WI: Louis XVI Stanislas, king of France (1774-1824)

[Vladyslav]

PoD is very simple. Dauphine Louis-Auguste choked by a peach and died in 1768. His younger brother Louis Stanislas Xavier, known IOTL as king of France Louis XVIII, became dauphine. He had stronger character than ins elder brother. We don't have big changes before 1774. Marie Antoinette of Austria married on another dauphine and Charles Philippe has Savoy wife.
IOTL Louis-Auguste cancelled reforms that Louis XV had made in the end of his rule. IOTL Louis Stanislas was against reinstating the parlements so ITTL he would not cancel needful reforms.

In 1777 emperor Joseph visited France and proposed alliance with him and Russia for conquest of Turkey. IOTL France refused this proposition and supported American rebels. This war gave Senegal to France but caused fiscal crisis and Revolution. What (war with Great Britain, war with Turkey, peace) France would choice ITTL?

And the main question: Is it will enough for preventing of Revolution?

 

[Valena]

Now here, darling?
Though it's understandable as at fai.org.ru nobody wanted to discuss the PoD other than witty but ultimately empty suggestion of "doing nothing as an optimal choise".

 

[Vladyslav]

nobody wanted to discuss the PoD other

Do not sprinkle salt on the wound, please

 

[Dark Void]

PoD is very simple. Dauphine Louis-Auguste choked by a peach and died in 1768. His younger brother Louis Stanislas Xavier, known IOTL as king of France Louis XVIII, became dauphine. He had stronger character than ins elder brother. We don't have big changes before 1774. Marie Antoinette of Austria married on another dauphine and Charles Philippe has Savoy wife.
IOTL Louis-Auguste cancelled reforms that Louis XV had made in the end of his rule. IOTL Louis Stanislas was against reinstating the parlements so ITTL he would not cancel needful reforms.

In 1777 emperor Joseph visited France and proposed alliance with him and Russia for conquest of Turkey. IOTL France refused this proposition and supported American rebels. This war gave Senegal to France but caused fiscal crisis and Revolution. What (war with Great Britain, war with Turkey, peace) France would choice ITTL?

And the main question: Is it will enough for preventing of Revolution?

Probably not, the thing with the French Society at this point is it was too balanced on point with the Upper classes, the French revolution helped bring France out of this Absolutist mindset, and enabled much of the population to become Middle-Class. France at this point was in a lot of Debt to keep any war going. And with your Alliance Proposal, France could have agreed to this and taken Algiers, however the main problem was that there where Berber Pirates, which France would have to crush. The way I see no revolution is that if Louis does not engage in the American revolution and is of stronger character, reforming society and the economy.

 

[HortenseMancini]

Is it will enough for preventing of Revolution?

honestly, i don't think so. louis stanislas was more forceful than his brother, sure, but i'm not sure if he would be any more comfortable with curtailing the excesses of the ancien regime than louis auguste was.

as an added twist to this pod, marie antoinette is likely to produce children much earlier here, which might strengthen the monarchy's overall position.

 

[alexmilman]

Now here, darling?
Though it's understandable as at fai.org.ru nobody wanted to discuss the PoD other than witty but ultimately empty suggestion of "doing nothing as an optimal choise".

Ah, doing nothing is not such a bad course of actions when the alternative is doing something moronic and expensive (*).

France definitely did not need a war against the Ottomans because it had considerable trade interests in Levant (which would remain no matter who wins as long as France is not a part of the mess) and, unlike Austria and Russia, could not expect to gain something that would produce immediate and substantial state profit.

The same goes for, as CII put it, “quarrel between King George and his subjects”. If anything, a never ending (or at least very long) “quarrel” would be to the French advantage keeping the Brits busy and wasting their money. Senegal is, probably, nice but how did it improve the French financial situation?

What Louis could do at zero expense and some profit, would be to move his posteriors and sign trade agreement with Russia (CII already signed it but it died somewhere within the French bureaucracy): unlike Britain, France had a positive trade balance with Russia and if the Brits are occupied with the endless war against the colonies then the French “colonial goods” have a wider niche on the Russian market in addition to the traditional luxury items. The main problem with this specific schema is a complete absence of an interest among the French merchants toward expansion of a naval trade (as per opinion of the French ambassador at the court of CII). Anyway, his main interest should be finances followed by some meaningful PR campaign (and keeping his idiot of a wife out of public view and money).

