I love these maps! FIRST OFF, my comments/criticism...
wilcox
Marvelous work!
What I like:
Kingdom of Spain (incl. Portugal) - interesting idea! When I first saw that, I thought I would use that in a TL. [Only thing, is it would have to be a long-term development. Napoleon's original plan was to divide Portugal in three: Northern Lusitania, (rump) Portugal, and Algarve, with Portugal being annexed to the French Empire and the remaining two states being French vassals. Perhaps, over time the Portuguese states are annexed to Spain, to ease any bad blood between the French and Spaniards and also satisfy the wishes of pan-Iberian nationalists. Problem is you do not give any sort of date for your map, nor do most other posters for that matter, but based on the appearance of Europe, it does not look very "long-term."] However, I find it funny that the frontier between France and Spain remained at the Pyrenees when Napoleon planned to annex the entirety of Catalonia, and clearly something major happened in the Peninsular War of your TL!
What you did with the Confederation of the Rhine, reduced to five states. (But how does Denmark get Mecklenburg? Schleswig-Holstein makes sense, but Mecklenburg seems like a stretch...) I think your division of the Confederation of the Rhine is fairly reasonable, even precedented, though of course I would include Mecklenburg for six.
What I dislike:
No Poland?! (You even have a Free City of Danzig but no Poland?)
Other than that, not many dislikes, just a few nomenclature problems. "Empire of France" and "Empire of Russia" should be French Empire and Russian Empire respectively. Also, you mislabeled Kingdom of Sicily and Kingdom of Naples, they should be switched. And no offense, but "Republic of Illyria" makes no sense! (Albanians are Illyrians, for starters.) Should probably be "Croat Republic" or something...
Also, I think some of the borders ought to look different. Switzerland (Helvetic Republic) should be much smaller, particularly in the Francophone South and West. (The French annexed the Jura early in the course of the French Revolutionary Wars, followed by the vicinity of Geneva and the Francophone Rhodanic Republic. Neuchatel was not part of Switzerland at the time.) Also, North Africa is too much like OTL present day (with Algeria renamed Al-Djazir). I assume that you left the shape of Moldavia and Wallachia as they were on the base map? (Being as whatever map you modified must have shown them as autonomous Ottoman territories.)
Questions:
Unfortunately, your color scheme does not show which states are fully independent and which states are French clients/dependencies. I presume that ALL the states outside of France are French protectorates except for Austria, Denmark, the Ottoman Empire, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. For instance, Moldavia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Wallachia HAVE to be French satellites into Ottoman domains. Likewise, I imagine Sardinia and Sicily would be vassalized.
Zach
Love your TL, I have seen it before and I am impressed with the volume of the work alone! (Though I must say, the Peninsular Campaign went by way too conveniently easy!) That said...
Questions:
What happened to
Northern Lusitania? (And "Southern Lusitania" should probably be "Algarve.") It appears to have disappeared into Spain.
Orko
What I like:
Rump Basque state.
French annexation of Sardinia.
Your map of the Balkans is highly plausible. (Client Romania, Serbia, and Morea.)
What Napoleon did with the British Isles. (Dismembered the United Kingdom, freed Ireland and Scotland, and occupied England. But how did the French invade? Was a Chunnel constructed? By balloon?) I think it exceeds the constraints set by Krieg, but who cares? I like it.
What I dislike:
Nothing in particular, though to be honest some of the borders are a little sloppy, but the blame probably lies with whoever created the original map you worked off of.
Questions:
How did the French invade Great Britain again?
As with Zach, what happened to Northern Lusitania? Why does Spain get it?
Also, why is rump Portugal merely a client state but Algarve under military occupation? (IOTL, Napoleon planned to directly annex Portugal, not Algarve.)
What happened with Scandinavia? The two Scandinavian Kingdoms become client states. Is there a reason? Also, some major territorial adjustment was enacted!
Yorel
What I like:
It is obvious that you used Lord Sander's maps as a template, as did I, but I am a bit biased! Excellent work!
Like the enlarged Poland...
What I dislike:
Nothing that I can see!
Questions:
Seeing as Napoleonic France must have won the Peninsular War, why are New Spain, Florida, New Granada, and Peru still Spanish (and Rio de la Plata nominally Spanish)? Unless the Spanish Bourbons are ruling in exile (as with Portugal/Brazil IOTL) from somewhere in the New World...
