"What if Napoleon had conquered Britain?" Topic

We avoided the extreme, continental ideologies of the 20th century

link

Armand

But, he didn't, did he?
As the link takes pains to point out, most, if not all of his conquered nations were very restive.
To posit a reality more than 10 years after a "fact" that never happened is just poorly written fiction. *
In my deterministic mind, history is very difficult to derail and put on a new track.

* Yeah, I'm looking at you Harry Turtledove. Quit after 10 years. Don't push your luck.
He can't write a "nice" or interesting person to save his life, and succeeds in making Custer a boring character.

It would have been splendid.

Once the Havoverians had ed off to Canada, Bonaparte would have had the time to bewitch and charm the aristostracy and London Society. In a short time Bonapartist London Fashun would eclipse that of Paris.

The Home Counties would have capitulated immediately – bankers, lawyers and acccountants recognising which side the bread was buttered, leaving the Midlands, the North, and nasty places like Wales and the South-West to be dealt with by the Grand Armee. (Marshal Soult would prove to be marvellous in the South-West.) Marshal Ney would have the best Scottish tartan design – to be used in all Mactintosh rain-coats in later times.

Wellington, and other military leaders, would be bought to heel by being made Marshals of the Anglo-French Empire.

General Bonaparte would then be seduced by the advantages of English Mercantilism and promote Free Trade around the world. He would slightly alter the Code Napoleon to emcompass the advantages of the English Common Law – ditching the idea of a written constitution. Furthermore he would be bothered to deliver on his pledge to re-write the Quoran – and make a proper and decent job of it too.

His child with the Austrian Princess would be Prince of Wales and the Bonaparte name would become synonymous with the idea of an Empire where the Sun Never Sets.

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Today we would enjoy breakfast pancakes with Oscar Meyer streaky bacon and Hanover-brand maple syrup (the label of which depicting the mauling of last Hanoverian King by a canookian bear).

"What if Napoleon had conquered Britain?"

You'd be eating snails & chips… ;-)

Stoppage you are a true and gifted historian, and should immediately start up a historical podcast to rival "The Rest is History". It might be catchy to simply call it "What If?"…

The monkey-hangers of Hartlepool would have had a field day…

Hangus X for PM!

From 1940 we would be under a puppet government of Nazi Germany like Vichy France. And the US wouldn't have been brought into the European war so we would all be speaking German. So Bratwurst and chips.

Were there established Irish, Scottish and Welsh independence movements at the time? I realize that the last war in Scotland was within common memory at the time of Napoleon, however, I do not know anything about the other components of the nation. A Napoleon victory may have seen the break-up of the British nation into its component parts. Likewise, would a French victory see the overseas colonies achieve independence much sooner? Likely under the control of the resident English administrators. It would be tough to try to rule an overseas empire without the use of the British colonial organization.

I'm thinking that Napoleon would think that ruling over smaller independent countries, at least as concerning England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, would help to undercut any attempt at British resurgence. My guess is that none of the component peoples in Britain and Ireland would be too upset about becoming independent and out from under the English heel. Likely under the rule of French figureheads. I'm relatively confident about the Scots and Irish, but do not know enough about the Welsh to form a belief. Is Welsh devolution a modern movement or has it been present all along?

My hypothesis presupposes that the Scots, Welsh and Irish would not have the same allegiance to "Britain" as opposed to the English ruling class. It also presupposes that Napoleon would prefer a weak "Britain" so as to make any patriotic movement difficult. I'm sure that Napoleon would prefer to keep the economic benefits of the colonial system, however, he would likely understand the impossibility of stepping into the role of colonial ruler without the infrastructure set-up by the concurred Britain, which would be hostile to the French-ruled British Islands.

And tomorrow…
""What if Napoleon had conquered Mars?"

Stoppage for the winner…

Thanks to all…

Armand

It's not a question of 'What' but one of 'How'. I hope the Grande Armee were good swimmers.

When I was first taken to Paris by my parents on a road trip from SHAPE, on our first evening at a restaurant near La Madeleine, we had to ask what "Pommes Pont Neuf" on the menu and we were told with a shrug it meant chips. I m sorry it doesnt seem to have caught on- with snails or otherwise.

