What if Napoleon instead of invading Russia,he focuses on the war in Spain?

Marcus Licinius Crassus

I have looked at plausible ways of Napoleon gaining victory in the Peninsular War for a timeline I am brainstorming on . How about this idea? What if Napoleon reaches a deal with Alexander 1 to partition Poland between themselves and this gives Russia an incentive to stay in the Continental System? Also seeing the dire situation in Spain Napoleon decides to go to Spain(again) with
500,000 to end the guerrilla resistance? By sending the half a million strong troops(who were bound for Russia)to Spain would it be enough to crush the Spanish opposition? Or would it just prolong the war but ultimately lead to Napoleon's defeat?
 

Fredrick II Barbarossa

Interesting question... well 500k troops into Spain would let Napoleon achieve victory at a great cost. Most likely Nappy would take Spain and Portugol but end up exausting his resources. Plus most likely with a weakeaned France. Austria and Prussia would most likely betray Nappy. So we get something similiar to what happened otl after Nappy invaded Russia. However this time Russia would not intervene due to it having no incentive. So it would basically be Austria-Prussia-Britain against France. This time Nappy will win like before but at a heavy cost. By 1815 i bet all the major powers wwill be exausted of the war. Meanwhile Tzar Alexander would invade siezing the oppurtunity. After all with an exausted France would give Alexander an oppurtunity to declare war. Remember Russia still holds a grudge due to their defeat during the war of the third coalition. With Europe in chaos Alexander can use the opportunity to be called the savior of Europe and win immense prestige. So expect Russia to backstab Napoleon and invade France. With france exhausted i expect by 1816-1817 for Russian forces to arrive in France. I expect an end to the war by 1817-1819 at the latest. So this POD leads to a Russia wank.

Now the other option is that Nappy succeeds in Spain. With mainland EUrope lost Britain sues for peace and war ends in status quo. So we get a French dominated western europe. This is very interesting because with France dominating Germany, German unification is essentially butterflied away.
What is even more interesting is the Kingdom of Italy. Interested to see how that works out. Eventually however when Nappy dies his empire will crumble but it will leave massive butterflies in europe.

Now i'm not that well versed in the Napoleanic wars but I believe that Russia and France would have gone too war due to Nappies ego. So in order for either of these scenarios to happen get rid of Nappy's huge ego. Otherwise he will invade Russia.
 

Yelnoc

Fredrick II Barbarossa said:
Now i'm not that well versed in the Napoleanic wars but I believe that Russia and France would have gone too war due to Nappies ego. So in order for either of these scenarios to happen get rid of Nappy's huge ego. Otherwise he will invade Russia.
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What butterflies can prevent him from crowning himself emperor? If he sticks with the ten year consulate, his ego will likely stay in check.
 

Fredrick II Barbarossa

Yelnoc said:
What butterflies can prevent him from crowning himself emperor? If he sticks with the ten year consulate, his ego will likely stay in check.
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well maybe if the war of the second coalition ends in a stalemate.... dont know how due to the fact that Austria in this period has the most dumbest, shittiest, weakeast, most inept generals in the world. Heck any european country in this period could beat the crap out of Austria. Some of its generals couldn't differentiate water and land on battle maps. Yeah well if Nappy doesnt crown himself emperor than we could see him a much successful person. What you need is for some way to butterfly away the confederation of the Rhine. If he does suffer a stalemate i expect him to focus on Spain. For Spain in this period was..... in a worse shape than Austria:eek: only difference terrain.....
So yes a cautious napoleon who remains consul could conquer Italy, Spain, and maybe vassalize Austria and Prussia. With a status quo with Britain. AKA all of western Europe aside from Britain. finally the last step to prevent him from becoming emperor is to find some way to keep the directory in power. They must be at least on equal footing to Nappy. Do you have any ideas? Like I posted above that scenario is only possible if the directory wields more power and does not splinter. So what do you think?
 

Marcus Licinius Crassus

What if the directory seeing the horrible condition the nation was in(bankruptcy,series of defeats in the War of the Second Coalition) might give him powers of consul for life and nothing above that in 1799? He would agree with that and be a consul instead. The directory however could get power to check him by dealing with domestic issues at home while he deals with military affairs and international politics.This would be a check on power .Anyway thanks for the response.
 
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Yelnoc

Fredrick II Barbarossa said:
well maybe if the war of the second coalition ends in a stalemate.... dont know how due to the fact that Austria in this period has the most dumbest, shittiest, weakeast, most inept generals in the world. Heck any european country in this period could beat the crap out of Austria. Some of its generals couldn't differentiate water and land on battle maps. Yeah well if Nappy doesnt crown himself emperor than we could see him a much successful person. What you need is for some way to butterfly away the confederation of the Rhine. If he does suffer a stalemate i expect him to focus on Spain. For Spain in this period was..... in a worse shape than Austria:eek: only difference terrain.....
So yes a cautious napoleon who remains consul could conquer Italy, Spain, and maybe vassalize Austria and Prussia. With a status quo with Britain. AKA all of western Europe aside from Britain. finally the last step to prevent him from becoming emperor is to find some way to keep the directory in power. They must be at least on equal footing to Nappy. Do you have any ideas? Like I posted above that scenario is only possible if the directory wields more power and does not splinter. So what do you think?
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How about a more discreet POD, something in his personal life. Like his father becomes an alcoholic, so he's a bit more of a cautious person throughout his life. He would still enroll the academy and be in the right place at the right to become the savior of the Republic with a whiff of grapeshot. So he leads Republican armies to victory and takes a spot on the Directory. On 18 Brumaire, maybe there is no coup with a coup and he ends up as a minor consul. So he defeats Austria easily and by 1802 returns to a France where he is subordinate to Seiyes' government.