I noticed that you broke convention in regards to map coloration. This has the advantage of making your map less boring (by having fewer big white states, wish I was that creative!), but the disadvantage of making things confusing. For instance, you used different colors for states and territories of the United States of America (which confused at least one other person), but I do like the unique shade of yellow for the Persian Empire, that strange shade of brown for Sicily, and that you made Saudi Arabia jungle green and both Oman and the Swahili Coast light purple. About that, the jungle green state IS Saudi Arabia, right? And what is the deal with Oman and Zanzibarland? Are the two states in personal union? Is the Swahili Coast a colony of Oman?
jycee
What I like:
United Greater Netherlands. How all of Brabant, Flanders, and Holland are united in the Batavian Republic (including Belgian Flanders and "French Flanders" within the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais) but Wallonia remains French, breaking the cliché of uber-Netherlands getting all of Belgium, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, and Luxembourg.
Your boundaries for Greece strike me as surprisingly plausible (in the long run anyways), almost perfect! (Where did you get those borders from?)
United independent Ireland.
Independent Kurdistan.
What I dislike:
Token independent "Algrave" state. Really, what's the point of an independent Algarve so small? Might as well keep it part of Portugal!
Andorra. Seeing as there is already an independent Catalonia, this strikes me as irredeemably silly!
Why not simply make it part of Catalonia? (Also, the boundary between Spanish Catalonia and France extends almost halfway across the length of the French-Spanish border from the Mediterranean, and Andorra, which is about 1/3-way in from the Mediterranean, is between France and Spanish Catalonia.) Whether Catalonia is annexed by France, or is made independent for whatever reason, Andorra should not exist in either event.
Switzerland: too large (see above comments).
The boundaries between "Courland" and "Livland" look really weird! (Like Livland sat on Courland and flattened it or something.) Lithuania looks much more natural.
The border between Russia on the East and Poland and Romania on the West looks unnaturally straight, as if someone sliced the map like a pizza.
Serbia gets all of (Muslim) Bosnia... that can't turn out very well!
And for that matter, Bulgaria gets Albania and Kosovo. Since when were Albanians Bulgarian? And how does Bulgaria get Istanbul/Constantinople and the entire Hellespont (Thrace-Dardanelles-Marmara-Bosporus)?
Independent Cyprus makes NO sense in this context. Why not give it to Greece?
Why Syria? That seems like a very odd name! Why not Arabia?
And since it is obvious that "Palestine" is a Jewish state why not Israel? [Then again, while there may be a justifiable reason for an independent Basque country or Catalonia, seeing as jycee whimsically included midget-Algarve and Andorra where Catalonia would serve its function, perhaps "Palestine" is an independent Arab state included amidst uber-Syria just for the hell of it.] Not to mention, Israel/Palestine looks disproportionately small!
Originally Posted by Abdul Hadi Pasha
I was just about to say "wow, four posts and nobody's gratuitously and unexplainedly dismembered the Ottoman Empire yet", but I was premature.
There are no Greek or Bulgarian states, so how they managed to suddenly appear and become gigantic is of course problematic, but don't let that stop anyone.
We all understand that you are the resident Ottoman Empire enthusiast!
So I understand your grievances, but in fairness, you seem to have thought that the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire happened overnight, when it seems fairly apparent that the map is of a long-term projection. But I grant that jycee's map is the silliest! The only other map to show an independent Greece was that of Orko, wherein it consists solely of Morea and Crete (probably the Ionian Islands too), more plausible by far! I actually think that Zach's TL gives a very plausible account of Hellenic independence and expansion.
NOW, FOR MY MAP...
I have been meaning to do a Napoleonic victory TL for the longest time but never got around to it, partly because when I composed a rather lengthy essay on the subject nearly two years ago some fucking asshole, who shall remain nameless, decided to be a smartass, and an all-around royal dick, to me...
...but mostly because I was short on time. The reception to my essay was positive all around, with some fans and others who provided
constructive criticism (disregarding, of course, the aforementioned pompous cock who shall remain nameless).
