WI Napoleon leads national unifications and recreates the Carolingian Empire ?

The idea of a federation may have existed, yes. But the concept of a transnational government encompassing multiple ethnic groups, providing representation for all of them, etc is much more modern.

The United Kingdom? Try telling a Scot he is the same as a man from London - for that matter, try telling me, a Lancastrian, I am the same as a Londoner, or even a Scouser!
 
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ThreadMancy!


Again!

In regards to the Ottomans, they were the Russians oldest enemy. The Russians would love to see the downfall of the Ottoman Empire and the annexation of some of their former lands far more than Napoleon. So I think it would be very possible for Napoleon to convince the Russians to join an alliance with him against the Ottomans. Now, I still agree with the idea that the Russians are going to be defeated in order for Napoleon to get his new Europe without Prussia and Austria. This is possible; Napoleon is a good strategist. Also, by simply making a Hungarian and Polish state, he has already created two allies in Eastern Europe who need the French to defeat the Russians. So after the Russian defeat, I still think it would be possible for an alliance. I mean, during the Napoleonic wars, there was a Russo-Turkish war going on. So if Napoleon approaches the Russians about an alliance against the Ottomans, I suspect the Czar Alexander would jump at it, depending on what Napoleon offered him. I mean, this basically happened IOTL anyway with the Treaty of Tilsit, so having an alliance between them happen, despite the war, in this ATL isn't too crazy.
 
So if Napoleon approaches the Russians about an alliance against the Ottomans, I suspect the Czar Alexander would jump at it, depending on what Napoleon offered him. I mean, this basically happened IOTL anyway with the Treaty of Tilsit, so having an alliance between them happen, despite the war, in this ATL isn't too crazy.


As you say, it would depend on what Napoleon offered. If Napoleon's goal was to claim Constantinople for his Empire, then Russia would probably rather the weaker Ottoman Empire keep it.
 
As you say, it would depend on what Napoleon offered. If Napoleon's goal was to claim Constantinople for his Empire, then Russia would probably rather the weaker Ottoman Empire keep it.


Or the French could have the city while allowing the Russian Navy passage through the straits, and Russian gains the the Caucus Region. Or Russian Turkey and French Arabia, with Constantinople as a free city. I think there are a variety of deals they could cut on the ultimate spoils of the Ottoman Empire, and if they truly outright destroy the Ottomans, that leaves a lot of spoils in the Balkans, the Caucuses, and Arabia. But then again, this is assuming they can defeat the Ottomans.
 

Eurofed

Banned
But then again, this is assuming they can defeat the Ottomans.

Are you joking, right ? We are talking of 1810s Ottoman Empire, already well headed in its decline, against the combined forces of Russia and an Empire spanning France, Germany, Italy, Low Countries, and Spain, plus vassal Poland and Hungary, with Napoleon at the helm ? Even if Britain is still in the fight, and throws its strength in the fight, how do you spell "steamrolled" ??
 
Are you joking, right ? We are talking of 1810s Ottoman Empire, already well headed in its decline, against the combined forces of Russia and an Empire spanning France, Germany, Italy, Low Countries, and Spain, plus vassal Poland and Hungary, with Napoleon at the helm ? Even if Britain is still in the fight, and throws its strength in the fight, how do you spell "steamrolled" ??


W-a-n-k?

Hahaha, joking, I see your point. But nevertheless, if we are talking about going past Constantinople and into Arabia, it will require a Navy and good logistics...especially if the British get involved. But I'd suspect that Napoleon would only start this war after he gets a peace with British.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Hahaha, joking, I see your point. But nevertheless, if we are talking about going past Constantinople and into Arabia, it will require a Navy and good logistics...especially if the British get involved. But I'd suspect that Napoleon would only start this war after he gets a peace with British.

Well, "nevah surrendah" insufferable stereotypes aside, it is pretty much sure that once Napoleon defeats Russia for good, and/or (temporarily) binds Russia to collaboration with the Ottoman carrot, and promptly turns and crushes Spain, Britain is forced to sign a peace. They would have no hope whatsoever of defeating united Europe with no allies, this ain't the 20th century when mighty America can still come to the rescue. And in the long run, the ConSys is going to hurt British economy more and more. So indeed the anti-Ottoman expedition would start after peace with Britain.