_________
(*) As an example, right now a dedicated group of the people in my town (motivations are being questioned) is using “doing nothing is not an alternative” slogan to push through construction of a new elementary school with a price tag of $100,000,000 instead of repairing the existing schools notwithstanding the fact that the town with the population of 14,000 is already on the hook at the scale of tens millions in unfunded pension obligations and already has the highest property taxes in the area. 😢😢😫😫

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

(*) As an example, right now a dedicated group of the people in my town (motivations are being questioned) is using “doing nothing is not an alternative” slogan to push through construction of a new elementary school with a price tag of $100,000,000 instead of repairing the existing schools notwithstanding the fact that the town with the population of 14,000 is already on the hook at the scale of tens millions in unfunded pension obligations and already has the highest property taxes in the area.

Sounds like my hometown

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

As @Emperor Constantine recently pointed out to me in a DM, Antoinette isn't likely to have a kid before at least 1773.

That said, leaving the parlements "abolished" would be a good measure, maybe leaving Maupeou and Terray in office as well. Not saying they were "brilliant politicians" but it's not like Maurepas, Miromesnil and Turgot were any better.

 

[unprincipled peter]

if the Brits are occupied with the endless war against the colonies then the French “colonial goods” have a wider niche on the Russian market in addition to the traditional luxury items.

Could you expand on this?

Is Britain unable to continue trade with Russia, thus leaving a void for France to fill? Why? Is it because of lack of base goods from North America?

 

[unprincipled peter]

Antoinette isn't likely to have a kid before at least 1773

Why not? She's Dauphine at 14 in 1770. LS is similar. Old enough to do the chicka boom boom, and have children.

Still, 73 is 5 years earlier than OTL.

 

[HortenseMancini]

Why not? She's Dauphine at 14 in 1770. LS is similar. Old enough to do the chicka boom boom, and have children.

Still, 73 is 5 years earlier than OTL.

AIUI antoinette did have an irregular menstrual cycle, which could indicate some wider hormonal/gynecological issues that might prevent her from conceiving easily.

 

[alexmilman]

Could you expand on this?

Is Britain unable to continue trade with Russia, thus leaving a void for France to fill? Why? Is it because of lack of base goods from North America?

During the ARW the Continental Congress contracted privateers allowing for piracy to be legal against the British. 55,000 sailors served as privateers in the Revolutionary War. These “patriot pirates” seized and destroyed 600 British vessels, and raided many Loyalist regions along the coast. They also participated in the Battle of Halifax, Nova Scotia. By the end of the Revolution, privateers had looted $18 million ($302 million in modern currency) in assets. If the war continued for much longer one can expect a greater damage and it would take a genius to figure out that raiding commercial traffic allows to combine patriotic duty with a personal profit. After all, John Paul Jones had been successfully operating along the British coast and the Caribbean islands are much close. If the damage to the trade is great enough then the British supply of sugar, coffee, etc. is less reliable and more costly while similar French goods are not negatively impacted.

Then the ARW resulted in the 1st Neutrality League which did not improve already cooling Russian-British relations. In OTL Britain respected the league but if the war continues situation may deteriorate into something “Copenhagen”-like.

Finally, I did not say that Britain would be unable to continue trade with Russia: this was a “luxury” which Britain could ill-afford taking into an account that Russia was a major supplier of the strategic materials like hemp, flax, timber, iron, etc. The issue would be exclusively the British “colonial” imports. In OTL during her 2nd Ottoman War CII was ready to sign a trade agreement favorable to France not to be completely dependent upon the British supply of these items. The deal died on the French side due to an absence of the French interest: according to Comte Segur (ambassador to St-Petersburg) the French merchants of the pre-revolutionary period were not showing any interest to the Baltic trade and even the French imports to Russia had been carried mostly by the British ships. A protracted ARW may (or may not) somewhat change their attitudes.

 

[alexmilman]

Sounds like my hometown

Welcome to the club. 😢 BTW, just out of a pure curiosity (you don’t have to answer), which town would it be? My is Swampscott, MA.

 

[Vladyslav]

And with your Alliance Proposal, France could have agreed to this and taken Algiers

France definitely did not need a war against the Ottomans

I agree with @alexmilman that France didn't want war with Turkey so ITTL L16S will decline Austrian proposition.

