French Demographic Collapse: Why did it occur and how do we avoid it?

[Nicksplace27]

Its fairly well known that had France grown in population similarly to the rest of Europe during the nineteenth century; they would very well have 100 to 150 million people inside the 1789 borders.

Many blame the revolutionary war; Napoleon abandoning salic law; the lack of industrialization in France post Nappy. But what do you think is the real and most plausible answer behind this demographic collapse and how do we avoid it?

I would love to see a massive, extremely densely population France go toe to toe with the British Empire at time; all that historical animosity in a modern war. Instead we got a weak France becoming the junior partner in the War against the up and coming Germans. I would like to change that.

Demography is destiny and hopefully a change in history can influence demography greatly.

 

[Socrates]

It can't really be done. The reason France did worse than its peers demographically in this period was because it had done better than its peers demographically in previous centuries. The country had bumped up against its Malthusian limits in terms of what it could produce agriculturally to feed its populations, and it doesn't have the economic surplus to buy from abroad. The revolutionary and Napoleonic reforms are almost a best case scenario in terms of improving the economy to improve this surplus: a surviving monarchy or nobility is likely to make it much worse. You can tinker a bit round the edges, but fundamental leaps forward aren't possible, IMHO.

 

[Nicksplace27]

It can't really be done. The reason France did worse than its peers demographically in this period was because it had done better than its peers demographically in previous centuries. The country had bumped up against its Malthusian limits in terms of what it could produce agriculturally to feed its populations, and it doesn't have the economic surplus to buy from abroad. The revolutionary and Napoleonic reforms are almost a best case scenario in terms of improving the economy to improve this surplus: a surviving monarchy or nobility is likely to make it much worse. You can tinker a bit round the edges, but fundamental leaps forward aren't possible, IMHO.

But Malthus is bunk! All they need is free trade with England or America earlier and the population could continue growing at the same terrific pace that the English population grew or the German population grew.

I'd hardly believe it is impossible just because the French didn't have enough Bread. There could be more bread for France to create this supersized monster.

I do like your idea that it wasn't Napoleon's or the Republic's fault and the blame lay on the economic policies of the Ancien Regieme. But I find fault in this as the demography really kept collapsing after reforms came and economic conditions got better.

 

[Socrates]

But Malthus is bunk! All they need is free trade with England or America earlier and the population could continue growing at the same terrific pace that the English population grew or the German population grew.

Malthus isn't bunk. See Ireland, 1845.

I'd hardly believe it is impossible just because the French didn't have enough Bread. There could be more bread for France to create this supersized monster.

Well, like I said, there isn't any spare agricultural capacity in France, so it needs to be bought in from the outside. To get the economic wealth to do that in a big way, you need an industrial revolution style take off. That's simply not going to happen prior to 1789 as it was still only just getting started in England at that point.

Post-Napoleon, it's hard to see what more they could have done: debt forgiveness for peasants, abolition of guild restrictions, an end to internal tariffs, the creation of a central bank etc. They did all this and still didn't get an industrial revolution take-off, because of fundamentals to the French state. Outside the Northeast, they didn't have the iron and particularly the coal reserves. They also lack an easy way to transport inputs and outputs around as most of the country doesn't have the easy access coastline that Britain did.

 

[wolf_brother]

Malthus isn't bunk. See Ireland, 1845.

That's not Malthus, that's putting all your eggs in one basket. If Ireland had had diversified agriculture the potato blight wouldn't have caused so much death and emigration - if at all.

Malthus is debunked. If he'd been correct than the world population would have collapsed last century instead of booming.

 

[Socrates]

That's not Malthus, that's putting all your eggs in one basket. If Ireland had had diversified agriculture the potato blight wouldn't have caused so much death and emigration - if at all.

Which is why the Irish population never recovered?

Malthus is debunked. If he'd been correct than the world population would have collapsed last century instead of booming.

His numbers were wrong as he didn't properly account for technological change. But he was right that there's a limit to the amount of population a given amount of land can sustain (for a set level of technology).

 

[Nicksplace27]

Which is why the Irish population never recovered?



His numbers were wrong as he didn't properly account for technological change. But he was right that there's a limit to the amount of population a given amount of land can sustain(for a set level of technology).

But technology doesn't stay set; in fact it changes and advances most when there is the most need for it.

And the Irish population never recovered for political reasons not some Malthusian limit to how many people Ireland can possibly sustain.

I need proof that agricultural yields were held back by an insurmountable lack of technology which led to the inevitable decline of the French population to be convinced of some Malthusian reason France could not hypothetically have 150 million Frenchmen today.

 

[Nicksplace27]

Post-Napoleon, it's hard to see what more they could have done: debt forgiveness for peasants, abolition of guild restrictions, an end to internal tariffs, the creation of a central bank etc. They did all this and still didn't get an industrial revolution take-off, because of fundamentals to the French state. Outside the Northeast, they didn't have the iron and particularly the coal reserves. They also lack an easy way to transport inputs and outputs around as most of the country doesn't have the easy access coastline that Britain did.