Of course, Britain is almost sure to remain in a Cold War mode vs. Napoleonic Europe, and so give financial support and send weapons to the Ottoman Empire, but they would not dare setting up a blockade or anything of that sort.

As an aside, anyway, I would remark that in such a scenario and in the medium term, it is quite wrong to take British naval supremacy like an immutable physical law. Any time from the Middle Ages to the present, an empire that holds the resources of France, Germany, Italy, and Spain is totally able to easily outbuild Britain in a few years at anything. I expect that by the 1820s onwards, Britain would be frantically scrambling to keep pace in the naval race with Napoleonic Europe.
 
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It sounds viable in the short to medium term to me, but I see a few conflicts potentially within the tri-Monarchy. Most of the the same as what faced the Dual Monarchy of Austria Hungary.

Here are the long term problems I see:


Firstly,

Within each of the 3 crowns you have minorities that won't be happy,

In the French Lands you have minority Italians who might get angry at trying to be made French, and bring about tension with the Italian part of the Empire.

Additionally the Dutch won't be content as part of the French part of the Empire, they would want their own realm. If they got it, there would be a likely conflict over how big it should be.

In the German area you have the Czechs and Protestants who will be upset at the Catholic Domination of the Empire.

In the Italian area you have Slavs.
( Also you will have Catholics PO about the Pope being in a cage for the early period, I'd assume the new Pope would likely be a total puppet and not need to be kept in a cage, this would still create tension with the church I think though. )

Secondly, if you have 3 entities within this united Empire with large local power, which would be needed to have a hope to make it work, the potential for local power grabs/coups/civil war goes up.

Thirdly, you will have the traditional power fights of Federal States + the tensions from multilingual states.

Fourthly, it is possible Napoleon and or his successors do not reform quickly enough for the liberals, meaning, there is a potential for a revolution, in such an event the Empire would split into 3, such a split could easily start a 3 way war over minorities within the various States and who gets colonies.

Fifthly, if the liberals take power too fast and the Emperor has his power reduced to more modern standards of a Constitutional Monarch, there is potential for a rapid devolution of too much power to the governments of the various parts of the Empire leading to the collapse of the Empire along the lines of the Soviet Union if the Monarchy is the main unifying glue of the Empire. This I think is likely one of the biggest problems the Empire has long term.

I am not saying I think it would be impossible for such a European Monarchy to live on to the modern day, I am just saying it has a lot of problems to get past.
 
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Secondly, if you have 3 entities within this united Empire with large local power, which would be needed to have a hope to make it work, the potential for local power grabs/coups/civil war goes up.

Thirdly, you will have the traditional power fights of Federal States + the tensions from multilingual states.

Fourthly, it is possible Napoleon and or his successors do not reform quickly enough for the liberals, meaning, there is a potential for a revolution, in such an event the Empire would split into 3, such a split could easily start a 3 way war over minorities within the various States and who gets colonies..

I'm thinking of having something like this happen in VLR.
 

Eurofed

Banned
It sounds viable in the short to medium term to me, but I see a few conflicts potentially within the tri-Monarchy. Most of the the same as what faced the Dual Monarchy of Austria Hungary.

Well, I won't deny that the Empire is going to face many of the problems you describe. However, I would also point that there is an important factor, which could steer it on a different historical path than A-H. While Napoleon's political system is indeed autocratic (although ITTL less so than IOTL, ditto for VLR, where, although the imperial executive is thoroughly dominant, some embryo of separation of powers exists dominant), it is custom-fitted to satisfy the economic and social interests of the middle classes and progressive landed classes much more than the Metternichian Austrian Empire was. Given that in the Napoleonic Age, the European nationalisms are still in their formative stage, and those social classes were the backbone of nationalism, it is less likely that they would be pushed towards nationalism as a platform to oppose imperial autocracy. It is equally possible that they espouse a liberal reformist agenda of the Empire itself. This could eventually allow a reform of the empire towards a modern consititutional monarchy (However, I would rather picture ithis evolution as a monarchical semi-presidential system, than UK-style parliamentatarism with an imperial figurehead).

