Post by eurofed on Aug 30, 2019 23:12:08 GMT
ITTL the Habsburg Empire was destroyed as a result of its intervention in the Franco-Prussian War on the side of France. This prompted its military and political collapse as the Prussians defeated the Austrians again, the Russians attacked Austria as secretly agreed with Prussia, the Italians eagerly joined the conflict against France and Austria to fulfil all their territorial claims, Pan-German nationalists rose up in rebellion against this betrayal of German solidarity, and the Hungarians did the same to re-assert their bid for independence and protect their own interests. France suffered a decisive defeat just like OTL, only made worse by Italian intervention. The Italians were able to exploit the growing disorganization of the French army caused by Prussian victories to overrun the Rhone valley and besiege Lyon and Marseilles. At the peace table, Germany took Alsace, two-thirds of Lorraine, and Luxemburg. Italy annexed Savoy, Nice, Corsica, and most of French Riviera.
The Habsburg Empire was dismantled. The war made the Prussian ruling elites realize there was no alternative to its partition and a complete unification of the German lands under their leadership. Germany got Austria, Bohemia-Moravia, South Tyrol, Carniola, Burgenland, and Fiume. Italy took Trent, the Kustenland, and Dalmatia. Russia annexed Galicia and Bukovina. The Kingdom of Hungary became independent with most of its traditional territories. It was reorganized into a confederation of Hungary and Croatia, and in practice became a joint client of Germany and Russia. At the bidding of the Russians, the victor powers also enacted a partition of Romania. Russia annexed Moldavia. Hungary-Croatia took Wallachia, which got the same degree of autonomy the Croats got. This caused the Danubian state to take its final shape as a confederation of Hungary, Croatia, and Wallachia. German, Italian, and Russian occupation forces quickly and efficiently put down all opposition to the new settlement. Russian success and territorial expansion in the Danubian area accelerated the time table of the Russo-Turkish war. Russia waged it with the military and diplomatic support of Germany, Italy, and H-C-W. These powers exploited the situation to occupy territories of interest, including Bosnia, Albania, Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco. The war turned into a decisive success for the Russians, and threatened a complete dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
Britain was determined to prevent such an outcome and threatened war, but was in a difficult strategic situation due to an effective lack of support in Europe. The Germans, Italians, and Hungarians backed the Russians. The French would have been eager to support the British, especially if it meant getting their help for a war of revenge against Germany and Italy, but France was still recovering from a disastrous sequence of defeat, foreign invasion, military occupation of part of its territory until it paid onerous war indemnities, and a far-leftist revolutionary uprising. Although the rebellion was suppressed, and the French made a valiant effort to pay the indemnity quickly, France was in no shape yet to fight another war. Much the same way, Spain would have been willing to support the British, especially because of German and Italian expansionism in North Africa, but they were exhausted after the recent sequence of revolutionary instability, the Third Carlist War, and defeat in the Spanish-American War. As a result, the British were forced to accept a compromise that acknowledged the gains of the Russians and their allies, even if it allowed the Ottoman Empire to survive and keep control of the Turkish Straits. In the peace settlement, Russia annexed Western Armenia, Assyria, and Iranian Azerbaijan. Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Vardar Macedonia merged as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a client state of Russia. Bosnia was partitioned between Yugoslavia and H-C-W. Germany got Morocco. Italy took Albania, Tunisia, and Libya. Greece got Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, Crete, the Aegean Islands, Ionia, and Cyprus. Yugoslavia got Thrace.
Thanks to their successful cooperation in the last two wars, an effective and satisfactory settlement of their claims and spheres of influence, and elimination of the divisive influence of the Habsburg empire, Germany, Russia, Italy, and H-C-W were able to build a solid alliance. It became known as the Eastern Powers or the Quadruple Alliance. To oppose them, the rival bloc of the Quadruple Entente soon took shape. It included Britain, France, Spain, and the Ottoman Empire. The British were determined to prevent hegemonic control of Europe by the German-Russian-Italian bloc and locked in the 'Great Game' imperial rivalry with Russia. The French were equally hostile to EP influence and in the thrall of a rabid revanchist complex vs. Germany and Italy. Both were able to lure Spain in their bloc with offers and promises of future territorial compensations, economic support, and assistance to reverse decline. The Ottomans were just desperate to get foreign help and prevent further Russian encroachment. Yugoslavia was squarely in the EP camp due to firm leashing by its Russian overlords, despite recurrent nationalist squabbling with H-C-W and Greece. The Greeks wavered between alignment to the EP and a wish to avoid alienating Britain and France too much. However, most of the time Greece drifted closer to the EP due to their dominant influence in the Balkans and presence of Turkey in the opposite camp. The other European states mostly clung to neutrality, including Scandinavia which unified following the compelling example of Germany and Italy.
