PODs for a United Europe

[scholar]

Speaking of which, are there any TL's of Alexander going West instead of East? If something inspired Alexander the Great to conquer Europe before going east and he lives longer, the effects could be outstanding in this direction. That may all sound retarded, I don't know much about Alexander, admittedly.

That wouldn't really work, the only places worth taking with minimal trek over water would be east towards Persia, which was his main enemy. While there may be a possibility of him going into Europe, he would mostly find unprofitable and uncultivated land that might as well be the Russian Wastes. Now a tiny bit amount of expansion North, and maybe some into the Mediterranean may work.

 

[The Admiral Hook]

That wouldn't really work, the only places worth taking with minimal trek over water would be east towards Persia, which was his main enemy. While there may be a possibility of him going into Europe, he would mostly find unprofitable and uncultivated land that might as well be the Russian Wastes. Now a tiny bit amount of expansion North, and maybe some into the Mediterranean may work.

Sorry about my Alexander ignorance, and thanks for clearing that up.

I wonder if instead of uniting Europe into one nation, if something like the Confederate States of Europe could arise under some charismatic leader or leaders over the course of several centuries.

This wouldn't really require a damnfool violent military campaign.

 

[Elfwine]

Sorry about my Alexander ignorance, and thanks for clearing that up.

I wonder if instead of uniting Europe into one nation, if something like the Confederate States of Europe could arise under some charismatic leader or leaders over the course of several centuries.

This wouldn't really require a damnfool violent military campaign.

There's very little reason for one to form though, given how competitive the European states are pre-1900 (and even half a century after 1900).

On Chinese unification and empires: How long has China had these periods of unification compared to the Roman Empire's period of of compatible unification of Europe?

The HRE was not a truly united state for most of its history in anything other than name, the Carolingian Empire was shortlived.

On size: While the united Roman Empire is larger than some of the Chinese empires and roughly compatible to others (if less than half of the Ming and Qing states), the HRE and Carolingian states pale by comparison.

It may be true that Chinese unity has been exaggerated. Compared to Europe? China is very united.

 

[scholar]

Well, China was philosophically and religiously unified. Everything was Confucian. The Taos and Buddhists were in the background, but significant as well. Essentially its very similar to Europe pre-reformation. Or rather pre-degrading the schism. Back then the idea of a United Catholic Empire was not one that seemed too far fetched.

The number of years a Dynasty stays in power changes from Dynasty to Dynasty, and even period to period.

The Three Chinese Dynasties that made China possible:

The Xia (semi-mythical) was about 600 years
The Shang (semi-mythical) was about 700 years
The Zhou (all fact now) was about 800 years

Those defined Early Chinese civilization and were mostly just regime changes and capital changes. Then we get on to the more fuzzy parts. The Zhou, as some of you may know, was divided into dozens of different factions about halfway into it's lifespan. Notably the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period. The Spring and Autumn era saw the rise of a few major powers in China that consumed everyone else. The warring states period was when there were only major powers, and they were only attacking each other. It ended up with the Qing ruling them all.

The Qin lasted roughly 15 years.
Then we get to the Han, The Han was basically Rome. It lasted around 400 years and filled in what most would call "Core China"

After those 400 years the Empire began to fall apart in 180s, but was officially ended in the 220s, long after the nation was carved into three. We get the Three Kingdoms era, a popular topic.

This era of division lasted for 60 years, a bit longer accounting for de facto independent. The Jin would take over China, but the Jin would almost immediately collapse for reasons stated about a page ago. The Jin lasted just 36 years as an independent country. A Chinese state would exist in the south, uniting all sovereign Chinese, for centuries. The Northern and Southern Dynastic period refers to the Northern "Wu Hu" Dynasties and the Southern Chinese Dynasties. So what we would refer to as China was united and pushed down South for over 160 years. So we have a "west falling to Barbarians while the East stays Roman" situation here.

