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Pleased to see this AAR returning! 
It is surprising that Carlist Spain has managed to survive for so long as a bastion of reaction in Europe, given the miserable portrait of Spain that you describe. Unfortunate to see Italy now falling to a similar faith with the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini at the helm.
At home, with an unstable political situation and the drastic death of Canrobert, the allied right in the form of the Alliance française and Orleanists could lead France in that authoritarian direction too, if the Republic does not survive. Yet, even if the left is almost wiped out, the growth of the women's suffrage movement could be a way of revitalising it and dynamising the resistance against the surging monarchist block.
It is surprising that Carlist Spain has managed to survive for so long as a bastion of reaction in Europe, given the miserable portrait of Spain that you describe. Unfortunate to see Italy now falling to a similar faith with the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini at the helm.
At home, with an unstable political situation and the drastic death of Canrobert, the allied right in the form of the Alliance française and Orleanists could lead France in that authoritarian direction too, if the Republic does not survive. Yet, even if the left is almost wiped out, the growth of the women's suffrage movement could be a way of revitalising it and dynamising the resistance against the surging monarchist block.
@loup99 Wouldn't granting women's suffrage increase the likelihood of the end of the Republic and the restoration of an authoritarian monarchy? Historically, women's suffrage came to France after the liberation in 1944 because most parties left and right wing opposed women's suffrage for different reasons. The conservatives opposed women's suffrage because conservatives oppose changing tradition. Much of the left opposed women's suffrage because French women were usually much more Catholic, clericalism, conservative, and monarchist than French men. The liberal action of recognizing women's suffrage may actually end the liberal republic in France.
I think the Republic will survive for the moment. The Orleanists want the king back but not at the cost of abandoning democracy and embracing anti-Semitism. However, Action Francaise's desire for just that and the efforts of opposition republican parties will prevent a restoration for now.
Perhaps it is my 21th century liberal American sensibilities, but I do not think a democratic country can be called healthy and stable as long as there is a sizeable and powerful political bloc that refuse to accept the constitutional order and desires the abolishment of democracy and the current constitution. Of course by this argument, France was not a stable democracy until the age of the Fifth French Republic in real life and the Second Republic of this AAR cannot be called healthy because it is never more than a few violently contested elections from collapse. As you all know in the USA, both mainstream parties are loyal to the American constitution and most people take for granted that the American constitutional order will survive the next election. Not so in this France.
You are talking about the notion that women would be more conservative, which had some truth to it in the initial days of the women's suffrage in France. What I'm talking about is that that the women's suffrage movement itself is naturally left-wing, not about the eventual sympathies of the women once they vote. The Senate did reject and block the the suffrage reform multiple times between the two wars in the period of 1918 and 1940, most importantly due to the opposition of the Radical party, which was opposed to it for the reasons you cite (mainly because it was anticlerical and the senators feared women being too easily influenced). Once the reform did come in the context of 1944 without any Senate however, it was from a Communist who made the proposition, even if De Gaulle was the one who ultimately signed it.
On the matter of the United States, I don't want to introduce modern-day politics into this thread, but I do not adhere to the conception of an inviolable constitution being the sole guarantee to a healthy democracy, as a such constitution can also be a hindrance to changing and broadening it.
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Comte Bertrand de Mun.
Part Seventy Seven - Difficult Days
Gabriel Paul Othenin de Cléron, Comte d'Haussonville turned seventy four in September 1917. He spent his birthday speaking until his voice had gone hoarse to a supporters meeting in a town hall in Brittany. The election would be his last hurrah as leader of mainstream royalism before he retired from public life in favour of younger men.
It was easy to consider the Orléanists as failures. In 1917 restoration seemed no closer than it had been two decades before when d'Haussonville had become the party leader in the Chambre. The Duc d'Orléans (King Phillippe VIII) was an aging disappointment, the target of gossip for being separated from his wife and lacking the charm and intellect of his father and grandfather though he had at least established himself as something of an adventurer and athlete. However the difficulties masked the many small victories; under d'Haussonville's stewardship royalism had become firmly established as the mainstream view of the French Right, something by no means certain at the turn of the century. The Moderate Republicans had waned during this period, unhelped by a number of conversions back to the monarchist ranks, most spectacularly Comte Albert de Mun widely considered the voice of much of traditional Catholic France.