We wouldn't have had real chips.

It's not a question of 'What' but one of 'How'. I hope the Grande Armee were good swimmers.

"I do not say the French cannot come, I only say they cannot come by sea" – Lord St Vincent

(smile)

Armand

but since 1785 it existed another way to cross from Calais to Dover in two and a half hours…
The first Air Force units in the world instead of being disbanded in 1799 becoming an air fleet of bomber-balloons and transportation-personnel-carrier-balloons and not only observation balloons

plan from former chef de bataillon d'aérostiers Lhomond to use 100 balloons, each 100 meters in diameter, each with a basket capable of holding 100 men with provisions for fifteen days, two cannons with caissons, 25 horses, and the wood needed to fuel the balloon.
sent to Monge to know if it's worth it
Napoléon

but, what if if there were no longer what if in TMP, what a dream, because never forget

если бы, да кабы, да во рту росли грибы, тогда бы был не рот, а целый огород
(If only, if only mushrooms grew in our mouths, then it would no longer be a mouth but a real plantation)

if wishes were horses, beggars would ride

wenn das Wörtchen wenn nicht wär

as is verbrande turf

coi se e coi ma non si fa la storia (ifs and buts don't make history)
se mio nonno avesse le ruote sarebbe una cariola (if my grandfather had wheels he'd be a wheelbarrow)

avec des « si » on mettrait Paris en bouteille!

Nice idea but the prevailing wind in SE England is south westerly.

Facile !
Les Anglais parleraient le français.

Elle n'est pas belle la vie !

Bernard

Dont like these, history is what happened, people who hide nonsense in pseudo expertise of something that never happened and never could now, its pure rubbish, read the article,and the worst Ive ever wsted time on.Write a book about what could have happened a fantasy novel, not dress up this rubbish as pseudo fact

marmont1814

Dont like these, history is what happened, people who hide nonsense in pseudo expertise of something that never happened and never could now, its pure rubbish, read the article,and the worst Ive ever wsted time on.

Let them have their wet dream. They know they can have them as much as they like without having to clear up the mess.

It makes ya' wonder why Jerry didn't try coming by air…

"The horror, the horror!"

Captain Bob took my line. 😉

So…… Brits would still have bad teeth and the cuisine that is the envy of the known world. 🙂

Les Anglais parleraient le français.

No, not even with a gun to our heads! (Ditto German, for all those "We saved your asses in two world wars!" eejits.)

Anyway, most of us wouldn't be here as we'd all have been conscripted into Napoleon's armies and died in either Russia, Egypt (again – this time en route to India) and China.

Les Anglais parleraient le français.

Napoléon ou pas Napoléon ces gens qui pratiquent un patois national à base de 40 à 60% de fond lexical français, sans quoi si ils l'expurgeaient de ces racines ils ne pourraient plus nous insulter que par langue des signes ou signaux de fumée, souhaitent probablement oublier ou occulter que les Anglais parlaient déjà le français bien avant Napoléon, rien moins que langue administrative d'Angleterre jusqu'au XVe siècle (!) et même conservant un statut légal jusqu'au XVIIe…
mais chut honni qui soit mal y pense…comme disait l'autre, l'Angleterre cette ancienne colonie française qui a mal tourné

et d'ailleurs toute l'Europe pratiquait le français à l'époque ces questions linguistiques n'ont rien à voir avec Napoléon, les officiers décembristes arrêtés en Russie en 1825 traduits devant la police du Tsar s'exprimaient en français lors de leurs interrogatoires, le rapport par le chef germano-balte de la police a été aussi rédigé en français pour être adressé au Tsar, c'est dire

Yes, the English nobility – most of whom had Norman or French ancestry from the 1066 Conquest – spoke French in medieval times.
But the native English did not adopt French as their everyday language and by Tudor times English was used by all ranks of society.
Just as French did not become the language of ordinary people after the Conquest, IMHO there would have been considerable popular resentment and resistance to the imposition of French as the official language of Britain in the unlikely event that Bonaparte had succeeded in invading.

Napoleon had a big moat to get over, wasn't ever going to happen.

The history of the French language is as complex as that of English. It seems that in the time of Napoleon, the French did not speak French.

