This is a simple question that has been bugging me since I opened up my old and unposted TL about a war over Fashoda. If there was a war over the Fashoda incident would France call on Russia? They had signed a formal alliance in 1892 so there is no reason why they should not have. The French could then tie up the British fleet to an extent in the Baltic so they would have to divert forces from the meditereanean. So would they?
World War in '98
- Thread starter Thucydides
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On the one hand, Franco-Russian alliance was explicitly and strictly anti-German (and defensive at that - casus foederis was formulated as German aggression, not simply Franco-German conflict). Russia wasn't supposed to fight the British Empire only because of the French actions in the Sudan.
On the other... St. Petersburg needed strong France as counterweight to growing German power. They might enter the French-British war (after all, it'd be one-in-a-century chance to seize Constantinople and threaten the British Raj), but they would most definitely ask for far-reaching concessions on the French side (don't forget that the French were major creditors of Turkey).
As for probable outcome of this premature World War, I think that at some point the Germans would attack France (with Russia distracted by the Asiatic and Balkan theatres of war), crush it again (this time with British support), turn on Russia and defeat it too. Shortly - Pax Germanica in Europe, Pax Britannica in Asia and Africa.
On the other... St. Petersburg needed strong France as counterweight to growing German power. They might enter the French-British war (after all, it'd be one-in-a-century chance to seize Constantinople and threaten the British Raj), but they would most definitely ask for far-reaching concessions on the French side (don't forget that the French were major creditors of Turkey).
As for probable outcome of this premature World War, I think that at some point the Germans would attack France (with Russia distracted by the Asiatic and Balkan theatres of war), crush it again (this time with British support), turn on Russia and defeat it too. Shortly - Pax Germanica in Europe, Pax Britannica in Asia and Africa.
Highly likely. Fashoda was a very serious war scare. Nations in the 19th century rarely issued specific battle plans, or, say, took the effort to bolt expensive steel plates onto wooden warship decks if they thought war was unlikely.
The analysis provided by sahaidak was pretty accurate, except for the idea that France and Russia would easily be defeated on land; the Schlieffen plan isn't really in effect at this point, and neither is the cult of the offensive. A complete French defeat at sea, however, is going to happen in a couple of weeks, which is why I think the war could very possibly end before it became a European-wide affair.
The analysis provided by sahaidak was pretty accurate, except for the idea that France and Russia would easily be defeated on land; the Schlieffen plan isn't really in effect at this point, and neither is the cult of the offensive. A complete French defeat at sea, however, is going to happen in a couple of weeks, which is why I think the war could very possibly end before it became a European-wide affair.
That just shows the british admiralty was still stuck in the Napoleonic (the first) mindset, and not aware of diplomatic or (french) political realities. I reiterate : After Frankfuhrt, France was NOT going to antagonise UK, even moreso than under NIII. Preparing for round 2 of the war against Germany was THE goal of french politics and policies, even if the politicaians couldn't always agree on how or when.
Basically, France is always going to back down at fashoda and apologise if some overenthousiatic on the spot commander does something unfortunate. So, the only way to get a war is for UK to want one, whatever the reason.
That's what I thought, the British would have to initiate the war. And the French would get destroyed, the Germans would sit out and watch their enemies weaken themselves. I think the Russians would try to sue for peace earlier then the French, trying to take advantage of what gains they had made in India while the British were tied up in Africa.
Since France will be torn a new one at sea and probably sue for peace after a couple months, it might end up being Russia vs UK in a fight for India and the middle East.
As for WWI I think we can see Britain as more of a third party rather then an ally of France. Not directly supporting France but fighting against Germany because of Belgium. So the BEF would probably land in Belgium and maybe be forced to retreat into France or maybe even take up Fisher's insane plan of landing on the German coast.
The question is why would the british do so? UK government was not made of iexclusively of Wilhelm II and Molke clones.
And yes, at sea, french would get annihilated. As much as any british expeditionary corp to mainland France would be.
But I again fail to see how such a war could start barring ASB intervention.
That's exactly the point: there was serious discussion in the British cabinet whether or not it might be a good idea to just permanently end the French naval/colonial menace right there and then, and that very real possibility terrified the French.
I just noted that much of the British cabinet wanted war. Britain saw France as Enemy No. 1, due to its large navy and competing colonial interests.
As to your second point, while it is true that the French would be destroyed in 1898, I want to make it clear that they would not be destroyed easily in 1893 or 1903...1898 was just a bad year for the MN.
