Hungarian Empire Possible?
- Thread starter Blair
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They need a coast - ideally not one that can be easily cut off, this limits them somewhat. Also the presence of the Ottomans has a rather negative effect because you cant be a great power if you have constant border trouble/occupation. If Wallachia survived you might solve some of those problems.
Yes we could have a Hungarian Empire but you need a POD as early as 1240. Lets say they can stop the mongol invasion of 1244 before the mongols devastate the hungarian hartlends. Half of their population dosent die and they can remain a grait power of europe. They certenly could stop the otoman advance because they would have 4-5 times of their OTL numbers by that time. So going by that they posibly could have a coast line in the Adreatic and Mediteranian sea. From there they have the chance to conquere Lybia just tu f@@k with the Ottoman. There you go you got now an overseas empire.
wolf_brother
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What? You could easily see a Hungary that successfully breaks from the Austrians and takes the Croatian coast in 1848. Fiume isn't as great a port as Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg, Marseilles, etc., but its certainly one that's capable of supporting a large enough Hungarian navy to establish a small colonial empire for Budapest.
I mean hell, Belgium created a colonial empire in the 1870s.
EDIT: The real challenge in the OP is the bit about giving "the French and Brits a run for their money." That's going to require a POD at least before the 15th century, and considering the timespan between a possible POD and the 'present day' ITTL, it renders the question somewhat moot as it would create a scenario so alien to any OTL reader as to be completely fantastical and utterly unrelatable.
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Yep, exactly that. Stuff like Lybia and Somalia would be possible to maintain (Fiume however is too distant and too small for supporting a navy which has to cross Gibraltar in order to reach West Africa).
A possible PoD slightly later would be to have greater success of Vlad Tepes against the Ottomans - if Wallachia stays free it could provide a strong base to keep Hungary secure and slowly regain the Balkans.
wolf_brother
Banned
Exactly; a Hungary that essentially takes over Italy's IOTL role ITTL, at least as far as colonialism goes.
Would it be possible to get a Hungary that gains Sicily and keeps it somehow ? That would make colonial efforts much easier.
The POD must be VERY early (before 1300 AD) and you'd need to empty the island from non-Magyars (maybe excluding Croatians), otherwise it might only be a temporary possession before it gets traded off or revolts.
Though most likely weaker, considering the smaller population base. So a Hungarian Lybia would be more Arab than an Italian one.
This thread makes me wonder-if the Hungarians did manage to start a colonial empire, would their colonial territories have to be within the confines of the Mediterranean?
And there's no reason Hungary can't have colonies nobody else wanted to have. Kind of a hole in your logic.
Deleted member 1487
That would cause massive, moon-sized ASBs! The Arpad dynasty probably wouldn't die out when it did, the Babenberg's wouldn't either, preventing the Habsburg rise, Habsburg Austria, Habsburg Bohemia and Hungary, and lots of fighting over Austria. Hell, that may end up centralizing the HRE later on and prevent/reverse political fragmentation after the interregnum.
Basically Hungary remains a massive power in the Balkans and probably ends up the defender of Europe against the Ottomans. The Ottomans would be an icebreaker for Hungary, knocking out all the other kingdoms in the area and ending the Byzantine Empire, allowing for Hungary to liberate it all and create an Empire in the region, liberating and holding Constantinople and potentially reuniting parts Christianity. Even if not Hungary just by owning Constantinople and freeing Europe from the scourge of the Ottomans, preventing Austria from becoming the front line repeatedly, would have major gravitas in Europe and potentially end up being an analogue for the Habsburg Empire, but with no fragmented political system and the ability to force Magyar as a language on the Balkan peoples for hundreds of years, while also controlling major amounts of food producing areas and oil reserves. I wouldn't be surprised if Hungary even got to help carve up Poland later on, getting Galicia and their oil/farm land.
Of course this assumes that all goes well after the Mongols spare Hungary, which is not certain, but is possible.
Going for colonies nobody else wanted to have is a pisspoor basis for a colonial empire that would give the French or British a "run for their money". What colonies are there that no-one else would want to have, anyways? There's Caribbean islands here and there that Hungary could maybe stake a claim to. Sub-Saharan Africa is tricky at best to have any decent hold of before quinine and machine guns, and by the time that's invented whoever does have a massive colonial empire established elsewhere is going to have a great lead over anybody else with an interest in establishing an empire.
Denmark's colonies were limited to a few outposts in the Caribbean. Kurland likewise was just a few islands, which furthermore were easily snapped up by the Dutch when they finally got around to it. They don't really help Hungary's case here, since they show that the pissant would-be-but-failed colonial powers that didn't amount to much likewise didn't have much in the way of Atlantic ports.
With a sense of its own grandeur and strongly seperate from Austria, Hungary might have a dynamic king with a personal interest in founding a colony for all the usual reasons. With few options, they might choose to take a small slice of west Africa or central Africa. I hears that the Nicobar islands were the sight of an attempted colony by Austria-hungary. If Hungary is allied with the Germans and Austrians, they might negotiate a small territory somewhere near a German or Prussian colony. Which one though...
Doing a quick glance over the Nicobar Islands article on Always Informative Wikipedia, Denmark's repeated abandonments of the archipelago in 1809, 1834 and 1848 don't really speak well of its promise as a site of colonial settlement and expansion.
It doesn't help that the largest plot of land in the entire island chain is only slightly larger than the city of Berlin.
It doesn't help that the largest plot of land in the entire island chain is only slightly larger than the city of Berlin.
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