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What if Great Britain lost ?

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  • What if Great Britain lost ?

    Okay I am new here I know but I want to see where this will lead. I know that there have been many tremendous and hard fought battles in Western history, but thtere are not many that can honestly be considered to be a harbinger of future global developments. Having said that and keeping in mind the future GLOBAL implications that it had, what would the world be like today if England had gotten sternly defeated at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805 ?
    "Now we shall have ourselves a pell mell battle!" ......The Immortal Memory, Admiral Nelson

  • #2
    Wow, it's hard to imagine a world where france is the sole superpower...

    I've never put any thought into this, but sure would love to hear the opinions of those that have.

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    • #3
      As much as the Brits like to put the importance Trafalgar, the French was in no position to land an invading army, at least not one that could have conquer the British Isles.

      And Napoleon met his doom at Moscow which was the cause of his exile.

      Seriously, nothing. Wellington would have still met Napoleon at Waterloo.

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      • #4
        Napollean didnt meet his doom at Waterloo untill many years later.
        Britain had no allies save Portugal and Naples.
        A decimated britain would have a caused a global shift in late ninetenth century imperialism in both africa and the Middle East.
        RUSSIA would have gained access to the Mediteranian allowing and industrialization of its western territories especially St. Petersburg. What would this have done for its infracstructure and hence the outcome of WW I ? (chew on that)
        What would the modern middle east look like had England not been in a position to maintane lines of communication with India thus allowing it to maintane the buffer zones in the middle east?
        What would the face of THE UNITED STATES be like had England not kept American shores free of torment during its industrial revolution in the late 1800's ? Would we have been subject to European intervention in order to obtain much needed natural resources for their industrial revolution?

        Those of you that dont add much weight t The Battle of Trafalgar had better rethink your views of napoleanic naval history and what gunboat diplomacy meant to the western world in the four centuries after the Armada.

        Just a thought gentlemen . Just wanted to see what we could stir up. I may post this as a question on the Warthog territory Forum also.
        "Now we shall have ourselves a pell mell battle!" ......The Immortal Memory, Admiral Nelson

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        • #5
          Would it?

          Would a chastised Britain prevented the French-Russian clash? Would the French allowed Russian expansion? Would Napoleon have been satisfied and not march to Moscow? Did Trafalgar made extinct all French naval forces and their operations? Why would the opposite be true?

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          • #6
            I dont thin it would have made them extinct at all. What I believe is that Russia would have taken advantage of the powere vacuum and gotten a foothold in the Med through the Black Sea. While French would continue to be the predominant power on the European main I believe Russia would have gobbled up a lot of the territories in the middle east and maybe India. I feel that if Russia had lost the noose around its neck for just a few years in the early nineteenth century, that it would have had a much greater chance of being a forward nation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, instead of the backward totally agrarian nation that it was.
            I am not an academic, I am just curious as to what could have been.
            "Now we shall have ourselves a pell mell battle!" ......The Immortal Memory, Admiral Nelson

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            • #7
              I'm trying to see what you see and I cannot. There were alot of pressures involved, including the internal powerplays of the Russian Empire itself. Alexander wasn't as ironfisted as his pre-successors. I really don't know if he could have gotten the money to build the fleet.

              Also, could the British have rebuilt? I would have thought yes. Their armies were still intact and the French could not have knocked them out once and for all.

              Added to this that both Napoleon and Alexander knew that war was coming. I seriously doubt that Alexander would have shifted his military towards a naval orientation when the much bigger land threat was just over the horizon.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Hawg166 View Post
                Napollean didnt meet his doom at Waterloo untill many years later.
                Britain had no allies save Portugal and Naples.
                A.
                Absolute rubbish.

                During the Napoleonic Wars the Allies (the good guys) consisted of Britain, Austria, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain and Sweden.

                The Axis Powers (the bad guys - after all they were trying to invade sovereign European nations such as Britain) consisted of France, the United States, Holland, Italy, Etruria, Naples, Duchy of Warsaw, the Rhine, Bavaria, Saxony, Westphalia, Wurttemberg, and the kingdom of Denmark-Norway

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                • #9
                  Blackleaf,resurrecting dead threads is also frowned upon.
                  "Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories." Thomas Jefferson

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                  • #10
                    There is only half a page of discussion topics in this forum. It's no worries if somebody posts on them.
                    Absolute rubbish.

                    During the Napoleonic Wars the Allies (the good guys) consisted of Britain, Austria, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain and Sweden.

                    The Axis Powers (the bad guys - after all they were trying to invade sovereign European nations such as Britain) consisted of France, the United States, Holland, Italy, Etruria, Naples, Duchy of Warsaw, the Rhine, Bavaria, Saxony, Westphalia, Wurttemberg, and the kingdom of Denmark-Norway
                    These alliances shifted back and forth over the course of the Napoleonic Wars... one can't deny the huge impact Napoleon's march made. The adoption of civil law in many countries, the spurring of nationalistic feelings which led to the unification of Germany and Italy, and so on. I don't think one should look at the war and see good guys vs. bad guys.

                    Furthermore there was the Quasi-War between the US and France from 1798-1800, and the US was never allied or aligned with France during the War of 1812, which took place during the Napoleonic Wars but was separate from it.
                    "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                    • #11
                      :Shamus crawls back into his cave properly chastised:
                      "Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories." Thomas Jefferson

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                      • #12
                        Perish the thought . I would have prefered the Krauts any time to the frogs

                        Vich vud haf us all speakin like ziss ,

                        like when a Brit boat was going through the Keil canal and started to sink , the captain called for help saying

                        we are sinking, we are sinking .

                        The German coastguard came back saying ,,,Ja Ja ok , vot are you sinking about .:))

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                        • #13
                          There is absolutely no way russia would have gotten mediterranean access after a british defeat. A british defeat may have Napoleon trying to land in Britain, or maybe not. Hard to say if he would have been overconfident enough. However it would not give Russia the capability to knock out the Ottoman Empire to the point where Russia takes Constantinopole. Taking over India wasn't even a remote possibility. Russian control over Central Asia was fairly lax in the first place. Expanding even further from there, with poor lines of communication, and a very foreign (and hostile) population would have made that impossible. When combined with the fact that Napoleonic France was still on Russia's western border, it was not going to happen.

                          The only way Russia could have gotten access to the mediterranean, is if much earlier Oleg had taken Tsargrad and ensured a permanent slavic presence in the area, securing it forever as Russian.

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by tankie View Post
                            Perish the thought . I would have prefered the Krauts any time to the frogs

                            Vich vud haf us all speakin like ziss ,

                            like when a Brit boat was going through the Keil canal and started to sink , the captain called for help saying

                            we are sinking, we are sinking .

                            The German coastguard came back saying ,,,Ja Ja ok , vot are you sinking about .:))
                            YouTube - German Coast Guard

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Ironduke View Post
                              I don't think one should look at the war and see good guys vs. bad guys.
                              Unless you were from one of those countries, such as Britain, which Napoleon was trying to invade.

                              If Napoleon tried to invade the United States you'd see him as the bad guy, too.

                              Napoleon, in my view, was just the 19th Century equivalent of Hitler and his allies (such as the US) were the 19th Century equivalent of Italy in WW2.

                              Isn't it ironic that just a couple of decades after the US fought the British for their freedom that they were allied to a country that was trying to invade its neighbours?
                              Last edited by Blackleaf; 17 Oct 07,, 21:47.

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