WI: The Franco-Vietnamese union: Louis XVI supports Gia Long

Hi all,

in the late XVIIIth century, Vietnam endured the Tai Son rebellion with some northern families housting out the ruling family in Hué.

The last remaining son met Pigneau de Béhaine, a Bishop living as a pariah in Cambodia after being emprisoned and released. They became friends and Pigneau de Béhaine tried to gather support for the one who would become Gia Long.

An expedition was mounted but too much discretionary power was given to an incompetent officer in India and it never went through. Instead Pigneau de Béhaine gathered some forces by himself and helped crown Gia Long.

So, what if the Royal expedition actually had come through, meaning an official effort from the French crown? Treaties were pretty favourable to France with free trade and some territories (an island closing Da Nang and half the revenues of the Da Nang port as well as Poulo Condor).

What would we see?
 
One last bump for the road before being relegated to the cold attic of the back pages where this thread might wither and die. Oh rage! Oh Despair! Oh Elderness is its ennemy, has it only lived for this infamy? Has it grown old in its quarrel, only to see wither so many crowns of laurel?

Bonus for whoever can see where this poor translation comes from
 
One last bump for the road before being relegated to the cold attic of the back pages where this thread might wither and die. Oh rage! Oh Despair! Oh Elderness is its ennemy, has it only lived for this infamy? Has it grown old in its quarrel, only to see wither so many crowns of laurel?

Bonus for whoever can see where this poor translation comes from

Le Cid, de Corneille. Acte I, scène ... 4?
Le monologue de Don Diègue.

I don't see at all how I can help you with this thread, though.
 
Glad to see at least my translation skills are palatable. Keeping the rhyme was not easy. "Vieillesse ennemie" was super hard to translate.

That said, it doesn't help on my question, sadly nobody cares about Indochinese history :/

Next time, I'll ask what if an obscure ACW general had eaten an apple instead of a pear for his breakfast, that should get a few pages worth of replies :rolleyes:
 
Glad to see at least my translation skills are palatable. Keeping the rhyme was not easy. "Vieillesse ennemie" was super hard to translate.

That said, it doesn't help on my question, sadly nobody cares about Indochinese history :/

Next time, I'll ask what if an obscure ACW general had eaten an apple instead of a pear for his breakfast, that should get a few pages worth of replies :rolleyes:

Don't let the lack of replies get you down, history not known to the majority is well used in AH. I believe that if you made a TL of this stuff, you would probably get a good bit of views and feedback. I know La Rouge Beret is into Indochinese history , but that may only be post 1900.
 
Yeah most anglophone sites have a strong European bias which is unfortunately unsurprising. Maybe try a Vietnamese-speaking forum if you speak the language?

Even among East Asian scholars Vietnam is the most ignored, and I feel it's most likely because it's the poorest country. The number of errors Mote, a respected professor on China, makes WRT Ming Vietnam in his Imperial China: 900-1800 is absurd.
 
Oh I'm not worried, I know the bias. I don't speak vietnamese, which restricts my amateur research on the subject of vietnamese colonisation but I'm trying to prepare a podcast (in French) on the French conquest of Indochina, which is incredibly interesting. Like, the Père Guerlach and Marie de Mayréna, those people would be considered un-realistic in an action movie. That's my project for the year and I fell on this story which seems incredibly important regarding world history and the potential consequences as this could have reversed the setback of the loss of India.

This could also have made a non-European nation extremely strong, with a European style army and tactics as well as European armement in the first half of the century. Maybe they would have gone to dominate Cambodia completely, or maybe Siam and Yunnan? Sure, the start would have been with pre-revolution tactics but I don't think the PoD is enough to go against Napoleon (too far away and too late) so Vietnam could have had Napoleonic tactics, which then would REALLY have set them apart.

Yunnan seems unlikely as this is not a thing vietnamese do, they don't really invade China. Fighting the Siamese on the other hand...

This could probably have given a free hand to the missionary and led potentially to a strong Catholic country in the region
 
So how do they avoid the British taking it during the Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars?

The British didn't take everything, historically. They didn't seize much of the Caribbean, for instance, and when they tried to seize Haiti they failed miserably.
 
Sandman said:
So how do they avoid the British taking it during the Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars?/quote]

Right, so I was thinking about it earlier and the thing is, since the expedition was just before the revolution (the alliance treaty was signed in 1787), it would not end up in a Protectorate for several reasons. First at that time, the balance in power is not strong enough for the French to take over the whole thing right away (India took two centuries of common effort from several countries to take over and wasn't complete until second half of XIXth century) and second, well the Revolution would have cut it short.

So it would be an alliance with a foreign country which would stay undisturbed by the UK. What rational would they have? You can't attack every single country which was allied to France...

I see it that way, expedition works, Gia Long is set up. Then, the Revolution and Napoleon, the relation goes semi-dormant with regular exchange of gifts, easier way to go around and send missionaries in Indochina, maybe a couple military advisors from Napoleon who knows it might potentially be a good base of operation against India if needed, but he would get ousted before he can do much as Europe would be his main theater of operation and I believe the PoD is not big enough to butterfly his campaigns and fate away.

Butterflies would start to really matter around 1830, when France reasserts itself on the international stage
 
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