What follows is a map of the world some decades after Napoleon's triumphant victory (i.e. c. 1860's or 1870's), specifically after the death of Napoleon I and the abdication of Napoleon II. Accordingly, the world as of the map is far from "matured."
The Western Powers: Austria (Empire of Austria-Bohemia-Hungary), Denmark, France, Great Britain, Ottoman Empire, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, United States of America
Powers in-Exile: Kingdom of Portugal (Empire of Brazil), Kingdom of Spain (Viceroyalty of New Spain: Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines/Spanish East Indies)
Other Major Powers: Argentina, China, Colombia, Ethiopian Empire, Japan, Mexico, Persian Empire, Peru (Peruvian-Bolivian Federation), Siam/Thailand
France and the French clients/dependencies/protectorates/satellites/vassals
FRENCH REPUBLIC - Paris
- Barbary Republic - Algiers
- Batavian Republic of the Netherlands - ?
- Republic of Haiti - Port-au-Prince
- Hellenic Republic - Athena
- Iberian Republic - Madrid
- Italian Republic - San Marino
- Kingdom of Madagascar - ?
- Republic of Malta - Valletta
- Grand Duchy of Moldavia - ?
- Kingdom of Poland - Warsaw
- Duchy of Serbia - Belgrade
- Switzerland - Bern [?]
- Grand Duchy of Wallachia - Bucharest
- Sultanate of Zanzibarland - Zanzibar
- Confederation of the Cape - Cape Town
- Afrikaner/Boer Republic
- Sotho Republic
- Swazi Republic
- Xhosa Republic
- Zulu Republic
- Confederation of the Rhine - Frankfurt
- Kingdom of Bavaria
- Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg
- Kingdom of Westphalia
- [...various other German states...]
Not shown: client Gypsy republic on the Indian subcontinent (mostly because I haven't figured out where in India it would go), state evolution on the African continent and in Central Asia (I tentatively left much of Turkestan at least nominally Persian), EXACT boundaries of the Confederation of the Cape states (roughly equivalent to OTL South Africa), EXACT southern frontiers of Egypt and the Barbary Republic, internal boundaries of the Confederation of the Rhine (still a collection of German states, not yet unified, though they almost certainly will be united eventually, probably by Austria rather than Prussia)...
Note that I do not know enough about Africa, the Caucasus, or Central Asia to realistically map developments. In the case of Africa, I tentatively left native states as they were circa 1812 (at least according to Lord Sander & comrades). By the time indicated by the map (i.e. mid-late 19th century), Africa would probably be more colonized than indicated, but not by that much. The lack of a scramble for Africa slows the land-grabbing process. The only significant Western colonial powers in Africa are Britain and Brazil (Portugal-in-exile), while the French mostly rule indirectly (Barbary Republic, Cape, Madagascar, Swahili Coast, probably some states in the Sahel). Abyssinia/Ethiopia is the main native power in Black Africa. The Confederation of the Cape is a collection of dependent states under French protection roughly corresponding in area, more or less, to OTL South Africa. The dominant groups are the Zulus and the Afrikaners. (The Zulus defeat the British with French assistance and the Boers remain in Cape Colony, so no trek, no Orange Free State or Transvaal...) The Confederation of the Cape eventually evolves into a federation and, assuming colonization of Africa parallels OTL, is the first independent country in sub-Saharan Africa after Ethiopia. (Well except maybe for Zanzibarland or some Sudanic state(s): Darfur? Kordofan? Mali or Songhai state?) Meanwhile, Brazil maintains Portuguese claims to the African colonies of Mozambique and Angola/Portuguese Congo. This could lead to further scrambles in Africa and even a major war with the British.
The lack of a Congress of Vienna means that any remaining European colonies mostly go to the United Kingdom or France (the British have a HUGE head start in this department owing to naval supremacy). For instance, the British would permanently annex the Dutch East Indies and Portuguese Timor. The dismantling of Portugal also means loss of Portuguese colonies on the Indian subcontinent to the British, and probably at least some African colonies of Portugal (Cape Verde?) also go to the British, while remaining Portuguese claims pass to Brazil and the Chinese retake Macao. The Venezuelans might seize the Dutch Antilles while the main chain of the Lesser Antilles remains contested between the British and French.
