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Napoleon's Britain

Meadow said:
Maybe it's my inner Paradox gamer, but I just had the idle thought that while there's plenty of theories and bits and pieces about Hitler's Britain, how he might've governed it/broken it up etc, I've not seen many about Napoleon.

For the sake of argument, say Trafalgar goes the other way and then Boney rolls a natural 20 on crossing the Channel not long after. Would he put a relative on the throne? Simply leave things broadly the same but neuter the UK and make her a vassal ally? Break up the UK into constituent Kingdoms?

I imagine there are some interesting things/maps etc that I'm just not aware of here. Any recommendations? Rule of cool very welcome.
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Is he a man of peace ore war.

Ore what i mean, all his time he was in charge of France he fought, can he now lead a France that is in peace.
 
Assuming a pod in the summer of 1805 puts this at a pretty interesting hinge point in the course of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon is yet to install any of his brothers on foreign thrones and we are still a few months from the miraculous success of the Ulm campaign and Austerlitz. My own personal reading of the historiography is that victory at Austerlitz and the Peace of Pressburg marks the departure of Napoleon from "the amount of egoism necessary to run an empire" to full-on megalomania.

On the other hand, getting divine winds and the capability to sweep the British army on their home turf probably speeds up that process. Napoleon has stated that he intended to declare England a republic, dissolve the House of Lords, expropriate the wealth of the royalty, free Ireland, and expel the monarchy. But it is hard to tell how much was just bitter blustering from a now-exiled emperor. As his troops march through London, Russia and Austria are likely gearing up to strike him on the continent. The most immediate action he would take is signing a harsh peace treaty with whatever provisional government has been set up. Freeing Ireland, occupying Portsmouth, taking several colonies, a massive indemnity, and banning the war party from participating in government.

If Austerlitz killed Pitt I imagine French troops landing on English shores would easily incapacitate him, but invasions still tend to unite a nation and I doubt even someone like Charles James Fox would willingly serve as a quisling. The British government planned to establish a temporary capital in the North. Napoleon let the Prussians and Austrians keep their kings, but it is harder for me to imagine the same happening for George III. And at this point in time, every one of Napoleon's relatives with the exception of Viceroy Eugene is freely available to take the thrones of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Mercia, etc.

It is also notable that the largest annexations of the Napoleonic period (all of the Netherlands, Rome, Illyria, Hamburg, Catalonia, etc) were sparked by the continental system which is no longer necessary with Britain cowed. So Napoleon's mindset toward European governance is also completely changed.
 
Visigoethe make a good point about this being before Napoleon turned to annexations and abolishing relatives in favour of kingdoms led by relatives as part of the continental system.

Ireland probably get a catholic king and a free hand if that's their thing, simply because they're not the focus, but breaking up the United Kingdom and making republics out of the constituent pieces might happen. The question is how much cooperation does he get from pro republican forces in those countries? He's definitely bringing in an enlarged franchise and redistributing privileges and property of the nobility to the commons, which could be popular. If he doesn't break it himself it might end up working. Or at least having a lasting legacy of de-feudalization Britain can't really roll back even if it recovers some independence down the line.
 
Nyvis said:
Visigoethe make a good point about this being before Napoleon turned to annexations and abolishing relatives in favour of kingdoms led by relatives as part of the continental system.

Ireland probably get a catholic king and a free hand if that's their thing, simply because they're not the focus, but breaking up the United Kingdom and making republics out of the constituent pieces might happen. The question is how much cooperation does he get from pro republican forces in those countries? He's definitely bringing in an enlarged franchise and redistributing privileges and property of the nobility to the commons, which could be popular. If he doesn't break it himself it might end up working. Or at least having a lasting legacy of de-feudalization Britain can't really roll back even if it recovers some independence down the line.
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There were O'Neills in exile. Could Napoleon make one of them King of Ireland?
 
Ricardolindo said:
There were O'Neills in exile. Could Napoleon make one of them King of Ireland?
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My expectation is that Napoleon doesn't care about Ireland enough to bother doing the selection himself, he'll handle power to whatever transitional authority is around as long as they follow France's lead abroad and they'll be free to invite a king if that's their thing.
 
What are the odds Napoleon tries to install something similar to the Protectorate, maybe with elements of the Consulate? Might this be in line with any republican sentiments he still had at this time, as well as a way to promote such a system with precedent in English history (thus avoiding/minimizing resistance to it as a French-imposed gov't) and having a puppet strongman without the need/worry of royal candidates?
 
MAC161 said:
What are the odds Napoleon tries to install something similar to the Protectorate, maybe with elements of the Consulate? Might this be in line with any republican sentiments he still had at this time, as well as a way to promote such a system with precedent in English history (thus avoiding/minimizing resistance to it as a French-imposed gov't) and having a puppet strongman without the need/worry of royal candidates?
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Can't see it, it's a throwback to English precedent, sure, but not to a popular one. And I expect as a strongman himself he'd rather deal with compromise governments than competing strongmen.

If he wants to avoid the appearence of French template imposition, just abolishing the monarchy and the lord plus forcing commons electoral reform should do it?
 
bd_roberts said:
The debates in the thread are interesting, but I'm afraid nothing will top the Transpennine Republic and I'm now itching to somehow use this.
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The biggest problem though is who runs it. Boney is gonna face a lot of resistance and a lot of people are gonna die,including those few that could have supported him but were killed either by the government/the people for revenge or by the French accidentally. Not to mention that most who could have argued to this unironically were already arrested/executed after the Despard Plot there years earlier.

Francis Burdett could technically run it but that would require him accepting the idea of a divided England and the formation of a country that he doesn’t believe and that’s just not possible.
 
Feels like if Napoleon will struggle to find a local authority to go "you're in charge of the Republic of wherever this is" if he's breaking England in two, there's no two-halves-of-England sentiment to co-opt and the people willing to go with it might be shit. (Which is not the same as saying the conqueror of a state doesn't go "here's the map of your new borders, Mister Shit")
 
There’s always collaborators, but never as many as an occupier might want. Besides, if Ireland is similar to Poland —though with more unionists, presumably—, Scotland and the other regions might he like Hungary, and the prospective king might reject a crown, like Prince Esterhazy in 1809, —or in a related example, Bernadotte when offered the Spanish one.
 
David Flin said:
While Napoleon had been gathering barges and an army for crossing the Channel, he'd moved his attention elsewhere by the time of Trafalgar; the Army had already been sent to various other commands. So, the first thing one needs to do is to delay this until after Trafalgar, because otherwise there simply isn't the slightest chance of getting the window of opportunity.

One also needs to arm wave away the RN Channel Fleet, which was separate from Nelson's Command.

Given those, and a French/Spanish victory at Trafalgar, then one can proceed. Have strong shoulders, because arm waving is required.

***

The scenario is only touched on briefly, but it is covered in Alternate Tastes of London (October).
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Isn't a French/Spanish victory at Trafalgar implausible, though?
@Thande said many years ago at the other place that it was and that the much better alternative was no Trafalgar.
 
David Flin said:
Implausible, not impossible.

Nelson was trying to cut the French/Spanish line in two places, accepting a poor starting position of the French/Spanish ships being broadside on while making the approach, with the benefit that once the line was cut, one third of the French/Spanish fleet was out of contention, and the British ships could broadside at point blank range down the length of the F/S ships, tearing them apart.

Andrew and Kat resolved the issue by having the wind drop to next to nothing just before the point where the British ships were about to cut the line, putting them in a position where they were receiving broadsides and only able to return with bow chasers.
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Thanks for the explanation.
 
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