Unfortunately, the elder Comte de Mun had died in 1914 but his son Bertrand had succeeded his titles and was now a rising star in French political life. The younger Comte de Mun had been born in 1870 and had become a successful businessman in the champagne business, though his life was briefly diverted by the outbreak of the Mitteleuropan War. After enlisting and serving with the cavalry with some distinction de Mun had sought to return to business but the worsening health of his father and the personal appeal of d'Haussonville intervened. In young Bertrand de Mun d'Haussonville saw a sliver of hope for French constitutional royalism. De Mun was a dashing, charming figure, intelligent and calm and with a head for business most of his fellow royalists lacked, something that made him popular with the liberal republicans - indeed during the hectic negotiations of October 1917 de Mun was effectively the royalist liaison to Raymond Poincaré. To mainstream Orléanists here perhaps was the man to stand against the likes of Charles Maurras.
M. Maurras represented a great difficulty for French royalists of the traditional stripe. He was undeniably intelligent and visionary and he and his disciples had reinvigorated politics in a way no one had since the days of General Boulanger and unlike the late general he was no empty name. Yet his antisemitism and disdain for democracy chilled those Orléanists who longed for a return to the parliamentary monarchy of Ferdinand-Philippe. As one royalist senator noted 'getting into government with M. Maurras is like buying a rabid wolf as a guard dog.' D'Haussonville detested him, but under pressure from the King the elderly comte held his nose and reached an agreement with the Action française. President Millerand, assured that d'Haussonville could command a working majority asked him to form a government on the last day of October. D'Haussonville would take the prime minister's post and Foreign Affairs, de Mun Finance and Maurras, at his own insistence, the Ministry of the Interior. Other important members included the Bonapartist-turned-Royalist Prince Murat at the Ministry for War and the traditional royalist General Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey as Minister for the Colonies.
The new government would spend the next two years focused on repairing the economy. The Comte de Mun's reforms closed dozens of inefficient factories that were costing the state a small fortune [1]. M. Poincaré's approval was enthusiastic and de Mun found himself in the embarrassing position of being a hero to many a liberal republican. Though the de Mun reforms inevitably increased short term unemployment it was an unavoidable step given the parlous state of the economy. The Comte was able to boast that the first green shoots of French industry and finance had appeared in time for the Paris World's Fair of 1918.
Meanwhile the prime minister had brought his decades of experience to bear on the Dutch Crisis. In April 1918 the Netherlands - even worse hit by the global downturn than France - had seen a workers revolution that toppled the government and sent Queen Wilhelmina into exile in Brazil. French interests in the Low Countries where limited but the collapse of a seemingly stable state in peace time was a shock to the conservative government in Paris. Paranoia about subversive elements increased accordingly. Three months after the proclamation of the Dutch worker's republic there was a major communist demonstration in Cologne. The location struck a nerve with the government. Though German nationalism had been tepid in recent years the fear of a red revolt in Rheinland, wrapping itself in the twin banners of patriotism and communism was real. The crackdown organised by Maurras was harsh. So harsh that it provoked a bitter row in the Cabinet between the centrists like de Mun and the furthest extremes of the Right. De Mun and several others stood for social Catholicism and as much as they distrusted the trade unions baton charges at rioters and mass arrests where anathema. Still the Cabinet managed to retain outward unity and d'Haussonville, with delicate negotiations, reestablished relations with the new Dutch regime.
How Le Temps reported the overthrow of Sultan Mehmed VI in May 1920.
