What if Napoleon Invaded Britain?
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
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We have detailed plans from both the French and the English in the case of an invasion over the English channel, making it the perfect scenario to dive into. How far would Napoleon go? Do the British stand a chance if he makes it on land? Find out as we go over every detail in this 1806 alternate campaign.
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If Napoleon took down Britain would he lose after the invasion of Russia? Or would he be in a strong enough position to win?
❤
balls
We must make the sequel win
Whoever made that animated map was pretty cool.
That’s crazy I wonder who did it🤔🤔🤔
I really do wonder who did it...
It is you
Hmmmmm 🤔🤔🤔 who could it have been? Do you have any ideas Sir Mr. Emperor Tiger Star?
If only I knew his channel name.
It’s crazy how being an island nation with a strong navy makes you close to untouchable
Took the unification of Germany and two world wars to turn us into the second rate power we are today
Not anymore, Britain is a shell of its former self.
@@11conormcloughlin which is hilarious
@@11conormcloughlinThe only nation with 2 full size aircraft carriers in europe, still untouchable
The old lion can still fight, ask Argentina if you doubt it@@11conormcloughlin
It really was convenient that the British could always retreat to their island and try again later if their adventures in the continent failed.
Having really big island and being strategic location somehow helps you dominate everyone.
The writers got lazy so didnt bother coming up with new interesting plot reasons
@@cowbeanboi412lol yeah, even in wars we lose we've never been conquered(since 1066 of course)
@@crispybacon9917 The English only lost because the Nobles sat around with their heads up their asses while William was weak after Hastings. The English soldiers deserved so much better from their leaders. It's unreal.
@@crispybacon9917 Britain was successfully invaded by the dutch during your "glorious revolution" of 1688.
The fact that Lord Nelson won the battle of Trafalgar by pulling off a fucking Leroy Jenkins is still baffling to me.
if its stupid but it works...
He knew his ships and men were superior in 1v1 melee
Crossing the T wasn't a Leroy Jenkins strategy, it had been employed in Battle of the Saintes 1782 and Nelson was captain of the frigate Albermarle in the Caribbean 1782/3 and would have been well versed in the strategy. Britain had better trained gun crews at the time, enabling 2-3 shots for every French shot as well as carronades had recently been introduced to a number of British ships but not yet to the French, which enabled devastating casualties to be caused at short ranges (see HMS Victory assault on Bucentaure), making the crossing the T an even more effective strategy.
Also, Nelson knew that the French couldn't get their ships into line. He could see it. He gambled on them not being able to deal with it, and he was ultimately right.
Which does lead to the question of what would've happened if the French ships had been in line, since I doubt he'd have tried this tactic.
@@TheGerkuman Then it would have been down to the training of the crews. The myriad of battles/skirmishes of this period would probably tell you there was probably only ever going to be one winner.
I love the Ireland part which literally felt like a reverse peninsular war for England
Funnily enough a lot of the British troops who fought in the Peninsula war were of Irish stock.
The thing is its nonsense. A full quarter of the population of Ireland were protestant and of British ancestry.
@dairallan You do realise that Wolf Tone who led the 1798 rebellion was protestant and just because someone is Protestant or of Scottish or English ancestry doesn't mean they can't be a Irish Nationalist. The correlation between unionism and protestantism is a new one and one that only really exists in Ulster.
Also forgot to mention that Presbyterians who made up the majority of Protestants in Ulster were discriminated against at this time though not as much as Catholics and that the Anglican Chruch of Ireland Anglo-Irish Protestant Acendancy made up a miniscule portion of the population.
@@dairallanI think you underestimate how shit everyone was treated who was just even born in Ireland until like the 20th century
@@dairallan Your math is not mathing. Despite Protestantism being a prevalent MINORITY, unless you were aristocratic AND Protestant, you were not on the same level as a true British citizen. Also even if the 25% of the population disagrees, the other 3 quarters would be rebelling without a doubt.
"My enemies are many. My equals are none."
@@v.emiltheii-nd.8094 And it proved true: the only one who was eventually able to beat Napoleon was Napoleon himself, when he decided to invade Russia, which is the only reason why the Grande Armée didn't remain indestructible for several more decades at least
That's a pretty good quote, might steel it later.
Total war napoleon? Or the actual quote? That's just ingrained in my teenage mind
@@stuartwatson7524 It is part of a tirade from this game, yes. But Napoléon does have other really good quotes that he absolutely said, though. Only, not usually this pretentious, which he didn't need to be in battle.
Sidney Smith has something to say about that
I think one thing that this scenario misses, is that if Napoleon invades in 1806, then Prussia and Russia arent beaten at the Battles of Jena and Friedland respectivly, meaning it wouldnt be to crazy for a Russo-Prussian army to attack Napoleon's Empire, diverting his attention from his British campaign, which could be a big shift.
The Prussians and Russians would sue for peace after the British sue for peace. There would be a alternative version of Tilsit.
@@peytondailey6108 its very possible that the Russians and Prussians would rebuild in 6 months (Russia has a history of doing that, as does Prussia) and attacking after Napoleon begins his invasion. The Grand Army couldnt support both the invasion of Britain and a combined Russo-Prussian assault at the same time, meaning either Napoleon calls off his invasion and returns to the mainland to face the combined army, or he presses on in Britain and loses the centre by letting cities like Paris fall. It would probably mean Napoleon meets his end 9 years before he did in reality.
I think that will probably be explored in the sequel video
@@para_magnus2200 Dude, the entire reason the Russians and Prussians were fighting Napoleon was because of British money.
Britain literally bribed anyone who was willing to join ANY coalition at that moment
The rule set for this divergence is that Jena Auestadt, Eylau, and Freidland didn’t happen, as Napoleon went on campaign in Britain
It's crazy af that Napoleon literally thought about becoming an UK citizen after Waterloo. Imagine if his wish was granted and he even ran for Prime Minister 😂😂😂
"You think you're so great because you have VOTES!"