In the French Lands you have minority Italians who might get angry at trying to be made French, and bring about tension with the Italian part of the Empire.

Well, I do assume that if Napoleon takes this path, he's doing to annex to the French part of the Empire much less extensive chunks of Italy and Germany than OTL: say Nice, Savoy, perhaps Aosta, the Low Countries, perhaps bits of Rhineland. Borders would be closer to ethnic boundaries.

Additionally the Dutch won't be content as part of the French part of the Empire, they would want their own realm. If they got it, there would be a likely conflict over how big it should be.

True, this is going to be a long-term problem. Although I do expect that under Napoleon's successors, it is evnetually settled by allowing Netherlands and Flanders devolution as the fourth kingdom. Which would be a broadly acceptable solution.

In the German area you have the Czechs and Protestants who will be upset at the Catholic Domination of the Empire.

It remains to be seen if ITTL the Czechs do have their national awakening. I do not take it as granted. See what I wrote above. The Czech middle classes could easily stick to German in a liberal empire, which would lead to the Germanization of Bohemia-Moravia.

As for the Protestants, the Napoleonic Empire was rather liberal in its religious policy. It would seek a settlement with the Catholic Church, but it would not allow it to oppress the Protestants.

In the Italian area you have Slavs.

Yep. Their numbers are limited, however, and they border with Napoleonic Hungary, which has no big reason to sponsor them.

( Also you will have Catholics PO about the Pope being in a cage for the early period, I'd assume the new Pope would likely be a total puppet and not need to be kept in a cage, this would still create tension with the church I think though. )

Or it could push to Church to modernization. Although I agree that a schism with Catholic areas that are outsdie the Empire's copntrol is possible.

Secondly, if you have 3 entities within this united Empire with large local power, which would be needed to have a hope to make it work, the potential for local power grabs/coups/civil war goes up.

Thirdly, you will have the traditional power fights of Federal States + the tensions from multilingual states.

The latter is guaranteed as part of the normal power dynamic of the Empire. But the structure is not going to be so decentralized that the
former is any likely, unless it is already deep in the throes of dissolution.

Fourthly, it is possible Napoleon and or his successors do not reform quickly enough for the liberals, meaning, there is a potential for a revolution, in such an event the Empire would split into 3, such a split could easily start a 3 way war over minorities within the various States and who gets colonies.

Fifthly, if the liberals take power too fast and the Emperor has his power reduced to more modern standards of a Constitutional Monarch, there is potential for a rapid devolution of too much power to the governments of the various parts of the Empire leading to the collapse of the Empire along the lines of the Soviet Union if the Monarchy is the main unifying glue of the Empire. This I think is likely one of the biggest problems the Empire has long term.

All true. Although it is also quite possible that the liberal middle classes get attached enough and/or see the huge benefits of keeping the empire together, and the empire reforms fast enough that it becomes a stable liberal federation, a super-Swizerland.
 
I see a problem with the French not going for the Rhineland, Piedmont, and Belgium.

I think the whole idea of "Natural Frontiers" is too strong for them to give up the Rhineland and Flanders. Alsace is German, if you are going to go by ethnic borders France should give that up too. I think there is more of a chance for France to give up on Piedmont, though the Piedmontese language is similar to French to an extent IIRC which could make it hard for French Nationalists to write them off.

Not making a grab on Rome, Croatia, and even Holland east of the Rhine seem much more doable though.
 

Blair152

Banned
IOTL Napoleon turned conquered European nations, especially Germany and Italy, but also other areas like Poland, into a hodgepodge of areas directly annexed to France with hardly a French in them (which fueled nationalistic resistance) and separate vassal states, some entrusted to various relatives and aides, some to cowed former enemies (almost all of whom eventually betrayed or failed him). This frustrated and alienated budding European nationalisms and helped turn them into an eventual enemy of the Napoleonic system. Other causes surely fostered the downfall of the Napoleonic system, but just as well Napoleon did not work to turn European national feeling into his ally nowhere as much as he could have.

