WI: A Modern Angevin Empire

[Prince Charon]

Using a PoD somewhen between 1154 and 1214, how plausible is it that the medival Angevin Empire could survive to the present day (still ruled by the Plantagenet line)?

How wide might it extend, in the 21st century (assume that, at minimum, the Empire contains Great Britain and the western half of France what is France in OTL)?

What would the world be like?

 

[Falastur]

Using a PoD somewhen between 1154 and 1214, how plausible is it that the medival Angevin Empire could survive to the present day (still ruled by the Plantagenet line)?

How wide might it extend, in the 21st century (assume that, at minimum, the Empire contains Great Britain and the western half of France what is France in OTL)?

What would the world be like?

Those last two questions are virtually impossible answer. The simple reply is "it could go any way". If you set up conditions to favour the Angevins, they could take the French throne reasonably quickly, then if they so wished, spend several centuries interfering with Germany, and easily take the Imperial throne, and/or large chunks of Germany. Perhaps all, over time. After that, with such a vast empire then talks of recreating the Charlemagnian Empire would arise and Europe might not be powerful enough to prevent Italy and Poland falling. After that, the theory of a united Christendom might well arise, in one way or another. This megalith country could be a brutally expansive colonial power. The sky would be the limit over time.

On the other hand, it could end up in frequent conflicts with France, as IRL. Even if the Empire doesn't fall as RL, it could face paralysis from within from infighting and never gain an upper hand on the French. Under that condition, it would likely be put onto the defensive in a way that it could never recover from. The empire could be reduced to England and strips of coastline in Normandy and Gascony.

And really it could go anywhere in between. The bigger an empire gets, the more likely to collapse spectacularly, and there's all manner of ways it could fall apart and be reduced to a level seen only a few centuries before. If it doesn't have a massive setback like that, then at any point it could stagnate like the Spanish Empire, and spend the rest of its existence gaining and losing tiny territories which mean very little, unable to expand but too strong to fall. In addition, sudden expansions are usually responded to by antagonism from alliances of neighbouring states which could put an effective stop on expansion and even reverse recent acquisitions.

In short, with such an open-ended story, a POD set 800 years ago and an end-date of now, just about anything could happen.

 

[Advernt]

Agreed on it . The Hapsburgs will very likely be butterflied away , and maybe even the Ottomans . The Valois would never be prominent at all . An Angevin empire that controls all of France by 1300 will lead to an utterly unrecognizable Europe by 1450 . This is not your usual butterfly - it's one the size of the moon.

 

[Mirza Khan]

Agreed on it . The Hapsburgs will very likely be butterflied away , and maybe even the Ottomans . The Valois would never be prominent at all . An Angevin empire that controls all of France by 1300 will lead to an utterly unrecognizable Europe by 1450 . This is not your usual butterfly - it's one the size of the moon.

You're not going to butterfly the Ottoman Empire-it started sometime around 1300 (only 60 years after the POD) and by the 1370's it was the major power in the Balkans.

Personally, I think that an Angevin Empire stretching over France and England will have to spend a lot of energy just holding itself together-its an extremely large state for the time period, and quite difficult to manage given the slowness of communications in its era. It might expand some into Germany, but this is quite likely to inspire an anti-Angevin alliance of German states (and may over time lead to a more united HRE). The empire's capital will likely be in France, and over a few generations it would probably morph into an entirely French state, with England marginalized. Ireland and Scotland might do better in this TL (because the Angevins will be less focused in that direction than the OTL English). Eventually, we might even get a world with England as a French (Angevin) province

 

[kasumigenx]

You're not going to butterfly the Ottoman Empire-it started sometime around 1300 (only 60 years after the POD) and by the 1370's it was the major power in the Balkans.

Personally, I think that an Angevin Empire stretching over France and England will have to spend a lot of energy just holding itself together-its an extremely large state for the time period, and quite difficult to manage given the slowness of communications in its era. It might expand some into Germany, but this is quite likely to inspire an anti-Angevin alliance of German states (and may over time lead to a more united HRE). The empire's capital will likely be in France, and over a few generations it would probably morph into an entirely French state, with England marginalized. Ireland and Scotland might do better in this TL (because the Angevins will be less focused in that direction than the OTL English). Eventually, we might even get a world with England as a French (Angevin) province

Perhaps Spain will get Province,Tolouse and Lengadoc-Rousillion.

 

[Falastur]

Personally, I think that an Angevin Empire stretching over France and England will have to spend a lot of energy just holding itself together-its an extremely large state for the time period, and quite difficult to manage given the slowness of communications in its era. It might expand some into Germany, but this is quite likely to inspire an anti-Angevin alliance of German states (and may over time lead to a more united HRE). The empire's capital will likely be in France, and over a few generations it would probably morph into an entirely French state, with England marginalized. Ireland and Scotland might do better in this TL (because the Angevins will be less focused in that direction than the OTL English). Eventually, we might even get a world with England as a French (Angevin) province

This argument has been made a hundred times and I've dispelled the notion a hundred times. Actually, that's unfair for this situation. In some situations, it's possible to happen, I won't deny that. If the English had come into possession of the French throne before about Henry IV, then it's feasible. In such a massively open-ended scenario as this, it's also possible, but then random variation could also make England the centre and France become an English province. Without wanting to repeat my argument (I'll scrounge up the link to the last one I made if you want to see it) then sufficed to say that the Angevin Empire was built on decentralised federal principles. The Angevins truly didn't attempt to make their lands focus around a single place. They kept travelling, had no capital except the "local" capitals for each territory, and placed no territory above any other unless it was the land of a vassal and not their personal demesne. In this era, and for a long time afterwards, England was far, far better managed. It was possible for a King to squeeze just about every penny owed out of England, and the level of administration was very good for such an early stage of development - ironically for a decentralised empire, England was very centralised, and as the years rolled by this only increased. France, by contrast, was a mess of vassals, royal land, land held in lieu, land with priviledges, land with absolutely no royal representation, and such. Different counties and duchies varied, but some lands contributed virtually no tax to the King and some contributed tons, but though it was a richer land than England it was so terribly disorganised it could never match England's potential. Some years, France struggled to put out 1/5th of what England made in a lean year. Furthermore, feudal privileges and French law codified this problem and made it illegal for the King to interfere in many parts. Simply put, if the empire were built around Paris, England would begin cutting off its funding to the King and the empire would be starved of much of the money it would need to expand.