Then what? Even Cautious Napoleon is probably too ambitious to play second fiddle for long.
 

Marcus Licinius Crassus

Yelnoc said:
How about a more discreet POD, something in his personal life. Like his father becomes an alcoholic, so he's a bit more of a cautious person throughout his life. He would still enroll the academy and be in the right place at the right to become the savior of the Republic with a whiff of grapeshot. So he leads Republican armies to victory and takes a spot on the Directory. On 18 Brumaire, maybe there is no coup with a coup and he ends up as a minor consul. So he defeats Austria easily and by 1802 returns to a France where he is subordinate to Seiyes' government.

Then what? Even Cautious Napoleon is probably too ambitious to play second fiddle for long.
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Maybe Seiyes dies "unexpectedly" and the directory selects Napoleon as Consul of France because of his many victories.
 

Marcus Licinius Crassus

To check his ego Napoleon would accept as a military consul. He only deals with military and diplomatic affairs. Soon the directory will see Napoleon as a powerful foce will give him consul for life. After the Treaty of Amiens the directory is dissolved and Napoleon become dictator for life. Now back to Spain. I figured that after Arthur Wesley's victory at Salamanca(June 17th 1812) Napoleon decides against war with Russia. He then makes preperations with 500,000 troops to retake Spain. Does anybody have any ideas of how the campaign could go? I mean with 500,000 troops Napoleon has more then enough men to retake Spain and Portugal. Would it be enough to crush the Spanish guerrillas?
 

krull1m

Best case, the Russians agree but then after taking possession of parts of Poland and digging in decide to reopen trade with Britain anyway. They wanted the trade far more than they wanted Poland.

That causes Nap to be a bit of a laughing stock for making such a daft deal, and he now finds that is 500,000 troops are stuck in Spain and cant easily be used against the Russians. Pulling them out will only make him look weak to the world and that would infuriate him, and his ego was a huge problem as it was!

Mean while the British are sailing all around Europe, secretly trading with most of the nations who desperatly needed their goods and who chaffed under the restrictions imposed by France.

At best it would postpone the war for a year or two, but not much more than that.
What it could do however is affect the War of 1812 with the USA. If the British troops have to pull out of Spain and portugal in the face of half a million more french troops, then it could be decided to use some of those over in America for a while.

So rather than the war being pretty much a sideshow for Britain (which it was in OTL) then actually commit significant resources to the fight, wanting to get it sorted and settled before the opportunity to fight back against France comes up again.
 

Marcus Licinius Crassus

krull1m said:
Best case, the Russians agree but then after taking possession of parts of Poland and digging in decide to reopen trade with Britain anyway. They wanted the trade far more than they wanted Poland.

That causes Nap to be a bit of a laughing stock for making such a daft deal, and he now finds that is 500,000 troops are stuck in Spain and cant easily be used against the Russians. Pulling them out will only make him look weak to the world and that would infuriate him, and his ego was a huge problem as it was!

Mean while the British are sailing all around Europe, secretly trading with most of the nations who desperatly needed their goods and who chaffed under the restrictions imposed by France.

At best it would postpone the war for a year or two, but not much more than that.
What it could do however is affect the War of 1812 with the USA. If the British troops have to pull out of Spain and portugal in the face of half a million more french troops, then it could be decided to use some of those over in America for a while.

So rather than the war being pretty much a sideshow for Britain (which it was in OTL) then actually commit significant resources to the fight, wanting to get it sorted and settled before the opportunity to fight back against France comes up again.
Click to expand...

I like this idea. However in this timeline I am working on I have a US annexing Canada with good leadership and a much stronger military and navy thanks to back to back Federalist presidencies. So if Napoleon sends half a million men to Spain Britain will just give up and focus on the war of 1812? Damn that puts an infraction on my timeline. What about this. Napoleon recognize the sovereignty of the Haitian people. He puts the island as a dominion(similar to OTL Canada). In 1801 he sends Lelcerc with 45,000 French troops to train Toussaint's army for preparations of an invasion of Jamaica. Around this time Napoleon sells the Louisiana territory to fund his wars and to rebuild his navy after Trafalgar in 1805. So what if in 1812 Napoleon orders the invasion of Jamaica with the combines French/Haitian forces at the same time the US invades Canada and Napoleon sends 500,000 troops to Spain? While this happens Napoleon is building his navy and puts more funds into the Naval Academy? Would that overwhlem the British Empire and put them in crisis? Would any of these ideas work? Thanks for the response.
 
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