From Wikipedia:

By the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts in 1539 King Francis I made French the official language of administration and court proceedings in France, which ousted Latin, which had been used earlier.

The French nation-state, which appeared after the 1789 French Revolution and Napoleon I's empire, unified the French people in particular through the consolidation of the use of the French language. Hence, according to the historian Eric Hobsbawm, "the French language has been essential to the concept of 'France', although in 1789 50% of the French people did not speak it at all, and only 12 to 13% spoke it 'fairly' – in fact, even in oïl language zones, out of a central region, it was not usually spoken except in cities, and, even there, not always in the faubourgs [approximatively translatable to "suburbs"]. In the North as in the South of France, almost nobody spoke French."[31] Hobsbawm highlighted the role of conscription, invented by Napoleon, and of the 1880s public instruction laws, which allowed to mix the various groups of France into a nationalist mold, which created the French citizen and his consciousness of membership to a common nation, and the various "patois" were progressively eradicated.

Ah but the Napoleonic era might not have happened had the English been able to complete the conquest of France during the 100 Years War. Far too many ifs and buts and what might have beens …………

Well I would say which "English" conquest? Not a single so-called conqueror invader had an "english" name in my area and probably didn't speak english either, all but one…the only foreign name is Rodrigo de Villandrando, a very english name…the first major "english" invasion of France took place in 1544 with 30 000 men if I remember

…like a strong air of déjà vu debate…

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.

The history of the French language is as complex as that of English. It seems that in the time of Napoleon, the French did not speak French.

the kind of sentence to be associated with this other english-speaking member who explained us that the people from the 2nd city of France "Lyon had been incapable of understanding the people of Marseille" (sic) at that time when you realize that the whole Department of Rhône concentrated already c.1820 70% of literate people I think that says a lot about the linguistic reliability of such sentences

The French nation-state, which appeared after the 1789 French Revolution and Napoleon I's empire, unified the French people in particular through the consolidation of the use of the French language. Hence, according to the historian Eric Hobsbawm, "the French language has been essential to the concept of 'France', although in 1789 50% of the French people did not speak it at all, and only 12 to 13% spoke it 'fairly' – in fact, even in oïl language zones, out of a central region, it was not usually spoken except in cities, and, even there, not always in the faubourgs [approximatively translatable to "suburbs"]. In the North as in the South of France, almost nobody spoke French."

Really? Let's see, curiously this doesn't match from linguistic investigations under First Empire where we are quite far from ignorant Gallic tribes where "almost nobody spoke French" depicted above

the most backward departments I can find with datas where "almost nobody speak french" according to wikimerdia

Ain – (rural and partially mountainous department between Lyon and Switzerland)
The French language is the only one used in this department. Apart from a few local expressions, it is generally spoken quite well; in recent years, especially, it has become the subject of special study in the various towns of the department, and primarily in the capital. It can be said that there are few fathers of families enjoying some comfort, even among artisans, who do not want their children of both sexes to receive this type of instruction; and it is gratifying to see that it is not without success.
As for the inhabitants of the Bresse countryside, they speak a dialect or patois that varies constantly in different parts of the department, and often even from town to town.

Even until a very rural and mountainous backward department, therefore a priori isolated and one might assume to be behind the times as these two depts of the Alps :

Hautes-Alpes
The common idiom in the Hautes-Alpes, says Mr. Farnaud, is a patois. This patois is the dominant language in this department. The bourgeois themselves, in their private conversations, do not renounce it. It is usually the first their children learn;
the activity that the administration has put into its relations with the countryside, curiosity, public news, the movement that the revolution has given to all classes, the need to know the laws and to comply with them; all have contributed to making the use of French more familiar to the inhabitants; and if there are still some who do not speak it, there are very few who do not understand it.

