AHC: Make Europe as Germanic as possible.

With a POD after the Birth of Christ, make Europe as culturally Germanic as possible.

Can the Gothic Kingdoms in South-Western Europe last longer and Germanify Hispania and Italy?

Can France remain Frankish?

Can modern-day Russia be Teutonic?
 
Can the Gothic Kingdoms in South-Western Europe last longer and Germanify Hispania and Italy?

Can France remain Frankish?

Both of the above are difficult because the Germanics were a tiny elite amongst a substantially Romanised population. This population tended to have a lot more prestige amongst the Germanics than the Germanics did amongst Romans, so it's not surprising we find Germanics being absorbed into Roman culture in Spain, Gaul and Italy.

That said, I'm sure I read somewhere that the Gothic language was flourishing in Italy in the 520s, and more and more Roman aristocrats were attempting to learn the Gothic language, so I suppose it's possible.
 
I would guess that the best way for Germanic languages to survive in conquered areas would be for the invading tribes to try to hold smaller territories, small enough that they are not totally lost in the non-Germanic population. So if the 4th and 5th century invasions still happen, have them be much more limited in territory.

Or else have no invasions at all, and have the territories they previously controlled remain dominated by Germanic-speaking tribes. The total area under their control would be similar to what they took in the former Roman Empire, but with a much smaller average population density of the underclass, the Germanic tribes would have a decent chance of eventually assimilating the Slavic-speakers into Germanic.
 
I would guess that the best way for Germanic languages to survive in conquered areas would be for the invading tribes to try to hold smaller territories, small enough that they are not totally lost in the non-Germanic population. So if the 4th and 5th century invasions still happen, have them be much more limited in territory.

Or else have no invasions at all, and have the territories they previously controlled remain dominated by Germanic-speaking tribes. The total area under their control would be similar to what they took in the former Roman Empire, but with a much smaller average population density of the underclass, the Germanic tribes would have a decent chance of eventually assimilating the Slavic-speakers into Germanic.


Keep the WRE going another couple of centuries. With border wafare dragging on and on, a steadily greater area will get depopulated and resettled by Barbs. Even OTL, the Rhineland and Austria-Switzerland got gradually Germanised that way. Propong the process into the 7C, and you may get a "Rhineland" extending to the Seine, and a Cisalpine Gaul going the way of Rhaetia and Noricum.

In the other direction, make the defeat of the Magyars a bit more total, so that like the HGuns they are driven right back to the Ukraine, while the Hungarian Plain gets settled by Germans iunstead.
 
If German reaches the same prestige as French, you may see the upper-classes in Russia make the whole country speak German after some time.

Maybe make Austria keep Bohemia/Slovenia, genociding the Slavs alittle. Fuwck it, make Austria keep all their Slavic/Hungarian land, increase the amount of German settlers, thereby making the non-German languages spoken inside this expanded Austria go the same way as Gaelic perhaps.

Or mayhaps the Scandinavian countries receives the Baltic treatment if they stay pagan to long.

Or as some of the other posters suggested, make the WRE last longer, depopulating the borderland more. This would be highly interesting.

There are enought German no need to add more.:D

I bet if you switched the word "German" with "African" or something, your post would be flagged for racism.
 
I always wondered if it would be possible to have an early East Germanic language culture surviving in eastern europe, like the north of modern Poland - as if not all germanic tribes left, or something..
 
I bet if you switched the word "German" with "African" or something, your post would be flagged for racism.

Except there is at least one thread per month about how to create more german in Europe. Never one about making the wolrd more African, Slavic or French.

Also, making the WRE survive longer wouldn't change much because if the Empire survive, it means it is stronger. If it is stronger, there is less depopulation at the borders, so less expansion for the Germanic tribes.
 
i think i germanic russia is more likely than a slavic one. if the goths survive their when the vikings come and conquer the rus' the elite would blend with a gothic instead of slavic language creating another branch of easten germanic i suppose?

I think pre-1939 OTL might be the most extensive outcome for Germans.
i think you need to look at this

504px-HRR_10Jh.jpg
 
Except there is at least one thread per month about how to create more german in Europe. Never one about making the wolrd more African, Slavic or French.

Also, making the WRE survive longer wouldn't change much because if the Empire survive, it means it is stronger. If it is stronger, there is less depopulation at the borders, so less expansion for the Germanic tribes.

