"French-speaking Europe, no world wars: What if Napoleon" Topic

… won Waterloo?

"Historians imagine a parallel realities: How the French empire would have stretched till China? How Germany would have been less powerful? How the world wars could have been avoided?All this…had Napoleon won the battle at Waterloo

Within years his empire will stretch as far as China, French will be spoken across the continent, and in the 20th century a global war between the great powers will be avoided because of the stability his rule created.

These are some of the alternate histories that writers and experts have envisaged had Napoleon really been victorious in the battle 200 years ago, which actually ended in his humiliating defeat and exile at the hands of British and Prussian forces…"

From here

link

Armand

It's amazing how stupid these alternate histories can be

- Europe had been fighting Napoleon for ages, why would they stop?
- succession?

John

"a global war between the great powers will be avoided because of the stability his rule created."

LOL, because that went so well in 1803 to 1815….

Has anyone ever wargamed a French invasion of America?

And in the unlikely event that this stable French empire had come to pass, what on earth would we wargamers have had to inspire our games?

As has been said, victory at Waterloo would simply have postponed the Emperor's ultimate defeat. Europe was determined and France tired. The best he could have hoped for was an uneasy peace. Certainly his grandiose plans of before would have had to have been curtailed. And everyone speaking French? Even the French Army did not all speak French. And World peace through hegenomy? Ask the British how that works? And the supposed stability his rule would give would soon break down after Napoleon's death and that was for medical reasons only six years after Waterloo.

To change history to produce an enduring Napoleonic Empire would have required the change to come long before Waterloo. If Napoleon had refrained from invading Spain and not invaded Russia then he probably could have held on to power in some form until his death. After that, things were sure to fall apart.

Wasn't Napoleon poisoned? He could have lived much longer,had time to establish his state and passed it onto his son.

(I think I'll stop now).

A victory at Waterloo would have meant that Napoleon would then have to win with diplomacy – convincing the other European powers that he had no territorial aspirations beyond France and playing on their rivalries (there was no love lost between the Austrians and Prussians, for example)

french-speaking Europe…but my dear author Europe was a french-speaking Europe even before Napoleon, and Napoleon or not, that is the 20th century and World Wars who initiated to destroy french as lingua franca in Europe
ask to the English who would like to imagine all the Napoleonic French Army speaking patois (!) as they explained us in some thread with no regards with the french linguistic realities of that time but occulting and forgetting that their neighbours have better chances to read and follow the correspondance de leur souverains, numerous archives kept in London Tower, to follow the members of the Foreign Office in London at the time of Napoleon or their own judicial archives of the British courts until the 18th century than the indigenous with their mixed anglo-saxon patois coming from ~40% french,
examples that could be extented until Germany and Russia far to not say hostile to french, some of the Russian officers decembrists of 1825 still to reply in french to the Russian police, and the chief of such police obliged to write in french his report to the Tsar, the same with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs where french was obligatory in diplomatic russian correspondence,
so under the Revolution and Napoléon there were several States in war against France using french
we can recall also Lejeune and others French soldiers surprised to meet a such number of people speaking french in the streets of Warsaw in Poland, a multisecular partner and ally, at such point to be nicknamed the French of the North

Académie de Berlin 1783
« Qu'est-ce qui a rendu la langue française universelle ? Pourquoi mérite-t-elle cette prérogative ? Est-il à présumer qu'elle la conserve? »
Ursachen der Allgemeinheit der französischen Sprache (Dissertation sur les causes de l'universalité de la langue française et la durée vraisemblable de son empire)

What did General Bonaparte ever do for us?

- Code Napoleon
- Beef Marengo
- St Bernard Pass Painting (David)

What he didn't do – after promising:

- Re-write the Qur'an.

Imagine if he'd made something like Code Napoleon for the middle-eastern peoples.

Also – after writing the above – what if he'd managed to clear out the twenty-odd wahhabists hiding-out in the Hadhramaut mountains? (Ottoman policing campaign circa 1821)

Our post-1948 world might be very different.

Errr… It's 'Chicken Marengo'. And unless I am taking a joke too seriously it is generally accepted that Napoleon died of stomach cancer, the same condition that killed his father.

(Puts on helmet. Dives into bunker.)

Mr Stubbe da Luz needs to reduce his meds.

The French win again 'yawn'; in their dreams only.

Heh! ScottWashburn has the rights of it, along with a couple of other posters. If the French had won convincingly at Waterloo and even destroyed both Anglo-Allied AND Prussian armies, more would have followed. And the Austrians and Russians were already advancing with large forces, and there was probably some activity from Italy (I'd have to double-check on this, but I know that the French frontiers were under threat from many sides and the French armies were severely outnumbered and under-equipped) and it would have been like the 1814 campaign all over again, Napoleon beset on all sides and with France still not wholly behind him. The French would have been ground down.