The entirety of French foreign policy during the 1917 to 1922 period could be summed up as avoiding being dragged into foreign entanglements. The bloodless annexation of the Kazembe protectorate in southern Africa (February 1919) was the only significant expansion of French power abroad. When the old Ottoman Empire was overthrown by a new republican government in May 1920 there were calls to restore the Sultan, long a friend to France. The government grimly ignored this sentiment and established relations with the Turkish republic. This pragmatism abroad would keep France neutral when war again erupted between the Tripartite Monarchy and Germany in March 1922, a decision that would have far reaching consequences...
It was the domestic front that caused the government the most grief. The spectre of communism has already been alluded to and the fear would be reinforced by the short lived mutinies at Bône and Sarrebruck (Saarbrücken) in June 1919. Two cavalry brigades and a regiment of Algerian tirailleurs (African troops with European officers) had become disaffected and after a rumour that the officers where to be purged of republican inclined officers had taken up arms. The rising was a fiasco; the communist junior officers, spurred on by the example of the Dutch had supposed that the rest of the Army would follow suit. They were disastrously wrong and the mutineers where swiftly and ruthlessly crushed [2].
The 'June Mutinies' where doomed from the start and communism clearly had no real grip on the French Army, but the fact that plotters felt they could have expected any support at all shows how the military had changed under the longer era of republican rule. Though the generals were still mostly monarchist, or at most conservative republicans there was by 1919 a solid phalanx of younger officers who enthusiastically supported the République française. Most where sophisticated middle class urbanites in the mold of the late Marshal Canrobert, liberal in politics and suspicious of their superiors who tended to come from the old rural aristocratic stock. Prince Murat admitted to the rest of the Cabinet in July that: 'the divide in the officer corps is at least as great as it was during the Dreyfus Crisis.'
A tiailleur from a 1914 postcard. The backbone of the French African Empire depended on such native soldiers.
Ethiopia at this period possessed a complicated legal identity. A protectorate rather than an outright colony the state retained a nominal existence. The Emperor and his court still reigned in Addis Ababa. True control of the country resided in the hands of the French Résident supérieur: he was prime minister, comptroller of the country's finances and commander of its armed forces. After Decaux's departure in March 1920 the post had gone to Paul François Barrois, though in the ensuing crisis he would prove greatly dependent on General Thierry Dubois and his subordinate General Armand Davout.
The revolt that erupted in Ethiopia (and to a lesser extent in neighbouring colonies) in May 1920 was not a 'colonial rebellion' in the traditional sense. The rebels were quick to claim themselves French citizens and thus deserving of a proper degree of freedom and justice. Matthieu Petain was a typical example of these self proclaimed 'Jacobin' leaders. A forty year old from Jimma in South Western Ethiopia whose family had converted to Catholicism - though he later joined the anti-clerical and avowedly republican Grand Orient de France - M. Petain had studied in Paris and made his career in the French customs service. It was he who drew up the manifesto of the rebels calling for a restoration of Decaux, an end to the poll tax, the dismissal of Seyoum and the secularization of missionary schools. The rebellion in Africa was started and certainly led by a Francophone and Francophile elite, though admittedly it's popular base stemmed from a wider pool of the discontented landless and poor [3].
The 'Jacobin' Revolt of May 1920. As can been seen the rebels where concentrated largely (though not exclusively) in Ethiopia.
Opposing the rebellion was the Armée d'Ethiopie composed of forty eight thousand men, almost all Africans. This force under Generals Dubois and Davout would later be reinforced by two squadrons of bomber and reconnaissance aeroplanes from the recently formed French air force, the Armée de l'air. The 1920 rebellion would be the first occasion in which French warplanes would play a significant role, though their actual effectiveness was rather exaggerated by a breathless press recounting the daring adventures of the airman. An illustration of Captain Georges Heurteaux, his gunner and his navigator accepting the Order of the Seal of Solomon from the Emperor Seyoum would grace the front page of the highest selling newspaper in France for the entire decade [4].
