what if Napoleons 1812 russian campain suceeded

[pietjan]

would there be a time of peace? how would austria, prussia (allies of Napoleon) and UK (enemy) react, would Napoleon take changes in the east? in a millitary/economical way? etc? what would have happened?

[Blatta Optima Maxima]

Murica would save the day, as always.

[pietjan]

america was sympathising with napoleon, and they sometimes even allied

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

If his campaign succeeded then the Russians would make peace with Napoleon and became his ally once again. If Austria proves their loyalty to Napoleon then he would probably reimburse them probably by giving them Illyria back or by allowing them to Invade the Ottoman Empire.
Let us start from the beginning: Napoleon wanted Russia to be friendly to the Ottomans at first, but when Selim III was killed by Mustafa he tried to incite Russia to partition the Ottoman Empire in a bid to punish Mustafa and his patrons. Although Mustafa practically licked Napoleon's boots when he heard this, no amount of apology could change Napoleon's mind. It was not until Mahmud II overthrew Mustafa and Russia broke off relations with France that Napoleon decided to enter into another agreement with the Ottomans and asked them to take part in his Russian Campaign. What I am getting from this is that Napoleon was seeking a strong ally; be it Russia or the Ottomans. Under a previous offer Napoleon was willing to cede Moldovia and Wallachia to the Russians and Napoleon would annex Greece and Bosnia with the Ottomans keeping Istanbul and the Middle East, but at the same time Napoleon was drawing up plans to invade Algiers.

So my scenario assumes that Napoleon invades Russia and that the Tsar makes peace with Napoleon (maybe Alexander gives in or his brother Constantine becomes Tsar or whatever). But maybe Russia decides to pressure Napoleon about the whole Ottoman thing and Napoleon finally agrees to invade the Ottoman Empire. Russia gets control of Moldavia and Wallachia, Napoleon gives back Illyria to Austria for being a faithful ally and allows them to annex Bosnia and Serbia, Napoleon annexes Algiers and a joint Austrian and French force garrison Greece and Muhammad Ali decides to secede from the Ottoman Empire with the help of France (or gets more power within the Ottoman power structure or whatever). After this I could see a joint Russian-French-Persian army marching into India and allying with the Sikhs and Marathas to push out the British. With America declaring war on Britain and Britain losing their Indian colonies then Britain has no choice but to make peace (or go bankrupt).

[Slydessertfox]

The only chance Napoleon had of winning that invasion was sticking to his plan of a limited invasion, and not the full-scale, march on Moscow invasion that he ended up doing. If he does that, some treaty ceding some territory to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and probably making a full Polish state would be agreed upon. Then he has to deal with Spain...

I'm not sure how much longer Britain could last under the continental system. It was effective in hurting the British economy.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

In real life though I think Napoleon was actually looking for an ally, that is why he didn't allow the Polish to to take territory or to invade the Ukraine and why he didn't start going around kicking Russian lords and letting Russian peasants run around freely (well that and cause the Russian peasants hated him). Which is why he offered the Ottomans the Crimea, they refused and so he decided that the Ottomans were not the right strong ally and settled for Russia as his strong ally. Napoleon didn't want to cripple Russia and instead settled for intimidation because a weak Russia is a useless Russia. Just like a weak Ottoman Empire is a useless Ottoman Empire and so he might rather take them out to give territories to his faithful allies and appease them.

[pietjan]

just like he did with Austria and Prussia you mean?

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Well in the case of Prussia he wanted them gone, he would have dismantled them had Russia and Austria not objected. For instance Napoleon took Poland and Danzig from them as well as most of their German territory and wanted to give Silesia to Austria. So Prussia was basically a state comprising only of East Prussia, Brandenburg and some of Silesia and relied solely on their Landwehr for most of the time after 1807.