The Emperor would have been best served by not launching any further wars of aggression after 1809 and resolving the Spanish "ulcer". That might have preserved his throne and dynasty for longer, and that would have changed history in various ways, but hardly resulted in universal dominion. A Europe dominated by France would have evolved differently, but it might have just as easily fragmented, like Charlemagne's empire.

Thanks!

Armand

@ p909 hints, France would have started to break up. Whole regions weren't bought into his return and the resumption of the 1812-14 pattern of huge casualties would have hastened the disintegration.

Le Havre seceded in 1814 – other areas would have done the same.

"The Emperor would have been best served by not launching any further wars of aggression after 1809 and resolving the Spanish "ulcer".

But that would be the option of a sensible man, egotistical megalomaniacs always want more, something those Americans who see the Ukraine conflict as a European problem, might do well to remember. The US can fight Putin by proxy in the Ukraine now or it can fight him for real in a NATO war later.

I think the Napoleonic Wars have to be viewed as the culmination of a 150 years struggle between both Brtain and France over which nation would dominate the world as an empire. France's loss paved the way for the British Empire which is one of history's worst and most corrosive institutions ever.

I suppose the counterfactual would be whether an Empire dominated by the French would've been a kinder, gentler form of colonization…with better cuisine.

Supposing he had won and then defeated the larger Russian, Austrian and Prussian armies that were on their way already, then he had just 6 years to find a cure for cancer.

Au pas de Charge

I think

therefore I am?

the Napoleonic Wars have to be viewed as the culmination of a 150 years struggle between both Brtain and Franc

600 years more like! France got the batterings it deserved throughout.

over which nation would dominate the world as an empire. France's loss paved the way for the British Empire which is one of history's worst and most corrosive institutions ever.

Yeawn! University indoc…I mean. Education. You can't 'wack it!'

I suppose the counterfactual would be whether an Empire dominated by the French would've been a kinder, gentler form of colonization…with better cuisine.

You mean selling frogs legs and snails down the local Fish and Chip shop? And the smooth, fluffy putting down of the anti-slavery movement????

I smell hurt, social greenism with a soupçon of bitter almonds.

PS. Changing history may mean none of what we are doing here would exist. Even some or all of us, may not exist.

600 years, yes why not 1000 or 2000 years or since French Cro Magnon vs English Anglo-Saxon Neanderthal or like against the Spaniards and Dutch under Louis XIV, quite unclear also throughout the previous British civil war of the Roses, many gaps in such chronology

"l'Angleterre cette ancienne colonie Française qui a mal tourné"

Âmes Sensibles Anglaises don't read the following :

Frogs' legs may have been English delicacy 8,000 years before France
link

and
British nationalist authors in the 19th century as well as in the first half of the 20th century wrote extensively about the "triumph of the English" at the end of the Middle Ages. Things are more complex. French did not disappear at the end of the 13th century in England. It remained the administrative language of the country until the end of the 15th century, along with Latin. French also remains the European courtly language par excellence (although it is now in competition with other emerging vernacular languages, such as Castilian or Italian for example). The kings of England who claimed the French crown from 1337 preserved a French culture within the court. The two languages are not compartmentalized, in a multilingual environment. Henry V, the winner of Agincourt, spoke French and English. He also understood Latin.
Henry IV (1367-1413) was the first English king to have English as his mother tongue and Henry V (1387-1422) was the first English king to use English in official documents.

French, however, remains a language of culture. It is the second language of cultured people. Language of communication, it allows contact with the continent. But the mother tongue spoken at home is now English, a Germanic language strongly influenced by French, in pronunciation, vocabulary, as well as grammar and spelling. In three centuries of coexistence, French has supplied three quarters of the English lexicon.

Among the English population, merchants who depended heavily on cross-Channel trade long spoke French. The affirmation of English was a very slow process. It was only during the 16th century that French experienced a real decline, although it remained the legal language of England until the 17th century.

ouch oh my God oh Mon Dieu Honni soit qui mal y pense

Aha! A Guardianast. What a diatribe. No matter. To someone who speaks not a jot of the others language, shows the non argument. But in General, most of the world has more chance of understanding English rather than French, which is four times least spoken than English. English is the international language. French is an 'also ran' In a field of dix runners. 'la langue française' comes in about 'septième'

link

As for the rest of that said 'diatribe' Yet another post trying to get its jealousy sated.

