Comments by "Fredinno" (@innosam123) on "What if Poland was a Superpower?" video.

Wouldn’t it be more realistic for Siberia to become a vassal of Poland? Since Siberia kind of has to depend on Poland or China for trade. The Poles would have to conquer the Caucasus to actually get defensible borders as well. At least as vassal states.
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The French would be able to keep most of its Empire. Not just it’s loose control over West Africa, but also North Africa, which would be settled with French settlers. Libya and Egypt were also almost French colonies. The population of Africa was low enough that even West Africa could become majority- White with enough people in France. The Entire Western Half of Africa being European would have interesting consequences. Maybe the Portuguese and Spanish Empire survives without such a drive for decolonization, and the support from France. Which would also mean Rhodesia and South Africa would be in a better position to survive.
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Whatifalthist Well, yeah, but in the America’s, they still did it on behalf of the American State. The Urals aren’t really much of a barrier between the two, and so I don’t see any reason they couldn’t keep Siberia at least nominally vassalized. It’s not like the Russians somehow had an easier time getting troops to the Pacific Coast in OTL.
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Aran Butcher The population of Great Britain increased by about 2.85x from 1800-1900, while the population of 1914 Germany grew by about 2.33x from 1800 to 1900. Say, if you add a multiplier of 2.5x from France’s 1800 population, you have a population of 75 Million in Mainland France by 1900, ~46 Million more than in OTL by that time for France. France would need a ton of food, so they’d need to expand and farm wherever they could. More importantly, tropical diseases in Africa had already partially been conquered by the time of African colonization. That’s why they were even able to colonize Africa. Kind of hard to colonize when you can’t even march an army into your target. Give everyone going to West Africa free land and limited free healthcare/vaccines for the tropical diseases, and people would most likely be lining up to move there. North Africa was already much more densely populated anyways, so available land is more limited.
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Aran Butcher France can’t colonize the Americas with the US around, and even just Mexico would be a tall order considering the French would likely have still not been able to take everything in time before the Union won the Civil War. The only timeline where anyone slices off parts of the Americas is one where the Confederacy wins. Side note, the French could become a majority in Africa. The population of French North Africa, plus all of Morocco and Libya was ~15mil, and the population of West Africa was on the same scale (seems to be along the lines of 20 million). France has limited areas that are good for industrialization (mostly the land near Paris and the Rhine), so people would definitely want to move to avoid a Malthusian crisis.
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Hadar1991 What was the long comment?
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Aran Butcher The Talleyrand Plan could happen, but it was a partition. West Africa as in all sub Saharan French Africa minus Madagascar and French Somaliland. Nigeria would be very useful to get due to being the head of the Niger River, though it had a population in 1900 of ~16 million, making it unlikely it could be majority white. Even the French would have difficulty swallowing it up. West Africa is comparably hot to Central and Northern Brazil or Australia year-round. Plenty of settlers there. Arizona too, at least in the summer. Britain had Latin America as a product dumping ground, they’re not just going to stand by and let the French take things if they keep taking land. And the Americans are not to be trifled with, even in the Reconstruction Era. The USA had the West’s largest economy by 1868 OTL. The population of the USA in 1900 was ~76 million. And they have home field advantage. If the Americans really put their weight against the French, they could win. The French ARE going to take the Monroe Doctrine very seriously. Because fighting the USA is not something they want to do. They’re as big a behemoth as France.
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Aran Butcher The Americans basically started funding the opposite side in the Mexican Campaign literally right after the Civil War. The French saw where things were going and gave up despite nearly conquering all of Mexico. It’s not even good for the French on the long run, the Americans, British and Germans can start a multi-front war against France in WW1. Remember who was in charge of foreign relations in Germany at the time. North and Northeastern Brazil are mostly multiracial, not Black. They had plenty of white settlers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilians They just mostly bred with Blacks and Natives. Which might end up happening here if they’re not being overly racist. Remember that they can’t use slavery in the late Victorian age and the Blacks were still fairly sparse. I was referring to places like Townsville. Not the most populous part of Australia, but not empty either. Remember that Australia had a fairly low number of migrants for its carrying capacity, so obviously everyone took the best land first. Libya and Eritrea are also as hot as West Africa, but had no issues finding Italian settlers. Libya is even worse because most of it is pretty marginal. Britain viewed France as a rival right up until Germany started being more of a threat. Maybe they could take Patagonia while Chile and Argentina were still disorganized, since it wasn’t actually under their control yet and thus the British may just let it slide. But it’s really only all that good for wool and has a population today of 2 million. South Island in NZ may also have been colonized if France was more organized. Which actually has good farmland, but it’s also tiny. It has only 1.16 million today, and even though it has an agricultural surplus, it can’t absorb all that many people. West Africa and the Sahel are breadbaskets if you have the infrastructure to support it.
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