That's one of the reasons why the British authorities made sure Napoleon never was allowed to walk on British soil. The local masses were indeed fascinated and impressed by the man and you never know what could have happened then. Like when the royal army sent to arrest him and put him in a cage on wheels a few months before turned instead against its monarch while shouting "vive l'Empereur"
@@nicolasmartinez7741yeah but those were french forces. The british, who had been at war against napoleon for over a decade, would obviously not be so fond of him, right?
@@eh2587 It took intense, non-stop, overwhelming British propaganda to stop the population from idolising Napoleon. Barely. No, he was popular to some extent even in England, which is why it took replacing the New French Republic with him personally as the enemy to crush. A propaganda so efficient that Brits today have no problem comparing Napoleon, a ruler who won impressive defensive wars with Hitler
@@eh2587 Why would you think that? Many of the British forces had been press-ganged into service, were led by aristocrats and landowners. Your Johnny-noname peasant hears about Napoleon's promise of a Marshal's Baton in every pack (meritocratic promotion), rewriting law codes and some revolutionary ideals and they might get to thinking "what's in it for me?"
With this timeline I GENUINELY don't think there is another coalition. I personally think that the world would choose to simply wait for Napoleon to die and then rebel the moment that happens
Probably, if the UK actually fell since they were the core of the resistance against his tyranny. I'm rather dubious about the latter part of this scenario coming to pass, however. Where's the Royal Navy in the latter stages? It's intact and in the area to tear up Napoleon at Brighton (both siege and battle) with coastal bombardment.
@@BernddasBrotB7 Yes that is a good question and then there is the question of why wouldn't the forces in Ireland be recalled when the main island is being invaded. Loss of Ireland is a blow to British Pride, but loss on the home island is disastrous.
@@anvos658 imo this scenario is laughable, the brits would have just burnt the crops sustaining him as they did not give a F about the irish. All troops would be recalled as soon as napoleon did his d-day. He would be fucked as the RN could cut off any retreat and supplies and he would be surrounded 10 to 1. Sure there would be a couple of rampaging generals, but they are not being supplied and would have to live off the land meaning they would be dead as soon as they hit any decent fortification as there is no way they are getting reinforcements or supplies.
@BernddasBrotB7 Bro called Napoleon’s reign “tyranny” when all of Europe effectively built their nations on screwing over the working class while Napoleon was a champion of it. His desire to expand his borders was no different than anyone else’s.
@@BernddasBrotB7 I think Cody's main focus in this scenario was to stretch the Royal Navy thin, considering many of their first of the line ships were sunk or captured at Trafalgar. I do think he glossed over its involvement in the latter half of the video slightly.
England: falls
Americans looking at Canada and Marathas looking at EIC territory: *it's free real estate*
The marathas, definitely, Québec on the other hand, with its victorious voltigeurs and geography, would not really fall down just as they beat the americans on land, twice.
The EIC could probably have held its own for a while without government support, it did have a sizable private army. Hell, it might have been amenable to buddy up with Napoleon.
The War of 1812 is gonna be lit in this timeline. The Great Lakes will be exclusively American
@@Game_HeroPlus it's very likely that in these circumstances Napoleon would want to bring Quebec back into the French Empire, or at least as a puppet State. This would also And this would no doubt spur him to reclaim Haïti, who had rebelled the year before.
@@Game_Hero typhoid did and that was with british support without that resistance would be much easier
Nelson's final words: Thank God I have done my duty.
nah "kiss me Hardy"
@@mokithepepe2454 While it probably was "kiss me Hardy", I do think the line that some alledged, "Kismet (fate) Hardy" goes pretty hard.
Actually...his last words were...
" Rub Rub...Fan Fan"
@@repippeas i find that silly cause it was some victorians who came came up with that no homo stuff (not to say that he was gay cause back then friends kissing friends was normal but that the victorians were allergic to anything that could be seen as homo)
Britain was built by men like that.
Now we sit back and simply complain as we gradually become minorities in our own lands.
I think what this misses is that if Napoleon was somehow able to invade Britain it would be such as massive diversion of resources that other continental powers would then try their luck, not to mention that the royal navy even if beaten at Trafalgar would still outnumber the French to the point that regardless if Napoleon could land an army supplying it would be a nightmare. There is a reason why the French/Spanish fleet didn't want to engage the British fleet in the first place.
I've noticed he often does this, completely abandons realism in order to make his scenario work
Considering Napoleon had JUST beaten Austria 6 months ago, and Britain was basically financing all the coalitions against him, I wouldn’t think it unreasonable that Prussia and/or Russia would take a ‘wait and see’ strategy, especially since Napoleon is not deploying the bulk of his forces until a quick, decisive victory can be made.
We'll cross the Vistula, we'll cross the Warta,
We shall be Polish.
Bonaparte has given us the example
Of how we should prevail.
March, march, Dabrowski,
From Italy to Poland mighty.
Quick correction, Admiral Nelson didn’t lose his eye, it was severely damaged but he could still distinguish light from darkness in that eye.
You know what this reminds me of? The Japanese plan for the Battle of Midway. So complicated, so many moving parts, so many chances for it all to go wrong. I suspect the result would have been the same, an absolute disaster for the French.
Code Geas had a verry unique answer to that...
The answer? Pizza Hut.
yep lol
@@silverwolfe3636 Was that ever a question?
Rurushu vee Breetania gomandzhu... SHITPOST!
All hail Lelouch!
Edit: I got this recommended on Waga Routashi Aku No Hana
The Island of Great Britain is a perfect showcase of how geography defines history
Yeah if the Netherlands was an island, it'd be in a nigh-perpetual Gouden Eeuw.
The British Isles in general. Because compare Great Britain and Ireland. Two completely different trajectories
People define history. Where is the world spanning Irish empire?
