I converted WhatIfAltHist’s video to a blog post. I did none of the research, but I appreciate his videos.
Footnotes with format “(map 0:00)” point to the timestamp in the video with a supplemental map.
The mark (??) means I couldn’t hear exactly what WhatIfAltHist was saying.
Credit to WhatIfAltHist. Here’s the original video.
Today, English is the dominant lingua franca (map 0:00) and the most powerful nation on earth has been English-speaking for almost 300 years. At the same time, a united Germany is the most powerful nation in Europe and almost became the most powerful nation on earth twice in the past hundred years. This didn’t have to happen. If the Seven Years War had gone differently, none of this would have come to be.
The Seven Years War goes by many names. For the Canadians and Americans, you probably know it as the French and Indian Wars; for the Europeans as the Seven Years War; and for the Indians as the Carnatic Wars. As you’ve probably already guessed, the war was fought all over the world: in Europe, the Caribbean, India, and North America, and even some far-off locales like the Philippines, the coast of Africa, and South America. This was so true that Churchill actually called it the first world war in his A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. The war was fought with Britain and Prussia on one side and France, Russia, Austria, and Spain on the other (map 0:49). Seems fairly unbalanced right? The British and Prussians actually won in every theater, thus leading to Britain and Germany becoming world powers. So what if the French and their allies had won the Seven Years War? What would borders be like? What would culture be like? That is the question of this alternate history.
To fully simulate what a French victory would look like, I’m going to have three points of departure for each theater. The truth is that have a complete French victory like what the British had in our timeline, we would need to have even more points of departure, and I don’t want to make the scenario ridiculous, so I’m just going to keep it down to one per theater. In this timeline in America, the British lose the Battle of Quebec – thus letting the French keep their colonies in North America. In Europe, the miracle of the House of Brandenburg – when the Russians and Austrians didn’t march on Berlin when they could have – never happens and the Allies crush Prussia. Meanwhile in India, the French win the Carnatic Wars by having the British lose the Battle of Wandiwash, thus giving them Britain’s possessions in southern India. Let’s look at what would happen theater by theater, starting with North America.
In our timeline, the British conquered the French capital at Quebec – thus conquering all of French North America east of the Mississippi while the Spanish gained everything west of it (map 2:04). The British defeat at Quebec would still mean that the war would actually not be a complete defeat in that theater for the British. The French and Indian War had roughly three theaters of combat (map 2:08). In Quebec and the Maritimes (??) which culminated in our timeline by the British defeat of the French forces in Quebec and conquering the continent. There was the upstate New York theater which was a draw and then there was the fighting in western Pennsylvania that was a British victory. The French Fort Duquesne (map 2:23 pic 2:27), or modern-day Pittsburgh, was actually the start of the war because it controlled the Ohio River Valley. The valley was the flashpoint between the British who were expanding from the east coast and the French were coming down from Canada (map 2:34). So the British would still have taken the Ohio River Valley while the French would have kept New France (the Great Lakes) and Louisiana (the land west of the Mississippi).
In our timeline, the British created a piece of legislation after the seven years war called the proclamation of 1763 which prevented the British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains (map 2:45). This was mainly because of Pontiac’s Revolt. Pontiac was a native chieftain who – after the French were driven from the continent – realized that natives could no longer play the European powers against each other and that nothing would stop the British from wiping out the natives, unless the natives united against them. The British could only barely put down this revolt in our timeline and didn’t want to trigger another one by upsetting the natives (map 3:07). In this timeline – with the French still being a continental force – Pontiac would not have created a revolt. In our timeline after the Seven Years War, the British only had to balance between the natives and the colonists (map 3:16). In this timeline, the French would be thrown into the equation. In this timeline the British – wanting to keep their gains and punish the French-allied tribes in the region – would try to encourage white settlement in the Ohio River Valley instead of denying it. This would inevitably trigger a native revolt but such a revolt would be seen as part of the general strategy against defeating France, so the British would tolerate the expense. The British would support their allied tribes against the French and would gives these tribes immunity from white settlement (map 3:44), so tribes like the Cherokee and Iroquois would survive in this timeline.
