What was Napoleon's endgame?

First of all do you think Europe would have been better off if Napoleon had claimed the final victory and subjugated all his opponents. The obvious plus is all of Europe getting the Napoleonic code.

Secondly what would Napoleon do once he'd claimed the final victory? Would he be content to rule as emperor of Europe or would he invade America and or China? Was he simply addicted to war?

Maybe Russia... Huge lands are huge.

Napoleon was a weird mix between a pragmatist (meaning no much pre-determined plan, other than securing his rear bases) and a visionnary (meaning a tendency to do launch himself in huge projects for the kick of it). A final victory implies a finality, and Napoleon's pragmatic visionarism simply didn't have such.
Victory would be when his hegmon on half of Europe and France being surrounded by sattelized entities (a bit like Eastern Europe for USSR), but nothing really determinated.

A Napoleonic victory being really hard to define : would have it happened in 1812, 1813 or 1814? Each one of these is going to be vastly different and leading to different outcomes.

The common trait would have been the establishment of a french hegemony in Western and Central Europe (Including Italy) as much as possible, if not more. It would have been hard to maintain, face to both rival states and empires, and because of the early national era that started the French Revolution. Basically, it means at best regular inner conflicts, and probably more regular wars (the main problem being Britain, clearly outside its reach), Louis XIV-style; and the maintain of a policed state with a strong authoritarian (if more or less populist) control.

A Napoleonic hegemony in these regions could last up to his death, he had the skills for. But giving his deep unability to delegate anything but token power, his death is going to be an important challenge for french maintained power. I could see Italy and Western Germany still being under french spheres, but political infighting is going to be a problem when it'd come with maintaining a french presence.

Prussia may not rise again so easily than IOTL, but German national identity is already appearing. Either Austrian rulers manage to grow a brain and to use it at their benefit, or Germany is going to look at a mess that France would probably have trouble to deal efficiently.

Poland is definitely going to get a good deal. It's not impossible that France would try to play Slavs against Germans on this matter (a bit a reverse of 1848 : Progressive Slavs vs. Conservative Germans)

Basically.
- Revolutionnary legacy definitely rooted up on Western Europe
- Liberalism and nationalities rights may be more easily acknowledged
- Strong authoritatian/populist state replacing authoritarian/elitist states. Meritocratic principles may be a better deal but democratic rights aren't going to boom easily, while maybe less radicalized by an opposition of principle.

Not really better or worse than IOTL, but it may lead to a less chaotic Europe in the XIXth century, at the exception of a probably central German question.

As far as territory goes, I find it hard to imagine the Netherlands, that big chuck of Italy, or Catalonia really remaining in France; perhaps bits and pieces, but really?

Aside from weakening a few states here and there and creating new puppets, ex: carving an allied Poland out of a hostile Russia, I'd say the endgame for Nappy was to establish France as the European Hegemon; but I guess that's just stating the obvious.

LSCatilina really hit the nail on the head to be honest, there's nothing much more I can say about it past his post's contents.

That said, I have to wonder what he'd do about Britain's command of the seas and general leading role outside of Europe; as well Russia's ability to turn elsewhere. I'd imagine from victory onward, there's really nothing much France can do about it, other then deep seating and strengthening its position and allies.

Assuming an ATL where Napoleon avoids an invasion of Russia but rather keeps destroying invading Russian armies? Assuming he avoids invading Spain but rather lets them peacefully turn neutral?

Big assumptions

But if he does this, then Britain has a serious problem of bringing the war to the Continent, beyond sending $$$ to Russia.

Perhaps if Napoleon can cut a deal and make a lasting peace in Western and Central Europe (minus the perpetually hostile UK and Russia), could he lead (as a distraction) a "crusade" to drive the Turks out of the Balkans? Or would that be impossible with the facts on the ground at the time?

Opinions?

idontlikesand said:

First of all do you think Europe would have been better off if Napoleon had claimed the final victory and subjugated all his opponents. The obvious plus is all of Europe getting the Napoleonic code.