What if Napoleon had turned himself into the champion of European nations, and given them the fulfillment of national unification, at the same time as he bound those new nations into larger imperial unity with France ? Say he does not invade Spain and focuses his resources towards destroying Austria and Prussia, dismantles all the ancient regime states between France and Russia, unifies Germany and Italy into unitary or federal states that are federated to France, sets Poland and Hungary up as independent vassals of the neo-Carolingian Empire, and declares himself the "Emperor of the French, Germans, and Italians", or even he claims the crown of Holy Roman Emperor and explictly declares himself the heir of Charlemagne ?

More in detail, Napoleonic France still annexes French-speaking areas of Walloonia, Savoy, and western Switzerland. Germany becomes a vassal state including Austria, Silesia, Prussia, and Bohemia-Moravia, Italy becomes another vassal state including Naples, Trento, Istria, and Dalmatia. Poland is recreated in the territories of 2nd-3rd Prussian partition and 1st-3rd Austrian partition as a vassal kingdom, Hungary becomes an independent kingdom in its traditional territories, including Croatia. Spain remains an independent vassal under its own dynasty, and is given Portugal.

If he takes steps to let each non-French state have a reasonable amount of internal autonomy, including administrators from loyal local elites and language rights, and implements a economic policy that fosters the industrialization of all the areas of the Empire, can this become a vehicle for stable unification of western-central Europe, and long-term success of the Napoleonic Empire (of course, sooner or later, the Empire would have to return to a liberal political system, if it wants to endure, but there are signs that a successful Napoleon could be willing to do this, in his last years), the British and the Russians successfully kept at bay ?

What other reforms and policy changes would Napoleon have to implement, in order to ensure the success of his neo-Carolingian empire ?

He would still need an heir, of course, but he may just as well do as IOTL and claim a spouse from the deposed Habsburg family, it would add legitimacy to his claim of the HRE title.
Napoleon said of the Holy Roman Empire, and I quote: "It isn't holy, it isn't
Roman, and it isn't an empire." :D Pretty much sums it up doesn't it?
 

Eurofed

Banned
I think the whole idea of "Natural Frontiers" is too strong for them to give up the Rhineland and Flanders. Alsace is German, if you are going to go by ethnic borders France should give that up too. I think there is more of a chance for France to give up on Piedmont, though the Piedmontese language is similar to French to an extent IIRC which could make it hard for French Nationalists to write them off.

The linguistic and cultural ties between Piedmont and France are more or less the same as between France and Italy at large. France may have a plausible case with Aosta, but Turin is as French as Florence.

The whole idea between this version of a successful Napoelonic Empire is that it manages to make the Germans and the Italians genuinely supportive to its cause by satisfying their wish for national unity within the larger federal unity of the Empire, rather than the OTL frustrating patchwork of areas annexed to France without any sensible justification and vassal states. This includes trying to stick reasonably close to ethnic borders. I concede that Rhineland and Fladers are sensible areas, but if Napoleon is wise, he's going to make France be content with bits like Wallonia, Luxemburg, Nice, Savoy, and Aosta, which are not going to cause trouble (after all, he's already making France the leader of an empire undreamt in Europe for a millennium and natural borders are less of a problem if France and Germany belong to the same state). Given the circumstances, I don't think Alsace is going to be a big problem, they are have been French for a while already with limited trouble. The issue is leaving stuff like Rhineland and Piedmont alone. And annexing exclaves like Rome and Croatia to France was honestly going out of the way for trouble.
 
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I see a problem with the French not going for the Rhineland, Piedmont, and Belgium.

I think the whole idea of "Natural Frontiers" is too strong for them to give up the Rhineland and Flanders.

This is true - but wasn't the point of this thread the establishment of a supranational entity? If that succeeds - which is actually a very large if - there's no point in French annexations besides maybe french-speaking Wallonia and western Switzerland.

Personally, I like the idea of a federation of Republics, with France being one republic, the German states being smaller ones, as would be the Italian states. Consequently, the Netherlands would be the second largest single entity. It's almost like pre-WWII Germany with France having Prussias role as a dominant member state - although in this case the smaller states will likely have the voting power to overvote France. In such a federation, a republic of Alsace is possible.
 
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