The British would rightfully feel like the French are taking over the world and so would lordishly keep hold of what they had. They would be more worried at triggering a revolt in America – one of their last two major colonies – and thus losing their empire. The British would be more clement of American demands and likely end up giving the Americans their own parliaments, like Ireland had in that time period. The British would create an independent American army that could fight against the French in North America with as little intervention from Britain itself, so Britain could use its energies against France in Europe. The Appalachian Mountains blocked trade from the agriculturally-rich interior US from reaching the east coast (map 4:26), with the only outlets being the Great Lakes which empties into the St. Lawrence River and the Mississippi which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Both of the outputs of these rivers were controlled by the French, so the American farmers could grow enormous amounts of food and cash crops, but would be dirt poor because they couldn’t trade it with anyone 1. This would create enormous pressures in the American Parliament to conquer Quebec or Louisiana or preferably both (map 4:59). This, combined with Britain still being pissed off from losing the war, would mean that you should expect plenty of wars against France in the future.
In our timeline, the Achilles heel of New France is its lack of population – especially females (map 5:13). The British colonies had a population of 1.5 million while the Quebecois number at 70,000. Most of the population were missionaries, ex-soldiers, and fur trappers, while the British colonies were mainly families settling to farm. However, at the amount of immigrants coming to New France from France – especially females – was skyrocketing before the British conquered the region, so we should expect the population to grow. The Quebequois, with their expanding populations, would likely expand into Ontario and across northern Great Lakes (map 5:42). This would create tensions in Michigan as they would come into contact the Americans in Ohio and Indiana, expanding north into land that wasn’t technically theirs. But screw it! since when did early Americans respect the land rights of other nations?
Meanwhile, the French colony of Louisiana would have a climate unhealthy for Europeans and so wouldn’t attract that many white settlers like New France. Instead, it would become a majority-black slave economy, growing the wealthy crop of sugar. However, this doesn’t mean that Louisiana wouldn’t extend that far beyond our timeline’s state of Louisiana (??). Because sugar can only really be grown in Florida, Louisiana, and Texas (map 6:09), it wouldn’t be able to extend north. Instead, the areas around Louisiana would be settled by the Anglo-Saxons who would grow crops like cotton that could grow further north.
Let’s jump over to Europe. The Austrians and Russians march on Berlin, destroying the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia would be divided (map 6:26) with East Prussia going to Russia, Silesia going to Austria, and the Swedes getting a token part for their token involvement in the war. The rest would be split within the duchies of Brandenburg and East Pomerania, given sufficiently unthreatening dukes. To the untrained eye this may not seem important, but keep in mind Prussia is the nation that united Germany, making it a united country instead of hundreds of little duchies and counties. Getting rid of Prussia would indeed change the history of Europe and the world (??).
The first obvious change in Europe would be no French Revolution. The French Revolution was caused by debts that were caused by the Seven Years War in the American Revolution, both of which would either be French victories or would never have happened. Also, nations who have colonies tend to have fewer revolutions because the angriest people who would rebel just tend to emigrate to the colonies and recreate society in their image there. Also, with the maintenance of the colonies – especially India – the French economy would be far stronger and the French government wouldn’t be bankrupt. The issues France had before the Revolution were issues the rest of Europe also had, but France had them worse and France was the first pressure cooker to explode. In this timeline, the rebellions of 1848 happen earlier (map 7:38) in the German and Italian states and in the Austrian Empire, but would be crushed by the French army. This would force some sort of reform that would allay the rebels for a couple generations until the world wars throw everything to hell again. Also, without the French Revolution there’d be no Napoleonic Wars. I just described this in my What if the American Revolution Never Happened? video and, if you’re a regular on the show, you’re probably just tired of hearing it as I am of saying it. I’m just going to try to power through it. The Spanish Empire survived way past when it should (map 8:03) – a nation with a basically medieval economy – because it was propped up by its ally France. Without the French occupying the Netherlands and the British afterwards taking the best parts of the Dutch Empire, the Dutch Empire survives – keeping the good colonies like Sri Lanka, South Africa, into Malacca, or Singapore. On the other hand France – being the dominant continental power – still might occupy the Netherlands and the same thing might just happen. Also, Venice would survive longer and Belgium would remain an Austrian possession longer.
