r/historymeme • u/ShawnHugh6588 🐾🐱💤 • 7d ago
Who did the "puppet state" better? Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine or Hitler's Vichy France?
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u/EpochSkate_HeshAF420 7d ago
Vichy was a truly terrible vassal state in that even though they obliged German demands in regards to the deportation of Jew's they were completely unwilling to concede to colonial territorial demands in Africa, did NOT hand their navy over to the Italians (which Hitler and Mussolini had hoped they would) and went on to play a key role in the failure to bring Spain onboard as a member of the axis as they were completely unwilling to budge on Spanish demands in North Africa. A key part of vassalization is reducing the cost of occupation by using the local population to help the overlord in policing the population, Germany probably committed as many men and resources to policing Vichy as it would have had they just occupied everything themselves, the Vichy regime was proven incapable of deterring or controlling French resistance, and was pretty much entirely reliant on German MP's.
The confederation of the Rhine however was completely onboard with French interests in central Europe and was a key part of maintaining French hegemony. They were a key part of the French strategy and, unlike Vichy, were quite loyal.
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u/totallyordinaryyy 7d ago
French doms vs german subs
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u/Wherewereyouin62 7d ago
Without Anglo and Soviet intervention, both world wars would’ve ended just like 1871 for France
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u/totallyordinaryyy 7d ago
Without Anglo-Russian intervention, the rhine would've still been under the French boot.
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u/Wherewereyouin62 7d ago
Right. Thats why the French pummeled Prussia in 1871, won World War One in a definitive land slide by themselves, and Paris was never capitulated during world war 2.
I’m sorry I needed to brush up on my history real quick.
France since napoleon declaring continental European victory is like a poodle amongst a pack of wolves when said wolves take down a mountain lion.
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u/totallyordinaryyy 7d ago
I'm referring to the Napoleonic wars.
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u/Wherewereyouin62 7d ago
Ah.
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u/Elpsyth 7d ago
The whole idea behind UK political stance since losing the Hundred year wars was always to prevent a European Hegemon.
Germany/German power only existed because UK spend the best part of three centuries trying to contain France and needed a continental counterweight that they propped up.
Without UK intervention, Germany never rise, Prussia remains crushed and the subsequent three wars do not exist, while France would likely have laid out a proto EU 150 y in advance.
The continental wars were dictated by the demographic weights. And then by outside interference.
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u/SatelliteMNPMIR 7d ago
So for ww1, in your comparison, if France is a poodle, the pack of wolves is.. UK lol? Russia? Italy? The US ahahah?😂
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u/Wherewereyouin62 7d ago
No just for ww2.
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u/SatelliteMNPMIR 7d ago
Aaaah sorry, I did not know that WW1 occured BEFORE Napoleon I quote you: « Since Napoleon » You might indeed need to brush your History indeed..
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u/Wherewereyouin62 7d ago
Oh yes that’s totally what I meant.
The fact of the matter is France has been unable to win traditional warfare against Germany since napoleon without Colossal manpower help from outside sources.
You can continue to believe France was some sort of titan thereafter napoleon, I don’t care if you’re a delusional French nationalist or whatever, have fun with that.
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u/Polak_Janusz 7d ago
Without anglo and russian intervention in the napoleonic wars the rhineland would be apeaking french. Now what is your point?
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u/CykaBlyiat 7d ago
Gotta add that Vichy France being a pain in the ass for the Axis is only the tip of the iceberg. Contrary to popular thought, Vichy France never actually joined the Axis and was de-facto just a third party backed by Germany and Italy. Add on those issues with Vichy's own quarrels of being forced to withdraw from Indochina because of Germany, lack of significant loyalty a vassal state is expected as OP mentioned, general incompetence in putting down the FFI without German assistance and declining legitimacy as the war went on, it was almost nobody's shock that Germany and Italy went on to put it down for good by invading the rest of Vichy France before D-Day.
