Why did France never really match it's previous power and

>>1794047

German nationalism and Russian expansion made them irrelevant in Europe. British naval power made them irrelevant overseas and dependant on them for maritime communications. Late access to Industrial Revolution and demographic growth all over Europe had France ceased to be the prime European state both by population and economy. Diplomatically France had pissed off everyone and remained essentially isolated and a lapdog of the British Empire until Russia sought an ally to counter German influence.

Napoleon ruined France position in Europe forever.

>>1794047
Napoleon made equal inheritance a thing meaning families didnt want to have a lot of kids to prevent their land getting split into smaller and smaller plots. Slow population growth meant wars hit France harder than other European states, and it also meant there wasn't a large labor surplus so industrialization lagged behind too.

Birth rate collapse.

>>1794047
The main reason is demographic. The French revolution plus the Napoleonic wars had an impact on France comparable in deaths to that of the world war.
Hundreds of thousands died in Spain, over half a million died in Russia, plus all the soldiers who died in battles of the French revolution and Napoleonic wars, plus all those who died in the reign of terror, hundreds of thousands also died in the vendees genocide.
A lot of young men were killed in war didn't get married and have kids.
Also, they were the most secular country of Europe, the first one to see families get smaller due to secularism.

France always had had a bigger population than the UK and Germany, and by WW1 Germany had 20 million people more. 60 to 40. That's the big difference.

Also. A great asset for France before the French revolution was their Family Pact with Spain. Both had Bourbon kings and the French fleet plus the Spanish fleet combined could be a match for the British one.
Both France and Spain were winners in the American revolutionary war.
France destroyed that family pact and also destroyed Spain and it's empire. Spanish colonies became independent when Napoleon kidnapped Ferdinand VII.