@@Beverwyck Next to the bigger island with the bigger empire
@@Beverwyck Didn't have the largest and easiest to access coal seems to fund their industrialization and was covered in bogs not suitable for grazing or travelling. If you thought this was a gotcha, I'm sorry that you were unaware of just how good a spawn point Great Britain was
0:53 Cadiz nuts
This needs more likes.
It’s wild that AHH is kinda the last of the “big” alternate history channels from the 2010’s that’s actually still doing alternate history videos.
Which would be the other ones? The ones that left us.
@@coquimapping8680 The first ones that comes to mind are WhatIfAltHist, who mainly does like right wing politics and like weird predictive stuff nowadays, and Monsieur Z, who also does… right wing politics..
…Sensing a pattern here.
@@cyanideinmycereal1077 I like Possible History, at least his videos are mainly about alternate history
This scenario is wildly optimistic
Well, that's the point. The optimism being Nelson losing Trafalgar. On land the Brits would never stand a chance.
Alternate History Video Idea: What if after WW1, the Entente went with France's plan of dividing Germany into several small kingdoms? (Like Prussia, Hanover, Bavaria, Hesse, Saxony were the ones I saw)
Actually, I believe he and Emperor Tigerstar have a set of vids on that
so basically a return to pre German unification but minus the holy Roman empire, and probably not as many small Germanic states that were previously there
Imagine Hitler in that timeline becoming a 20th century version of Bismarck
I wonder how that would have gone if stoney was involved@@Whisk3yKnight
@@itshenry8977 terrifyingly, to be sure💀💀
People who arrived just after watching England beat Switzerland
It's coming home!!!
@@KingAgniKaiNot to England mate 😂
Strong defenses win international tournaments 💪🇫🇷 and England have Kane so you were doomed from the start
@@KingAgniKai Football's coming home!
@@KingAgniKai On paper we have the best team in europe, its why we're always favourites. But with southgate ball we'll never win.
"Allowed it to pull an America" to a former colonial overlord of America is PERFECT!
Where do you think George W Bush got his foreign policy?
"We've gotta fight em (the French) over there (the Americas, West & East Indies) so we don't have to fight them over here (England).
Marshal Soult was notoriously cruel towards civilians; I dont think that the Irish would be too keen on him for long
"GREAT YAR-MUTH"
"NORRICH"
THAT IS THE PRONUNCIATION 😂
Yeah and its Westminster not Westminister
Also when he said Cornwall the pin appeared in the middle of _Devon_
I don't think he said a single place name correctly. It's not hard to find them.
Honestly, living near to these locations and hearing him absolutely butcher these pronunciations was pain 🤣 America quite literally has it's own cities/towns named Norwich and Yarmouth in Massachusetts and Connecticut and he still couldn't pronounce them correct 😂
I may be being a little hard on poor Cody here, Atleast Cornwall and Brighton weren't too bad, good work Cody 😆
@@KillettRyan Cody is from the Midwest, hes not gonna know how to pronounce English names in New England just like New Englanders are not gonna know how to pronounce American Indian names in the Midwest
I love this video simply because its a group project rather than one person's scenario. The amount of data everyone was able to pull allowed them to craft a realistic scenario with battles and everything. It feels more like one of Cody's videos on actual events than one on alternate history
The British could’ve avoided this scenario if they just invested more in Welsh Grandmas.
(I’m not joking, one of the only invasions of the British mainland since Hastings was a small Napoleon force in West Wales that was repelled by Welsh Grandmas)
Actually the heir of the king of france invaded England during the second barrons war against king John. He was pretty successful captured plenty of castles. Might have actually ended up as king if john hadnt died. That ended the rebellion
Yeah I think Tom Scott did an episode of Citation Needed about that. It’s called the Battle of Fishburn? Fishbourne? Fishbrandy? Can’t remember the exact name but yeah, essentially there was a small French invasion force in Wales in the early 1800s and long story short, they ended up surrendering to a much smaller British force because they saw a large number of Welsh women high on a hill in traditional Welsh dress that from a distance, apparently, looked like lots of British soldiers lol
The Battle of Fishguard! That’s the name. And it was actually in 1797
@@jamiecullum5567his name was Louis and it depends on what you mean by successful. Louis was invited by nobles who didn't like John and while he controlled a lot of England there was still a lot of resistance too.
@@rebeccaorman1823 controlling alot of england sounds like a pretty successful invasion to me. As i said only johns death stopped his progress
Finally, Ireland mentioned in a video! ☘️
Heck yeah! And there's a good ending too!
Yup the lads!
Éire Abú!
G’wan ya good thing
Ireland gaining independence in this timeline would at least prevent the Irish Famine 40 years later.
I'm rather dubious about the latter part of this scenario. Also the statement that the British Army wasn't meritocratic is very flawed, as Brandon F has produced an excellent video explaining. The situation is way more nuanced.
Royal Navy seems to just sit on its hands later on and the critical Battle of Brighton is brushed over way too fast. Just assuming Napoleon wins when he'd be suffering naval bombardment throughout? Unlikely unless he went far more inland than the British commander would be likely to allow him for precisely that reason. Plus he's outnumbered four to one unless he breaks the siege and allows the defenders out to assist.
Also where's Sir Sydney Smith in all this?
As a further addendum, how does Napoleon even land troops while under attack? His fleet would be sitting ducks while deploying rowboats to shore, under fire both from the Royal Navy and coastal batteries.
Odds are the Emperor is going to the bottom of the sea on one of those ships, and with him most of the Imperial Guard and so forth. Only ragged bands would ever manage to get ashore in the presented scenario, either swimming from the ruin of the fleet or else on the boats which launched before their home ships were sunk.
If he does make it to shore, the cutscene in the video? That wrecked ship is probably HIS ship, and he's on his way to surrender to the British.
