France
| France | |
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| République Française | |
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| Capital | Paris |
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| Government Type | Republic |
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France, officially the French Republic (French: République Française) is a country primarily located in mainland Europe with overseas territory in Oceania. Its metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea. France borders many nations including Spain, the Netherlands, Rhenia (formerly the German Confederation) and Switzerland.
History
Kingdom of France and the First French Empire
Inhabited since the Paleolithic era, the territory of Metropolitan France was settled by Celtic tribes known as Gauls during the Iron Age. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, leading to a distinct Gallo-Roman culture that laid the foundation of the French language. The Germanic Franks arrived in the fifth century and formed the Kingdom of Francia, which became the heartland of the Carolingian Empire. The Treaty of Verdun in 843 partitioned the empire, with West Francia becoming the Kingdom of France in 987. Since then, France has seen the rule of different dynasties, eventually leading to the Bourbon dynasty coming into power during the 16th century. By then, France started to establish a burgeoning worldwide colonial empire.
French Succession Crisis (1714)
The Death of the Grand Dauphine (1714)
The unfortunate death of Louis the Great Dauphine, King Louis XIV's eldest son, had caused changes in the French line of succession. Next in line was the Great Dauphine's brother, Philip d'Anjou. In our timeline, however, after the Bourbon Philip d'Anjou obtained the Spanish throne during the War of the Spanish Succession, the Austrian-British coalition brokered for Philip d'Anjou's renouncement of the French throne to prevent a dual-monarchy between Spain and France from ever developing. In RTL, the Spanish had installed Karl VI (known in Spain as Carlos III) as the successor of Carlos II and therefore had Philip d'Anjou retain his right to inherit the French throne.
Philip d’Anjou as King of France
Upon his father's death in 1714, Philip d'Anjou became King of France, ruling as Philip VII. France under his rule would see an increased resentment against the British and the Austrians (whom he believed had manipulated and strong-armed him out of his right to inherit the Spanish throne back in the Spanish Succession Crisis). Under his rule, the colonial venture in North America was expanded, and more settlers were sent to prevent French claimed territory from being absorbed by Britain and the Dutch Republic.
Closer French Ties to Prussia
Philip VII also sought closer ties with Prussia, a burgeoning German power that threatened and challenged Austria. In 1748, Prussia's Frederick II had confided to Philip VII about his desire of taking the region of Silesia from the Austrians. Philip VII pledged his support to Frederick II, eventually leading to the Great Silesian War (1750-1755) and the ultimate demise of France and Philip VII's prestige.
Great Silesian War (1750-1755)
After resurrecting an old Brandenburg testamentary claim to Silesia and forming an alliance with France and other smaller German states, Prussia invaded Austrian Silesia in 1750. France, Bavaria, and Saxony, and Sweden had supported the Franco-Prussian Entente.
Britain had supported its ally, Austria. Having a Habsburg monarch and territories in the low countries, Spain soon became quickly involved in the war. The Dutch Republic was also attacked by the French due to their interests in the region.
Prince Maurice's War was the North American theatre of the Great Silesian War. Prince Maurice's War was one of the largest colonial wars in North America, where the colonies of Britain, Spain, and the Dutch Republic were pitted against those of France and their native allies.
The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Vienna on 16 February 1755. The treaty granted the Dutch possession of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin region, while the British were granted possession of Guadeloupe (including the islands of Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Les Saintes, Marie-Galante, and La Désirade). In Europe, Prussia's territory was divided between the allies. East Frisia became part of the United Provinces, and East Prussia was granted to Russia, who then had exchanged it for the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia shortly after, which had been under the Polish Dominion.
French Revolution and the Augustine Wars (1780s-1814)
The French Revolution was a revolutionary movement that hit France from the late 1780s to the late 1790s. The revolutionary wars caused Philip VII de Bourbon to flee to New France and re-establish his kingdom there. In Europe, Henri d'Anjou was proclaimed by the National Assembly of France as the new King of the French, but his rule was abruptly ended with his execution by the National Assembly, after it was discovered that he was in a plot with Austria to restore the pre-revolutionary order in France. The position of the king was dissolved, and the National Assembly's leader, Austinu Spiga, proclaimed himself as the Director in 1795.