Everything about the war in French Africa matched the tensions in French political life. The loyalist Armée d'Ethiopie and Petain's 'Jacobins' both marched under the tricolour to the sounds of "La Marseillaise", but the loyalist tirailleurs were also, on a nominal level, representing the Ethiopian state against self-proclaimed French patriots. Some in Metropolitan France, particularly on the furthest left expressed support for Petain and Decaux was feted in several circles as a loyal servant of France, unjustly reprieved of his post for his unbending republicanism (conservatives countered that Decaux was of retirement age and was due to replaced anyway and that calls for his 'reappointment' was a figleaf for colonial malcontents.) General Lyautey, refused to be drawn into the political debate and focused on supplying Dubois and Davout via the port of Djibouti in French Somaliland. The war would continue until the end of the year but despite the numerical superiority of the 'Jacobins' the well trained and equipped tirailleurs proved formidable. By December resistance had collapsed with less bloodshed than might have been expected. M. Barrois was able to resume his duties.
Decaux himself would be put on trial in November 1920 but by that point public interest had moved on. 1921 would see a presidential election and the government grapple with the question of votes for women. The choices made would irreparably split the conservative coalition.
Footnotes:
[1] In game I temporarily abolished industrial subsidies to get rid of my very worst performing factories. This did indeed help stabilise the budget.
[2] Three brigades turned Communist and revolted. The actual proportion of Communists in France is minuscule but they have a history of causing me headaches as long time readers will know. As two of the traitorous brigades where cavalry - cuirassiers to be exact - i replaced them with tank regiments.
[3] Technically speaking I'm taking licence here. The 'Jacobins' rose in France in West Africa to, though in far smaller numbers. Since five-sixths of the rebels where focused in Ethiopia (and very nearby territory) I focused on that.
[4] In 1918 a rush of aeroplane technology happened and I was finally able to start building aeroplanes. I will cover the birth and growth of the Armée de l'air in a dedicated update soon.
I very much liked this little digression on Ethiopia. Sounded very authentic.
And this hint of another war in Germany is intriguing too.
And this hint of another war in Germany is intriguing too.
Bored Student1414: Good points. Honestly the Patton link had not (conciously) struck me before now, but yes it is oddly similar. And I will try and updates the contents before the next update.
Gomine: Heh, yeah good to be back.
Specialist290: Thanks, and yes the misfortune of the Right is that so often seem to come within an ace of an overall majority but fall short. Without those crucial seats in the National Assembly there is only so much they can actually achieve.
AvatarOfKhaine: I admire your loyalty to the cause, even if as you say it is unlikely.
J_Master: True. The problem is that two great issues divide the conservatives from the liberals - monarchy and the church. It's what pushes even a relatively 'conservative' republican like Poincaré away from striking a true alliance. Of course if that PU does happen...
stnylan: Thanks. I think a reaction against a very long period of Left government was inevitable. As you say the pendulum swings.
guillec87: It did but it is still better than it was.
Mat Man: It's not roleplay, I genuinely have been hard pressed financially and there have been several foreign bankruptcies. I agree China likely has something to do with it - the game would probably have been very different had she not Westernised.
Ticket Cookie: Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying this.
loup99: Thank you! Good analysis as always. I do plan on tackling the suffragist issue in the next post.
(By the way though I don't wish to directly intervene I find the debate you and Bored Student1414 to be very thought provoking, and I'd like to thank you both. It's great to see such interesting discoursing raised by - or at least with - this AAR. )
Idhrendur: Thank you, and yes I can understand that. Sadly this is not a peaceful era.
Gomine: Heh, yeah good to be back.
Specialist290: Thanks, and yes the misfortune of the Right is that so often seem to come within an ace of an overall majority but fall short. Without those crucial seats in the National Assembly there is only so much they can actually achieve.
AvatarOfKhaine: I admire your loyalty to the cause, even if as you say it is unlikely.
J_Master: True. The problem is that two great issues divide the conservatives from the liberals - monarchy and the church. It's what pushes even a relatively 'conservative' republican like Poincaré away from striking a true alliance. Of course if that PU does happen...
stnylan: Thanks. I think a reaction against a very long period of Left government was inevitable. As you say the pendulum swings.
guillec87: It did but it is still better than it was.
