French Civil War (Napoleon's World)
From Alternative History
The French Civil War was a conflict that began in the late 1930's and ended with the execution of Francois Baptiste and Desmond Guillont on May 4th, 1945. The war was fought between a number of factions struggling for power within the French Empire at the time, but the primary billigerents were the forces of Emperor Edmond Bonaparte following his coronation in 1939, and his younger brother Sebastien Bonaparte, who would eventually become Emperor on October 1st, 1943. A number of regional conflicts occurred at this time as well, all seeking to exploit the conflict of the ruling French. While the Empire needed foreign aid and a decade to recover, historians agree that the French Civil War made the Empire stronger, especially into the late 1950's and 1960's, when Emperor Sebastien was at his peak of power.
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[edit] Buildup to Civil War: Turmoil in the Twenties and Albert I on the Throne
[edit] Ascension of Napoleon III
On June 8th, 1922, Louis II - who had ruled for 32 years to usher in the 20th century - died at the Bonaparte family's home in Nice. He was only 58 at the time, most of his adult life marked by the fate of both preceding Emperors, Louis I and Philippe; to take the throne young, and to die young. Louis II had developed France into a major trading power in the late 1800's and early 1900's, but the emergence of the Pacific Powers in the late 1910's created an economic slump in the final years of his life that he would die trying to avoid. He had a severe brain aneurysm in Nice only days before planning to speak to the King of Portugal about the problems with the European economy.
Napoleon III was Louis' eldest son but second child; sister Desiree had been born first. Coronated hastiyl on June 12th, the new Napoleon was thrust into the middle of a growing economic and internal crisis in the Empire. With the major companies that used overseas trading as their income suffering, Napoleon III struggled to resurrect the economy his father could not. Similarly, he was constantly being undercut by his brother Albert, who was trying to use his position in the State Ministry to influence decisions made by the Grand Assembly.
As the Pacific War broke out in 1924, only two years into his reign, Napoleon made the maligned decision to keep the Empire neutral. Despite overwhelming military strength and the possibility of economic opportunity in Asia or North America depending on the side Napoleon III could choose, he decided to attempt to regulate the economy with a series of laws designed to streamline and curtail industrial corruption and waste.
[edit] Iron Revolution and Ascension of Albert I
The Empire's elite politicians and military leaders had had enough by 1925. The economy worldwide was worsening in the wake of a steep, devastating depression in the Empire. Starvation and grumblings of revolution stirred in the eastern provinces, and there was a popular revolt in Berlin ending with the public hanging of Napoleon's appointed governor, Desmond Eunaire. State-minister Albert Bonaparte recognized a necessity for change and on August 19th, 1925, launched what became known as the Iron Revolution.
That morning, members of the Churat - the secret society sworn to protect the Empire - killed the Guard Elite protecting the Emperor at his home in Paris and murdered Napoleon III in his sleep. They were then discovered by reinforcements of the Guard Elite loyal to Albert, and promplty killed in return. News of the Emperor's assassination spread like wildfire throughout the Empire; no Emperor had ever been assassinated before, even though many suspected Louis I had died of malignant causes.
Albert immediately seized control at the State Ministry, shutting down Paris and announcing immediate martial law. Three hundred people were killed in an ensuing day of riots, but the Iron Revolution had already begun.
On August 23rd, Albert ordered the immediate suspension of Grand Assembly activities and for a roll-call in Paris of the Grand Army's primary leadership. On August 27th, fearing that the Grand Assembly would counter his measures, Albert ordered the dissolution of the Grand Assembly and the arrest by the Churat of all Assembly members found in non-compliance. More than half of the sitting Assembly fled to the Papal States, Portugal and England; many would wind up in America.
The Roll Call of Generals occurred on August 30th, and by this point the Empire understood that a coup was occurring right beneath their noses. There was a massive revolt in Bordeaux that evening, and in the morning, the city had been bomber and burnt nearly to the ground.