Please also note that this map is part of a work in progress. For instance, there may be some "anachronisms." (I.e. around the time depicted perhaps the Kingdom of Spain has not yet become the Iberian Republic as the monarchy has not yet been abolished.) I go for the more "conservative" approach, i.e. the Austrian Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, and United Kingdom are left intact, as opposed to a wank in which all those powers are dismembered. Also, I tentatively leave rump Switzerland as is, because I am unsure what happens. (Do the French annex Switzerland entirely, along with Geneva, the Jura, the Rhodanic Republic (all annexed to France IOTL), and Neuchatel (planned/proposed annexation)? Is rump Switzerland (reduced to its Germanic core) annexed to uber-Bayern ("Greater Bavaria") along with Baden, Hohenzollern, Liechtenstein, Wurttemburg, and Wurzburg? Is rump Switzerland placed into the Confederation of the Rhine? Is it divided up between Italy, France, and the German states? Is it left in place? And if so, does it default to the Swiss Confederation or is the Helvetic Republic rebuilt?)
POLARITY & DIPLOMACY
The world is multipolar, with Europe being locally unipolar (France having almost total hegemony with the Austrian Empire as the main counterweight or balance in "Europe proper" i.e. Eurasia west of the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire), the USA being the dominant power in North America (though the New World as a whole is multipolar), the Ottoman Turks remaining the primary power over the Middle East, China being the principle hegemon in the Far East, and the British being the primary hegemon in most of the rest of the world. (Or in sum, the top powers are France, the USA, Britain, and China. Russia, Persia, and the Ottoman Empire are "declining powers" while China, the US, and the Latin American nations are "rising powers.")
The world is generally peaceful, comparable to OTL, but for much of the time, there is a Cold War of sorts between Britain and France.
Of course, while the United States of America becomes a superpower, it never becomes the aggressive empire of OTL.
Many non-Western nations are buttressed by the French to act as counters to the British and other Western powers: Abyssinia/Ethiopia, China, Persia, Siam/Thailand, the Hispanic countries. For instance, Persia acts as a buffer against British, Ottoman, and Russian aims on the Middle East and Central Asia, while a large and powerful Ethiopia frustrates British and other colonial ambitions in Africa. Accordingly, you can expect the Chinese, Japanese, Persians, Thais or even the Abyssinians/Ethiopians to "pull a Meiji."
As stated, this is a world in development, somewhat more stable than OTL, but by no means in final form. Some likely developments from this point on: further colonization of Africa; dissolution of the Russian Empire (following a French-style bourgeois revolution) leading to loss of western territories such as Finland, the Ukraine, and the Baltic countries; dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire; Croatian independence (from France, expansion into former Hapsburg territories); unification of Romania; unification of Germany; expansion of Poland (already at maximum Western extent, but to the south-Galicia, to the east-at the expense of Russia, and MAYBE north-"Polish Corridor" or Danzig/Gdansk and West Prussia); Irish independence (or at least Dominion status); Hellenic expansion at the expense of the Ottoman Empire (Greece already has Crete, Cyprus, the Ionian Islands, and most of the Aegean); Serb expansion (at the expense of Ottomans and into former Hapsburg territories); Bulgarian independence; independence of Albania and Bosnia; POSSIBLE American acquisition of Greenland; POSSIBLE dynastic union of Kingdom of Denmark and Kingdom of Sweden (Kalmar Union part deux?); possible emergence of one or more independent Arab state(s) on the Arabian peninsula and/or the Levant (and subsequent dissolution of the Ottoman Empire); probable balkanization of the Persian Empire; some as-of-now unforeseen developments in the Caucasus region; disbanding of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (resulting in the discontinuity of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty) leading to the independence of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines; abdication of the Braganza dynasty, establishing the Republic of Brazil; independence of colonized nations in Africa, India, and Malaya; Australia given dominion status and probably eventually independence; formation of a European Union (much earlier than OTL!)...
Map following...
BONUS IF YOU CAN GUESS THE POD - WHAT HAPPENED AND THE YEAR. [DOUBLE BONUS IF YOU CAN PINPOINT THE EXACT MONTH WHEN THE POD TOOK EFFECT!] ANY QUESTIONS? ASK AWAY!