The USA clung to its traditional isolationism and its early history did not diverge radically from OTL. Due to a separate and earlier divergence, however, its territorial expansion came to encompass most of North America. During the American Revolutionary War, the Patriots and their allies performed somewhat better than OTL and as a result the USA gained Upper Canada and Acadia at the peace table. Québec (with pre-1774 borders) became an independent republic and a client state of the USA. The Canadiens aligned with the American Revolution but declined to join the Union, and France showed a definite lack of interest to get their old colony back. The French preferred to claim a portion of the British West Indies as their war booty. TTL equivalent of Canada became limited to Nova Scotia, PEI, and Newfoundland. The Loyalists part resettled to these colonies, part went to South Africa and Australia.
The Louisiana Purchase took place much the usual way. The War of 1812 occurred for the usual reasons concerning British blockade of American trade to Europe and impressment of US sailors, even if American ambitions on settled Canada were largely sated, and the British were much less able to support Native tribes hostile to American settlers. The conflict soon evolved into a strategic stalemate and ended in a white peace. The British utterly dominated the seas and successfully defended Nova Scotia and Newfoundland thanks to their naval superiority, but the Americans defeated all British land and amphibious offensives on their territory thanks to better military preparation and a more favorable strategic situation. The conflict reinforced British perception that a land war with the Americans on their home ground was a fool's errand. In a few decades, the British also realized they effectively lacked sufficient access to Western Canada for its colonization, development, and defence, and the region was getting swamped with American settlers. Therefore, they accepted to cede Rupert's Land and the Pacific Northwest to the USA w/o much fuss. The equivalents of Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia became US states, although not necessarily or even likely with the same borders and names. Yukon eventually merged with Alaska after the latter's purchase by the USA. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut might eventually follow the same course, or stay US Territories for the foreseeable future due to insufficient population for statehood.
The Americans supported the secession of Texas and Rio Grande from Mexico, eventually leading to US annexation of the breakaway republics and the Mexican-American War due to conflicting territorial claims. The USA won a decisive victory and at the peace table the Americans successfully claimed all of northern Mexico, including the states of Nuevo Mexico, Las Californias, Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosi plus of course the territories owned by Texas and Rio Grande. Mexico became limited to its central and southern portion. Thanks to increased US support, the efforts of American flibuster William Walker to take control of Nicaragua and defeat a coalition of Central American states were successful. This ultimately led to US annexation of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and building of the Nicaragua Canal. The American Civil War took place more or less the usual way, but with a slightly shorter course thanks to a better military performance of the Union and the contribution of the Canadian section to its military effort. France exploited the conflict to take control of Mexico as a client state, with prevalent success while the conflict lasted. After its end, however, America was in a position to act upon its hostility to French intervention, and threatened war. Napoleon III was forced to withdraw from Mexico, and this humiliating setback was one of the reasons that drove him to take an intransigent stance vs. Prussia and Italy, dragging France to disaster and Austria to extinction.
These events increased American awareness of the strategic importance of the Caribbean region, prompting the USA to accept the offer to annex the Dominican Republic and intervene to support Cuba in its rebellion against Spanish colonial rule. The Spanish-American war saw a decisive US victory and led to American annexation of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Due to the war occurring when US power projection in the Pacific was not that well-established, and the British deploying their fleet to shelter the Philippines from a possible American attack, Spain was able to keep control of the archipelago. The war was one of the main reasons for Spain to join the Entente alliance.
