Forum:World without France

This timeline, tentatively called Capet' sorrow concern itself with the fact that France never unified.

One Possibility for this state of affair is for a more bloody "Fronde" that lead to the disintegration of the kingdom. Another one is that there is no central POD but rather a series of them whereby each time the king of France might have gained territories, it failed. Whatever the POD, I would like it/them to be a few centuries ago to allow for the devolepment of distinct cultures.

Follow a list of possible countries that might exist based on their cultural distinctiveness and/or historical autonomy:

- Normandy - Brittony - Euskadi - Occitany - Burgandy

Not sure yet what to do with the interior, I don't want to end up with a reduced "France in all but name" so I might have to find other ones or simply divide the left over amongst the other countries above.

The new countries' borders would not have to be limited to modern day France OTL nor would all the territories be part of a successor state (Savoy, corsica and avignon could be italian for example). Basicaly, the current outline of France OTL should be hard to place on a map of that world.

In terms of ramifications, if one go with the Fronde option, we probably would have a power vacuum which some of its neighbours might want to take advantage of. The successor states would, in any cases, be only second class countries at best (though this might change in time). They might ally themselves with other countries which could mean conflicts and the eventual annextion of some of them.

If we go with the second option, which I prefer, there would not be any sudden shock and the effects would be spread out more over time. Some might become big players (euskadie, Normandy and Brittony could become naval powers with each their own colonies in North america and elsewhere) While others might marry into other noble families giving rise to different Dynasties (think of the Bourbon *here*).

Any comments or suggestion is more then welcome. --Marcpasquin 16:56, July 11, 2011 (UTC)