Belgian Luwembourg represents less than 10% of the total French-speaking population in Belgium, so it wouldn't alter much the language balance in the country. And the Flemings were and are still the majority.
I am just curious to understand whereupon the analysis that France aboslutely wanted war in 1914 comes from. At that time, though the French still resented bitterly the loss of their Eastern provinces, I was not under the impression that it was in anyway looking for an incident to provoke war...
Also, Belgian defences would have been much better prepared, as it was only around 1911 that the Belgian Government had awoken to the risk of war. It was only in 1913 that general military service had been introduced. You'd see a much enlarged Belgian army, and more solid fortifications in...
It may not have been completely impossible to put out a defense in Provence behind the Rhone and the Alps. That could have been a formidable redoubt. Obviously, this requires sacrificing cities like Lyons and Marseilles. Also, to pull that off, you may want an earlier retreat of the armies...
I like Kabraloth's ideas. However,
I see Belgium has annexed the French department of Nord. This would seem like reward for letting German troops go through unopposed, and would explain a quick defeat of France at the start of the war.
I have more trouble understanding how France gets...
Don't exaggerate the military significance of mutinies in the French army in 1917. They started after Nivelles refused to cancel the obviously failed offensive on the Chemin-des-Dames, throwing tens of thousands to a pointless death. They were limited only to the units being sent to the...
You may be talking about Kurt Waldheim, who had been a commandant in the Wehrmacht during WWII. He was not far-right in terms of his policies, but not-so-nice stuff happened to some minorities in the area he was responsible for during WWII. He had been Secretary-General of the UN before.
You may not need even a coup. Extreme-right has 25% of the votes in Flanders, 33% in the city of Antwerp. Watch out for municipal elections in October!
The "Chasseurs Ardennais" surely did a good job. Unfortunately, they had to retreat very fast to join the bulk of the Belgian army on the Dyle 200km to the Northwest. The Battle of the Lys was also an impressive resistance against forces that were 3 times superior and eventually bought enough...
But Belgium became much more active after it had returned to neutrality end of 1936. As I said, the rearmament program is huge in comparison to what France or the Great Britain is doing at the time. It is not a "passive" neutrality, but very much one that is determined to defend the country...
Probably either of them taken in isolation would have been enough to bring the British on the side of the French in WWI. However, Schlieffen makes it much easier towards public opinion; without it, British involvement would probably have taken more time.
In 1995, everybody understands it's a bad idea to forcibly keep a country united when a majority of one of its regions has democratically expressed its willingness to become independent. US diplomacy would be in a pretty uncomfortable position supporting a violent intervention of Rest-of-Canada...
This is a somewhat odd way of presenting things, and frankly unfair to the Belgians. On March 7 1936, German troops enter the Rhineland, destroying the balance achieved in the Locarno treaty. The Belgians mobilize their army, and ask the French and British what they intend to do; they even...