Talk:Day of Glory

Justification
--Marcpasquin 23:47, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

1760-1763
The POD is the battle of Québec. In our timeline, Moncalm (the french general) Decided not to wait for the reinforcement he knew was comming before taking the field. There was nothing urgent (they were assieged but not in any present danger) and he was well known as a patient man. This rash decision which cost him the battle was never realy explained by anyone so one could assume that he might simply have got up on the wrong foot that day.

On Alpha, he waited and with de bougainville's cavalry, he manage to repel the british force (although probably with some losses). The rest of the 7 years war goes on more or less the same and during the meeting for the treaty of Paris, both side exchange territories as *here* with the obvious exception that France manage to keep its north-american mainland posessions.

1763-1778
The influence right away is that the king's advisers have a clear example as to why France should spend more resources on protecting its colonies. Some of the suggestions made *here* are actualy implemented: Certain minority groups such as the protestants would be strongly encouraged to resettled (not deportation per say, more like promises of freedom of practices in certain parts). This would not be unsual as the kingdom of france was always based on provincial particularism (different laws and governing system depending on the province).

Of course there would also be other measures: Increased funding for the navy which was in charge of the colonies and harsher measures in some unstable parts: frontier posts and newly aquired territories such as Corsica. This last one is the reason why Napoleon's father never rally to France in 1769.

1778-1789
When the time comes as on our timeline for the british north-american to rebel, France might not be so keen to go up against its ennemies yet. The king might lose New-France in which he has invested so much in the last decade not to mention his antilles plantation. The rebels keep on for a year or so but without money to pay its troops, lack of equipment and a British navy in full force (without the dutch and spanish harassing some of its oversea posessions), the rebelion is a failure. The most probable aftermath of this is something similar to what happen after similar events in the 2 canadas and australia: death for the leaders, exiles for some and amnesty for the rest. After a few years, the british government would have given in to some of the rebels' demands.

1789-1793
Even without the vast spendings of the US revolution, a lot of money would have gone to the colonies which in addition to bad crops (and thus food shortage) coupled with called for more power from the bourgeois would still have lead to the French revolution. One difference though is that the various measures mentioned before would have lead to a stronger support originaly from some minorities toward the republicans. As soon as they would have realised that far from encouraging their emancipation the republicans planed a greater centralisation, some of these (especialy the ethic minorities) would have felt betrayed and then resist even more strongly the new government then they did *here*.

What this mean is that although alpha's national assembly of 1789 was stronger then *here*, The convention of january 1793 would, paradoxialy, have been in a more precarious situation. This is why when the vote came to execute the king (the result *here* were close: 380 for, 310 against) the moderates decided to accept the offer of Spain to spare the king in exchange for recognisance of the the republic, neutrality and help in mediation with other european powers (an identical offer made *here* in december 1792). The vote (which I assumed would have still been close, maybe simply reversing the 2 sides' tally) would have been for a suspended death sentence.

It must be understood that many people, even some of the most harden republicans felt uneasy about regicide. There was still a feeling by some that there was something "special" about monarchs (being kings "by the grace of god") while others were not sure of the legality of the act (the constitution adopted earlier gave him some form of immunity) and finaly the pragmatic feared a backlash from the other european states. So the clemency gave an unspoken sense of relief to the population at large.

1793 - 1797
What happen next in regard to the king is a bit uncertain, sending him in exile would give a symbol for the reactionaries to rally around but keeping him locked up would probably lead to a mob lynching encouraged by the extremists. What is certain is that it gave the republic breathing space for the time being. The jacobins would have probably lost some of their power in favour of the moderate Girondists.

The cirhenane republic was an actual project, but it was decided to simply annex the territory as 4 departments (partly due to the treaty imposed by Bonaparte on Austria which recognised it). The middle class and a majority of the peasants were glad for the abolition of feudal rights but had trouble with the occupation and "contribution" to the war effort. An autonomous republic would have been quite faithfull to France.