Secondly what would Napoleon do once he'd claimed the final victory? Would he be content to rule as emperor of Europe or would he invade America and or China? Was he simply addicted to war?

Click to expand...

Here's a teasing way to answer to your last question : if any country ever was addictif to war in those years, it was the UK, not France. It's the UK that forced war in Europe against Napoleon again and again and again, until the final defeat of one of the 2 main
If the UK had not started war again in 1803, Napoleon would never have gone further on the european continent because he then thought he had secured a wondering position for France on the continent. Napoleon conquered or forced into french domination other parts of Europe only to force Britain to accept peace and to force other european powers not to join again british coalitions.

His strategy, though unable to defeat the UK on seas, could in the medium run have succeeded if he had not made disastrous strategic choices during the russian campaign.

The UK had decided from 1688 on that there should never be any french domination on the continent. It finally won in 1814/1815 what some historians call the second (one could even say third) hundred years war.

Bow, I don't think the european continent would have been bette off.Even if Russia had been defeated and lost what corresponded to greater Poland, Russian was a great power that wanted to push westward.
And in the age of growing nationalisms, the french hegemony would not stand in the long run because much of it depended on the personal energy, gifts and vision of Napoleon.
To maintain french domination in Europe, you need to change french demographics, because french demography was very weak in the 19th century (growing only 33% while german and british population multiplied by 3 and 4 not cou thing the huge british and german immigration).

Of course, there could be no german unification nor italian unification. But Germany, though divided in several independant States, would anyway become a strong economic power. And eastern Europe would still be an area of multiple tensions.

Having secured hegemony over Europe, Napoleon now has the chance to outdo Alexander by conquering India.
Or what about forcing Spain to give up some of its American possessions - how does the US react to a Napoleonic Mexico?

a kind of european union, with France as its main power
he didnt have the kind of meglomaniac vision of Hitler, he just wanted france to be a superpower.

I should thing he would be happy with keeping France very safe. With this I mean he would have to take Spain, Belgium, part of the HRE and maybe Italy. He must keep Britain and Netherlands very happy at not piss them off. If he can do this....

"The one thing you can't do with bayonets is sit on them!"--Napoleon Bonaparte

Aside from the question of whether the British would allow Napoleon to enjoy his conquests in peace, I suppose he'd always be thinking in terms of another battle, another zone where he isn't satisfied with the situation and sends in his armies that can't sit on their weapons but must be used somewhere; he's bound to get in over his head somewhere some time, and then the system of hegemony he's set up would tend to come unglued, with the British (assuming they've gone unconquered or without domestic revolution in his favor) constantly worrying at the weak seams and many of the peoples, or anyway ruling dynasties, he has subjugated jumping at the chance to throw him off, it wouldn't take much to signal his imminent downfall.

He can't disband his armies, nor can they sit in occupation for decades. Well, these declarations might be the thing for an enterprising TL author to contradict; a Napoleonic Europe seems like it might be some fun to me--I definitely think Napoleon was a more admirable figure than Hitler anyway and there was much to be said by a lot of people--the Poles, the Jews, for instance--in favor of the French ideals he spread.

I do think he'd suffer from an inability to know when enough was enough; his enemies would continue to work to overthrow his system and the more he conquered the more weak seams there would be (arguably though he might, if astute enough, recruit more allies as well).

The problem of succession remains; to whom would he trust handing the system over to, and would that favored heir be competent to keep it together?

I don't think he had enough political vision to set up a reasonably foolproof system, unfortunately. He was wiser than a lot of would-be rulers, but not superhuman, and this wasn't his strongest point by any means. Once a big part of his reliable French forces got the stuffing kicked out of them (or more accurately, starved out) in Russia, he was on the ropes. Those men with bayonets were the foundation of his power and he'd lose too many of them somewhere or other, likely even if he had the wisdom to avoid unnecessary adventures and probably even if he did.