| “ | I always keep my promises... Concerning death, at least. | „ |
| ~ Louis Lacroix |
The Fascist Empire of France, known from 1995 as the Empire of Great Francia, is the main character in Imperial Mapping's Alternate History of Europe series.
History[]
Rise to Power[]
The figure known as "The Lion" was born in 1892, in France. After the country's humiliating defeat in WW1, he founded the Fascist Party in the late 1910s and was elected into power in 1924. His ideology had already reached Greece (now Byzantium) in 1922 and would soon reach Italy in 1928. As that happened, he founded the Fascist Empire of France and attempted to intervene in the ensuing Italian Civil War, founding a few rebel puppets (Savoy, Aosta, Corsica and Nice), but ultimately failing. The country annexed Andorra in 1929 and took the colonies of Sierra Leone and Gambia in 1930 with the British War of Ideology.
Early Expansion[]
In 1933, France formed an alliance with the now isolated Portugal, bringing them into their sphere of influence. The Spanish Civil War resulted in the Falangists rising in Spain, and as Italy and the Fascist World Order withdrew their support to them, France started supplying them. In 1938, North Spain was founded as a French-influenced nation.
The next year, France, together with the now-nationalistic Russia, founded the Eurasian Military Pact, which also included Portugal, North Spain, Romania, and later Ukraine. The Lion then supported a military coup in Germany, which resulted in a civil war and the establishment of a military dictatorship. That escalated into World War II as the EMP declared war on the new regime.
World War II[]
France, together with the EMP and the FWO, managed to hold off and push back Germany. During the war, France threatened Hungary and Byzantium, making they follow their orders. Hungary had to join the EMP and Byzantium had to send troops to Belarus and later attack the Ottoman Empire, which resulted in France taking Egypt, Sudan, Palestine and Hejaz. As Germany surrendered, France turned on Italy and the FWO, which was completely destroyed aside from Byzantium, who joined France instead. Italy surrendered after France nuked Florence, Naples and Rome. In the treaty, the FEF annexed the Rhineland, Belgium and Piedmont, establishing several puppet states in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy and cementing their power over Europe together with Russia, now known as Slavia.
The Cold War[]
French-Slavic relations began to deteriorate as France refused to give their ally a nuclear weapon, even more when France supported Turkey and Slavia supported Kurdistan in their war. However, France did give the USA nukes, which were used in Japan. Slavia uncovered that with the help of Socialist Britain and cut ties to France, saying that The Lion was trying to replace them with the USA as France's main ally. He soon found that Britain had informed Slavia of that, and organized an invasion to the British Isles. After putting down a Communist revolution in Germany, Britain was blockaded and invaded. As the UBSR surrendered, France demanded from Canada, in exchange for letting the latter return to Britain, Quebec, Ireland and Iceland (the two last as puppets). While Venice left the French sphere of influence, a period of relative peace ensued, except when South Spain invaded North Spain in 1969 and France had to intervene. With an unified Iberia, France had a new problem to face: one of the three remaining heirs to the throne (The Lion had killed all the others due to "Impure blood"), Emmon, fled to Switzerland in 1977, and even after France annexed the until-then neutral nation, Emmon had fled to Austria, from where he reached Slavia. In 1984, France, their puppets and the USA formed the Trans-Atlantic Pact, as a response to Slavia's Eastern Front. The Lion passed away in June 1990, at 98 years old.
After The Lion[]
Theodore Lacroix succeeded the Lion on the throne, and quickly expressed his desire of ending the Cold War. In 1995, France annexed their Italian and German puppets (excluding Naples), forming the Empire of Great Francia. Through Serbia, Francia managed to quick start WW3 against Slavia in 1999. Despite having a general success and dissolving Slavia, there were many setbacks during the war, the most permanent of which was the Second Invasion of Russia in 2005. Theodore, refusing to withdraw, was killed by his younger brother and commander of the military Louis Lacroix. However, the damage the invasion caused was irreversible: there were rebellions across Francia, plus the actions of the Danubian League, which quickly made the empire crumble. By late 2006, Paris was under siege, and Louis tried one last desperate action: Project Purity. Made by his father, it would destroy any human without old Germanic genes, but had a high risk of mutating and destroying all of humanity. As he was talking to the USA about it, an airstrike hit Versailles, and he was wounded and probably died soon after; it is not known if he activated Purity or not. Either way, the Empire of Great Francia ended there.