Britain and France cooperated to build the Panama Canal, and when the Columbian government proved insufficiently amenable to their demands, supported the secession of Panama as a client state of theirs. This violation of the Monroe Doctrine, worsened by a boundary dispute between Britain and Venezuela, caused an armed conflict between the USA and the Entente. Anglo-French naval superiority caught the USA on the wrong foot and enabled an Entente victory that forced the Americans to accept the status quo in Panama and a settlement of the boundary dispute compliant to British claims. However, this success also was a poison pill for the Entente since it buried any realistic chance America would be anything but an hostile neutral at best to them in an European conflict barring overwhelming provocation by the Eastern powers.
Japan's modernization and decline of Qing China took place much as usual, but the First Sino-Japanese War occurred a decade earlier and the Russo-Japanese war was averted since Russia felt satisfied enough and was encouraged by German mediation to accept a compromise deal that acknowledged Sakhalin, Korea, and Taiwan in the Japanese sphere of influence and Manchuria, Mongolia, and Xinjiang in the Russian sphere of influence. As a result, Japan annexed Taiwan, Korea, and Sakhalin with the support of the Eastern powers. Earlier Japanese annexation of Korea enabled its successful political and cultural assimilation in the Japanese Empire since it occurred before the Kingdom of Korea could make any significant move towards modernization. As a result, many Koreans came to appreciate Japanese rule as a bringer of progress and development, and accepted it in exchange for modernization, enfranchisement, and respect of their cultural heritage. Russia exploited the opportunity of the Sino-French war and ongoing boundary conflicts in East Turkestan to attack China and force it to cede Manchuria, Mongolia, and Xinjiang. This display of Russian expansionism prompted Britain to establish its protectorate on Tibet, France to annex Hainan after its victory on the Chinese, and both powers to partition Thailand.
The Scramble for Africa took place much the usual way, except for a few important differences. Germany took control of the Congo basin, displacing French and Belgian interests in the region, and built a contiguous colonial empire across Central Africa from Kamerun to Tanganyika. Italy conquered Ethiopia in a victorious colonial war and exploited this success to seize control of Uganda and Kenya. In a spell of detente, Britain and Germany cooperated to take collateral from Portugal for its debt by seizing most of its colonies. Germany took Angola and Britain got Mozambique. The two powers further extended the deal with a territorial swap that exchanged South-West Africa and German New Guinea for Heligoland and Northern Rhodesia.
By the turn of the century, growing imperialistic competition between the European powers and increasing polarization between the EP and the Entente made a general conflict in Europe more and more likely. Its avoidance only seemed truly feasible in the case Britain and France would concede supremacy to the German-Russian bloc without a fight, and this appeared rather unrealistic given British pride and French revanchism. On the other hand, TTL circumstances made it impossible for its flashpoint to occur the usual way, or even rather unlikely in the Balkans at all. The Habsburg empire was long dead, the Ottomans long expelled from the Balkans, and the area firmly under the thumb of EP hegemony. A lot of the usual latent nationalist instability smouldered, but the German, Russian, and Italian overlords cooperated to suppress it.
Different alliances meant the absence of Eastern and Balkan theaters, with their equivalents being displaced to the Eastern Med, Middle East, and Central Asia. The Western theater promised a lot of familiarity, except for its extension to the Alps. Italy was entirely committed and well-prepared to fight on Germany's side, even if it still faced a war on relatively difficult terrain. The Spanish let their hopes of recovering their lost greatness drag them into the fire. EP strategic and economic continuity across the eastern half of the continent made the bloc effectively immune to Entente blockade. The Ottoman Empire was entirely committed on the Entente's side, in a bid for survival. They still faced a two-front war, even if they swapped the southern front for a western one, and could expect more assistance from their allies. The Great Game was to turn into a shooting match on a vast but logistically-poor front. Russian-Japanese detente prevented the Anglo-Japanese alliance and kept Japan an opportunist wild card. Depending on circumstances, it might choose to backstab Russia for Manchuria or perhaps more likely the Entente for its Southeast Asian colonies, enabling an analogue of the Russo-Japanese war or the Pacific War, only without the involvement of the USA or China. The USA looked at the perspective of such a conflict with the jaded cynicism of a true neutral leaning on pro-EP sympathies, unless one side or the other took extraordinary action to provoke them. If anything, it was very likely to exploit a general conflict to reverse its previous setback in Panama and seize control of the other transoceanic canal. The Entente would also have to step carefully with tis blockade to avoid provoking the unsympathetic Americans into an intervention and a seizure of Entente colonial assets in North America and quite possibly the Pacific as well. Where and how the spark would occur?