Mat Man: It's not roleplay, I genuinely have been hard pressed financially and there have been several foreign bankruptcies. I agree China likely has something to do with it - the game would probably have been very different had she not Westernised.
Ticket Cookie: Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying this.
loup99: Thank you! Good analysis as always. I do plan on tackling the suffragist issue in the next post.
(By the way though I don't wish to directly intervene I find the debate you and Bored Student1414 to be very thought provoking, and I'd like to thank you both. It's great to see such interesting discoursing raised by - or at least with - this AAR.
)Idhrendur: Thank you, and yes I can understand that. Sadly this is not a peaceful era.
Well, the Ottomans had to dissolve eventually I suppose. You cannot avoid fate.
"Rebel scum."
"Rebel scum."
France's friends and neighbors keep collapsing to the tides of all sorts of revolution. It is frightening. The old world is dying and can France survive? The government seems to have turned isolationist or isolationist as a major western European power can be to a degree. Or maybe the world has merely isolated France.
Another war in central Europe between the rump Germany and the Austro-Hungarian-Croatian Empire. Far reaching results? The Hapsburg Empire finally collapsing? Greater Germany formed? Danubian Federation? Fascist or Communist takeover? Great War? What happened in the war mentioned last update?
The conservative royalists are about to collapse yet again so soon? I thought they would hold on longer considering their economic successes. The women's suffrage issue sounds like trouble. Passing suffrage would help the conservatives but it is not in their nature to enact radical changes.
Another war in central Europe between the rump Germany and the Austro-Hungarian-Croatian Empire. Far reaching results? The Hapsburg Empire finally collapsing? Greater Germany formed? Danubian Federation? Fascist or Communist takeover? Great War? What happened in the war mentioned last update?
The conservative royalists are about to collapse yet again so soon? I thought they would hold on longer considering their economic successes. The women's suffrage issue sounds like trouble. Passing suffrage would help the conservatives but it is not in their nature to enact radical changes.
The Triple-Monarchy is too stable, and the A-H tag is forbidden from forming Germany itself. Most likely a Danubian Federation, but something else completely seems even more likely
I think A-H can manually choose to go back to Austria though for forming Germany's sake.
The mentioned war could be the alternate WW1 we have been waiting for. For once, France is not involved in at least one pointless bloody war. Far too often in this AAR, young Frenchmen have bled in massive numbers for merely national prestige and standing, or for tiny islands and foolish allies. Not this time. Of course, the outcome could be very bad for a neutral France. Neutrality backlash and all that.
or maybe France becomes a sleeping giant and joins in later and shifts the balance
The Ottomans have been overthrown in favour of a Turkish Republic, and in the Netherlands a Dutch worker's republic has been proclaimed. Traditional Catholic forces and royalists in France are fighting against the tide of the era, increasingly isolating France in inward struggles of a divided government. Allied to Charles Maurras and his Action française, the Orléanists have made counter-revolutionaries enter the government, but the question is if this alliance with the most rabid of nationalists and antisemites won't backfire by alienating the moderate right, who may instead turn towards Poincaré or moderates. D'Haussonville thus secured a victory for his cause with the election, but so far it looks like it will be Pyrrhic.
The devotion of the moderate constitutional Orleanists in trying to resurrect the reign of Ferdinand Philippe is admirable, a little romantic, and pathetic at the same time. From the writing of the AAR, the moderate Orleanists seem to idealize and try to remind people of Ferdinand Philippe''s time on the throne and avoid discussing the reality of the current heir who is tabloid fodder. The Orleanists seem to have forgotten that, while Ferdinand Philippe was very popular, the reign was an unhappy time for France.
