WI: the Flight to Varenes never happened?
- Thread starter Fletch
- Start date
Well, the monarchy would perhaps not lose it's already shaky credibility. Maybe a longer lived "constitutional monarchy" in France.
Things are a little bit longer but you still end with a French Republic. Louis Capet was trying everything he could to make the constitutional monarchy not work (encouraging war against Austria and Prussia, vetoing almost everything, continuing to support exiled reactionaries). It was only a matter of time until he does something stupid (like calling the Austrian Emperor for help when at war for example). Even the constitutional monarchist like Lafayette were starting to get pissed at him, and the factions the most likely to support him (the feuillants) were startign to get weaker.
Possibly, this means that if the First Republic emerges its a somewhat more conservative institution- more former monarchists in position of authority (a Lafayette as Washington?)
You're still going to end up with Revolutionary Wars, but without the bogeyman of Jacobinism you might end up with a surviving Republic.
Yeah I'd say alot of what's been suggested is likely, Varenes may have been the final nail but Louis had been in trouble for a while by this point. Irony of Ironies his best hope at this point was to get away with the flight, reach Royalist or Austrian forces and clear off into exile. If the royal's escape they become a rallying point for the royalist forces, if they hang around then sooner or later the radicals would find a reason to kill them.
However without the flight there is less of a ready made excuse to begin the process of setting up the republic since the event that scuttles the King's popularity totally hasn't happened. That could lead to problems with the mob later on if their loyalty to the King isn't totally broken as it was after his betrayal by trying to reach the Austrians in OTL. This might give the moderates more support but I think the terror was coming sooner or later...
However the republic had deep problem's from the start, and Napoleon or someone like him may have been inevitable. If the result had been a moderate US style Republic that stayed in it's European borders and tried to get on with other nations it might have been allowed to survive. Once you get a radical expansionist state desiring to throw over all the previous European powers, well the reactionary forces only choice was to crush it and make sure it stayed crushed...
However without the flight there is less of a ready made excuse to begin the process of setting up the republic since the event that scuttles the King's popularity totally hasn't happened. That could lead to problems with the mob later on if their loyalty to the King isn't totally broken as it was after his betrayal by trying to reach the Austrians in OTL. This might give the moderates more support but I think the terror was coming sooner or later...
However the republic had deep problem's from the start, and Napoleon or someone like him may have been inevitable. If the result had been a moderate US style Republic that stayed in it's European borders and tried to get on with other nations it might have been allowed to survive. Once you get a radical expansionist state desiring to throw over all the previous European powers, well the reactionary forces only choice was to crush it and make sure it stayed crushed...
Louis himself would still screw over the constitutional monarchy. But we could see Lafayette remaining a powerful figure. And with Lafayette still powerful we might butterfly away the rise of Napoleon.