The Habsburg Empire was dismantled. The war made the Prussian ruling elites realize there was no alternative to its partition and a complete unification of the German lands under their leadership. Germany got Austria, Bohemia-Moravia, South Tyrol, Carniola, Burgenland, and Fiume. Italy took Trent, the Kustenland, and Dalmatia. Russia annexed Galicia and Bukovina. The Kingdom of Hungary became independent with most of its traditional territories. It was reorganized into a confederation of Hungary and Croatia, and in practice became a joint client of Germany and Russia. At the bidding of the Russians, the victor powers also enacted a partition of Romania. Russia annexed Moldavia. Hungary-Croatia took Wallachia, which got the same degree of autonomy the Croats got. This caused the Danubian state to take its final shape as a confederation of Hungary, Croatia, and Wallachia. German, Italian, and Russian occupation forces quickly and efficiently put down all opposition to the new settlement. Russian success and territorial expansion in the Danubian area accelerated the time table of the Russo-Turkish war. Russia waged it with the military and diplomatic support of Germany, Italy, and H-C-W. These powers exploited the situation to occupy territories of interest, including Bosnia, Albania, Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco. The war turned into a decisive success for the Russians, and threatened a complete dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
Britain was determined to prevent such an outcome and threatened war, but was in a difficult strategic situation due to an effective lack of support in Europe. The Germans, Italians, and Hungarians backed the Russians. The French would have been eager to support the British, especially if it meant getting their help for a war of revenge against Germany and Italy, but France was still recovering from a disastrous sequence of defeat, foreign invasion, military occupation of part of its territory until it paid onerous war indemnities, and a far-leftist revolutionary uprising. Although the rebellion was suppressed, and the French made a valiant effort to pay the indemnity quickly, France was in no shape yet to fight another war. Much the same way, Spain would have been willing to support the British, especially because of German and Italian expansionism in North Africa, but they were exhausted after the recent sequence of revolutionary instability, the Third Carlist War, and defeat in the Spanish-American War. As a result, the British were forced to accept a compromise that acknowledged the gains of the Russians and their allies, even if it allowed the Ottoman Empire to survive and keep control of the Turkish Straits. In the peace settlement, Russia annexed Western Armenia, Assyria, and Iranian Azerbaijan. Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Vardar Macedonia merged as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a client state of Russia. Bosnia was partitioned between Yugoslavia and H-C-W. Germany got Morocco. Italy took Albania, Tunisia, and Libya. Greece got Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, Crete, the Aegean Islands, Ionia, and Cyprus. Yugoslavia got Thrace.
Thanks to their successful cooperation in the last two wars, an effective and satisfactory settlement of their claims and spheres of influence, and elimination of the divisive influence of the Habsburg empire, Germany, Russia, Italy, and H-C-W were able to build a solid alliance. It became known as the Eastern Powers or the Quadruple Alliance. To oppose them, the rival bloc of the Quadruple Entente soon took shape. It included Britain, France, Spain, and the Ottoman Empire. The British were determined to prevent hegemonic control of Europe by the German-Russian-Italian bloc and locked in the 'Great Game' imperial rivalry with Russia. The French were equally hostile to EP influence and in the thrall of a rabid revanchist complex vs. Germany and Italy. Both were able to lure Spain in their bloc with offers and promises of future territorial compensations, economic support, and assistance to reverse decline. The Ottomans were just desperate to get foreign help and prevent further Russian encroachment. Yugoslavia was squarely in the EP camp due to firm leashing by its Russian overlords, despite recurrent nationalist squabbling with H-C-W and Greece. The Greeks wavered between alignment to the EP and a wish to avoid alienating Britain and France too much. However, most of the time Greece drifted closer to the EP due to their dominant influence in the Balkans and presence of Turkey in the opposite camp. The other European states mostly clung to neutrality, including Scandinavia which unified following the compelling example of Germany and Italy.