So all we need is for France to embrace Rail transportation earlier?

 

[PhilippeO]

what about inheritance rule ? i read somewhere that during Napoleonic reform, primogeniture is abandoned, so land is divided to all children. Parents then reduce number of children to prevent land division.

 

[Nicksplace27]

what about inheritance rule ? i read somewhere that during Napoleonic reform, primogeniture is abandoned, so land is divided to all children. Parents then reduce number of children to prevent land division.

That change in Salic Law really only applied to the landed classes which made up a very small percentage of the population of France at the time. This doesn't explain about how the loss in the fertility rate occurred across all classes.

 

[Russian Sailor]

Maybe if you shorten or curtailed the napoleonic wars. That would have probably left a revolutionary republic/monarchy and a demographic balance. Unlike OTL where the young population was killed off during the war.

 

[Last of the Stuarts]

You would need the French equivilent of Jethro Tull and Turnip Townsend to push forward farming reform much earlier than it arrived in OTL France.

Since a lot of farming practice was developed in Flanders / Low Countries the spread westward could be speeded up, however since most of the land was owned by absentee landlords the question becomes, why would the French want to make the improvements. It could be seen clearly that the British had strenghened their middle class with the agriculturial revolution as well as the working class, since the French aristo's would not want to do this they would have no motivation to push the changes.

 

[Daztur]

Give them the Ruhr (pretty close the France) and have them have an industrial boom based on the coal fields there so that they can pay for food imports?

 

[Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy]

The country had bumped up against its Malthusian limits in terms of what it could produce agriculturally to feed its populations, and it doesn't have the economic surplus to buy from abroad.

It seems to me that the problem would be partly solved if France acquired the coal mines of the Saar and Wallonia. Combined with the iron in Lorraine, they could get a nice little alt-Ruhr going. It's not like Germany's agricultural output could support that many people either.

 

[Lord Douglas]

You would need the French equivilent of Jethro Tull and Turnip Townsend to push forward farming reform much earlier than it arrived in OTL France.

Since a lot of farming practice was developed in Flanders / Low Countries the spread westward could be speeded up, however since most of the land was owned by absentee landlords the question becomes, why would the French want to make the improvements. It could be seen clearly that the British had strenghened their middle class with the agriculturial revolution as well as the working class, since the French aristo's would not want to do this they would have no motivation to push the changes.

To be fair a lot of British landowners were absentees too - it's just that they realised the improvements had the potential to vastly increase their income and therefore tasked a factor or agent with pushing them through.

This had however occurred to me as a way of ensuring that the French population increased as the Agricultural Revolution in Britain necessarily preceded and created the conditions for the Industrial Revolution. I have no idea if something like this actually happened though. Incidentally this is one area where the abolition of primogeniture wouldn't have helped - the key to the Agricultural Revolution was the creation of fewer and larger farms and estates, which for obvious reasons is difficult with equal inheritance.

 

[Nugax]

But Malthus is bunk! All they need is free trade with England or America earlier and the population could continue growing at the same terrific pace that the English population grew or the German population grew.

You're silly - Britain and German populations increased because they were introducing new crops (primarily potatoes), previously inaccessible areas of the country were being opened up by infrastructure improvements and the fruits of industrialization gave something to trade for food with.

France can't really do any of that. Even with all those advantages the UK had to export 13 million people.

Keeping the French birthrate up would just mean more people would have to immigrate from France.

 

[Russian Sailor]

Time to give a bump

 

[Pachac]

France's main issue was that they developed more liberal birth control quicker than the rest of Europe, didn't have the industrial resources to fuel the same kind of growth and urbanization as the rest of Europe, and a number of other factors. It really had nothing to do with land.

 

[B_Munro]

You're silly - Britain and German populations increased because they were introducing new crops (primarily potatoes), previously inaccessible areas of the country were being opened up by infrastructure improvements and the fruits of industrialization gave something to trade for food with.

France can't really do any of that. Even with all those advantages the UK had to export 13 million people.

Keeping the French birthrate up would just mean more people would have to immigrate from France.

Actually, a lot of France was pretty desolate and uninhabited well into the 19th century, according to Graham Robb's "The Discovery of France": there _was_ room for development.

France also has some two and a half times the area of Great Britain and Scotland, and had a lower population by several million in 1900. Is the land particularly worse for agriculture?

Bruce

 

[Cináed]

Its a difficult one. Clearly, there were muliple factors behind the French demographic collapse. I doubt that there's any one POD that can stall it.
Still, if you can prevent that collapse, a France which knocks against a hypothetical Malthusian limit can export her surplus population within her own empire, rather than a) sending them to war-related deaths, or b) lose them to the Americas. Britain peopled four settler colonies with her surplus population, all contributing to the prestige of the empire. France with surplus people and colonies with an appropriate climate could do the same.