Just an additem to the above

link

A friend of mine, fluent in French, used to work as a translator at HQ NATO. He said he was bored much of the time because all the military personnel preferred to use English.

not new that the NATO is an angloamerican creature against Russia to rearm our ennemy Germany and keep under control France and if the people understand and speak anglische like they understand ABBA Justin Timberlake or Beyoncé, well the rest of world is very far to be concerned by the so-called jealousy that would like to see or imagine England in her deep ignorance of the rest of the world beginning by her own neighbours
not to mention the immense joy caused in some french-speaking country when the arab-speaking country Algeria has adopted english as official language, yesss!
hope that Mali will be the next, or adopt the russian, or the chinese, all but the french

Mark J Wilson,

There is a possibility that if Trump is elected, he will withdraw the USA from NATO so the US will not be involved in that war. Of courser, it may be later.

Aha! A Guardianast. What a diatribe. No matter. To someone who speaks not a jot of the others language, shows the non argument.

Not really a shock but somehow, I feel better knowing you dont also torture French; mangling one language is bad enough.

But in General, most of the world has more chance of understanding English rather than French, which is four times least spoken than English. English is the international language. French is an 'also ran' In a field of dix runners. 'la langue française' comes in about 'septième'

French cant compete because it pays attention to perfect form whereas English is a functional language that anyone can abuse with a bare minimum effort and get by.

It's interesting that English speaking are more susceptible to being scammed on the phone/Internet and also hacking by enemy governments precisely because it is so widespread whereas few outsiders understand Korean, Iranian, Arabic etc…

"French can't compete because it pays attention to perfect form whereas English is a functional language"

So those who try to enforce the 'purity' of the French language by discouraging the use of foreign words (such as weekend, football) have no one but themselves to blame if it is not so widely used internationally as a language which has embraced words from, for example, Germany (blitz and flak), India (bungalow, pyjamas, khaki), the Americas (tomahawk, massacre, moccasins, jamboree) and even Australia (kangaroo, koala, boomerang) and does not require foreigners to learn so many person and tense endings for verbs.

"French can't compete because it pays attention to perfect form whereas English is a functional language"

So those who try to enforce the 'purity' of the French language by discouraging the use of foreign words (such as weekend, football) have no one but themselves to blame if it is not so widely used internationally as a language which has embraced words from, for example, Germany (blitz and flak), India (bungalow, pyjamas, khaki), the Americas (tomahawk, massacre, moccasins, jamboree) and even Australia (kangaroo, koala, boomerang) and does not require foreigners to learn so many person and tense endings for verbs.

The trouble with English and several other modern languages is that when you ditch the inflected endings and tense / person complexity, you don't have the same grip over subject, verb, object etc. You are forced instead to observe strict word order to convey your meaning.

In languages such as Latin, the word order does not change the meaning. 'Romani Gallos vicerunt' means "the Romans defeated the Gauls", as do 'Gallos Romani vicerunt', 'vicerunt Gallos Romani', and 'Gallos vicerunt Romani'. The emphasis alters but thsoe words can never mean "the Gauls defeated the Romans".

I was watching Reacher a while ago and at one point Reacher says something like how about if it's not E Pluribus Unum, "from many, one", but E Unum Pluribus – "from one, many"? If you're familiar only with non-inflected languages you'd assume that flipping the words flips the meaning, but in fact it doesn't, and the two phrases mean the same thing (although a Roman would wonder why the E is so far from the Pluribus). You'd have to say Ex Uno Plures.

I reckon we need to readopt Latin these avoid to like ambiguities so as.

QED

Why is observing word order so much worse than having inflexions? I would have thought it was easier – after all, we read from left to right, we don't jump about in different directions within the sentence.

Chaucer's, and earlier, English used to have some, reflecting its Germanic origins. English-speakers gradually abandoned them because they found it more congenial to do so. For example, in the 18th century it was correct to say 'You was ill' when addressing one person; nowadays we say 'You were' whether talking about one or more people.

Although you have – deliberately, I assume – jumbled the word order of you last sentence, I can still understand your meaning perfectly.

When you say 'Reacher' do you mean the fictional character Jack Reacher? Hardly an expert opinion on linguistics!

Aha! Hcnerf syobnaf. Steg 'me gniog yreve emit

UP
LOOK

LOOK
DOWN

BACK LOOK

LOOK FORWARD…Ah! that's better.

@ arthur

Word order's only easier if you're used to it. In the sentence

"It was given by the police to the white van driver in a hurry"

…you don't know who's in a hurry, nor whether it's the van or its driver who was white. If you had noun/adjective agreement, case endings and verb endings by person, it would be so crystal clear that you wouldn't even need to think about word order.

But isn't it EASIER to use word order than have to learn all these inflexions for case endings, verb tenses et cetera, which is why English has gone that way and why it is the world's most common second language.