Austria on the other hand Napoleon had no plan to get rid of them. Napoleon actually planned to give back Illyria to them at some point, where as Napoleon wanted Russia to be a strong ally so that they could threaten Britain. Napoleon was also counting on the Ottomans being a third force in his own Napoleonic alliance so that they could help him even out Russia but after Selim III died the Ottoman weakness became more of a hindrance than a useful ally. What with the Ottomans being so weak they would have been easy pickings for the likes of Russia and Britain. Napoleon seemed unnaturally bent punishing Sultan Mustafa, where one of Napoleon's ministers commented that Napoleon was incredibly upset when he heard the news that Selim III had died so much so that they even drew up plans to take the Balkans and Algeria away from the Ottomans and to cede Moldavia and Wallachia to Russia as well as to limit the Ottomans to Constantinople and the Middle East all while giving them a regime change and getting rid of Sultan Mustafa.

Naturally though many Pashas were very independent minded and the Pashas of Albania, Serbia and Algiers were giving Napoleon a hard time even while he was allied to the Sultan. So much so that Napoleon had to request that the Sultan take care of them and yet the Sultan did not have the power to do so; the situation got so bad that there were actually French troops landing in Albania and fighting small wars with the Pasha of Albania. The main reasons that Napoleon did not go through with this are because he did not want to dwindle his military strength in garrisons in Algiers and the Balkans and he didn't want to isolate a large force in the Balkans in what could become potentially hostile territory (like in Egypt) nor did the French wish to see what they perceived to be a two faced Russia so close to them and without an Ottoman Empire to take the pressure off of France.

[Slydessertfox]

Napoleon abandoned the ottomans for Persia with specific aims at Russia. He wanted an alliance with both but was forced to choose when they wen to war. By choosing Persia he really alarmed the Russians.


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[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

When the Ottomans and Persians went to war? Cause that didn't happen if that is what you are saying, the Ottomans and Persians tried to coordinate their war effort against Russia. So really I can't say that Napoleon abandoned the Ottomans for Persia. Although he did abandon the Ottomans in favour of Russia in 1808, albeit only until about 1811 when he saw that Mahmud II was a tad bit competent and requested that he bring a full army into Russia in exchange for Crimea.

[Cyclops]

I think short term Napoleon wanted Russia back in the continental system. Say he captured Alexander and his staff or bagged the Russian army at Vilnius, and foirced a November surrender.

This puts the UK ina ind: The continet is reverse blockading them, and the Grand Armee returns to Spain where Wellington gets squeezed out of portugal and back home. However Iberia remains a messy ulcer, sullen at best and often rising in bloody revolt.

Ultimately Napoleon has to keep cooking up wars to keep the home front frpom assasinating him, so I guess he picks a fight with Turkey next. He gets back top Egypt by land this time, faces massive insurgency throughout the Ottoman pssesions (they appreciate him as much as the Spanish did). Once he grinds his army to pulp in endless Alexander-like horizon hunting the Austrians and Russians flip and stab him in the back.

The UK may hang on, a bit hungry and unkempt, to join in the last battle as Napoleon is cornered in the Balkans. If Nappy had the sense to build a navy he might even invade England, but thats asking too much.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Maybe instead of the Middle East try Balkans, where I suppose the Balkans would do what it does best. Although if Napoleon did invade the Balkans then we can bet that every Slovene, Croat and Greek would try and join the Grand Armee. Most of the Greeks in the Russian army actually began riots and started deserting when they heard that they were being taken to fight the French, because for the Greeks the deal was that they would get to fight some Turks. One example is Theodoros Kolokotronis who actually wanted Napoleon to bring his army into Greece and actually left the Russian army before 1812. Of course there were other Greeks that would do whatever the sacred and holy Orthodox Russia told them, but it seems that those actually fighting for Hellenic gains were pro-Napoleon.

But really that's why Napoleon didn't invade the Balkans, who wants 2 Iberian Wars going on at the same time with all sorts of crazy Muslims, Orthodox and Catholic Balkanics running around. Plus the direct way into the Balkans was through Illyria which the Austrian's could decide to block off if they felt like back stabbing and what we would have is French army isolated in the Balkans surrounded by insane natives and power hungry Russians and Austrians, it would be like Black Hawk Down in that !

[pietjan]

amen

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I would so want to see Napoleon running around Bucharest or Sofia with an M16 and trying to escape from the Soviet... I mean Tsarist Russians that are around him on every side.

