Majority/Official Culture : French
Territorial Core: Modern French territory, Tunisian Coast, Alegeria northern coast, East Madgascar Coast, this pink stuff (minus the Pondichery region), West Bengal, Bangladesh, the Indian coastal territories between West Bengal and the other eastern French Indian colonies, those small islands above Madagascar, New South Wales
Territorial Claim: India, North and West Africa, Sardinia, Northern Italy, Canada, Louisiana, The Caribbean, Madagascar, all Benelux territories up to the Rhine, The British Isles (as a friendly non-Jacobin government), the Netherlands (as a client state), Australia
Capital City: Paris
Population: 40,171,000
-30 million (Continental France)
-2.9 million (French North Africa)
-8 million (French India)
Government Type: Bicameral Constitutional Monarchy
Government Ideology/Policies: Militant, Imperialist, Progressive
Government Focus: The government focuses on both expanding France's colonial holding abroad, as well as helping further develop and change the social & political cultures of France, as the divide between the Aristocracy and the Lower Class are still decently prevalent. A gentle balance must be formed in order to keep the delicate Constitutional Order that had been developed in the nation in the aftermath of the Constitutional Revolution.
Head of State: King Louis XVI (Louis Joseph Xavier, Duke of Burgundy)
Head of Government: Prime Minister Antoine Barnave
Government Description: There are three branches, the King's Cabinet (Executive), the Royal Parliament (Bicameral) and the Judiciary. The King's Cabinet, officially, is made up of Royal Ministers appointed by the King to carry out the will of the National Assembly. The Royal Parliament, meanwhile, is a bicameral Legislature partly inspired by both the British Parliamentary and American Legislatures: with an upper chamber (Senate) and a lower chamber (National Assembly). Due to the unique balance between aristocracy and commoners, a compromise was reached whereupon the Senate would be made up of nobles from the aristocracy and the National Assembly would be made up of deputies (representing a certain geographic area and part of the population) elected by the people. The King has a suspensive veto with which he can use to void any legislation passing through Parliament; unless 2/3rds of both the Senate and the National Assembly vote to overturn said veto.
The National Assembly is currently controlled by three factions: the Girondins on the left desiring the abolition of the monarchy in favour of a fully republican system. The Ultra-Royalists (known by other names, including the Phillipians from the first official King of France and the Septemberists based on the September Revolt), who broadly desire a return to the Absolute Monarchy (though some factions vary concerning the retaining of less-radical reformations). And finally, the Burgundian Constitutionalist Party in the middle, which support the Constitutional government under the current regime.
Majority/State Religion: Roman Catholicism
Religious Description: Exactly as stated
Economic Ideologies: Capitalism
Major Production: Wheat, corn, meat, wine, iron and coal
Economic Description: Due to the more liberal based reforms of both the government and economy, a more prevalent and competitive free market has been developed. Furthermore, the government has taken a much more active role concerning funding public projects such as state-funded hospitals and educational centres. The latter, under the watchful eye of Louis-Auguste, has especially seen rapid reform, creating top-quality universities and government-funded schools free for the peasantry to attend.
Development: Industrialising
Development Description: A competitive free market, as well as recent developments abroad, has allowed France to keep up technologically with her neighbours.
Army Description: The Armée Royale in Europe is a professional fighting force composed of approximately 150,000 veteran soldiers. However, due to a modified form of Levée en masse (a doctrine adopted by Louis XVI earlier in his reign who saw it as a, though harsh idea, one with much potential), France can call upon over a million more men at a moments notice to fight in its army. Unlike the previous incarnation of the Royal Army as well as the AR in its early days, which was mostly dominated by members of the aristocracy, through the efforts of reform-minded individuals like Napoleon Bonaparte, the army has become much more meritocratic. One especially notable part of France's Army is its cadre of talented generals and marshalls, many of them handpicked by Grand Marshall Bonaparte himself. Another is the Army's usage of a Staff Corps, something established in the aftermath of the Constitutional Revolution from the insistence of Louis XVI and other like-minded military leaders.
Other parts of the Empire maintain their own local armies which hold not just European soldiers but also a large number of soldiers recruited from the local populace. Most notable of these is the Armée de l'Inde (Army of India) which has a standing force of 80,000 professionally trained Indian soldiers stationed there, the largest of any of the French colonial armies. Due to the rather progressive stance France has on racial equality, it is not uncommon to see locals manage to rise into positions of higher rank within these armed forces.