@@BernddasBrotB7 the ship in the cutscene is from total war and is hms victory
@@rowangamertv4348 That's the point. Captured at Trafalgar, wrecked by its own creators, trapping the man who had thought to use it as an ironic gesture. Hoist by his own petard, you might say. :p
Or else just ignore the name on the model and assume it's a random French ship if you want to be less dramatic.
I mean the battle doesn't have to be far inland for naval fire support to become impractical with the technology of the day. I think they did a pretty good job explaining how the royal navy (which would have been much reduced by a disaster at Trafalgar) would be overstretched and unable to concentrate force effectively.
Sidney Smith was in our timeline already in the Mediterranean by this point, but in this timeline, he would probably have participated in the defense. However, despite being a total madlad, I don't see how his presence alone would tip the scales in any significant way.
@@BernddasBrotB7 Regarding your addendum, I'm pretty sure a French navy could suppress the coastal batteries of a single point. It's not like amphibious landings under fire never happened in the age of smoothbore gunpowder weapons.
There were another 300,000 British troops on British you forgot to mention. The Regiments and battalions of Volunteers and Yeomanry. These were troops raised by local landowners and rich individuals, armed and clothed similarly but not the same as standard british troops and were of varing quality. But according to "Returns Presented to the house of commons of the Volunteer Corps of Cavalry, Infantry and Artillery in Great Britian 1806" there was approximately 198,000 present under arms (excluding sick and absent) men in volunteer formations, brigaded together in mixed divisions of Regular and Militia troops across England and Wales, a further 48,000 in Scotland. In addition to these, according to the "Volunteers of the United Kingdom 1803" which includes ireland, there was an establishment (On paper) another 82,941 troops although realisically if i was to go by the same ratio as Great Britain for present under arms compared to establishment there would be about 50,000 men present under arms. Of these troops the comments on discipline about 75% are considered "Fit to Act with Troops of the Line" which is to say as Regulars, although mostly similar quality to the Militia at most. And the other 25% had comments such as "With 10 Days permanent Duty would be fit to act with Troops of the Line". So really the British had about 245,000 troops extra in Great Britain, of similar Milita Quality or would be in less than a fortnight, and Ireland had around 45,000-50,000 of the same. Which tips the balance of favour dramatically. Especially when you remember they are in mixed divisions with regular and militia troops which would help bolster their training, discipline, leadership and moral.
If you're going to bring in stuff like volunteers then you could also argue that the Irish would bluster the ranks of the French army as there would have been 5.5 million people in Ireland and even if a quarter weren't willing to join the revolt considering that was the percentage of protestants in Ireland (being protestant doesn't really mean they wouldn't revolt as well considering wolf tone was a protestant) that's still roughly 4 million soldiers and you can't really argue my point because the Irish were desperate for independence they staged there own rebellion in 1806 without the French considering that I think the video was quite entertaining.
@@nathanconnolly395 Yea but the irish didn't just suddenly have the armaments to raise 4 million troops, while britain had those stockpiled already
@@domaxltv Where would the british have said stockpiles? in ireland?
@@domaxltv the French have stockpiles and it's in there best interest to share that with the Irish so that kinda torpedos your whole point
One issue i have with this is, supply lines, no way napolon would be able to keep his men supplied especially with constant harrasmernt from the navy.
People always forget that an army marches on it's stomach. It's the same thing that makes russia uninvadable, the supply lines to support it are just too difficult to maintain.
@@ningaboy1238 Wasn't it Napoleon himself who said that, or am I misremembering?
Ehhh not necessarily each force could live largely of the land especially in Ireland and with the landing of the 80,000 troops it be the case that they bring enough supplies on the first landing for how long they thought the campaign was going to last. On top of that already with the lost of the coast how do you know when ships are transporting supply’s? Sure you could have the navy patrol but they’ll have to return to port eventually and when they do they transport supplies. Rotation probably means you’re gonna get jumped by a larger force while Alone.
Yes but napoleon did rely a lot on foraging to reduce his dependence on supply lines. This is one of the reasons he lost in russia. The Russian burned everything down to slow napoleon.
Edit : spelling is hard.
@@joshwenn989 Yeah, that's right :)
I think America would take advantage of the opportunity and seize Canada
Nothing would change lol. They tried already and still failed, even with Britain not sending any reinforcements.
Honestly probably. In an alternate time line I might of been american
So the War of 1812 wouldn't be seen as a footnote in this timeline
They already got stomped, doubt they'd have the will to try again.
Canadian farmers beat them in 1812, I'm sure they would again. Canada is vast, and the USA couldn't station enough troops there to hold down a hostile population.
The Royal Navy panic? In that era? You underestimate how insane the marines and sailors were mate.
I feel like your a great underestimating the size and skill of the British fleet. Landing and supporting the Irish seems possible all these reliability unopposed landing seem highly unlikely. Britain twice the amount of ships that France, Netherlands and, Denmark would of had together. The is also the assumption that for some reason Nelson uses the same tactics despite the battle being very different. Also im sure well Napoleon is doing this in Britain, Russia would be marching towards France
France regularly outbuilt the British. The British just regularly captured so many ships it didn't matter.
Also yes, there's literally zero chance that Napoleon could just send a hundred thousand men to Britain without serious ramifications. It'd be the Spanish campaign for France but made even worse by having to do everything with naval supply lines.
Couple things this analysis misses:
The British typically didn’t defend against the French navy by guarding their coastline but instead by blockading French ports. Specifically the ports where the French navy was. The idea that the French could slip past the British navy without being noticed not just once but several times is quite far fetched.
Secondly Napoleon’s marshals were notorious at being poor in independent command beside Soult and Davout. Also what lead to Napoleon defeat in 1813 at Liepzig is he threw away all his valuable veterans. Splitting up his forces in to little bit seems like it will lead to high casualties in his most valuable troops.
As others have said it also seems quite unlikely that Prussia and Russia would just sit back while Napoleon devoted his best commanders to Britain.
