WI: Napoleon wins at Waterloo?

The other powers eventually rally and defeat him. By 1815 no one in Europe wanted to see Napoleon back in power and he probably wouldn't be able to rout the Prussian army.
 
I'll repeat what I said here last year: "Anyway, the main point is this: Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia had the power and the determination to crush Napoleon no matter what happened at Waterloo. They would no longer trust him to keep any compromise agreement--they had had too many bad experiences. Thus, any attempt to split them *before Napoleon was defeated* would fail. (There was of course plenty of danger of them falling out afterwards.) Defections by Belgians or minor German states just would not be enough to make a difference except in the very short run." https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=324355
 
The usual consensus on this topic is that Napoleon would lose eventually, but what would happen if he had a run of good luck and managed to win a few more battles after Waterloo? Would it change the final peace deal any, or would they only stick an extra guard on St. Helena to be safe.
 
The usual consensus on this topic is that Napoleon would lose eventually, but what would happen if he had a run of good luck and managed to win a few more battles after Waterloo? Would it change the final peace deal any, or would they only stick an extra guard on St. Helena to be safe.

They probably send the extra guard, or send him to an even more remote area.
 
It was far too late in 1815.

He could and should have dealt with the coalition in the summer of 1813 at the latest.

He should have cut his obvious losses, most of all in Spain where Joseph was nothing more than a puppet without significant local political support.

He should also have accepted to give-up central Italy to a friendly and independant kingdom of Italy under Eugene.

He should have bandes back all territories annexed East of the Rhine.

And morally more difficult for him, he should have abandoned the grand duchy of Warsaw but given asylum to all poles fighting on his side.

On these conditions, he could have negotiated some kind of condominium of neutralisation of Germany with Austria.
 
Isnt Waterloo a little overrated? By 1815 Napoleon was done, if he wins or not. The Battle of Leipzig is probably the last time where Napoleon can change the outcome of the war.
 
I wonder if a victory at Waterloo can make things much worse for France. If the Allies have to refight the campaign of 1814, couldn´t it lead to an attitude that France needs to be punish? The Prussians really wanted it and in Britain the public opinion started to went in this direction.
 
I wonder if a victory at Waterloo can make things much worse for France. If the Allies have to refight the campaign of 1814, couldn´t it lead to an attitude that France needs to be punish? The Prussians really wanted it and in Britain the public opinion started to went in this direction.
I don't know. Not in a post WWI or WWII Germany way at least. I maybe could see them giving away some border territories, like Alsace, French Flanders/Hainaut or Corsica, but even that might be taking it too far. It would probably even less than that. The borders were already draw in Vienna after all before Waterloo. I don't think much will change.
 
Done to death thread.

Most people think Napoleon had no chances at all. A few other think he may have a tiny chance to stay in power in France if and only if he rolls a dozen 20s in a row.

By now, all we do is rehashing old arguments
 
I wonder if a victory at Waterloo can make things much worse for France. If the Allies have to refight the campaign of 1814, couldn´t it lead to an attitude that France needs to be punish? The Prussians really wanted it and in Britain the public opinion started to went in this direction.

But in their declaration of war the Coalition made it clear they were fighting against Napoleon himself, and pledged support to "the King of France and the French nation" to bring him down, so they could only go so far with punitive peace terms.

As it was, they did end up dictating a harsher peace than they had in 1814.
 
The whole belgian campaign was a surrealistic waste.

Things were clear to anybody. Napoleon acted just like a selfish and careless gambler. In which he was, however, helped by the stupidity of the restored Bourbons.
 
The whole belgian campaign was a surrealistic waste.

Things were clear to anybody. Napoleon acted just like a selfish and careless gambler. In which he was, however, helped by the stupidity of the restored Bourbons.


Actually, Louis XVIII wasn't all that stupid; but he made one crucial miscalculation.

Believing (correctly) hat conscription was unpopular, he abolished it in a bid to gain favour. However, the Law of Unintended Consequences chipped in. Releasing the conscripts left an army consisting mostly of those who had little to go back to in civilian life, and saw the army as a career - precisely the ones with most to gain by Napoleon's return.

Paradoxically, Louis would have been better off with unwilling soldiers than with willing ones - the kind who viewed military service as a jail sentence, and were impatiently chalking off the days till their release, like a convict on his cell wall. Had Napoleon met an army of such men at Grenoble, they would have been horrified at the prospect of being dragged off to war again, and would probably have shot him down without the slightest compunction.
 
Given that France had to give up a few more small chunks of land to the Netherlands because of Waterloo, the Europeans might decide to just detach Corsica from France altogether.
 
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