A rather notable part of the Armée Royale, however, is the "Garde du Roi," an elite fighting force of 10,000 men completely and utterly loyal only to the King. With its own cavalry, light infantry and artillery, the Garde du Roi is a fully self-sufficient and mobile force, filled with veterans. Due to the September Revolt, Louis XVI grew concerned at how much of the aristocratic officer corps had rebelled, siding with the Ultra-Royalists rather than the king himself. Therefore, not only is the Garde du Roi a "private army" that the King can rely on, but because it's filled with veterans soldiers, members of the Garde (in times of emergency) can be used as NCOs and be spread out across the rest of the regular army in case of another mass insurrection by officers occurs.
Army Weakness: The army remains somewhat divided ever since the Royalist Revolt, as despite the far more meritocratic-based reforms set up by Marshall Bonaparte, there are still rather heated tensions between the aristocratic officers and lower class officers within the Army. This may lead to a more disunited spirit, one which may jeopardize military operations in the future, and often what keeps them from going at each other's throats is the charisma of France's higher ranking (and generally more sensible) commanders.
Naval Description: The French Navy is like most other navies of the era, filled with both large 100 gun ships-of-the-line as well as smaller frigates, sloops and brings. The Navy is constantly expanding and is in fact a primary focus by the French government at the moment as it attempts to catch up with its main rival, Jacobin Britain. There are, however, currently two main camps of thought within the French Navy: those who desire a pursuit of a conventional large navy composed of ships-of-the-line that may face other rivals on the open seas in conventional warfare (nicknamed the "Grands Artilleurs"). And those who say that it's impossible to catch up with Britain when it comes to their navy, and so they ought to focus on creating a fleet of small merchant raiders, that'll be used to speedily spread across the globe and raid shipping to starve out their enemies (named "Petits Coureurs").
Naval Weakness: Though relatively large, it is not staffed by a large cadre of experienced naval officers, as France lacks such a maritime tradition and has been disregarding the infrastructure to do so.
Further Military Description:
National Goals : The rebuilding of France's global empire, the spreading of the Constitutional Revolution to other parts of the world
National Issues : The ending of Britain as an economic and military rival, tensions between the aristocracy and the meritocratic lower class officials
National Figures of Interest:
- Napoleon Bonaparte (Grand Marshal of France, Grand Master of Artillery)
- Arthur Wellesley (General of His Majesty's Armed Forces in Exile)
- Louis-Auguste (Brother of Louis XVI, Minister of Public Instruction & Worship)
- Marie Antoinette (Royal Governess of Guelma)
- Joseph Fouché (Minister of Police and Head of the Girondins Party's Radical Sect)
- Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (Minister of Foreign Affairs)
- Jean-de-Dieu Soult (Marshal of France, Head of Burgundian Revolutionary Movement)
- Georges Danton (Head of Girondins Party)
History: Louis, Duke of Burgundy, doesn't die in a freak rough play accident with his friends, which leads to him becoming king instead of Louis "Citizen Capet, cut my head off" Auguste. Him, being a much more kind-hearted soul than his brother (and frankly more sociable and brighter in that regard), takes much more care concerning the debacles facing his kingdom. For one, he decides to restrict military support to the American Revolutionaries, mostly sending only weapons, though compensating by sending a large number of military advisors.
Due to, y'know, walking along the streets of Paris once in a while, his own study of France's economic and developmental situation, and help from a good friend of his in the military Napoleon Bonaparte (who won quite a decent amount of fame for himself with his service in the French intervention in the German Revolutionary Wars), Louis XVI realises that the lower classes of France are, frankly, in a terrible situation.
Louis XVI constantly attempted to bring about major reform, though was constantly blocked in the Estates-General by his fellow aristocrats and the clergy, though earning praise from the Third Estate who saw him as on their side. Rumours began to circulate that Louis XVI was, in fact, being held hostage by members of the aristocracy who hoped to stop widespread reform. Motivated by this, as well as the frankly minimal amount of progress being made, the citizens of France decided to rise up, majorly kickstarted when a mob stormed the Bastille prison.
Rather than attempting to majorly suppress the revolt, Louis XVI instead travelled to Paris himself upon hearing the news, guessing (correctly) that the crowd wasn't actually anti-him. It was then that Louis XVI met with the National Assembly, with who he then began negotiations. It was there in Paris that he realised exactly how much of the general population did, in fact, support him, and simply wanted a betterment of their situation. After many weeks of talk, and the arrival of some American diplomats, Louis XVI and the other leaders of the Paris Revolt were able to reach an agreement and draft a new constitution that transformed the Absolute Monarchy into a Constitutional one, coming to be known as the "Constitutional Revolution."
