There would be heavy intermarriage between the nobility of both empires. It would resemble Western Europe a bit as more conflicts around the Black Sea would be dynastic ones and would be using a varnish of dynastic legitimacy as a casus belli. Though the nigh reverence the Eastern Slavs held...
Would the Protestant Cantons support adding more Catholics to Switzerland? That seems like a major hurdle to expansion. Even if so, any additions would be small regions like Liechtenstein or neighboring disputed areas like Aosta that could be given to Switzerland as a compromise. Taking...
I think so long as Nehru is in charge of India, China will be allowed to take Tibet. Then China would attack Pakistan for its claim on Aksai Chin, or start OTL Sino-Indian War, or do both of those wars at the same time. Pakistan and India would be a lot closer together and butterflies away many...
It doesn’t matter how competent a leader is if they’re constantly on the verge of being thrown out of office. People don’t seem to understand how chaotic and volatile Italian politics and elections were pre-Mussolini (and post-Mussolini). If the average term of a Prime Minister is only one or...
The Alps would present formidable challenge to any land invasion from either side and a war against an aggressive Italy would make a good enemy for the minorities of Austria-Hungary to rally against. Even so, I would expect heavy fighting at the land border regardless because that’s how wars...
Integration doesn’t necessarily mean unification or annexation. Unification has been rather rare. Germany was an exceptional case. Korean reunification is a non-starter and Vietnam happened at the barrel of a gun. All three of those countries are more homogeneous than Iran, which is a Civic...
With or without Islam, the Turkic Migrations will still happen. A weakened Persia combined with the Turks on the move will have unpredictable consequences . The Byzantines will stay/be their own worst enemies, just like in OTL. This is certainly not some sort of “end of history” scenario.
The...
Spain becoming a European power was not decided by the discovery of the Americas but the marriages of the royal family (especially into the Habsburgs). Even without Columbus most of European history would be mostly the same up to the election of Charles V. Though after that point it would start...
I think the reunification of China is very likely. It’s not super uncommon for there to be fairly lengthy periods of disunity before unification in Chinese history. Nothing about the Jin vs Song setup before the Mongols showed up was unprecedented I would say.
Eventually either the Jin would...
Lots of Macedonians considered themselves Bulgarian back then to the point of forming several Macedonian-Bulgarian terrorist organizations with the goal of unification with Bulgaria. They assassinated many prominent figures, the most notable one being King Alexander of Yugoslavia. I think that...
Germany should have spent the money on its army. We could see a case of the German army reaching Paris and possibly knocking France out of the war in the opening stages of WWI. That would have massive ramifications across the 20th century.
Northern Nigeria has no reason to secede since they would be landlocked and they already dominate the country as it is. Now the Christian South of the country is a different story and OTL Nigeria has already fought a civil war in order to keep it (and its oil). Nigeria could easily be split into...
There are just more of those sort of timelines. Especially the ones that tend to run longer than a short story.
From the viewpoint of a writer, I think it is partially because dystopian settings are just easier to write than utopian ones. Trying to create a timeline where things went better...
Pretty much. The Mongols may not conquer the Song in Genghis Khan's lifetime, but the Jin could have probably been conquered sooner than OTL and that would put the Mongols on a collision course with the Song. I imagine Genghis getting sucked into Chinese politics would keep him very busy. He...
I think otherwise. I think TTL Mongol invasions of the Middle East would not happen at all or either be much more disorganized and/or reduced. This isn’t due to goodwill or solidarity, but if Genghis Khan had devoted all his attention on the conquest and administration of China (his closest...