English language forum. MANY americans, britishes, australians, n. zelanders, etc posters, as somes german speakiing, dutches, etc, members. Do the math. Not a wonder. :/ :(

Just the numbers, the INSANE numebrs of Civil War (USA one) threads, by example... gee.,..
 
Also, making the WRE survive longer wouldn't change much because if the Empire survive, it means it is stronger. If it is stronger, there is less depopulation at the borders, so less expansion for the Germanic tribes.


Not necessarily.

The Eastern Empire was stronger than the Western, and lasted far longer. Yet when all was over the Greek-speaking area in the east was tiny compared to the Romance-speaking areas in the west. Its stubborner resistance just made its eradication all the more thorough.

Paradoxically, the parts of the Roman world that survived culturally and linguistically were, by and large, those that went belly-up and fell to the Barbs without too much trouble. Places like Britannia, which put up a stubborn and prolonged resistance, were "Germanised" much more than ones like Gaul, Spain and Italy which submitted to the Barbs relatively easily.
 
Spain could have not entered the Muslim world, it could have remained Germanic. After all it wasn't just the Muslims that defeated Roderik, but the Witizians allied with them. The witizians opened the peninsule for Tariq, and afterwards the only resistence came only from Roderik's party.
So you only need to get rid of this "problem", and the muslims wouldn't have been able to cross the strait.

The loss of the "frankishness" of France was also an internal problem, i know not enough of the matter, but i don't figure history could have easily taken other path.

For Italy... i figure that it would be key that the Visigoths could keep their half of Provence (the Ostrogoths had the other half), against the Franks. Maybe have a king of Toulouse convert from Arianism to Catholicism, so the Galo-Romans wouldn't side almost wholly with the Franks. Franks would still be able to take a good chunk of the Gallic part of the Kingdom of Toulouse, and the Goths might still need to take the capital to Toledo, but the Septimania would be far larger and better entrenched.
Why doing this? Both Gothic kingdoms (visi- and ostro-) were on very good terms and on the brink of unification at times. A strong presence of the Visigoths in southern France would have served as a fall-back for the Ostrogoth independent kingdom after Justinian had taken most of Italy. This would prove useful later, when the Eastern Romans would begin their retreat after Justinian's death. (This is very inaccurate, probably, maybe even ASB: my knowledge of the area at that time is very small, but enough to allow me to fantasize a bit :D)

My knowldege on how to stop the slavic expansion, though, is next to zero.
 
Except there is at least one thread per month about how to create more german in Europe. Never one about making the wolrd more African, Slavic or French.
There have been plenty of threads about Africans expanding into Arabia or Spain, plenty about the Slavs expanding further west or south, and a crapload of threads about a larger Napoleonic France.

And a more extensive French language is half of this site's favorite scenario :p.
 
There have been plenty of threads about Africans expanding into Arabia or Spain, plenty about the Slavs expanding further west or south, and a crapload of threads about a larger Napoleonic France.

And a more extensive French language is half of this site's favorite scenario :p.

To be fair though you really could divide this forum into "Les Français" and "Das Deutch Volk" and most people would easily fall into one or the other..
 
To be fair though you really could divide this forum into "Les Français" and "Das Deutch Volk" and most people would easily fall into one or the other..

Someone could make an ATL on it - Francophilia VS Germanophilia storming over the world and battlin', go, go, go! :p:D;)
 
To be fair though you really could divide this forum into "Les Français" and "Das Deutch Volk" and most people would easily fall into one or the other..
As I am Dutch I fall right between Les Francais and Das Deutch Vol. I like neither a French wank or a German Wank, because my country always suffers from it. A Dutch wank though, now you are talking.

Anyway talking about a more Germanic Europe. Personaly I think with a POD around the early middle ages you can make Northern France (and Wallonia) speak a Germanic languach, closely related to Dutch (Yay!), but I believe it is closely impossible for southern France. I believe the English can relatively easy wipe out Welsh, Cornish and Gaelic (both Scotish and Irish), if they realy wanted to. I think all Polish speaking parts of Germany could be assimilated, just like Bohemia/Moravia and Slovenia. Maybe some slight increase at the border regions, but I think this is roughly the best the Germanic languages can do.

Oh and maybe Finland could become entirely Swedish speaking.
 
This seems like an opportune time to post this map I cam across the other day.

Europe was really more German than people realize, and it is more Germanic as well, I mean afterall 13 countries in Europe are predominantly Germanic language countries and half a dozen have noticable Germanic language minorities.

ethnic german[1].jpg
 
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