Great video! Although perhaps double check how to say “Norwich”, “Weymouth” and “Great Yarmouth”, although I don’t blame you, English place names are notoriously hard to pronounce! 😅
And the French names too.
I live in Norfolk, (also home county of Nelson) and can confirm you have to know our place names really well to pronounce them right, the Danelaw did a real number on us name wise 😂. The ones in this video weren't even the hard ones. I'd also say, east angles was such a backwater it would have been hard on the French to actually find anyone to fight. They would mostly have got stuck in all the marshy terrain. But a cool thought experiment of a video never the less.
Especially given that most of those places were named before the Great Vowel Shift.
I did not expect you here 😂
@@cheesedoff-with4410I mean it's not like Villeneuve isn't a currently famous film Director, no excuse for getting that pronounced so badly.
I'd kill for a vid on if the Sino-Soviet split never happened or was patched up in the 70s
Sup my man
@@sergioventura2595 as always
How appropriate to use "foe", a word of Anglo-Saxon origin as opposed to "enemy", a word of Old French origin!
Enemy is like the spanish version
"Enemigo" what a legacy of Rome
Blame the Normans... 😏
I can’t see the uk capitulating as soon as napoleon gets to London. You know there’s a load of other places on this island he hasn’t captured yet and they would definitely not just give up
you're only delaying the inevitable
A lot of effort clearly went into this, but there is no way on earth that mainland Britain would have divided troops away from the defence of the home Isle to defend Ireland. More likely they’d have left Ireland to its fate and Naval blockaded it, possibly even engaging in scorched earth tactics. They would also have had spies in every port in France, informing them of troop movements, and also likely blockading them as well.
A strong argument, however the claim can be made that the British certainly wouldn't want a bunch of French troops running around in such close proximity to the island. If they didn't retake Ireland, it would stay lost to them. So I would say they'd likely attempt both but more favoring a blockade.
@@rogerkeleshian2215 the British wouldn’t want it, but they’d never risk the safety of the main Isle to take it back. Britain has successfully invaded Ireland half a dozen times, so until the ships lost at Trafalgar could be replaced, they’d likely just turtle up, pretty much like they did for the entire war.
@samscopeproductionz True, but most of the war wasn't so dangerously close in proximity & they won a pivitol naval battle that put the enemy out of commission. I wouldn't blame then even if they lost attempting a retake.
@@rogerkeleshian2215 they weren’t dumb enough to try and retake Ireland while the entire French army was sat in Calais, after an entire Mediterranean squadron had been destroyed. Also this vid really understates the size of the British army in 1805. France would have invaded with 100,000 men, many of whom wouldn’t have made it due to Naval engagements. In 1805 Britain had 29,000 troops in Ireland and 65,000 troops in Britain, with 76,000 militia spread across the two. They’d also have had cavalry and cannon superiority.
Hell if you look on Wiki the odds are even worse, 615,000 British defenders compared to 200,000 French invaders.
20:22 nice squawk from Cody’s neighbor…or an annoyed parrot
I think fleets are crossing the channel far too quickly and easily in this story. Even at naval parity, the Royal Navy could easily prevent resupply of French armies and without food their campaign would be over in weeks. If Napoleon himself were in England, even better: focus on blockading his army, force his surrender and France is finished. Also consider how difficult it would be for the French to communicate. They would either need to send riders through enemy lines and across England to each other or send a ship through the British blockade to their own fleet.
To describe men like Lannes, Murat, and Ney, "badass" would be an understatement.
I absolutely loved this approach to your videos where you see week by week movements of armies. I hope to see more videos like this going forward.
This is probably my top 5 favorite video of all time
There is a great miniseries from 1974 about the entire career of Napoleon and his lovers called "Napoleon and Love", in which the Corsican is played by the great Ian Holm (who also played the Corsican in the films "Time Bandits" and "The Emperor's New Clothes") and a young Tim Curry also appears.
After seeing the diaster that Ridley Scott's Napoleon and Josephine turned out to be, I am very turned off by anything focusing on Napoleon's love life.
@@lucinae8512
Trust me, it's an AMAZING tv show. It masterfully tells how Napoleon's life was guided by the love he felt for Josepheine and the other women he met. Also, Ian Holm totally kills the role
@@TetsuShima Unless its like Sharpe, I am not interested in a tv show that doesn't immediately get it right and uses the "Trust me, it gets better after point X".
@@lucinae8512
The show is good from episode 1
@@TetsuShimaTime Bandits is a really cool film, I watched it for the first time last year.
This is the earliest I've ever been to a video and I love it. The video quality was insane
I respect the effort they put in but it really does not seem well thought out. More fan fic than potential history.
Next you should do a vid on Joan of Arc.
Without her, France wouldn't have had the morale to defeat their English occupiers, therefore the Kingdom of France wouldn't be restored and without them as a world power & having stake in the New World, they'd be in no position to engage in the French and Indian War (aka World War Zero) or support America during the Revolution (thus no inspiration for their own Revolution and then no rise of Napoleon).
She's one of the most consequential historical figures
Hell, the alternate history goes even further than that - if France had lost the Hundred Years' War (they came so close at multiple points that the only reason they _didn't_ was because of a couple of untimely deaths on the English side) it and England would have been ruled by the same royal family. Imagine the sort of butterfly effect _that_ could have had?
England would be stupidly powerful in Europe
Hyw was mostly flemish vs french soldiers.. The Englishman's purpose in that war, was to simply occupy the villages and roads, they even mixed with natives so I don't know why the french get bitter about the hyw. The burgundians took Joan.
The only battles the Englishmen were in was those with the longbowmen, and the naval battle of sluys.
Chauvacee was flemish doing.
It could resulted in a Greater France, unironically. Or at least, brits talking french (except rural class).
Didnt she help for a very small portian of that overall war and in the end the wins she got didnt last that long in the great game.