American revolution

“quarrel between King George and his subjects”

AIUI the main reason of French politics in American question was hate to GB and readiness "kill himself but sh*t near English doors". More rational government would think more about French budget and trade. I can see France as leader of League of Armed Neutrality ITTL

elementary school with a price tag of $100,000,000

One hundred million dollars? Do they want to build it from pure gold? Please, say that you just wrote excess zero

 

[alexmilman]

I agree with @alexmilman that France didn't want war with Turkey so ITTL L16S will decline Austrian proposition.



AIUI the main reason of French politics in American question was hate to GB and readiness "kill himself but sh*t near English doors". More rational government would think more about French budget and trade. I can see France as leader of League of Armed Neutrality ITTL

CII already was a leader but probably there would be place for co-leader. 😂

One hundred million dollars? Do they want to build it from pure gold? Please, say that you just wrote excess zero

I only wish. Insane, isn’t it? It supposed to house 900 kids but the town does not have that many of the elementary school age and is not expected to have in a predictable future. They already built a huge high school (admittedly only for $20M) few years ago and it is half empty even with a part of it being allocated to the “Seniors Center” (with its own salaried staff and, AFAIK, no functionality).

“Pure gold”? Unlike the old school buildings with the thick brick walls this one would be build the modern way: glass, metal and a lot of crap in between. Who would get what under the table is another story.

 

[Vladyslav]

1777 emperor Joseph visited France

I'm stupid because I forget about elephant in the room: Bavarian succession. What would Louis-Stanislas prefer: Austrian Bavaria of Austrian Belgium? And can France get something from this crisis?

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

I'm stupid because I forget about elephant in the room: Bavarian succession. What would Louis-Stanislas prefer: Austrian Bavaria of Austrian Belgium? And can France get something from this crisis?

This is - of course - up in the air, since both have pros and cons.
Pro's is that it gets Austria out of France's hair and that the whole "Belgium" state can be easily brought into the French sphere of influence (which may make Britain panicky, but since nobody on the continent is really speaking to Britain in 1777, I doubt anyone would ask Westminster's thoughts on the matter).

The con's of it is that it costs France an ally in Germany (Bavaria was a good stick to keep the Habsburgs in line with, more useful than say, the Wettins or the Prussians), and that Karl Theodor was pro-Austrian rather than pro-French (which his nephews from the Zweibrucken branch were; the Royal Deux-Ponts had even served in the ARW).

Neither of this is set in stone, but neither is Max III's death. The man died from a smallpox attack IIRC, so he could be somewhere different TTL and not catch it, or still catch it but not die. Depends on a lot of things.

Still, if France is allied with Austria and wants "more", I could see France backing Austria up against Prussia here. Although, IIRC, @marcinL @Jan Olbracht can correct me, there was something about the Austrians and Poniatowski around the same time

 

[Kellan Sullivan]

From the thread about no French Revolution, but possibly applicable here to the War of the Bavarian Succession:

Not being contrarian, but rather posing some alternate POV:

Let's assume Spain and Britain are at war, with France supporting/joining with Spain. None of the three powers in the Bavarian Crisis (Prussia, Austria, Russia) got too aggressive in the affair OTL. Supposing something in the ATL world emboldens one of them and it gets intense? France is going to find a next door war more interesting than a South American one, and does not want to see the balance of power there upset too much. France doesn't really want Austria gaining too much ground, but if Prussia/Russia are beating Austria too badly, France may feel it necessary to step in. Britain has seen that she is alone in the world, and may look to mend fences, so if Prussia/Russia put out a call for help, Britain may reply favorably.
A lot (most) wars have a lot of illogical actions to get them going. This one could be no different.
I have to disagree on automatically assuming France will be smart. They can be, but throughout the 18th century, they've shown they can be really stupid. Spain played the American Revolution smartly. They minimized their actions, maximized their gains. Their glaring huge mistake was putting so much effort into Gibraltar. Easy to say in hindsight, but it really is a big impenetrable rock, and blockading it was an iffy project. Put all that effort into grabbing British holdings and then trade. This would have benefited France, too, who put a whole lot of energy into the war, and got little to show for it. In this alt war, I put my money on France being morons, and find some way of maximizing input while minimizing gain.