If you say so. That's new to me, but the, I don't pretend to be an expert on british politics on this period. I'm a bit surprised by the large navy part. I thought that french navy definitely took second place to the army under the 3rd republic.
Again something which surprises me, though not something I have a lot of knowlege on, as my sources concentrate more on the state of the french navy in 1914. However, I understood that France had a fleet of 'echantillons' that is a lot of one-off or very small classes. Also, I'm not aware of a big shift between 1893 and 1898 or between 1898 and 1903. Could you please explain why you think the MN was especially vulnerable then, please?
NB : just for fun, 1898 is the year when the Gustave Zede submarine launched an ( exercise ) torpedo on a battleship for the first time and also when the building of the Narval ( first modern type - ie dual hull and dual propulsion sustem - submarine ) began
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That makes sense, before Germany went off on it's building spree France was still a very real threat, especially in the Colonial game. The cold friendliness that existed during the middle of the 19th century was gone by the turn of the century due to Bismarck's courtship of the British government. So it is plausible that Britain would initiate war, and the French, knowing that they were outgunned would probably ask for the Russians.
It certainly did, but France had the world's second-largest navy until 1903-ish.
In 1893, Britain had as many (if not more) one-offs as France did. Many of the British ships were of various citadel varieties, which were a plausible idea prior to the introduction of high explosives such as melinite, which would probably cause the whole lot of these warship types to capsize relatively quickly. In addition to these technical issues with the British ships, France was relatively close in battleship numbers (~20 to ~15, depending on how you count certain older or smaller vessels) and had far better tactics (developed by Admiral Dupetit-Thouars) and technical training for its officers. The British plans to blockade the enemy just outside the port entrances would have been ridiculously hard to keep up without dedicated colliers, and would have exposed their heavy ships to attack by torpedo boats.
In 1898, France had added only 2-4 more battleships, while the British added the 7 battleships of the Naval Defense Act, and the 8 or 9 (can't remember which!) Majestic battleships, plus a couple 10,000 ton battleships that were very capable. They had also modernized a few of their old battleships, and had more and better QF guns than the French. The British plans now included seizing islands off of the French ports, using indirect blockade to minimize the already minimized (by QF guns and destroyers) TB threat, and a conquest of all of the French colonies, which could only contact France via British telegraph lines.
By 1902-3, had added a number of battleships roughly equivalent to the RN in the five intervening years since Fashoda. At the same time, all of France's much, much older battleships whose British contemporaries were worthless were re-armed with QF guns. French tactics experienced a revival and were even better than those of the Royal Navy than they had been before. Enough cruisers had finally been built to pose a threat to British commerce by driving shipping insurance to unsustainable levels.
Gustave Zede could well have been the one bright point in a Fashoda War if such an event had occurred.
But the RN would still whoop major ass. The RN had vastly superior vessels and a huge strength in numbers. The Channel fleet had about as many good battleships as the whole French navy in 1898, and the Med fleet had twice as many ships as the Channel fleet. The main way the French could hurt the British fleet is by
A. Swarming them with torpedo boats and trying to take out enough battleships to establish supply with Africa.
B. Sacrifice their colonies and put all their effort into commerce raiding and try to force a white peace.
C. Try to split the British fleet between the Russian and Mediterranean fronts and gradually take out the stragglers.
But I can forsee France becoming much like Germany in a reliance on submarines after the destruction of their surface fleet.
Mmmmm...the preponderance of the RN in this era is overrated. I simply don't think the French fleet would ever come out, and the French commerce raiding fleet wasn't all that impressive.
Well, Algeria is well-defended, but according to the Systeme Ballard, n expeditionary force was going to seize Bizerte at the outset of war. The valuable parts of Africa don't need supply, and the RN isn't going to have battleships out and about unless the French battlefleet comes out to fight...which it won't, since it won't achieve anything of consequence.
This is what's going to happen. It's a 90-10 bet in favor of Britain. That 10% is my estimation of the likelihood that French cruisers sink enough merchantmen to drive British shipping insurance prices high enough to cause a meltdown of the British economy.
Not going to happen.
The war isn't going to last long enough for them to build enough submarines. Besides, submarines aren't advanced enough to be used for attacks on commerce, and the French didn't see them as a weapon for that anyway: they were envisioned as submerged torpedo boats, and there was surprisingly little interest in them at this time anyway.