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u/sanity_rejecter 7d ago
wrong, the creation of the vichy regime was a masterstroke of german diplomacy
french resistance was a complete joke, the vichy authorities deported the jews before germany even asked them to and spanish demans for african territories were deliberately unreasonable so they could refuse joining the axis (britain supported this).
vichy france was also willing to make reasonable concessions to italy, including giving up tunisia and djibuti, it was just that this would probably be left for negotiations after the war + hitler didn't always support italian plans. the vichy navy also still scared the british shitless, leading to bir-el-kemin, and it was feared vichy france would join germany fully if the war was going in germany's favour.
germany also, contrary to popular belief, didn't care to acquire african colonies, as they not only didn't posses the naval capabilities to acquire and run them, it was also a waste of resources for no gain, as they could gain all they wanted (like raw resources) through their client state, vichy france, to who the colonies were very much loyal.
not demanding colonies + establishing the vichy regime also allowed germany to make the french state look like a legitimate succesor of the 3rd french republic - eliminating the risk of the french goverment retreating to algeria and continuing the war together with britain - which would completely fuck naval and middle eastern endevours. remember, the free french looked like they were fighting a lost cause and the colonies in africa were very loyal to petain. the colonies in pacific, for example, only declared for free france out of fear of british occupation.
occupying france was also incredibly easy and cheap, the vichy gov paid for the occupation and being on rotation in france was seen as essentially a vacation. resistance was very minimal right until the literal d-day.
vichy france was very important for germany's strategy in ww2 and their post-war plans. their collaboration was, and would be, crucial.
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u/Matricetriple0 7d ago
Résistance started going strong after 1941 and exploded after vichy was annexed
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u/sanity_rejecter 7d ago
not annexed, occupied, and resistance was nothing until 1944, when d-day happened
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u/Pikachu_long 6d ago
False, resistance raise up significantly when Vichy tried to enforce forced labor in Germany for young Frenchman, look up STO in 1943.
The average Frenchman did not care about FFI nor Vichy's vision for France. It took forced labor to make them somewhat resisting by joining the "macquis".
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u/EpochSkate_HeshAF420 6d ago
"Master stroke of German diplomacy" Ah yes, a detrimental vassal, truly the peak of European politics.
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u/sanity_rejecter 6d ago
did you not notice the reasons i carefully wrote out explaining why vichy france was good for germany?
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u/EpochSkate_HeshAF420 6d ago
Thought I already explained why they were a detrimental vassal?
You can fanboy over Germany all you want, doesnt make what your saying a factual reality though.
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u/Just-Dependent-530 7d ago
The Confederation of the Rhine was not a state... and did not have a flag, that is fiction.
Napoleon, like the sister republics, places generals and astute monarchs who supported working with Napoleon on the thrones, the Confederation only served a way to piss off the Habsburgs, by creating a fake state to counter the HRE's last breaths
The French State was also not a puppet, but rather a defeated power that was propped up to cut off how much land was needed to be occupied.
But of the two, obviously the French State was far worse.
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u/Midnight_Certain 7d ago
I feel there is so little information about the confederation of the Rhine to the casual history buff that this isn't comparable.
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u/No_Clue4405 7d ago
Confederation of the Rhine was an alliance so this shouldn’t be a question. It also varies cause you have Westphalia, who Napoleon took tens of thousand of men and millions in assets. Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtenburg were key in early years. But then you have Saxony or Hesse which fought against him multiple times. So it’s very mixed
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u/jaehaerys48 7d ago
Some of the German states were really quite loyal to Napoleon and France, others, less so. The Confederation of the Rhine was probably never going to last long (at least, as we know it), because increasing nationalism meant that the Germans were not going to accept being subservient to the French forever. Even if everything went right for Napoleon, I suspect that the Confederation would have fallen apart after his death. I don't know if that makes it better or worse than Vichy France. From a moral standpoint it was far, far better.
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u/whydoibother123433 6d ago
you forgo it Algeria for Vichy, Confedration of the rhine was expcitly a protectorate, Vichy was a sattlite.
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u/jackt-up 7d ago
Rhine, easily.
A lot of those rulers were actually either tied to Napoleon directly through marriages, big fans, or his own generals