Spiga would then start on a revolutionary campaign to export the revolution and its ideas to France's neighbors. Under his rule, France subjugated the Dutch Republic, Austria, and the various German principalities, with the aid of the Russians. The fall of the Dutch republic directly caused the Autumn War (New Netherland Independence War) in North America in 1796.
However, France would face defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, after an unsuccessful French campaign to take the city of Constantinople. The Treaty of Vienna was signed in 1814. Despite France's defeat, the revolution had shaken up the old order of Europe and redrew its boundaries. A new state of the German Confederation would be created, and the kingdoms of Hanover, Saxony, and Pomerania would be restored, with land larger than what they had before. A new kingdom would also be created, the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Unrest and Reform in the French Americas
During the French revolution and the subsequent regime of Austinu Spiga, the British empire briefly took control of the prosperous but turbulent French island colony of Saint-Domingue. The British found the colony hard to manage, with the free black, mixed-race, and white Francophone populations resentful of British rule. During the Congress of Vienna, Britain returned the island to the French. When the French returned to the colony, they found the islanders increasingly rebellious. After an aborted revolution in 1815, French Authorities acceded to the demands of the colonials of increased autonomy of internal affairs, increased representation of the colony in the form of a locally elected governor and full equal rights to mixed-race Domingues.
In 1832, after a slave revolt in Saint-Domingue was put down, the French colonial governor implemented slave protection laws to improve working conditions for slaves on sugar plantations and decrease the risk of slave revolts. During the 1850s, abolitionist sentiments swept the colony, and after a massive slave revolt spurred on by news of South Tussenland's independence, the Governor-General of Saint-Domingue, Jean-Michel de Lepinay, declared all slaves on the island free on March 18th, 1853. The French republic was threatened by this news, as the governor didn't get the approval of manumission from the French Government. In the aftermath, the French navy was sent to Port-au-Prince that summer, but after a week of tension, the French government backed down and ratified the manumission of all slaves in the empire, the abolishment of slavery, and a token payment of restitution to former slaveowners.
French Colonization of Oceania
In 1810, the Director of revolutionary France, Augustine Spiga, sent out the famous Freycinet expedition to determine the suitability of Australia for French colonization and settlement. The expedition landed on the south-eastern coast of Australia and mapped parts of the region. Two years later, news of the Freycinet expedition moved public support for the colonization of Terra Australis (what the continent of Australia was known at the time). In 1812, revolutionary France attempted to settle a colony along Bellevue Bay. However, after six months, a lack of food supplies and a surge in interpersonal rivalries among the colonists led the bay colony to be abandoned.
In the immediate aftermath of the Augustine wars, the French government planned to send another mission to resettle Australia after realizing British ambitions in the region. But, in light of the first French attempt of colonizing the continent, these plans were shelved. After a few years, the French government retooled the initial recolonization plans into a newer plan for a penal colony (which the French lacked since losing their Guyanese colony to the Tuscans). On May 19th, 1817, 1200 French colonists (including at least 900 convicts) landed near Bellevue Bay and established the first permanent French presence on the continent. Later in 1821, after a series of riots in Paris by revolutionary war veterans, the French government enacted a settlement program that gave large tracts of land to former soldiers to settle in Australia. One early major complaint among French settlers to Australia was the uneven gender ratio of colonists (nine Frenchmen to every French Woman in 1825). This issue led to a high degree of intermarriage with the indigenous peoples of Australia and a sizeable sex trade of wives from Polynesia and Aotearoa among colonists to French Australia. In 1828, France consolidated the Bellevue Bay penal colony and surrounding veteran land grants into the imperial territory of Terre-Australe. Along with this, the French expanded their colonial claims up the east coast of the Australian continent.
The Canton War (1850 - 1857)
The Dutch had a long monopoly over the Chinese trade since the establishment of Formosa (now Taulandt) in the 17th century. Aiming to break the monopoly, the Kingdoms of France and Britain supported a growing revolt in Canton that aimed to overthrow the Qing dynasty. The Qing dynasty requested help from their ally, the Dutch.