Realistically, all the moderate Orleanists can realistically achieve is to drag the house of Orleans through the mud one last time or to destroy French democracy and hand France to the reactionary anti-Semitic "rabid wolf" Charles Maurras. In the former case, the Orleanists somehow get a majority and restore a constitutional monarchy on a small narrow base of support completely against the will of the liberal and socialists. The restoration would go as well as the attempt to install Amadeo I as Savoyard constitutional monarch of Spain and collapse when the pendulum eventually swings for the liberals and socialists. The other case is that Maurras outmaneuvers his moderate allies, installs himself as dictator with a puppet monarch or creates a presidential dictatorship, and purges his former allies. The fate of the Royalisrs in this AAR is to either to continue act like conservative republicans with the restoration always out of reach, destroy the name of Ferdinand Philippe's house by installing tabloid fodder on a unpopular throne, or to hand France to reactionaries who will purge the moderate Royalists as soon as they are no longer needed. Ferdinand Philippe has been dead for over 45 years. Louis Philippe II has been dead for 25 years. The Second Republic has reigned over France longer than the July Monarch did at this point. It is time that the moderate royalists realize that they have lost and the monarchy as they knew it is not coming back but I am sure that they will struggle onto the end of the game in 1936.
Maybe after the big hinted at war, we can get a overall of the world and the great powers again? It has a while since the 1892 overall. The various revolutions and counterrevolutions have made a big mess of the world. Italy has collapsed into a pariah state, the Qing Empire of China is hinted to have been causing worldwide economic waves, Russia had a civil war, and so on, the Triple Monarchy and the rump Germany are fighting, and the UK, Japan and USA have been quiet in the AAR recently.
Realistically, all the moderate Orleanists can realistically achieve is to drag the house of Orleans through the mud one last time or to destroy French democracy and hand France to the reactionary anti-Semitic "rabid wolf" Charles Maurras. In the former case, the Orleanists somehow get a majority and restore a constitutional monarchy on a small narrow base of support completely against the will of the liberal and socialists. The restoration would go as well as the attempt to install Amadeo I as Savoyard constitutional monarch of Spain and collapse when the pendulum eventually swings for the liberals and socialists. The other case is that Maurras outmaneuvers his moderate allies, installs himself as dictator with a puppet monarch or creates a presidential dictatorship, and purges his former allies. The fate of the Royalisrs in this AAR is to either to continue act like conservative republicans with the restoration always out of reach, destroy the name of Ferdinand Philippe's house by installing tabloid fodder on a unpopular throne, or to hand France to reactionaries who will purge the moderate Royalists as soon as they are no longer needed. Ferdinand Philippe has been dead for over 45 years. Louis Philippe II has been dead for 25 years. The Second Republic has reigned over France longer than the July Monarch did at this point. It is time that the moderate royalists realize that they have lost and the monarchy as they knew it is not coming back but I am sure that they will struggle onto the end of the game in 1936.
Maybe after the big hinted at war, we can get a overall of the world and the great powers again? It has a while since the 1892 overall. The various revolutions and counterrevolutions have made a big mess of the world. Italy has collapsed into a pariah state, the Qing Empire of China is hinted to have been causing worldwide economic waves, Russia had a civil war, and so on, the Triple Monarchy and the rump Germany are fighting, and the UK, Japan and USA have been quiet in the AAR recently.
As always, political action begets reaction. The Ethiopian Jacobins in particular intrigue me; reading between the lines, I can see the uprising as perhaps a harbinger of an emerging pan-African movement -- one ironically both inspired by France's own mission civilisatrice and formed in the social vacuum it will have most likely created in the process of trying to break down traditional local identities.
The pretender Philippe d'Orléans ("Philippe VIII") himself historically handed over the political struggle for the monarchy to the anti-semitic Maurras, and given that he was an antidreyfusard with little political understanding, the moderate Orleanists are misguided if they think they can restore a constitutional monarchy when their own "king" doesn't believe in that idea. Even though d'Orléans won't live forever, and his son would historically face the dilemma of the Catholic Pope condemning and interdicting Catholics to support the Action française in 1937, the Orleanism will for as long as the current "duke" lives be indissociable with the reactionary far-right, dooming the moderates to failing with their goal.
I've finally read through this whole aar and I'm really impressed. Great job on creating a believable France and world. I really liked that the updates focussed on small parts such as the navy, great deviation from the norm. Please continue!