The USA clung to its traditional isolationism and its early history did not diverge radically from OTL. Due to a separate and earlier divergence, however, its territorial expansion came to encompass most of North America. During the American Revolutionary War, the Patriots and their allies performed somewhat better than OTL and as a result the USA gained Upper Canada and Acadia at the peace table. Québec (with pre-1774 borders) became an independent republic and a client state of the USA. The Canadiens aligned with the American Revolution but declined to join the Union, and France showed a definite lack of interest to get their old colony back. The French preferred to claim a portion of the British West Indies as their war booty. TTL equivalent of Canada became limited to Nova Scotia, PEI, and Newfoundland. The Loyalists part resettled to these colonies, part went to South Africa and Australia.
The Louisiana Purchase took place much the usual way. The War of 1812 occurred for the usual reasons concerning British blockade of American trade to Europe and impressment of US sailors, even if American ambitions on settled Canada were largely sated, and the British were much less able to support Native tribes hostile to American settlers. The conflict soon evolved into a strategic stalemate and ended in a white peace. The British utterly dominated the seas and successfully defended Nova Scotia and Newfoundland thanks to their naval superiority, but the Americans defeated all British land and amphibious offensives on their territory thanks to better military preparation and a more favorable strategic situation. The conflict reinforced British perception that a land war with the Americans on their home ground was a fool's errand. In a few decades, the British also realized they effectively lacked sufficient access to Western Canada for its colonization, development, and defence, and the region was getting swamped with American settlers. Therefore, they accepted to cede Rupert's Land and the Pacific Northwest to the USA w/o much fuss. The equivalents of Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia became US states, although not necessarily or even likely with the same borders and names. Yukon eventually merged with Alaska after the latter's purchase by the USA. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut might eventually follow the same course, or stay US Territories for the foreseeable future due to insufficient population for statehood.
The Americans supported the secession of Texas and Rio Grande from Mexico, eventually leading to US annexation of the breakaway republics and the Mexican-American War due to conflicting territorial claims. The USA won a decisive victory and at the peace table the Americans successfully claimed all of northern Mexico, including the states of Nuevo Mexico, Las Californias, Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosi plus of course the territories owned by Texas and Rio Grande. Mexico became limited to its central and southern portion. Thanks to increased US support, the efforts of American flibuster William Walker to take control of Nicaragua and defeat a coalition of Central American states were successful. This ultimately led to US annexation of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and building of the Nicaragua Canal. The American Civil War took place more or less the usual way, but with a slightly shorter course thanks to a better military performance of the Union and the contribution of the Canadian section to its military effort. France exploited the conflict to take control of Mexico as a client state, with prevalent success while the conflict lasted. After its end, however, America was in a position to act upon its hostility to French intervention, and threatened war. Napoleon III was forced to withdraw from Mexico, and this humiliating setback was one of the reasons that drove him to take an intransigent stance vs. Prussia and Italy, dragging France to disaster and Austria to extinction.
These events increased American awareness of the strategic importance of the Caribbean region, prompting the USA to accept the offer to annex the Dominican Republic and intervene to support Cuba in its rebellion against Spanish colonial rule. The Spanish-American war saw a decisive US victory and led to American annexation of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Due to the war occurring when US power projection in the Pacific was not that well-established, and the British deploying their fleet to shelter the Philippines from a possible American attack, Spain was able to keep control of the archipelago. The war was one of the main reasons for Spain to join the Entente alliance.
Britain and France cooperated to build the Panama Canal, and when the Columbian government proved insufficiently amenable to their demands, supported the secession of Panama as a client state of theirs. This violation of the Monroe Doctrine, worsened by a boundary dispute between Britain and Venezuela, caused an armed conflict between the USA and the Entente. Anglo-French naval superiority caught the USA on the wrong foot and enabled an Entente victory that forced the Americans to accept the status quo in Panama and a settlement of the boundary dispute compliant to British claims. However, this success also was a poison pill for the Entente since it buried any realistic chance America would be anything but an hostile neutral at best to them in an European conflict barring overwhelming provocation by the Eastern powers.
