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Old 07-04-2018, 05:13 PM   #3401
malloyd
 
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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
The easy way to solve this is to have the British solidly allied to the Bavarians. The obvious way to do it would by a union of the crowns
At this late a date, I don't think that's even true. A union of crowns probably produces more republican pressure to ditch the foreigner/traitor than it does unity between the states.
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Old 07-05-2018, 02:54 AM   #3402
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At this late a date, I don't think that's even true. A union of crowns probably produces more republican pressure to ditch the foreigner/traitor than it does unity between the states.
Maybe that's useful for his goal. The British republicans start a civil war. The tory elites and the Bavarians ( brought over by the British navy) crush the revolt. Victoria's court spoke German right up to the 20th century. So having a German-speaking aristocracy running Britain and Ireland as conquered provinces could work.

Dickens would have had to move to America. I envision him writing biographical novels about Franklin, Pain, and Jefferson, and reigniting American understanding about the founding fathers and gaining for himself broader and deeper sympathies than he had in life. George Eliot would have also needed to emigrate, Margaret Fuller and she might have been pals. Karl Marx in America joins the newly minted Republican party (they were the radicals at the time) and becomes an ally of Lincoln. Booth still tries to slay Lincoln, but Sir Richard Frances Burton accidentally meets him in the hallway. Sure Booth was strong, fast, and prepared, but he still dies on Burton's sword.

This America may be tougher than the Bavarians think.
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Old 07-05-2018, 08:19 AM   #3403
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During the Austro-Prussian War, Hanover was an ally of Bavaria and Austria against the Prussians. In turn, the Prussians were antagonistic to the British and loved the Russians, despite their crown prince being married to a princess of Britian. While the British would have loved a Hanover Empire over a Bavaria Empire, a Bavarian Empire would have been acceptable over a Prussian Empire as long as Victoria's daughter and grandchildren were not slaughtered in the conquest of Prussia. The alliance with Hanover would have allowed for a natural starting point for cordial relations, and even friendship, between the British Empire and the Bavarian Empire, especially if the Bavarians allowed the Prussian Royal Family to retain East Prussia as their own little Kingdom within the Bavarian Empire.
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Old 07-05-2018, 04:29 PM   #3404
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Let's try this;

Bavaria never challenges the Royal Navy in fleet size, and instead concentrates on coastal fleets, and some Colony cruisers. Using my above suggested "Irish rebellion, plus UK poor" uprising. U.S. Irish immigrants gave a lot of support to Ireland's freedom fighter/terrorists. In this time line, the UK does not turn a blind eye on this behavior after the out break of violence. The UK, Bavaria, and Mexico decide to move against the U.S.

Unprepared for this kind of assault, a Bavarian attack on Alaska, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, from Canada, starts well, but bogs down, due to the lack of a European road net, and the widespread availability of modern repeating arms in the U.S. Part of the peace treaty involves the loss of Alaska in exchange for the withdrawal from the contiguous U.S. States. Mexico's invasion goes nowhere vs. local troops, and the only reason they were not counter invaded was the Canadian front. Britain cleans up with the significant loss, or capture, of the U.S. Merchant fleet, and gains a freer hand in China.

The down side for Europe is that while they had a very satisfactory short term gain, the U.S. is now awake, the fleet we started building in 1916, starts now, and within a decade or two, the U.S. will be the dominate naval power, particularly without the Washington Naval Agreements. In twenty to thirty years, Canada, Alaska, and Mexico are firmly under U.S. control, and the U.S. Marines start early on figuring out how to invade foreign shores. The U.S., Japanese, and Russian Alliance is also concerning.
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Old 07-06-2018, 05:54 AM   #3405
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Here's a new name to conjure with, Philippe Buonarroti who seems to have been a promoter of conspiracy as a means to pull down entrenched monarchies. Where Adam Weishaupt (also trained as a lawyer) seems to have done little but get himself in trouble, Buonarroti seems to have been regarded as a fountain of practical advice and a toiler in the vineyards of revolution.

This man, who wrote at least seven books on the practical details of running a revolutionary conspiracy, seems like a great source for alternate worlds. I ran onto the name while reading Eric Hobsbawm's classic book Primitive Rebels. Although I don't see this book as a great source of alternate worlds, but it can be strip-mined for interesting opponents and movements. Hobsbawm, because of where he looks in history is a gold mine of alternate paths for the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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Old 07-06-2018, 06:36 AM   #3406
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You can probably do an interesting Bavarian empire if it follows the French approach to colonies: get along with the British and try to get there first.