Mont-Blanc
Countryside residents generally understand French and many speak it, which is largely the result of annual migrations. The dialect of the cities and towns has, so to speak, become Frenchified. The study and practice of the French language have made significant progress among all classes of citizens since the Revolution.
French is generally spoken better in Chambéry than in many cities of old France; at least it is certain that the pronunciation is not disfigured by any accent.

at last I found one in the west of Massif Central : Limousin, also a backward rural and mountainous area like the Alps

Haute-Vienne
In the cities, French is spoken, but with a flawed pronunciation. The Limousin accent is lost with difficulty, even among those who are absent for long periods. Country dwellers understand a little French, but can speak it only with great difficulty; they have a particular language that is more or less harsh, and which varies infinitely in dialect and expression

"almost nobody spoke french"…?

Many thanks.

Armand

In his impressive work Histoire de la langue française, des origines à 1900 Ferdinand Brunot wrote

The officials at the head of the departments were not linguists. A number of them, responding to a survey, are under the illusion that patois have disappeared from their departments. This is the case in Indre, Indre-et-Loire, Marne, and Maine-et-Loire ("french is spoken there without any distinctive character"). The prefect of Nièvre says the same, as does the prefect of Calvados, Seine-Inférieure ("Everyone, without exception, speaks french there"), Eure, Oise, Aisne, Allier ("french is spoken without dialect, even in rural communities"), and Loire-Inférieure.
All these people are undoubtedly mistaken, and dialectologists would judge their ignorance harshly, but their assertions themselves have value for the subject at hand. Indeed, since neither the administrators nor those of their constituents they interviewed have the impression that anything other than french is spoken around them, perhaps altered but recognizable, it is therefore because french dominates and reigns. I would interpret statements such as the following in this way, without hesitation: Peasants (from Côte-d'Or and other departments of Burgundy), when they are obliged to converse with city dwellers, generally speak french and even quite purely.

according to the maps drawn from statistics and investigations concerning the limits of the french language under First Empire at the level of each town between 1806 and 1812 we can observe that such limits reached grosso modo mainly the traditional peripheral provinces on the margins of the Kingdom then French Republic/Empire :

* – Corsica
* – the Basque Country but less its main cities already exclusively french-speaking such as Bayonne and Biarritz
* – the Western half of Brittany where ~71% of the people used several breton dialects that cannot be understood from each other (the Eastern half of Brittany has never been breton-speaking)
* – Flanders but only Flandre Maritime between Dunkirk and Hazebrouk, the rest of the department is french-speaking with Lille where the Prefect in 1806 wrote that among 671 municipalities of his department "99 are flemish-speaking (155 712 inhabitants – 18,5%) and 572 french"
* – Department of Moselle but not totally (56,6% of the inhabitants)
"The french language is currently familiar to two-thirds of the inhabitants of this country, where it was almost unknown at the beginning of the century. The Metz dialect was spoken even in the best houses. It is still used in the countryside, but in competition with french, which the peasants speak easily.
* – Alsace still attached to its german dialect especially in the North (Dept of Bas Rhin 98,5%) and less in the south (Dept of Haut Rhin 68%) with french-speaking towns near Belfort
About half of the population understands french language, and this proportion is even higher in the cities.
Since the Revolution, the movement toward french, initially very rapid, has only been slowed by the influence of the coercive measures imposed during the Terror. In the countryside, half of the population speaks french more or less, and in the cities, three-quarters.

***********************************************************************************
now concerning the french in England he wrote among others things

In 1300, the author of the Mirror of Justice chose french as the language "most understandable to the common people." And Higden's precise testimony attests to the fact that not only the sons of nobles, but also rural people who wanted to resemble them, were striving with all their might to Frenchify. He is clearly exaggerating when he adds that english was no longer in use except among a few peasants; it was, and increasingly became, the common language, but french still remained the language spoken and written by respectable people.

Kings began to abandon it as an official language. In 1362, Edward III, at the request of the town of London, ordered that the pleadings be held in english. In the same year, and for the two following years, the Chancellor opened Parliament with a speech in the same language.

In private documents, french only fully yielded to english quite late; the writing of such documents in this language is still relatively rare in the second half of the 14th century. We know of only three wills in english from this period: the earliest dates back to 1383: that of a York merchant. The custom still persisted of writing the last wishes of common people in latin, and those of persons of quality in french. In 1438, Countess Anne of Strafford apologized for composing her will in english.

