G7 - France vs. England

Interesting link.

I can't really add any more to my previous post, but strongly suspect that the Civil War period led to Parliament taking more of a role in the choice of King. If a king exceeded his powers then Parliament was quick to bring him into line. It may not have altered the legality of succession, but it did gradually alter the powers of the King. Parliament did restore King Charles II: that may not have been strictly necessary, but I don't think it would have happened without the agreement of Parliament. I'm also not sure how the principles outlined would apply through the Wars of the Roses when there were multiple claimants. As much as I back the Stuart succession, even I would expect Parliamentary acceptance of the monarch to be needed as by 1700 I don't think it would have been practically possible for there to be an absolutist monarch like Louis of France.

It would be an interesting game line for an English player to try to develop ... some kind of military dictatorship or autocratic rule. I certainly agree that England's parliament in 1700 was far from democratic in the modern (or even C19) sense. I suppose it depends on whether we are closer to the mid-1600s or mid 1700s. If the mid-1600s then Parliament was still dominated by fear of royal authority and specifically limited the size of army which had to be controlled by Parliament. If the mid-1700s then Parliament seemed obsessed with turning against its own if they were too successful (impeachment of Clive of India being the obvious example). Gut feel is that we are closer to the mid-1600s in terms of what people expected, which makes it difficult for the English to back a strong standing army.

I'm not going to get drawn into a public debate on what I think is a better form of government, or indeed if government is necessary at all, which is probably going too far off topic. Although the legal structures may differ I don't think in practice the government of many countries during the LGDR era was that different. There were local oddities (like Venice), and local Parliaments which were jealous of their rights, but I think the idea of either absolute monarchy or democracy/republic is unrealistic for the time. Where would Louis have been without Richelieu, Colbert, etc? Even though he was an absolute monarch, he didn't rule alone. Similarly in England we had rule by cliques, be they the hated Whig Junto or the Tories sponsored by Queen Anne. Individual kings could be weak; Cabals could be equally ineffective. Any system where politicians sought election merely to enrich themselves doesn't seem to do the country any good, and that seems to hold for any era (Roman Republic?). A king who demonstrates an ability to rule honourably and wisely can raise standards of conduct by the lower orders; a cabal who behaves badly can just as easily lower the standards of those who will replace it.

It is always easy to justify your in-game actions if you want to ignore certain things that have happened within the game. Whether you do so by ignoring the game parameters (rulebook), or historical conventions (honourable play) or by ignoring the actions of other players, it doesn't strengthen the argument. The 1689 Act has been made irrelevant by in-game actions of Churchill and without it, the case for William collapses.

I think Stuart does have a point about the long-running conflict between Bourbon and Hapsburg throughout the 1600s, and within that context Leopold's actions can be seen differently. I disagree with the idea that Leopold wanted his 'family' lands in the Empire back. OK, many losses in the Wars of the Reunions were former Hapsburg lands, but that just happened to be because they bordered France and Louis was trying to extend France to its natural borders. The Empire was never a Hapsburg colony, so the idea that they would all unite behind the Hapsburgs is rather fanciful. Historically several HRE countries backed France and were very suspicious of an overmighty Emperor, hence the much misunderstood Treaty of Westphalia which deliberately restricted the powers of the emperor and sought to stop some of what Leopold is doing in G7.

One of the most bizarre things about this game has been that as France I wanted a grand catholic alliance between France and Spain (which after the Treaty of Ghent in 1701 we came very close to). Leopold always objected to the Treaty of Ghent (probably because it brought Spain and France closer) and though for around 3 months (in 1702) he effectively joined Spain, he couldn't cope with the idea of peace with his old enemy. Perhaps this was for the reasons Stuart suggests. An active/hostile Ottoman Empire should have led Leopold to keep his peace treaty with France instead of breaking it which would then have avoided war in Germany and given France/Austria a reason to forget past differences. Uniting the empire against an Ottoman foe would have been far easier to do than against France and avoided a lot of the problems Leopold has made for himself. Once he had turned on France to pursue his vendetta, the methods used destroyed trust between us, much as Churchill's murder of King James will make it very difficult for him to work with King James (b.1688), Parliament or any future King of England.

I agree that it is helpful that Leopold has come clean about his anti-French stance and I agree with him that it is logical for there to be a natural antipathy between Austria and France when looked at from a pre-1700 perspective. That does not mean that such antipathy is inevitably carried on into the game. Players are free to choose to make peace with old enemies which is what happened with France and Spain.

Leopold's account is missing a few rather important details, though: he fails to mention that whatever alliance he concocted with England and UDP, both players dropped out shortly afterwards leaving merely a Spanish/Austrian alliance, which even in the absence of a formal treaty could assume to have existed.

What is (still) baffling is that Leopold was driven by fear of France even after he had signed a treaty with France giving himself protection. This is clearly not logical. And for him to then break the treaty and remove that protection from himself invalidates the rest of his argument. That treaty was separate from the marriage negotiation, though at the time both Spain and Austria were fully aware of what France considered reasonable as a dowry. It was still being negotiated and would have represented a further move towards friendship. There was certainly no intimidation on the part of France to force Austria's hand as the Treaty of Ghent neutralised the possibility of any French action against Spain or Flanders. I think to this day Leopold still underestimates how close France and Spain/Flanders were during that period. It was France's compromises over the Spanish Succession which made the Treaty of Ghent possible: hardly the act of a ruler who was chomping at the bit to attack the Hapsburgs. France and Spain were both determined to avoid war with each other, shared details of the treaties we had signed and were fully open about our plans. Austria was fully aware that I had issues with England over dredgers; I advised Leopold in full of what my plans were so when action was taken he could hardly have been surprised. Building peace and trust was a long process: Leopold's treachery in breaking the treaty immediately after it had been signed blew all that away. Even if Leopold was suspicious of France, he should not have been suspicious of Spain or Flanders, and trusted his allies who themselves trusted France.

So yes, Leopold did completely misunderstand the politics, misunderstand France and launch a war for which there was no justification. This is the first time he has admitted the possibility and credit to him for that. If he had admitted it in the game there was always a very good chance for peace as strategically French policy never changed. Sorting out the detail would have still been difficult (but at least the fighting would have stopped). Somehow Leopold would have had to have convinced France that he could be trusted. I even proposed that any peace be guaranteed by Spain to make it easier for Leopold to accept, but he was still obsessed by 'fear of France'. The propaganda, much of it written by other players, merely served to reinforce Leopold's error and the longer hostilities went on the more propaganda was used to justify the fighting. It may have been entertaining for some, but making Louis out to be a character far removed from the one I had played within the game was nothing more than a delusional fantasy to serve your ends and those of your allies. Continuing a war begun in error, sustained by propaganda which made peace ever more unlikely simply because others found it entertaining may have won you some friends, but it made a mockery of the historical basis of the game as it had developed and the characters within it. Having helped extinguish the fire and sent the firefighters home, you lit it again and allowed others to pour the paraffin on until it blew up.

Deacon - yes it was my comment about it being a lot easier to start a war than end one.

Stuart - a Franco-Hapsburg 'alliance' would not necessarily have worked as you expected. It was envisaged as being primarily defensive in nature, not aggressive. It was never the case that France would help Spain or Austria annex other lands or increase their influence. It would have brought Spain/Austria some relief if they were attacked by the Ottomans and have prevented a major war in central/southern Europe, hopefully making Catholic attacking Catholic highly unlikely. Agreeing such a peace does not prevent conflict elsewhere in the world.