did not work, since the Germans manufactured out of whole cloth a lot of alleged French provocations, including an aerial raid over Nuremberg).