In legal matters, for a long time, english did not penetrate beyond protocols; and this was only from the 15th century onward. Everything else remained french, to the point that a legal expert of this century, Fortescue, already cited by Du Cange, still considered it impossible for a jurist of his time to do without french. Cromwell had repealed its use, but this "novelty" disappeared under Charles II, and it was only in the 18th century that the exclusive use of english became mandatory in the courts. In 1706, a motion to this effect was rejected in the lower house, and it still struggled to pass on March 4, 1731.

The french continued to reign in Parliament for a long time. english initially appeared only in petitions (1386). Only four petitions are found in english during the reign of Henry V (1413-1422), then they multiplied, and from 1444 onward, they were regularly written in that language. In the answers of Parliament, it was only in 1404 that english was used for the first time. The minutes of sessions were only kept in english from the time of Henry VI. Until around 1490, laws were exclusively in french and latin: from that date, the use of english became widespread. The strength of tradition was even so great that even today, certain formulas of the executive branch are in french: the king approves the bills with the words: "le Roi le veult"; More rarely, he vetoes in these terms: "le Roi s'advisera". He "remercie ses loyaux sujets", "donne congé d'élire" a bishop, etc.
there is also a long list of french terms adopted in english troughout the 17th 18th century in the military field but not only

Merci mon ami Lilian…

Armand

Another alternative some people seem to want to ignore is that Napoleon would still have lost in Russia in 1812 so nothing much would have changed expect perhaps [only joking] a lower perception that 'we' won the battle of Waterloo and thus saved Europe.

I Say 'we' because as anyone remotely historically aware knows, the Duke of Wellington won the battle single handed, the plebian horde were just there to make up the numbers.

"Norman French" (that's French pronounced as if speaking English in terms of the sounds made – think the policeman from "Allo! Allo?") is still used in English legal language, though the increased…."diversity"….in our legal profession is gradually eradicating it (like so much of our culture).

For example "Autrefois acquit" (pronounced "hotrey-foiz ackwit" rather than "ohtreh-fwuz a-key") meaning "already acquitted, as in double jeopardy.

Lilian,

You fell in the pit.

Thank God for the English Channel, its stopped Napoleon and Hitler. However, if he had we'd all be speaking French and the internet would be in French as Canada would have come under French control and he would have invaded the 13 States (that is all there were then?).

A couple of people have said the real question is how? or that these are pointless discussions. However most people on TMP are wargamers, to at least some extent – some are just modellers etc. So every time we put miniatures on the table we are "what if-ing" I have no problem with that. Those who do can always skip to the next thread. As for 'not what if but how/, that is a different, and also interesting question. But I don't think it need be wielded as a dismissive conversation stopper (Pseudo-expertise. Pseudo-fact, rubbish, let them have their wet dream etc). If people want to speculate on "alternative history", they should be free to without being dismissed as prepubescent juveniles with no grasp of actual history.
These things are thought experiments. They can be fun. Campaigns by definition, take this 'what if' concept and run with it. The infinite number of refights of Waterloo, Aspern/Essling, Wagram, Borodino, battles in the Peninsula etc do the same.

About a year ago, I posted a 'thought experiment' on the "Weird WWII" Board. Unlike the normal imagining of a German invasion of the US (complete with Panther 2s, German jet aircraft etc – ie 1945 to post war technology, I speculated that they must have won everywhere else already so wouldn't have needed to develop the new technology. No one really picked up my thread, the discussion rapidly became "The US was too tough for HItler to crack". C'est la vie. I still think a Nazi invasion of America would have involved PzIVs at best :~)

The original question was "What if Napoleon had conquered Britain?" Interestingly, just a few days ago a colleague of mine at work asked me, did I think it would have been a benefit to society if Napoleon had won the Napoleonic Wars? So a similar question, and we just speculated on the various issues rather than coming up with an answer. The French Revolution abolished slavery but Napoleon reinstated it, so what impact on abolition might this have had?

When did he win the Napoleonic Wars? Before the Louisiana Purchase, thus preventing the existence of the USA as we know it? If he'd been successful enough early on to open up reliable access to the French Indian (India, not America) possessions, maybe he'd have had more money and not needed to make that momentous sale. As Richard 1956 notes above, the French would have been more dominant in Canada.

Cheers,
John