This video was cool as hell. It took me a while to find the time to fully watch it and pay attention, but I really hope you make a sequel. I always hoped your channel would make more detailed scenarios - don’t worry about pissing people off man, make as many crazy hot takes and specific unknowable guesses as you want! It’s your channel.
This scenario is more like Nappy's deception plans than what he actually intended. His Army of England (which became the Grande Armee when he turned east against Russia and Austria in 1805) consisted of six corps, a reserve cavalry corps and the Imperial Guard. He intended to land all or the vast majority of these experienced, highly trained and well equipped forces around the mouth of the Medway, between Sheerness and Chatham, northern Kent, then march as rapidly as only he could on London.
Pillaging, plundering or raping would be punished by death, He allowed as how he might capture Portsmouth as well.
His Spanish, Netherlandish and Danish allies could join in in Ireland, plus East Anglia and Northumberland, ie the new Dutch-Danelaw.
Britain had more than 500,000 troops in regular, militia and volunteer units and formations, but spread all over the British Isles. They couldn't have been concentrated swiftly enough to defend London. The Leeds volunteers, for instance, had plans to hurry to London in wagons, but wouldn't have made it in time.
However, holding the capital and bits of SE England, maybe parts of Ireland and NE England as well, wouldn't have guaranteed success. Guerrilla war in such a densely populated country, reliant on resupply by sea, might have ended worse than Spain, if not Russia.
The loss at trafalgar wouldn’t have happened. If line was organised Nelson wouldn’t have attacked head on. He was bold but not an idiot.
At most he would of attacked in traditional line, or just withdrawn for another opportunity
Really appreciate the attention to detail with Ireland!
Just a couple pronunciation tips:
-Ballybunion rhymes with onion.
-Kilkenny is pronounced like it's in 2 parts "kill Kenny" (poor Kenny 😔)
-For Waterford you actually had the opposite problem, that's pronounced as one part "Wa-ter-furd".
Now that Cody has outsourced all his research and a bulk of the leg work to his discord the production quality has gone up very nice
you mean down lol
This is by far the best alt hist vid ive seen on yt since forever
Another possible wrinkle: The Peninsular War destabilized Spain and emboldened its colonies in the Americas to rebel. In this timeline, there is no peninsular war. Spain might have held on to its colonies at least for a little bit longer. There is no need for Napoleon to invade the Iberian peninsula. The Portuguese monarchy doesn’t flee to Brazil. The history of two continents in the Americas is rewritten..
LETTTTS GOOOO I BEEN MISSIN UR CONTENT MAN
If you like his videos so much why would you denigrate it by calling it "content"
I feel like this scenario is overly generous to the French. Even if we accept the point of divergence, that the British lose Trafalgar, it is still very unlikely that the French landings go anything like as smoothly as suggested. This video reads a bit like Napoleon laying out his strategy to his marshalls: an ideal scenario, in which everything goes according to plan, that was very unlikely to work out in practice. The Royal Navy may have taken a beating, but it was still the best navy in the world: British sailors could famously fire two broadsides in the time it took the French to fire one, and aimed directly into the enemies' hulls rather than at their rigging as the French did, thus maximising damage. The British also benefited from not having recently guillotined much of their officer class, meaning that there were a wealth of admirals who, even if they couldn't match Nelson's genius, were still brilliant leaders. These things combined to give the Royal Navy a distinct edge, and their enemies knew it: Villeneuve never thought he had a chance of winning at Trafalgar, and only turned to fight when his back was up against the wall.
Even if Napoleon's initial force managed to land, say after luring the Royal Navy away as was his plan, they would soon return to swarm the channel, making the subsequent landings protrayed here almost impossible to pull off, not to mention the subsequent need for supplies. The Royal Navy had a track record of winning against superior numbers, and so even in its depleted state would be a formidable force to be reckoned with, especially if they have six months to re-enforce and re-organise. Without re-enforcements, Napoleon could win as many decisive victories as he liked, but he would eventually be overwhelmed.
All this to say, the advantages of being an island don't stop once the enemy is aboard your shores, and losing Trafalgar is by no means the end of British naval supremacy. Napoleon was an unmatched general but he never understood naval warfare, much to the frustration of his admirals, and this would have shown during his attempted invasion of Britain.
Yeah, it's fun Napoleon fan-fiction, but it gives way too much credit to the French. The RN still outnumbered the French even if they'd lost all their ships at Trafalgar, not to mention better trained (and in this case motivated) crews. So I find the ease of the landings in Ireland & the south coast of England unlikely.
Equally, even if we grant the landings, Cody doesn't seem to take the supply of those troops into account. Feeding an army is difficult without resupply, not to mention the ammunition & arms required. In this scenario it's game over once the French land, even though the military superiority of the French is not so significant. Napoleon wasn't directing every battle and siege; why are we assuming the (heavily) fortified towns oh the south coast fall so quickly?
@@gurigura4457 Another thing to add is that as soon as Napoleon landed in England, Ireland would just be abandoned. Westminster would, at most, leave an army or two to keep Davout and Soult busy, but all hands would be on deck to deal with the French landing in Hastings. To Parliament, England, especially the south, was far more important than Ireland. Additionally, I doubt the entirety of Ireland would rebel as depicted in the video, there is a reason Northern Ireland is part of the UK today and it is because it was largely more protestant and settled by Anglo-Scottish citizens rather than local Irish. The presence of a northern centre of command would affect how Davout and Soult campaigned in Ireland, even if the overall plan was to just keep the British Army busy
This was super detailed. Everyone involved did a great job. ❤
Love this video!!!! Need part 2
Hey Cody, when are we getting "What if Japan had remained neutral in WW2?" or "What if Japan had been part of the Allies in WW2?"
It's very much needed and would be really nice to watch.
Simple
Japan being neutral means 0 war in the Pacific. If Hitler doesn't declare war on the US due to no pearl harbor, Germany still loses, maybe later due to no american troops. If Hitler does declare war on the US, then the full industrial capacity of the Americans would be focused on Germany and the war over much sooner
Means no godzilla, maybe no anime and def no anime wifu's...lol...