Japan's modernization and decline of Qing China took place much as usual, but the First Sino-Japanese War occurred a decade earlier and the Russo-Japanese war was averted since Russia felt satisfied enough and was encouraged by German mediation to accept a compromise deal that acknowledged Sakhalin, Korea, and Taiwan in the Japanese sphere of influence and Manchuria, Mongolia, and Xinjiang in the Russian sphere of influence. As a result, Japan annexed Taiwan, Korea, and Sakhalin with the support of the Eastern powers. Earlier Japanese annexation of Korea enabled its successful political and cultural assimilation in the Japanese Empire since it occurred before the Kingdom of Korea could make any significant move towards modernization. As a result, many Koreans came to appreciate Japanese rule as a bringer of progress and development, and accepted it in exchange for modernization, enfranchisement, and respect of their cultural heritage. Russia exploited the opportunity of the Sino-French war and ongoing boundary conflicts in East Turkestan to attack China and force it to cede Manchuria, Mongolia, and Xinjiang. This display of Russian expansionism prompted Britain to establish its protectorate on Tibet, France to annex Hainan after its victory on the Chinese, and both powers to partition Thailand.
The Scramble for Africa took place much the usual way, except for a few important differences. Germany took control of the Congo basin, displacing French and Belgian interests in the region, and built a contiguous colonial empire across Central Africa from Kamerun to Tanganyika. Italy conquered Ethiopia in a victorious colonial war and exploited this success to seize control of Uganda and Kenya. In a spell of detente, Britain and Germany cooperated to take collateral from Portugal for its debt by seizing most of its colonies. Germany took Angola and Britain got Mozambique. The two powers further extended the deal with a territorial swap that exchanged South-West Africa and German New Guinea for Heligoland and Northern Rhodesia.
By the turn of the century, growing imperialistic competition between the European powers and increasing polarization between the EP and the Entente made a general conflict in Europe more and more likely. Its avoidance only seemed truly feasible in the case Britain and France would concede supremacy to the German-Russian bloc without a fight, and this appeared rather unrealistic given British pride and French revanchism. On the other hand, TTL circumstances made it impossible for its flashpoint to occur the usual way, or even rather unlikely in the Balkans at all. The Habsburg empire was long dead, the Ottomans long expelled from the Balkans, and the area firmly under the thumb of EP hegemony. A lot of the usual latent nationalist instability smouldered, but the German, Russian, and Italian overlords cooperated to suppress it.
Different alliances meant the absence of Eastern and Balkan theaters, with their equivalents being displaced to the Eastern Med, Middle East, and Central Asia. The Western theater promised a lot of familiarity, except for its extension to the Alps. Italy was entirely committed and well-prepared to fight on Germany's side, even if it still faced a war on relatively difficult terrain. The Spanish let their hopes of recovering their lost greatness drag them into the fire. EP strategic and economic continuity across the eastern half of the continent made the bloc effectively immune to Entente blockade. The Ottoman Empire was entirely committed on the Entente's side, in a bid for survival. They still faced a two-front war, even if they swapped the southern front for a western one, and could expect more assistance from their allies. The Great Game was to turn into a shooting match on a vast but logistically-poor front. Russian-Japanese detente prevented the Anglo-Japanese alliance and kept Japan an opportunist wild card. Depending on circumstances, it might choose to backstab Russia for Manchuria or perhaps more likely the Entente for its Southeast Asian colonies, enabling an analogue of the Russo-Japanese war or the Pacific War, only without the involvement of the USA or China. The USA looked at the perspective of such a conflict with the jaded cynicism of a true neutral leaning on pro-EP sympathies, unless one side or the other took extraordinary action to provoke them. If anything, it was very likely to exploit a general conflict to reverse its previous setback in Panama and seize control of the other transoceanic canal. The Entente would also have to step carefully with tis blockade to avoid provoking the unsympathetic Americans into an intervention and a seizure of Entente colonial assets in North America and quite possibly the Pacific as well. Where and how the spark would occur?