AH Challenge: Divide the World

Using a POD no later than 1800 divide the world into as many countries as possible.

American Constitutional Convention fails. 13 independent countries. More to come.
French Revolution succeeds in 1789, country breaks apart.
Spanish Revolution in 1795. Country breaks apart.
Irish Revolution in 1795. Country breaks apart from Britain, then splinters into Catholic and Protestant.
Austrian Revolution in 1795. Empire shatters into Bavaria, Moravia, Austria, Hungary, Croatia...
British Revolution in 1797. Scotland and Northern England turn radical, secede from London. Country breaks apart.
Norwegian Revolution in 1798. Country breaks apart.
Polish Revolution in 1801. Throws off the Prussians, Russians and Austrians. Country breaks apart.
Russian Revolution in 1803...

You get the idea.

Hmm... I suppose after the ACW we could have the USA break apart... in a TL of mine in which that happens, North America (USA, Canada, Mexico) breaks up into 23 nations, I think. After that, perhaps France becomes more powerful and defeats Prussia in 1866, so Germany never unifies... (we'd need to keep it from happening later, as well) Maybe somehow we prevent the unification of Italy, as well.

I'm not even close to an expert on Australian history, but couldn't we somehow prevent the commonwealth and have half a dozen or so Anglophone nations on the continent? Tasmania could become independant as well...

Let's see... well, I suppose the butterflies from my disunited Germany erases Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto... but maybe that's for the better. Without Communism, stronger Nationalist ties could come about.

After Austria-Hungary breaks up (let's say it's defeated in a war with... oh, I dunno, France, in the early 20th century.), we could have the various South Slav states, instead of forming Yugoslavia, become independant from the start. Also, we could have more nations break away from Russia, such as Chechnya. (Are there any others?) I suppose we could also have a Basque homeland in there too. As for more European countries, what about an independant Scotland? (Maybe Wales? I don't know enough about them.) We could also let Denmark grant independance to Greenland.

In Asia, we could possibly still have Tibet and Manchuria as independant powers. Perhaps we can also prevent the union of Indonesia?

Well, I'm out of ideas, now. If we incorporated all of that into a TL, that's got to be around a hundred extra nations than OTL or so.

Tetsu,

There was a scenario on the old board (I think) involving the French (I think) and other countries colonizing Australia as well as Britain. The end result involved New South Wales rebelling against British rule like the USA and some parts of Australia still under British control and some parts being under the other power's (or powers' control).

The best way to disunite the world could be to unite it. Maybe Napoleon sucedes in his evil schemes though his empire eventually falls apart from revolts and every minority group going jumps on the bandwagon of the confusion to set up their own little states.

Leej said:

The best way to disunite the world could be to unite it. Maybe Napoleon sucedes in his evil schemes though his empire eventually falls apart from revolts and every minority group going jumps on the bandwagon of the confusion to set up their own little states.

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Evil?

British don't colonize India. Every Rajput (princely caste of Rajasthan) with a well and a square foot of land becomes a maharaja. Actually, if Britain doesn't colonize India and if the European powers are too absorbed with revolutions at home, then India would be comprised of several different countries. Then, we can have the Kurds, Shi'ite Arabs, levant Arabs, Sunni Arabs, and others revolt in turn to break up the Ottoman empire. Africa is already plenty broken up. In China, make the Taiping Rebellion even worse and result in a North and South China, Tibet, Xinjiang, Manchuria, and Mongolia along wiht an independent Korea and Taiwan while Japan is broken apart as the Tokugawa Shogunate is brought down by something or another.

Rahul, have you read The Confusion by Neal Stephenson? If not check for Jack Shaftoe's "kingdom".

I'll add those to my list. They seem interesting. Thanks.

Some possibilities -

It's very unlikely that each of the 13 original colonies would become independent in the event of an early break up of the US. More likely there would be several smaller regional republics - the actual boundaries and states within each republic would depend on politicial events at the time. Still, the breaking apart of the United States could mean that most other parts of the modern-day US would become independent countries - perhaps Louisiana, Texas, California, Missouri, Oregon would each be countries rather than states. (On the other hand, all of Canada and the US west of the Mississippi could end up as part of the British Empire, and become a super-sized country its own right.)

Mexico might have a civil war that nobody can win, and splits into several regional states controlled by different factions, so that it looks more like Central America.

Australia could have colonies started by multiple European nations rather than Britain alone, and these different colonies eventually become separate nations.

Italy and Germany might never be unified, leading to numerous small states in central Europe.

If no one leader or faction can gain the upper hand in China during the 30s and 40s, China might be divided into multiple states, with Tibet, Mongolia, Sinkiang, Manchuria, etc. becoming independent states as well.

Rahul, I meant read about Jack Shaftoe's "kingdom" in India in The Confusion.

Xen said:

Using a POD no later than 1800 divide the world into as many countries as possible.

Click to expand...

Series of early nineteenth century wars centred on the Eastern Mediterranean, would weaken Russia, lead to a failure to pick up the Central Asia states etc, and may even loose back to independence the Kazakh horses etc. The Ottoman Empire could collapse into successor states. Whilst at first we could envisage a mega Egypt encompassing Hejaz, Syria, Soudan, Eritrea, later it too falls apart. The wars weaken Britain significantly and eventually it loses India to revolt in the later nineteenth century and thus all the states there become independent

Grey Wolf

I was going to post all of James Erwin's Footnotes to History, since the overwhelming majority of them are post-1800, but I realized

• There are hundreds of them, and I don't have that kind of time;
• Some may argue that a Maltese St. Croix or a Sultanate of Darfur could not remain independent.

By the way, if you can add more footnotes (minor countries that aren't listed the history books) I'm sure he'd appreciate it. I suggested the Principality of Arabestan lately (the independent state ruled by Sheikh Ghaz'al until Reza Shah came along and annexed it to Iran).