@@nicolasduhaut7331 Hmmm. Potentially the Nazi nuke & rocket programs have a chance to mature to completion, despite their initial difficulties. Which would give Hitler a serious edge when he inevitably takes his war of conquest to America, which was always his intention.
@@risinggael1685 anime is inevitable, is largely a indigenous thing, ww2 propagada animes already had the style of early animes. tho without losing to the west they probably don't evoke deep anti war setiments and instead evolve to mimick u.s glorifying their military industrial complex. every anime is gate now till the 1980's. Rip godzilla and the tokusatsu genre tho
I'd also like to see what if the Taisho Democracy didn't give way to militarism in the 1930s. Or if militarism wasn't as popular/more resisted by everyone else.
While interesting it honestly seems unrealistic that when the the home Island is invaded, Britain doesn't recall everybody from Ireland, so they can concentrate their forces, and put the ships assisting fighting Ireland on defending the home island.
Plus this whole thing assumes that the invasion of Britain wouldn't be the perfect opportunity for continentals to strike, while the French army and navy is in the wrong place.
The only reason the coalitions happened is because of British funding,since britain is pre-occupied with french invasion,i think it's safe to say your second sentence bollocks
@@clarenceorozco5300 Funding is less needed when the British are occupying a large chunk of the the French Army, who will eventually end up trapped in GB as the Royal Navy returns home.
@@anvos658 And still,I'm sure Napoleon's Marshall's can hold them off long enough for Napoleon to return.Even if you say they'll group to crush them,I doubt that they can do that with napoleon's marshalls in charge
@@clarenceorozco5300 The way this coalition would start its attack isn't a direct land invasion its supporting the Royal Navy that is being recalled in blocking France's ability to retreat or reinforce the forces in England.
@@anvos658 The royal navy is occupied in the french invasion and also,most if not all the European nations dian't have besides France and Spain.
If a part two does happen, i hope america allied with Napoleon to help him with trading and maybe military if they ally with France
Just came from the new Possible History video, and now this. What a day!
I love coming back to a channel after like a year that you love to then binge watch all the new videos just to repeat the process all over again
The man the myth the legend is back
The pronunciation of English place names in this video hurts my soul
I find Napoleon forcing Britain to fight a civil war near their own country very poetic because of Spain.
a timeline that not much people would hate, loved it, napoleon gets to be recognised as the greatest military genious of all history, the irish get their independence, spanish gibraltar man such a good alternate history, would love to see the continuation :D
This is beautiful. Love the format and insanely intricate attention to detail.
One of the biggest what ifs in history I habe wondered.
What if Hannibal waited until Spring to cross the alps?
He lost half his forces crossing
He lost 32 of his 36 war elephants
All from crossing in the winter.
Even with half, he was able to kick Roman teeth in at Ticino, Trebbia, and Lake Trasimene.
What if he waited and didn't lose half his army?
Would he have withstood
Fabius Maximus' war of attrition? Or marched on Rome itself?
Or would Scipio who was less than 30 miles from him before he crossed the alps discovered him, and alerted Rome to his plan the following spring?
Actually, Napoleon had pretty much given up on invading Britain before Trafalgar.
I think it would have been a better scenario. If Napoleon won at Leipzig.
Now these are the kind videos I remember you doing a long time ago. Alternate history that actually makes sense and is interesting and fun!
awesome, definitely gonna keep an eye out for the sequel vote.
You have forgotten the most valuable British colony, India. Significant parts of India were still unconquered and actively resisting the British, with support from France. These regions included the northwestern parts, the central highlands, and the Western Ghats of India.
How is Napoleon using the Danish fleet when it was stolen in 1801 at the Battle of Copenhagen? And why is Napoleon just automatically winning battles by the shore with Royal Navy ships nearby and limited supplies?
7:34 Dragoons mentioned fr
I think this is one of my favorite videos ! Hope you continue this timeline keep up the great work!
I got a dog today and now there's a new Alt Hist Hub video. How could this day get any better!
The problem with this is the Royal navy still had enough resources to basically destroy any French invasion fleet, No stalling battle by the French fleet is going to protect those 'landing ships' or row boats. This will go down just like Operation Sealion would have, with the French losing their naval logistic lines to the Royal Navy then starving out after a while.
Cody, this is one of the best videos you have done in the latter years. Congratulations! Hopefully we can see a continuation!
Somehow i think you've made a Major overisght in this entire scenrio...
*Logistics.*
The same thing that killed Napoleon's army in Russia, would apply here as well.
If anything more so.
Amphibious operations rely more heavily on logistics than anything else, and are as such among the most difficult military operations to conduct.
Maintaining supply lines over the sea is just as hard if not harder than Maintaining a supply chain accross the freezing depths of russia. Especially without total Naval supremacy.
Im not even talking combat losses, even operational losses through frequent storms, high seas, changing winds and bad weather would be substantial in themselves.
The Same thing that made Russia so Hard to invade, made Britian so hard to invade as well...supply lines and logistics.
Britain and Russia are the two frontiers of Europe, bottling in any would be conquerer from the mainland. And the same thing that protected them here, protected them both right until the world wars.
I love this kind of videos where one practically simulates the invasion
This was such a cool format to use for this video!
3:28 End of a.d
🐐
Because that's what heroes do.
Actually starting to build my portal to teleport all of us into this utopian reality
This scenario is batshit and would never have happened. Entertaining but would only ever happen on a discord server.
Would for sure love a continuation of this plot line. Also great job to whoever made the maps! You as well for the thematic battle storytelling
I love this super detailed scenario. It's a lot of work, but exactly what I want from alternative history scenarios
I don't mean to be harsh, but this whole chain of events sounds like something out of a napoleon fan fiction.