That said, I'd guess that IF Britain comes to the aid of Portugal (they probably won't if Spain keeps the affair low key as OTL), France will find a way to avoid getting involved, as they did in the War of Jenkins Ear. Now it will be Spain vs Britain/Portugal, and Spain will be hard pressed to win, unless they ally with the very deadly tropical environment (as happened in WoJE). In most likely outcomes, Spain won't be a pushover, but has a hard path to victory. Likely, it's a muddled victory with Britain on top. Spain finds out, AGAIN, that France is an unreliable ally for Spanish interests, but won't be smart enough to figure out that the Family Compact is mostly for France's benefit, and stick with the alliance. This scenario holds for Nootka, as well. Spain's problem is that it and Britain are big competitors in the Americas, and Britain is much better equipped to power project. Spain and France can equal Britain on paper, but Britain has much better sailors. In the ARW, France was the aggressor in invoking the alliance. In a case where Spain is the one in need of an ally, France will not join merely to back up Spain. They'll need to see a path to making gains.

Okay
This is an interesting premise, doing away with the American War of Independence and hence the French Revolution. I honestly see nothing wrong with that.
With that statement out of the way, I would like to propose a couple (maybe three) ideas for how things might develop between 1770-1815, while even allowing for a certain Corsican adventurer to play some part as well:
1) The Bavarian Succession War is resolved in much the same way as IOTL, though with a little more participation from France. They only acted in a small manner IOTL because they didnt want to lose their status as Guarator of the Holy Roman Empire they held since 1648 and certainly not to Russia. At the same time though, they'd still be divided on how they'd become involved. Bavaria was a French client state which had briefly held the title of Holy Roman Emperor, but France was also now allied to Austria in order to counter the Anglo-Prussian alliance. France could easily persuade their Austrian allies and their Bavarian clients to make adjustments to their territories that could be at least satisfactory to both while negotiating for Austrian Belgium as a means of both threatening Britain and isolating them from Prussia. Obviously because Britain would not want a strong French presence in the Low Countries because of their ability to threaten both themselves and the Dutch, its likely to lead to war. How much the conflict expands would be dependent on the attitudes of the other powers (Austria, Prussia, Spain, Sweden, Russia) so it could either remain localizes to the three combatants or engulf all of Europe. Meanwhile, with Austria likely satisfied with the settlement with Bavaria, they may turn to Poland and with French support attempt to block Prussia and Russia from partitioning any more Polish land. Again, depending on the conflict in the Low Countries already in progress, any conflict that erupts over Poland could simply expand the conflict. Now, Napoleon at this point would be looking for a military commission, so its possible he'd either stay in France and fight as their greatest general (but maybe not Consul/Emperor), or even take a commission with the Ottoman Empire (IOTL he was denied military service with the Turks). Should the two separate conflicts merge, then we could have a conflict on the scale of the OTL Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars.

2)The aforementioned Bavarian Succession War could escalate. With no American War of Independence, France and likely Britain as well could become more involved. It is possible that because Britain would be gaining more strength in terms of her naval power, many of the other European powers may decide to go 'armed neutrality' as opposed to siding against Britain because while they might be jealous of Britain's naval power, they could still fear French military power equally if not more. Whether Britain enters the war or not Spain could join France and Austria to oppose any Prusso-Russian designs on Germany (meaning the HRE) and Poland, in exchange for a slight revision of the Utrecht Treaty which would favor Spain. IF Britain does enter the war, then France and Spain could use it as a chance to recover any colonial territories lost in previous wars, regain Gibraltar, and maybe even cripple the Royal Navy to such a degree it takes them years to return to anything like where they were at the start.

 

[Vladyslav]

This is - of course - up in the air, since both have pros and cons.

I see that liquidation of Austrian Netherlands and French purchases (Hainaut) is the price for French support of Austrian consolidation in South Germany (like OTL 1785 project of exchange, not OTL 1777 scheme with only Lower Bavaria and Further Austria).

The aforementioned Bavarian Succession War could escalate

Nobody want to escalate this war. I see ATL Teschen peace where Prussia take Julich-Berg as compensation for consent with territorial changings

Prussia/Russia

Romance between C2 and F2 was ended. Joseph II was more perspective ally for Russian plans for Turkey

Spain and Britain are at war

It's irrelevant for TTL. Spain didn't want to join into ARW without France.

Britain

At least for 1778 GB is busy in America. Without France in war Carlisle Peace Commission can be more successful but I don't sure for end of this negotiations