Yet not all were happy with this arrangement and a broad coalition of anti-Monarchists, led predominantly by one Maximilien Robespierre and his Jacobins, would form a Republican Coalition, desiring a dissolution of the monarchy and the establishment of a full republic. After being constantly blocked in the National Assembly by those that would be called the "Constitutionalists" (people who supported the Constitutional Monarchy), the Republican Coalition would rise up in a general revolt and attempt to seize power. This led to the French Civil War in 1791, where the Constitutionalists would gain the upper hand due to retaining the loyalty of the majority of the armed forces as well as holding multiple talented military leaders, such as Lafayette, Berthier and Bonaparte.
The Jacobins, who mostly dominated the Republican Coalition, would also become more and more radical as the civil war progressed, executing people (both aristocracy and commoners) en masse in what would be called the "Jacobin Terror." This would disgust many more moderate members of the coalition, leading to the moderate Republicans, led by Georges Danton, to offer defection to the Constitutionalists in return for positions in government and more concessions. Louis XVI would agree, and so the moderates would turn on their radical brothers. And so the Civil War would end swiftly in 1796, with Robespierre being executed and the remnants of the Jacobins fleeing, most notably Jacques Roux leading a core of particularly fanatical Jacobins to Britain.
After this, Louis and the National Assembly would work to reform the country, overhauling various institutions of the nation and overall making the nation better for the common man. Yet again, Louis and the NA would face opposition from particularly conservative segments of the aristocracy. This would come to ahead when, in 1801, Louis XVI would fall into a deep depression upon the death of his wife. Conservative elements of the aristocracy would take this opportunity to subvert Louis (as the aristocracy still held a relative stranglehold over power in the nation, since this is in the Constitutional Kingdom's early years and the democratic institutions of the nation haven't quite taken solid hold yet). This would notably include sending (exiling) Louis' longtime ally General Napoleon Bonaparte on an expedition to destroy Barbary Corsairs on the coast of Algeria, an expedition expected to fail as Napoleon was given a substandard force against the still formidably strong remnants of the Islamic Caliphates in the area. Yet nonetheless, Napoleon would overcome the supposed impossible and within two years would conquer much of the North African coast to add to the French Colonial Empire.
By this time Louis XVI would recover from his deep depression and, realising what'd been happening while he'd been in such a state, attempt to crack down on this subversion, working closely with the National Assembly to try and further subvert the powers of the radical aristocracy. Seeing this as a blatant attack and fearing that only more drastic change would come, the radical aristocracy (later named the Ultra-Royalists) would attempt a coup in what would be called the "September Revolt," where elements of the upper-class aristocracy would rise up and attempt to overthrow both Louis XVI and the National Assembly in order to replace it with an absolute monarchy under Louis XVI's brother, Louis-Auguste. While Louis-Auguste claimed to be the leader of the revolt, it was really the behind-the-scene machinations of Marie Antoinette who was behind everything.
Yet the Septemberist Ultra-Royalists would find the plan backfire as they didn't account for a lack of support from the people. When aristocratic officers in the army would call for their regiments to march on Paris, those same regiments would refuse and on occasion even turn on their superiors. When troops that were loyal to the Ultra-Royalists attempted to march, they'd find their paths blocked by mobs of angry civilians. They may have had the resources and the funds, but they lacked the popular support of the people. Louis XVI, knowing his brother and knowing that he couldn't possibly have done all that by his own prerogative, offered him amnesty and much of the aristocracy amnesty. Louis-Auguste eagerly accepted.
After only a month and a few brief skirmishes, the revolt was crushed. Many members of the aristocracy were either executed for treason or heavily taxed. Marie Antoinette herself, being of foreign nobility, was instead simply exiled to a small settlement in the recently conquered territory of Algeria.
And so the Revolt was crushed, and Louis and the NA now continues to reform the country, though now more careful as they must keep the balance between the still sour aristocracy and the increasingly angry lower class.
Other notable differences include French forces, though completely losing out in America (leading to the loss of her the Caribbean and mainland American territories), is able to succeed in India and even manages to take Calcutta from the British. A rebellion from the local Indian Princedoms during the French Civil War leads to the Louis XVI (with little other choice) sending the British Royalist Army-in-exile to help defend French India. The effectiveness of the British Royalist Expedition leads to the French Indian territories not only being saved but also being expanded as they're able to bring several Indian princes to heel and submit to French rule.
RP Sample: I can't believe I have to say this, but I do: I do not in any way support the Nazi ideology nor do I have pro-Nazi sympathies relating to racial beliefs or anything of the short. I was simply RPing the characters I was playing in a way I thought accurate to their personalities reflected in the "The New Order: Last Days Of Europe" HOI IV mod.
#AltDiv (Do not delete this, it is used to keep track of the apps)
