WI Napoleon's Continental System was a Customs Union?

How does cutting off British goods by a tariff wall help these states any more than cutting them off by an embargo?

By producing revenue for them? Obviously it is still a major trade shift, but they actually gain something this time. This is beyond any protection for local industrialists, which as others note in the thread, the French will make up, but not to the extent that the British did.

And if the Customs Union does produce any revenue (rather than just causing imports to dry up) then Napoleon has a clear incentive to steer as much of this as possible into the French Treasury rather than see it go to petty princelings or unreliable allies. So he has just as much reason as OTL to annex Holland and North Germany.

This entire thread is based upon Napoleon having a more effective economic policy, there wouldn't be any reason to annex those states since it would benefit France more to have them as client states which earn money, some of which will go to the French treasury and some of which will help those states, secure his flanks, buy local support, etc. Napoléon didn't annex states on a whim, the Netherlands and North Germany weren't annexed until 1810, and they were annexed for entirely different reasons than monetary ones.
 
This entire thread is based upon Napoleon having a more effective economic policy, there wouldn't be any reason to annex those states since it would benefit France more to have them as client states which earn money, some of which will go to the French treasury and some of which will help those states, secure his flanks, buy local support, etc. Napoléon didn't annex states on a whim, the Netherlands and North Germany weren't annexed until 1810, and they were annexed for entirely different reasons than monetary ones.

Why should he settle for some of the money when he can have it all?

He doesn't need to buy local support as long as he appears invincible. And as soon as he no longer does, the satellites will defect anyway. They will be influenced by desire to be on the winning side, not by any minor economic benefits that a customs union might bring them. After all, if the customs union is such a great idea, they can perfectly well keep it in being after Napoleon's defeat. It can work just as well without Napoleon as with him.

Note that Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, Wurttemberg and Baden all belonged to the Prussian Zollverein, but that didn't stop every one of them from taking the Austrian side in 1866. The economic ties did not affect their political choice. No reason why a French Zollverein would be any different.
 
Why should he settle for some of the money when he can have it all?
There's sort of a major parable about this.... Besides, taken to its logical extreme one would be forced to think that Napoleon annexed all of his client states. And yet he never did any such thing. Napoleon was ambitious and had difficulties of knowing when to stop, he did not suffer the delusion that he had to control everything directly to gain benefits from it.

He doesn't need to buy local support as long as he appears invincible. And as soon as he no longer does, the satellites will defect anyway. They will be influenced by desire to be on the winning side, not by any minor economic benefits that a customs union might bring them. After all, if the customs union is such a great idea, they can perfectly well keep it in being after Napoleon's defeat. It can work just as well without Napoleon as with him.
That's an exceedingly ignorant statement, Napoleon was NOT unconcerned with tying allegiance to the empire. I would advise reading about the politics of ralliement, French attempts at building support and buy-in among local notables, in the Rhineland and Italy, the Rhineland in particular has some excellent academic papers on the subject. The French were very aware about building up support or at least acquiescence to their control from relevant authorities and were more sophisticated than simply postulating that because they won, they would have support for their actions. Their own experience with local dissent in the Rhineland in the 1790s despite stunning military victories had shown them otherwise quite clearly.

Your comment about their "desire to be on the winning side" is a non-sequitur as well: there were very few smugglers who engaged in their work out of some hazy notion of who would be on the winning side, but rather because they're in it to make a profit and judge risks accordingly. A tariff regime as compared to a prohibition is inherently, regardless of what tariff levels, a reduction to some extent of the former, and the latter would be reduced because governments have an incentive to reduce smuggling in stark contrast to OTL. These governments are also not going to be basing their decisions in such regards out of who might win the war (which would in any case seem to be France for most of the period), but rather out of logical analysis of their situation: block British goods entirely and receive no income and have them flood in anyway because there's no reason to try to block them when the state gains nothing but a burden doing so, or apply the tariff, conduct more effective anti-smuggling operations (which will never be entirely broken, but it can be curbed), gain revenue, and better protect their local industry. Of the two options available to them in the context of the Continental System, the latter is more advantageous and will be chosen every time.

Note that Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, Wurttemberg and Baden all belonged to the Prussian Zollverein, but that didn't stop every one of them from taking the Austrian side in 1866. The economic ties did not affect their political choice. No reason why a French Zollverein would be any different.
The difference is that the French army is camped on their territory: the Napoleonic customs union would combine both economic and political control, and they are self-reinforcing.
 
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Your comment about their "desire to be on the winning side" is a non-sequitur as well: there were very few smugglers who engaged in their work out of some hazy notion of who would be on the winning side, but rather because they're in it to make a profit and judge risks accordingly.

Smugglers may not be, but their rulers are. The latter will go along with Napoleon as long as he seems to be top dog, but as soon as the tide turns against him they'll desert - and the existence or non-existence of a customs union won't make a hap'orth of difference to their decision.



The difference is that the French army is not camped on their territory: the Napoleonic customs union would combine both economic and political control, and they are self-reinforcing.

If the presence of the French Army in necessary to make the customs union work, then clearly it will collapse as soon as that army find itself on the retreat.

