• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

If Bonaparte won the Battle of Waterloo…

I mentioned this before, but the Tsar was actually in favor of a republican government at the time, feeling that it would be much less aggressive than Napoleon was, so there's that to think about.

Then again, assuming that, against all odds, Malet manages to successfully fool the government, how would he interact with the Great Powers? Is he gonna support France shrinking to just its Natural Frontiers? Would he support the campaign against Napoleon or just sit it out?
 
Rooin Mahmood said:
A friend of mine gave me a little idea - essentially, by making the Polish-Saxon crisis a greater issue perhaps Napoleon could be able to divert attention from Waterloo and take back France? Not the most plausible still though
Click to expand...


Or even delays his return for a few months, so the congress has broken up and everyone is scattered again ...
 
This would enable Napoleon to largely complete the conquest of Belgium, entering Brussels unopposed, and then turning his attention to the Austro-Russians marching for France through Germany. The strategic opening granted here also enables the French War Ministry to continue the mobilization of new French forces, with Napoleon plausibly expecting a field army of 200,000 men by August, backed up over another 200,000 men to be utilized as defensive garrisons for a total field force of roughly 440,000 total men. Now, it's worth noting that the 200,000 main field force is still smaller than the combined Russo-Austrian armies marching to France but Napoleon has the advantage in that they are not yet combined forces but rather separate field forces; the Russian crossing point is at the Saar while the Austrians would be separated from them by the Vosges Mountain range. This means that Napoleon could meet and defeat them in detail.

The Russians would be closer and number about 150,000 so Napoleon could bring about superior forces and his own skills to destroy them as he did at Austerlitz, and then rushing to engage the Austrians south of the Vosges. Even if he fails to achieve a decisive victory in the latter, removing all but the Austrian field armies effectively ends the Allied thread against him for another year, maybe more. Most likely then negotiations are resumed, as both sides had previously attempted during the War of the Seventh Coalition. Austria in particular has reasons for talks, given it wants France as a counter-weight to Russia and the fact that Napoleon's heir, the King of Rome Napoleon II, is half Austrian via his mother. Most likely then we see France leverage its victories with the tacit support of Austria to revive the Frankfurt Proposals as the basis of peace between France and the Coalition.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top