On 1 March 1850, a Dutch admiral sunk a British ship carrying gunpowder en route to Canton. As soon as Europe got word of the incident, Britain hastily declared war on the Dutch Empire. France soon joined on the side of Canton and the British. This quickly developed into a global conflict, with British and Dutch colonies being pitted against each other in the Americas and multiple naval battles being fought on the English channel. In China, the Anglo-British-Cantonese alliance was slowly pushing back the Dutch and the Qing. The Anglo-French-Cantonese coalition was victorious. France gained the island of Tchangtcheou, located on the Pearl River. Tchangtcheou became a valuable port for France as it allowed them to conduct trade with the Kingdom of Canton.
The Saint-Domingue War for Independence
After the Anglo-French victory in the Canton War (1850-1857) nearly bankrupted the French treasury, the French imperial government tried to raise funds by increasing taxes on sugar, coffee, and perfume exports from Saint-Domingue as well as increasing import tariffs on produced goods from the NNL, British colonies, and Mexico. This led to a series of riots against French imperial rule of the nation in the summer of 1859. The aftermath of these riots led to an increase in pro-independence attitudes among the Saint-Domingue middle classes. After a drunk French soldier shot and killed a Domingue woman in March of 1861, riots broke out in Saint Dominique, spreading to all the major port cities.
The rebels hastily organized a militia called the Armée Populaire de Saint Domingue. At the same time, pro-independence black sharecroppers and farmworkers in the island's interior took up arms and sided with the rebels. After only four months of fighting, the insurgents kicked the French military from the island and declared the independence of Saint Domingue to the world on August 16th, 1861. The French tried to regain control of the colony multiple times but were driven off time again; with mounting international pressure, a weak economy, and a semi-volatile internal political situation, the French relented and recognized the independence of Saint Domingue on October 9th, 1862.
French Colonization of Africa
French Niger
The French made an early permanent presence in the Niger Delta through mercantilism. Due to the lucrative trade of palm oil and palm kernels. Many French merchants capitalized on this opportunity and would go on to lead the trade in palm oil, which coincided with the collapse of the slave market at the time(1840s). This growing abundance in palm oil exports caused the economy in Igboland and Calabar to transition from subsistence farming to the production of aforementioned resource as a cash crop. The European merchants would face a number of climate hazards and tropical diseases, and there were no centralized institutions dealing with their interests on the mainland. The unpredictability of local rulers, would also create increasing pressure on the French government to appoint a consul in the region. Soon after, the French would create equity courts to settle trade disputes all over the coast. It would only be a matter of time until they’d expand interests in the region.
French scientists and explorers were interested in exploring the Niger River, and the presence of settlements in the area. However, every explorer commissioned for the journey faced technical issues for these expeditions and tropical diseases such as malaria further bogged down any substantial progress. With the discovery and cultivation of quinine in the 1850s that could treat malaria, the plant could have allowed for the French Empire to fund a successful expedition. But with the government facing bankruptcy as well as the Saint-Domingue War across the Atlantic, the French were unable to do so.
Some private trade organizations worked together to fund an ambitious exploration in 1858, that would be lead by La Rochelle merchant Astor Belmont which would be supported by the work of German explorer Heinrich Barth in the Hausa Kingdoms. This expedition would be a great success, as the exploration and detailed interactions with the cultures of the Niger would lead to a greater interest in the region by the French. This however wouldn’t be escalated to any major extent as a result of the Communard rebellion that shifted French society in the 1870s.
French East Africa
French Madigasikara
Communard Revolution Period (1872 - 1877)
New ideas of socialism (called communardism) had rocked France in the 1870s. Coming from France's intellectual circles, the concept of communardism would win over the French public's following and lead to the bloody murder of King Louis in 1873. The heir died shortly after due to a falling accident. With the Bourbon line dying out, the radical communard party Société des Amis de la République (often shortened to the Société) occupied the power vacuum. The party leader, Étienne Thévenet, declared the establishment of the Communard Republic of France, espousing hardline communard ideals and rejecting all forms of religion and aristocracy. Thévenet envisions a united Europe that transcends racial and linguistic boundaries, united under the ideals of communardism.
As the first step to achieve this, Thévenet looked to the tiny principality of Belgique to the northeast. Belgique was a pre-dominantly French-speaking Wallonian principality and already had a growing communard movement within. Thévenet supported Belgique's communard insurrection in late 1874 with the French treasury, and the revolution became successful. Belgique was incorporated as a new département of France by Christmas eve of 1874. This chapter of the communard revolution is called the Christmas Uprising and is a regional holiday in the present-day French département of Belgique.