The grand European alliances end up being France and Russia against Austria, Germany, and England. We're going to see lots of colonial tension as relations between England and France cool. If the US joins France and Russia, you get an epic world war when whatever it is triggers the next big conflict.
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Old 07-06-2018, 07:30 AM   #3407
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I think that would have resulted in a much more balanced world war. Austria and Bavaria would have been matching their land armies against France and Russia while Britain would have been matching its navies against the USA. I would actually add Japan on the side of Britain and Bavaria though, as it had an intense dislike of Russia and the USA.
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Old 07-06-2018, 09:00 AM   #3408
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The easy way to solve this is to have the British solidly allied to the Bavarians. The obvious way to do it would by a union of the crowns, but the Electors and later Kings of Bavaria were Roman Catholic, which makes that rather unlikely. Any better ideas?
The simplest would be to have Bavaria convert to some form of Protestantism, which I hear was a common thing in the HRE. Or perhaps unify the crowns earlier in history, but that would change other stuff and probably wouldn't last long enough, barring some kind of national identity developing across Britainnia and her European empire. Which would be another world entirely...probably starting from England winning the Hundred Years' War...
Meh, I'm sure it's in this thread somewhere.

—-—-—-—-—

King Charles XII of Sweden (who you may know from the Sabaton song "Carolus Rex" or the Extra History series on the Great Northern War) was a good military leader with skilled generals and experienced troops, which let him win victories against seemingly overwhelming numbers of poorly-lead Polish/Lithuanian troops and poorly-trained Russian troops...for a while, at least. I've heard the army he had before his winning streak ended described as invincible, and for a while its win/loss stats seemed to back this up. But Charles did earn Pyrrhic victories, face fortresses he couldn't take, and ultimately faced a series of defeats. But what if he wasn't? What if we give his army a godmode cheat? (I dunno, maybe he found Odin's spear or something.) What then?

Well, he'd finish setting up Stanisław I Leszczyński as his Polish-Lithuanian puppet more quickly, and would (by definition) take the Fortress of Peter and Paul (the seed of St. Petersburg) without much hassle. But as it turns out, someone screwed up when programming godmode, and he's still vulnerable to strategic attrition from weather and logistical effects. So he still suffers losses on his march to Moscow, which reduces his army to the point that his only available tactical option is to rely on godmode—ie, one small force going in with some clever plan exploiting a weakness in the enemy's defenses that lets Charles route them with no meaningful casualties.
Charles wins the war, and makes territorial gains and whatnot. Through his life, he continues to fight his neighbors, win, and take land. But he begins to suffer internal issues. Swedish logistics are shot, his army is tied up dealing with rebels, and eventually even godmodding can't save Charles; he's just drained Swedish resources too much. Eventually, Charles loses godmode and is forced to flee to Stanisław as his enemies, followed by the rest of northern Europe, attack. Sweden is reduced greatly in size, and the Russians and Danes become much bigger players on the international stage in the 18th and 19th centuries. Given that OTL's Great Northern War established Russia as a major player...
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Old 07-06-2018, 01:41 PM   #3409
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A simple way to have a Bavarian Empire, abet one very unlike what's being talked about on these boards, would be to have Jakob Fugger ally himself with the Bavarians. The Habsburgs wouldn't have become the European powerhouse they became without Fugger's financial backing. Have the House of Wittelsbach court and win Fugger's alliance. Bavaria replaces Austria as top dog in the HRE.
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Old 07-06-2018, 01:55 PM   #3410
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If what you really want is a 20th century with German speakers being more powerful than in our history I suggest you start with Chales V and the nobles of Castile. When the first group to try to settle the area around modern Buenos Aires failed, a group of German Townsmen approached Charles for the right to settle in that area and try again. The Nobles of Castille shouted the idea down violently. Now suppose that the Castillian nobles didn't find out about the German proposal until the Germans had already settled in the area.

I have proposed this idea on this thread before and called it Silberland (Argentina simply means silver land). Had the German townsmen settled "Gute Lüfte" on the river Silber, about sixty years before James Town, you'd have a world were German speakers were more powerful. At least the USA with a fairly dangerous South American foe wouldn't be as powerful.

Given that the contemporary (16th and 17th century) Germans had a culture that favored hard work and industry to a degree the contemporary Spanish found coarse and vulgar, the Silberlanders would have a more developed economy. Silberland might have the combined territories of Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uraguay, and Chile. Easily a fairly powerful nation.
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