"What if Bonaparte had never invaded Russia?" Topic

What would've been the immediate (within 5 or 10 years) had he not got messed up in Russia?

And long term? 50 years in future?
"Today" just has too many variables.

Would he have been able to hold on to his Germanic troops? The Russian Campaign soured a lot of them.

It depends, does France still go to war with Russia or do they have an alliance, or a peaceful treaty? If it is war then I think Napoleon at some point still would have lost Europe….It just might have taken a few years longer. An alliance could have changed Europe as we know it.
I doubt that a peaceful treaty would have lasted. Invading Russia just sped things up.

France and Russia supposedly already had an alliance after Tilsit.

Russ Dunaway

Yes, they did, but Tsar Alexander quickly soured on the relationship once away from Napoleon's magnetic personality.

I doubt Alexander ever took that treaty seriously, we have to remember that Napoleon was never really considered as actual royalty by the rest of Europe, he was a revolutionary who stole a throne.

Nonetheless-- any treaty for lasting peace was dubious at best as the royalty was up in determined to remove him. Dangerous and unacceptable trends had begun it seems?
Only in the United States was there no concept of "royalty" and at least a small friend?

Russ Dunaway

I guess he'd have finished off Spain and maybe tried to get across the channel.The economic pressures on particularly the coastal parts of Europe were increasingly intense and the 'system' might have fallen apart anyway. Who knows!?

Turkey, maybe. Or another attempt on Britain. Maybe Spain. He was a man who thought all his problems had military solutions. He enjoyed war and was good at it.

Europe in 1862 would have looked much the same as it did historically.

He could have attacked the British in Spain, and concentrated on that war before taking on Russia. Whether he could have settled down after that is open to question, but defeating him without the losses in Russia would definitely have taken longer.

Well Napoleon wasn't on campaign in 1810/1811, and could have ventured into the Peninsula then. I've sometimes wondered why he didn't do that.

If Bonaparte had never invaded Russia in 1812 then Russia had invaded against France again, as it did many times before. The only reason why openly aggressive Russia delayed their invasion against France in 1811/1812 is that Prussia and Austria denied to break peace agreement with France and Wellington and Moreau denied to take command of Russian invasion Army.

Alexander I had a massive hate-on for Napoleon; if Napoleon didn't invade I would suspect Alexander might have, in which case the Grand Army would have beat the Russians stupid, and then perhaps move to Spain to sort things out

None of it would probably have mattered as England was not going to allow the "charade" to continue unabated.
To this very day England is the last of the major belligerents to still have a "royal family."
Napoleons major mistake was making himself emperor.

Russ Dunaway

I think he would have gone to sort out the situation in Spain. Some preparations had been made for that- it was one reason why Dorsenne had two Young Guard divisions- but it never happened. My guess is he would have taken a solid contingent with him to attack Wellington's army, leaving a reliable commander to watch his eastern frontier.

I can then see that turning into a Russian invasion of the Grand Duchy of Poland, with Alexander seeking to take advantage of his absence.

The creation of the Grand Dutchy of Warsaw was the thorn under the saddle between France and Russia… Prussia and Austria weren't happy either but Prussia was broken and Austria in no position to object.