Great Britain began to grow worried about the new government's success. In 1876, attempts by the Société to spread the revolution to central Europe and the Italian states were made but were stopped by an alliance of European powers led by Austria and Britain. By early 1877, the radical Société des Amis de la République was removed out of power by the Parti Communard de France (PCF), a moderate Communard faction, with the support of Great Britain. The PCF established the 3rd French Republic and sought peaceful coexistence with the British and other European powers. This led to a mending of relations between the British and France.
During the crisis, Great Britain was able to take some colonial possessions of the French in the Americas (Guadeloupe, Martinique, St, Barthélemy, and Martinique) and India (Karikal). However, the new government was allowed to keep its new département of Belgique, as was the will of the local Wallonian populace.
Loosely built on communard ideals, the new government would continue to lead France throughout the 20th century.
France in the 20th Century
The Communard Republican government of France entered the 20th century with a handful of colonies around the world, namely: French East Africa, Sainte-Lucie in Southeast Africa, Kampuchea, Sambas, and Sarawak in Southeast Asia, Australie and Novelle Zelande in Oceania.
The shift towards authoritarianism
In Europe, France's diplomatic situation was precarious. By 1900, they were still friendly and indebted to the British for helping them establish their government in the 1870s. However, constant British intervention in areas of France's sphere of interest started to strain relations. This was further exacerbated when Britain sanctioned and supported the Venetian annexation of the Papal Adriatic in 1908. This catalyzed the shift towards an anti-British political climate only a few months before the French National Elections.
In November 1908, Hervé Saunier, a staunch anti-British writer and professor from Paris, was proclaimed as France's new president. Saunier was known as more of a theorist than a statesman, more concerned with the ideological aspects of running France. As such, Saunier often delegated duties and appointed fellow party members to run the government's various institutions, also creating new ones during his tenure.
In 1910, Saunier appointed François Desmarais as the Grand Marshal of the French Republican Military. Desmarais was a political ally of Saunier, who previously served as Governor-General of Kampuchea before returning to France in 1909. Saunier believed that a robust military apparatus was required to protect France's republican institutions. Ironically, Desmarais' appointment saw the increase of the military's role in French governance. Desmarais put down political opposition against Saunier or the Communard Party. Intimidation and political coercion were commonplace throughout the 1910s. During the 1914 elections, Hervé Saunier was reelected to the presidency, but his victory was widely contested. It was widely believed that Desmarais had intimidated his opponents and the tallying committee to secure his power. Regardless of this, Desmarais' was still widely popular among the public. In 1919, Desmarais and Saunier had a feud over Desmarais' increasing influence. Shortly after this falling out, Desmarais founded L'avantgarde, a political alliance consisting of anti-British, pro-military nationalists.
The political tensions culminated in a coup d'etat staged by Desmarais and the army on September 2, 1919, only a year before the next elections. Desmarais abolished the presidency. Desmarais' popularity with the French people gave him his legitimacy to rule. He would lead as the Grand Marshal of France until he died in 1928.
Before his death, he appointed Camille Laframboise, a military general, and a political ally of Desmarais, to succeed him as Grand Marshal.
Camille Laframboise's domestic policies proved to be harsher than his predecessor, alienating some supporters of L'Avantgarde. Despite this, he was still moderately popular among the communards of France. He was known to be more diplomatically-minded than Desmarais. Under his rule, France warmed relations with Austria due to the common threat of British influence in the European mainland (primarily Italy). Laframboise was known to the west as Le Maréchal; he and his strongman persona was commonly the subject of political mockery and caricature in British and Italian spheres of influence.
France in the Great War (1935-193x)
French Invasion of Savoy and Piedmont (1935)
France's invasion of Savoy and Piedmont in July 1935 is considered by many to be the official start of France's involvement in the Great War. Since the 1880s, communard parties had already sprung up in Savoy and Piedmont. As communardism in France grew more radical, new radical communard groups formed. Throughout the 1920s to early 1930s, Savoy and Piedmont would face riots and protests. Camille Laframboise declared his sympathy for the Piedmontese and Savoyard communard struggle and vowed to bring security and stability back into the region. On July 5, 1935, France launched Opération Grosseille, which aimed to invade Savoy and Piedmont and restore order. This heightened France's tensions with the other Italian states and Great Britain.