Without the Prussians and Bismarck et al., Germany is never fully United in the way we would understand it in our timeline. Industrialization and improved connections would mean that some sort of unification would’ve had to have happened at some point. Instead of the tight Germany of our timeline, Germany is a loose confederation of states (map 8:44) under Austrian leadership who would cooperate together but not as a single country – kind of like the European Union of our timeline. Germany industrialized with all the money it took from France in the Franco-Prussian war – a war that never would’ve happened in this timeline. Also, Germany industrialized partially because of the unification, it meant there was a single large market that could be sold to with the goods made from industrialization. In this timeline, Germany still industrializes – as every Protestant state in Europe did – but to a far lesser extent and never becomes the dominant European power. Italy gained independence and united in the same war as Germany did and the reason the Italians gained independence was of the Germans had won the war. In this timeline without Prussia, Italy becomes a patchwork confederation of small states and a buffer between Austria and France. With Germany out of the picture (map 9:40), Britain (an island nation that barely had an army) and Austria (a badly run polyglot empire), France would become the dominant power and most of Europe was its enormous army population and well… (??)
Meanwhile in India, the French victory at Wandiwash would give them control of Britain’s possessions in southern India like Madras. However, the British would still control Bengal and northern India, which they seized at the Battle of Plassey. In this timeline, the British and French would compete for control of India (map 10:04) as they would expand their coastal bases into the interior India. In general, the British would move up the Ganges River and seize northern India from their base at the mouth of the Ganges River and the French would seize India south of the Deccan. The control of the Suez Canal (map 10:14) would be very important – as both nations would need it to hold on to their possessions in India. Expect a war between the two nations for a control of Egypt in this timeline, probably part of a global war that would also include fighting in the Great Lakes in Louisiana.
Without Germany being a big, efficient, and industrial nation the Russian Menace would never have gone away (map 10:30) and Russia would still be seen as the great danger to the european order rather than Germany (map 10:37). Britain, being discontented with the continental order in which France was dominant, would ally with the Russians against the Austrians, French, and Spanish who’d be content with the continental order. The Ottoman Empire (map 10:49) would quickly become a bidding game with switching(??) loyalties between the British and French – depending on whether it was more worried at the Russians of the Austrians at that time.
In North America the Anglo-Americans – simply being so much more numerous than the Franco-Americans – would actually expand across much of the continent much as they did in our timeline. They’d likely settle the southern and central plains while the French would settle the northern plains. The Great Lakes would be a powder keg between the two as would Louisiana (map 11:17). Even if the Americans didn’t seize Louisiana or Quebec, they would still have the Erie Canal and the railroads in the nineteenth century, which would connect the east coast with the Interior.
It’s really hard for me to predict the Scramble for Africa (and colonization in general) since in our timeline, the pattern was: the British took the good colonies, the French the okay ones, the Germans whatever was left, and everyone else the bread crumbs of what the Germans took. In this timeline, the British and French would constantly fight over the colonies in wars, so it’s hard to pick which colonies would be taken by which nations.
In general, with France being most powerful nation on earth, the French models of governance and economics would become the most dominant. In our timeline, the Anglo-Saxons have been those powerful nations on earth for the last 250 years. So the Anglo-Saxon styles of government and economics – free market capitalism and democracy – have become standard. In this timeline the opposite would happen. The French styles of centralized bureaucratic autocracy and centralized governmental economic initiative would become the most popular.
In this timeline, the world wars would be quite different. Namely, Britain and Russia teaming up with Portugal – Britain’s old Ally – and Brazil – a nation that would want to compete against the Spanish Empire – would team up against the French Empire, Germans, Italians, and Spanish.
⛵ WhatIfAltHist sign off
This is the issue with New Zealand in Australia until recently. There are simply too far away from any market that could buy their agricultural products.↩︎