Once you know that English puts adjectives in front of the words they describe – a pretty easy rule to memorise – you will have little difficulty. The problem in your example sentence is that it is not clear whether the van or the van-driver is white; but the writer could easily avoid that by using a hyphen or by phrasing it as 'to the driver of the white van' or to the white driver of the van'.

My wife's first language is Tagalog. She tells me it doesn't have tenses, other words make the tense clear:

PRESENT I go shopping now (or today/this morning, whatever)
FUTURE I go shopping tomorrow (or on Monday, next week)
PAST I go shopping last week (or yesterday, last week, on Friday)

No problem understanding what is meant. She is fluent in English but would, I think, find it very difficult to learn French to the same standard.

Au pas de Charge

"It's interesting that English speaking are more susceptible to being scammed on the phone/Internet and also hacking by enemy governments"

it's called 'follow the money' pure and simple. It has nothing to do with the language.

Do you honestly think that Western intelligence aren't doing likewise? They are probably doing it more than any other.

Au pas de Charge

"It's interesting that English speaking are more susceptible to being scammed on the phone/Internet and also hacking by enemy governments"

it's called 'follow the money' pure and simple. It has nothing to do with the language.

It does have something to do with the language. It is because English is so widely spoken that non native English speakers can electronically target native ones more easily than the reverse.

Do you honestly think that Western intelligence aren't doing likewise? They are probably doing it more than any other.

Not to the same extent because, for instance, in the USA, State and local governments get hacked by online actors in non native English speaking countries but I hardly ever think the reverse takes place.

APDC,

You should read this.

link

"There is a possibility that if Trump is elected, he will withdraw the USA from NATO so the US will not be involved in that war. Of courser, it may be later".

@ Troackledockle – That's why the 16th missile is pointed at Washington [or with MIRVs Washington and Key Largo].

It is interesting that a man who promised to make America great is now proposing to make America a Russian patsy, but then he's turned the Republicans into a party of tariffs so anything is possible in Trump world.

Au pas de charge

"It does have something to do with the language. It is because English is so widely spoken that non native English speakers can electronically target native ones more easily than the reverse."

So! If the power and riches were in the hand of the Dutch then what?

Targeting the Anglosphere is for its riches and its strategic significance. not because of its language.

Mark J Wilson

"It is interesting that a man who promised to make America great is now proposing to make America a Russian patsy,"

And: "but then he's turned the Republicans into a party of tariffs so anything is possible in Trump world."

Really? I'm an Englishman 'looking in' I'm sure a septic tank could bring such empirical evidence.

Au pas de charge

APDC:"It does have something to do with the language. It is because English is so widely spoken that non native English speakers can electronically target native ones more easily than the reverse."

dibble: So! If the power and riches were in the hand of the Dutch then what?

Then you still wouldn't understand the concept.

dibble: Targeting the Anglosphere is for its riches and its strategic significance. not because of its language.

Brilliant. Have you ever thought of a career in teaching?

Au pas de charge

"Then you still wouldn't understand the concept."

A concept made up by you? Not a chance.

"Brilliant. Have you ever thought of a career in teaching?"

No! But then, I'd rather be here banging on the fence riling up all the Nappyfawners than be the target of indoctrination by the lefty, woke, crap that's infested the 'teaching' fraternity via their brainwashing, university experience.

Ever thought of 'coming in from the cold'?

A concept made up by you? Not a chance.

I didnt make this situation up; in fact, it's something of a crisis.

link

No! But then, I'd rather be here banging on the fence riling up all the Nappyfawners than be the target of indoctrination by the lefty, woke, crap that's infested the 'teaching' fraternity via their brainwashing, university experience.

I would imagine your impenetrability makes you proof to indoctrination?

But I wasnt suggesting you get involved with anything as foreign or offensive to you such as higher education but rather something that reinforces your native talents such as helping people who consider ideas before they reject them to overcome that handicap.

Ever thought of 'coming in from the cold'?

I've never thought about it, no. But if I were to suffer an accidental head trauma…

It has nothing to do with the language itself. It's the popularity of the language that business is done in. If French or German was used almost exclusively in international business and in international communication. Then those languages would be the means by which international crime would be attached.

"He said: "There are some great things about this country but unfortunately some of them make us attractive to fraudsters.

One of them is the English language – that just means it's a bigger market of potential people to try and defraud consumers here, so we have to work harder to make sure it becomes an inhospitable market."

"I've never thought about it, no. But if I were to suffer an accidental head trauma…"

Is that because your head banging is deliberate?

"I would imagine your impenetrability makes you proof to indoctrination?"

As I alluded above. The indoctrination is all yours.