Re: [DL] European Sourcebooks

[Eric Avedissian <eric@pro-usa.net>]

Whether France lost the Franco-Prussian War is hinted at in South o' the
Border, with Napoleon III still in power. In real history, France lost,
Napoleon III was outsted, and a group of radical socialists called the
Commune came to power for a few months. The Commune was put down in the
bloodiest massacres since the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution
of the 1790s. Then, a new government was installed in France.
Now, in the DL Marshal's Handbook section entitled The Weird World, the
French are plotting their revenge for their defeat in the Prussian War
in 1870, leading one to conclude the war ended in 1870 instead of 1871,
a minor point but significant nonetheless.
So can we conclude Napoleon III managed to escape capture, returned to
crush the insurgent Commune and is developing a plan to go to war with a
unified Germany? An update would be the French moved against Germany in
1877, starting the German-Franco war between the two countries.
(Remember War = Fear to the Reckoners) The seeds of continental Europe
are should be sowed with chaos and uneasiness.
Portraying the Germans as bad guys is overdone in gaming. Play Weird War
III for much-deserved Nazi bogeymen. In DL, the French rulers, under the
tyrannical regime of Napoleon III shold be the villians, while the
struggling Franch underclasses teeter towards following Napoleon III, a
rising socialist subgroup, an anarchist faction, or desperately hoping
for better conditions.
That's just my opinion, anyway.

Marshal Eric