[Dromikaites]

It is quite likely Napoleon wanted indeed to ally with Russia after a successful 1812 campaign. Otherwise he would have allowed the Poles to regain their pre-partition Russian-occupied territories and he would have ruined the Russian noblemen by freeing the serfs (that would have probably changed the peasants' attitude towards him overnight).

Strategically he needed a strong ally behind Austria, just in case the Austrians try something funny but:

1) The Ottomans could not play that role since they were barely keeping their empire in one piece and were badly needing the military and administrative reforms which would happen there roughly after another decade from 1812;

2) A Russia with free serfs would have meant a poor and chaotic Russia, since the Russian empire of that time lacked the administrative structures needed to ensure taxes would be collected and soldiers would be conscripted once the noblemen can't fill that role anymore. It took Russia another 50 years to build the administrative structures which enabled tsar Alexander II to abolish serfdom and still make possible for Russia to function as a Great Power.

With the benefit of hindsight, we know now that the Ottomans took less time to sort their things out than the Russians, so the Ottomans would have been a better bet.

Here some clarifications are in order: by "sorting their things out" I mean the Ottomans managed to enact quicker the reforms which allowed them to keep hanging on to the Great Power status for another 100 years in spite of being inferior to Russia or Austria.

We also know that the Ottoman empire, in spite of those reforms, never regained its 16th century prominence. But that happened in the context of a strong Russia, which had been able to trash the Ottomans in spite of still relying on serfdom.

A weak Russia, having lost its Baltic ports to Sweden (run by Bernadotte and still friendly to Napoleon in 1812) and to Poland, with Ukraine partitioned among Poland and the Ottoman Empire, with the Ottomans re-annexing the Caucasus and expanding into the Turkish-speaking Central Asia would have offered a radically different strategic context.

A clever French-sponsored diplomatic maneuvering in the Balkans would have brought the Austrians south of the Otranto straits and into the Mediterranean in exchange for a "permanent" peace agreement with the Ottomans. That would have brought the Austrians into the naval game, thus guaranteeing a collision course with the British and further reducing the risk Austria would defect. Depending on how Napoleon would have liked to play it, giving Austria access to the Baltic or allowing her to regain access to the North Sea would have further accelerated an Austrian-British naval competition, similar to the German-British one before WW1.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Had Selim III not died then I seriously doubt that Napoleon would have abandoned the Ottomans. He even tried to get the Ottomans to co-operate in a dismantling of Russia in 1811 (under Mahmud II) but due to the independent minded pashas in the Balkans the Ottomans could not do this (many of the Greek nobility protested and threatened a massive Janissary revolt, like the one that was currently happening in Serbia and then by extension an all out nationalist revolt in response to the rogue Janissaries). Because of these events Napoleon had to choose Russia and so the Russian campaign degenerated into a massive war of intimidation, Napoleon's only demands towards Russia was a return to the Russian-French alliance.

I think that the death of Selim III really shook Napoleon up, according to our sources Napoleon even started crying. This is actually pretty rare for Napoleon if our sources are to be believed. Can't imagine why he was so sad about it though, I mean it's not like both of them ever met in person.

[Joseph Simonyi de Vitézvár]

He would have tried to go into Asia and take on India due to the British and maybe even China for his own glory.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

@ Cyclops, actually Napoleon did build a fleet. Trafalgar only really destroyed the Spanish fleet and French fleet was mostly still intact. Because of the French fleet building program the French fleet had reached a size of about 140 ships of the line and counting by by about 1813 or so. Napoleon wanted to capture what remained of the Spanish fleet and the entire Portuguese fleet in 1808 (of course he failed though), could you imagine if Napoleon captured all of those fleets though? His fleet would number over 200 ships of the line? Now compare that to the about 100 ships of the line that Britain had and the 50 or so of the Russian fleet. As can be seen the British blockade wasn't having its planned effect on France and if Russia joined the continental system and with the war of 1812 then Britain was plenty screwed, add a Russo-French invasion of India and Britain has no hope left. Napoleon had begun talks with the Sikhs by 1810 and ever since 1800 the French were allied to the Marathas. As we know Napoleon was pretty tight with the Ottomans and the Persians and Oman was the newest member of his coalition while the British on the other hand were making defense plans with Afghanistan on their side. The British also tried to seize Macao in 1810 but Qing China threatened them and dissuaded the British from even attempting it. Qing China for one was seemingly more on France's side than Britain (if we can even say that China was on a side), although France had better trade rights than Britain ever since the 1750s. The more we look at the Napoleonic Wars in a world context the more we see that while Britain was making a European Continental Blockade, Napoleon was making a world blockade. Napoleon's planned invasion of India consisted of the Ottomans, Persians and Russians. Together the 4 powers would provide contingents and march through the Ottoman lands and the Persian lands and invade Afghanistan (which was on Britain's side) and then Napoleon would make an alliance with the Sikhs and Marathas (and presumably the sons of Tipu Sultan) and overrun the British positions in India. I would suspect that while this force is marching across the middle east and into Afghanistan the British would try to overrun the Marathas or they would somehow try to set up a proper defense (not sure how, seems like fighting would be futile at that point).