Anyway, post Vienna the European rulers presented a reasonably united front for a more than a generation. No reason why they couldn't have kept a customs union going if they saw any advantage in it.
 
Smugglers may not be, but their rulers are. The latter will go along with Napoleon as long as he seems to be top dog, but as soon as the tide turns against him they'll desert - and the existence or non-existence of a customs union won't make a hap'orth of difference to their decision.

If the presence of the French Army in necessary to make the customs union work, then clearly it will collapse as soon as that army find itself on the retreat.

Anyway, post Vienna the European rulers presented a reasonably united front for a more than a generation. No reason why they couldn't have kept a customs union going if they saw any advantage in it.

This is confusing economic/political factors and military ones. Of course the Napoleonic empire and Napoleonic system collapses if the Napoleonic army is defeated and in retreat. One could say the same about any state and alliance system, even one of willing members: state authority tends to collapse when it is occupied and diplomatic authority wanes when clients no longer have the army able to stare them down. The point is that the tariff system has the potential to be much more effective during its time and potentially more flexible. Napoleon's empire's death will always be decided upon the battlefield, which OTL happened before the gates of Lisbon and in the marches of Russia, but a more effective Continental system has the potential capacity to inflict much greater harm on English trade. Whether that is enough to lead it to victory would require a much lengthier discussion, I'd personally lean towards no, since while it might be enough to weaken English trade with the continent over the long term, it would not help as a short term decisive blow, and weakening England itself is not that important given how marginal England's ultimate role in victory was. It could I suppose, butterfly or alter the historical catastrophic decisions which led to the Spanish debacle and the Russian invasion, but that's a different question than whether it would be more effective in of itself.
 
Napoleon's empire's death will always be decided upon the battlefield, which OTL happened before the gates of Lisbon and in the marches of Russia, but a more effective Continental system has the potential capacity to inflict much greater harm on English trade. Whether that is enough to lead it to victory would require a much lengthier discussion, I'd personally lean towards no,

Finally we can agree on something.:)
 
Thank you a lot for all those comments.

With regards to your last comment @Bad@logic, it is also my opinion that this more effective Continental system would not weaken English trade enough to force them to the negotiating table.
However, I was wondering if this could strengthen France and its satellites enough so that a defeat in the battlefield could be overcome, or better yet, made quasi-impossible.
My idea is something like this: the European-wide free trade union quickstarts the Industrial Revolution in the French Empire + client states. It results that France is already more populous, and now also better equipped and also has railways. Under those conditions, even a defeat in Russia and a loss of the Grande Armée might not be enough and an alt-Leipzig or an alt-Battle of France remain winninable for the French side.

How plausible is that?
 
Thank you a lot for all those comments.

With regards to your last comment @Bad@logic, it is also my opinion that this more effective Continental system would not weaken English trade enough to force them to the negotiating table.
However, I was wondering if this could strengthen France and its satellites enough so that a defeat in the battlefield could be overcome, or better yet, made quasi-impossible.
My idea is something like this: the European-wide free trade union quickstarts the Industrial Revolution in the French Empire + client states. It results that France is already more populous, and now also better equipped and also has railways. Under those conditions, even a defeat in Russia and a loss of the Grande Armée might not be enough and an alt-Leipzig or an alt-Battle of France remain winninable for the French side.

How plausible is that?


Not very. There's only about five years between the introduction of the Continental System and the Moscow campaign - far too short a time for much to happen in the way of industrialisation.

I'm not sure what you mean by "overcoming" a battlefield defeat. Once that happens everyone will start switching to the winning side, irrespective of how they are doing economically. After all, if they find the customs union beneficial, they can retain it after Napoleon's defeat. They don't have to abolish it just because a Corsican army officer has been retired to Elba.
 
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Not very. There's only about five years between the introduction of the Continental System and the Moscow campaign - far too short a time for much to happen in the way of industrialisation.

I'm not sure what you mean by "overcoming" a battlefield defeat. Once that happens everyone will start switching to the winning side, irrespective of how they are doing economically. After all, if they find the customs union beneficial, they can retain it after Napoleon's defeat. They don't have to abolish it just because a Corsican army officer has been retired to Elba.
A fair point, but actually the idea behind this alt-Continental system is also that it makes the Russian campaign less likely. Sure, they will be friction, but if Russia is outside the Continental system, then there is no need to go to war because she is violating it. A war against Russia is still a high possibility, but if delayed sufficiently, you could get more time to get advantage of the more sound economic strategy.

By "overcoming" a military defeat, I meant that OTL Battle of Leipzig was a close affair. And the Battle of France was nowhere the slaughter it should have been given the disparity of forces. If the Continental System is less resented in French dominated Europe, then there is the possibility that more allies will stick around a bit longer, allowing France to win something akin to the Battle of Leipzig and survive an alt-war of the 6th coalition.

For sure, they can keep the Free trade deal if Napoleon is defeated, but they don't know that do they? They might think that the victors will want to eradicate everything tainted by Napoleon, including the Continental System. And if they like the alt-one, French client states might calculate that it is in their economic interest to stick with Napoleon even if the situation is not looking great, which differs from OTL and its hated blocus of British goods.
 
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