To start with, the irish campaign. I notice that, somehow, ulster is joining in the irish rising, ulster which is famous for basically one thing, saying "FUCK OFF WE'RE NOT IRISH, FUCK YOU" a tradition that was long existing by napoleons time.
Also, the british navy was well known for being large enough to outsize the worlds next two largest navy's combined. While trafalgar may have lost britian half of her first rates, britian didn't build first rates, because she discovered they were oversized, overweight and just generally shit, so most of our first rates were old things, there were 115 Ships of the line, which included the far superior third rates, and that again and a smidge more in frigates.
Even if trafalgar was a total loss for the british, every single ship sank, our warships still heavilly outnumbered the french and friends. Add a few more trafalgar disasters, and sure, but just one isn't enough to cripple the british fleet, frankly it would be a shit fleet if it did, considering the "Wooden wall" was well known to be our only true line of defence against invasion.
Also... are we just ignoring the existence of the prussians, russians and co, who really, really did not fuck with the french having contiental dominance? If the french decided to move 200,000 troops into an amphibious invasion, then the prussians and quite possible the russians are marching to put them down.
I normally love your stuff, but this one just... doesn't strike me as overly realistic, truthfully, I feel these turn out best when you have complete control. I obviously don't know what happened on the discord, but it seems like perhaps your normal attention to every single bloody detail is missed with the community writing style.
Forced to agree with you on this one, and usually I'd rather chew off my own foot than leave a youtube comment.
Can't argue the latter points, given I'm not very knowledgeable on wider Napoleonic history, but the issue of Ulster at this point really is not that pronounced. It's only in the decades following the 1798 Rebellion that Ulster becomes more homogenously loyal to the Crown, remaining Catholics notwithstanding. This is evidenced by the fact that Presbyterians, primarily located in the northeast or Dublin, occupied important roles within the Society of United Irishmen, most notable being Wolfe Tone himself, the leader of the Society and the Rebellion. Presbyterians were not a true part of the "Protestant Ascendancy" which controlled or influenced Irish politics from the Plantations all the way to independence. Anglicans were the only group that would almost completely oppose an independent Ireland, given that there would be no threat of British force to protect their lands or privileges.
To be fair to Cody, this is an alternate history channel. Many of his alternate timelines are unrealistic and are based around on single change in our timeline to create a domino effect in an alternate scenario. Also, can you cut him some slack when he's trying a different writing style with his discord community? It's really not a big deal.
@catalyst1641 oh I absolutely agree that this is the first of a new format, which is why I think its doubly critical that cody can get praise from the people that love it and *Constructive* criticism from those that didn't, so he can decide how much he wants to transition towards this sort of thing
The royal navy might still have been larger than the French. But it is more spread out over the oceans. Moreover here it were French, Spanish and Dutch navies going up against the british (even Danish though I don't know how realistic this is).
It also takes time to recall naval forces from all over, first the messages need to arrive to then also sail them home.
Ofcourse it isn't a walk in the park, else Napeleon would just immediately land with 80-100k troops on English soil at once, unlike the scattered invasions here with the main goal of overstretching the present naval forces in the area.
Though maybe also something like the battle of the nile would also have to have a different outcome for this scenario.
As for the Prussians and Russians. The Russians were defeated at Austerlitz just months earlier. And only around 120k troops seemed to have been used here in the invasion of Britain (eventhough 200k were apparently kept ready for it). The Grande Armee still has more forces and several capable commanders than that to keep the other continental powers at bay untill Napeleon can focus his attention from Britain back to the continent.
I was just watching the Independence Day video
Napoleon wasn’t short he was average height for the time!
This is one of the coolest videos you've ever presented. Definitely l9ve the attention to detail and strategy. This actually sounds plausible.
It isn't. Those large scale naval invasions would be impossible to support from a logistics perspective in this period so in practice the French armies would quickly start to run short on everything from buttons to musket balls to bread, Napoleon's other opponents would not have just let him invade Britain and would have made a coalition to exploit his distractedness - probably led by Russia with the Austrians and Prussians in support, and you really do just need to ignore the disparity in naval quality for this to make any sense. Britain's navy never outproduced France but was always larger thanks to being able to consistently capture so many ships.
Oh also, the Irish situation is beyond over simplified. That's more of a sectarian split than a nationalist one at this point. It's not about Irish nationalism. It's about CATHOLIC Irish nationalism.
That was cool scenerio! I really love it! Thank you for your hard work!
Honestly this scenario became comical at the end where we just straight up ignore geography and the French just roll over the South Downs because of the "flat fields of England" despite the fact that the South Downs are practically a natural barricade and one of the many reasons why Britain was rarely invaded via Sussex, the battle of Hastings being the exception to the rule.
Yeah not like the Roman's, Saxons, and Vikings, and Norman's conquered England or anything 😂 British copeium is delicious.
The UK survived Napoelon and Hitler because of stronger allies carrying their dead weight.
@greatsageequaltoheaven8115 sounds like u jist hate the uk mate 😂, the uk survived cos it was wealthy and had a strong navy, it was always untouchable, it would always be a draw or a win in that Britain would never be invaded, Hitler couldn't and napoleon couldn't not jist cos of allies which did help, the coalitions only survive cos fo the british and British not giving up to the nazis, soviets would have been conquered cos they wouldn't need to focus on Britain
@kacgb5315 Wrong the Soviets and Americans won the war if the UK was on the Axis side London would've been nuked and the war prolonged by several that's how weak the British Empire was no longer are days the British only fought people who didn't have guns.
@@WhenInDarknessSeekTheLight Man have i not seen a more Anglophobic 🤡 in my life, where you from?
Weird how people think that all these most important wars in history could have ended differently if Britain was magically invaded and defeated.
this crazy, I just binged like all of pointless hubs videos at work while mowing lawns, only to discover an entire other channel? this is cool
I legit have Bury the Light in my head as this vid is going. Because alt history is fun!
Yes more alternet history hub 🙂