[Cyclops]

@ Cyclops, actually Napoleon did build a fleet. Trafalgar only really destroyed the Spanish fleet and French fleet was mostly still intact. Because of the French fleet building program the French fleet had reached a size of about 140 ships of the line and counting by by about 1813 or so...

Quite right, I should've said "a real fleet". Napoleon never really focussed on his naval options, aside from 1805 when he massed at Boulonge. His fleet did not see the open ocean from 1806 onwards: on paper it may have reached interesting numbers but in practise it was moribund embarrassement.

Had he brought Russia to heel he may have been able to threaten the UK's Baltic naval supplies but they had developed new sources in the Americas and elsewhere. The War of 1812 was a double threat of course but not one the USA could ever hope to win.


If a decent admiral had emerged (a later-day Suffren) and wormed his way into Napoleon's favour and extracted the resources to actually utilise the French and allied navies and not been destroyed piecemeal as they emerged through the blockade and not been brought to battle by some genius like Collingwood and shattered and had time to actully learn some seamanship and rformed their inneffective naval gunnery then yes, perhaps the French could've challenbged the UK at sea.

On a side note, Napoleon was originally earmarked for the naval service by the Royal military educators. It'd make the revolutionary wars a bit more interesting, as they had some decent generals before Napoleon but nothing in the water worth a damn. Admiral Bonaparte might've changed history at Trafalgar...

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Napoleon was adopting a war of attrition, due to his defeat (or rather France's defeat) at Trafalgar he decided not to risk naval engagements. Instead he opted to use a bunch of sloops to raid British shipping around the globe and to keep the Brits busy while he amassed his fleet, those officers that commanded the sloops were the more useful and effective and yet at most ranked captain. Essentially this strategy became Nazi Germany's U-boat war some 140 years later. I know of a Latouche Treville which served as a fellow admiral with Suffren and he even beat Nelson once... then the old man died. The problem with the Napoleonic fleet was that due to the chaos of the Revolution and the French Republic discarding most of their fleet, Napoleon inherited an ineffective force and totally lacked officers and personnel, he was working on that though. The main problem I would say was the lack of a truly capable admiral. The French had Rosily and Villeneuve and yet both amounted to nothing. The amount of competition between the admirals was immense as not many wanted to join the navy and hence there was not many people to pick for the job and so the admirals that Napoleon did have were constantly vying for Napoleon's favour. Consider how Villeneuve probably left Cadiz just because Rosily was coming to replace him and so was caught by the British at Trafalgar. We cannot really know the skill of other French Admirals (or Captains in many cases) due to the fact that not many ever had a chance to fight or those that did were mostly doing out in the Indian Ocean where there were no massive naval battles and where victories out there had little consequence to the result of the naval war in Europe or even the naval war as a whole. It would be pretty interesting to see Napoleon in a naval role; he understood cannons and was famous, even at sea, for his ability to maneuver and for his speed. Although Admiral Bonaparte would probably have to fix his sea sickness. Nelson fixed it so it might not be a problem at all. I also remember reading somewhere that Napoleon could have joined the British navy, if he did I could easily see him at constant odds with Nelson and I seriously doubt that the two in such close proximity would ever get along. Another interesting possibility of his youth was that he was planning to join the Ottoman military the week after the 13 Vendemaire revolt in Paris occured in 1795 which he put down and made him famous.