The Roll Call ended up with Albert stripping seven generals he believed to be loyal to the fallen Emperor of their rank, and only two of the "Seven Bastards" managed to escape the Empire alive in the ensuing days. Between September 1st and 4th, the other five members of the military's highest command were killed in a variety of ways by Churat agents. Most famously, General Pierre Tital gunned down six Churat agents in his apartment and on the roof of his building before finally being killed in the gunfit by a sniper across the street. A book, Tital, was published three years later and is considered one of the seminal pieces of French literature from the pre-Sebastienite era. It was a bestseller and twelve film adaptations have been made of the book in four different countries, but only once in the Empire itself, as it was banned until 1981.
The generals found loyal to Albert, many out of fear, were charged with purifying the officer ranks of "Gatonists" - called so after another murdered general, Francois Gaton - and the bloody Purge that followed, in the early half of September, earned Albert the anger of many officers for the next decade, which would eventually come to hurt him and his successor in the long run.
On September 9th, Albert felt comfortable enough in his position to announce his coronation as Emperor of France. He was coronated on the 10th, and so ended the most effective coup in history. The "Iron Revolution" would continue into the fall and winter months, as Albert was far from done purging the Empire of his enemies, of which he now had many.
Albert went about his early reign trying to reestablish stability after his bloody coup, and his sons Edmond and Sebastien, working in the Internal and Foreign Ministries, were essential to this. Edmond reorganized the Internal Ministry to create a body more easily regulated by the Emperor's own office, and made parlays to the new State-Minister, Charles Blomkamp (half-German), to rebuild a suspended Grand Assembly. Since many of the new changes made to the Imperial bureaucracy were made during the period when the Grand Assembly was suspended (August 23rd, 1925-February 14th, 1926), many argued that legally, they had no weight in the Empire. On Valentine's Day, 1926, the Grand Assembly was reinstated, although it was filled with "interim" members handpicked by Albert and Edmond. The term "Valentine's Assembly" was a derogatory term used by citizens of the Empire to denote the puppet Assembly that answered to the Emperor, and not to the people. For the first time in the history of the Empire, the Grand Assembly was not democratically elected as a check to the Emperor's power.
[edit] Rule of Albert I, Oktoberkreig and Burning of Grand Assembly
Albert I restored some sense of order to the Empire and his bold economic plans were far more effective than those of his deposed brother. In 1926-27, the French economy showed marked improvement from the government's direct investment in industry, infrastructure and the military. Despite calls to enter the Pacific War, Albert managed to avoid the conflict, recognizing that the war was drawing to a bloody, inconclusive result and that France would emerge stronger thanks to the belligerents hemorrhaging each other into stalemate. While the Pacific War would not end officially for another two years, the Empire had already turned its attention towards continuing its light military campaigns against colonial insurrection in Hindustan and French Africa, semi-autonomous states run by local rulers but in reality French companies and Foreign Legion soldiers.
Nevertheless, discontent was growing in the East. Fearing an impending purge, a group of rebels in the Ukraine led by Nikolai Bukharin and Leon Trotsky started an uprising to counter the Imperial "Eastern Plan," which attempted to massively overhaul the organization of labor and farming in the Ukraine and other parts of Russia. Their initial success caught the Empire off guard, and in October 1928 what became known as the "Oktoberkreig" started in western Ukraine and all the way into old Prussia.
Albert was not prepared to fight a mass rebellion in the East; he had been under the misguided belief that his economic approaches were favored. The response of the Grand Army to the Oktoberkreig was swift and brutal; for the first time in European history, military aircraft - pioneered in the Colonial Wars and Pacific War - were used to bomb European targets. Albert commissioned an airship fleet of blimps to drop flaming explosives upon towns known to harbor "Oktoberists," killing thousands.
His son, Sebastien Bonaparte, led the internal charge to broker a diplomatic agreement with the Oktoberists, sensing that such a vicious response against a part of the Empire that had been violently purged before in the past would only darken the somewhat illegitimate ruler's regnal capacity.