With this in mind I would have to say unity as a small meaningless nation lasted for thousands of years. When it began to spread unification was fleeting, just 400 years. The Tang would reunite it again, but that would be only for 300 years, and it would still not be what we call China. The Song lasted for just a 300 or so years, but only ruled a united China for a few decades. We thank the Mongols for actually giving China it's form and the Qing for finalizing it.

So, for much of it's early history, it's analogs with Rome are pretty spot on.

 

[Elfwine]

And Rome is a freakish exception to the European rule of disunity, OTL.

Four hundred years of unification compares favorably to anything post 476.

 

[scholar]

200 B.C. - 200 A.D.

 

[Elfwine]

200 B.C. - 200 A.D.

Should have been clearer - any events in Europe after that (476). Europe has never had more than one period of anyone even remotely like united the continent. The HRE and Carolingian states are impressive, but they're no more than central and western respectively, and not all of either.

So it compares favorably to most of Europe's history.

 

[Socrates]

Having read and considered all the posts on both sides, I think the following conclusions stand out:

(1) Geographically, China has as much geographical obstacles as Europe does

(2) After the Roman collapse, the power structure division of Europe meant that unification seems extremely difficult

(3) China had a better shot at unification because break-ups were usually into just two or three states rather than dozens

So how's this for a solution. Rome conquers Germania instead of Britannia. This leaves Britannia as a lot less economically developed and less of a threat. It also gives a bureaucracy, road network and lots of deforestation to Germania - as well as integrating Germania with Gallia. When Rome collapses, it does so into much more centralised, larger states rather than weak, feudal societies. Perhaps one on the Northern plain, one on the Western Med and one on the Eastern Med. All three declare themselves as the true Roman state in their identity.

Their populations continue to increase as they can better deal with famines, and they successfully repel migrations coming in from Asia. After a couple of centuries, the Northern and Western kingdoms unite through one conquering another, and the new state later takes Byzantium back for a time. A "emperor of all under the sun" idea is promoted. Meanwhile population growth means Romans are increasingly settled in OTL Poland and Czechia.

Now, obviously at this point you are about 1000 AD and would still have to go thorugh various break-ups, invasion and civil wars, but I think you would have a much stronger base to get a unification of mainland Europe. Scandinavia and the British Isles become the Korean and Japanese equivalents. Belarus and Ukraine are the equivalent of Tibet and East Turkestan, brought in rather late.

 

[Elfwine]

Having read and considered all the posts on both sides, I think the following conclusions stand out:

(1) Geographically, China has as much geographical obstacles as Europe does

(2) After the Roman collapse, the power structure division of Europe meant that unification seems extremely difficult

(3) China had a better shot at unification because break-ups were usually into just two or three states rather than dozens

So how's this for a solution. Rome conquers Germania instead of Britannia. This leaves Britannia as a lot less economically developed and less of a threat. It also gives a bureaucracy, road network and lots of deforestation to Germania - as well as integrating Germania with Gallia. When Rome collapses, it does so into much more centralised, larger states rather than weak, feudal societies. Perhaps one on the Northern plain, one on the Western Med and one on the Eastern Med. All three declare themselves as the true Roman state in their identity.

Their populations continue to increase as they can better deal with famines, and they successfully repel migrations coming in from Asia. After a couple of centuries, the Northern and Western kingdoms unite through one conquering another, and the new state later takes Byzantium back for a time. A "emperor of all under the sun" idea is promoted. Meanwhile population growth means Romans are increasingly settled in OTL Poland and Czechia.

Now, obviously at this point you are about 1000 AD and would still have to go thorugh various break-ups, invasion and civil wars, but I think you would have a much stronger base to get a unification of mainland Europe. Scandinavia and the British Isles become the Korean and Japanese equivalents. Belarus and Ukraine are the equivalent of Tibet and East Turkestan, brought in rather late.

A stronger basis, maybe...if things break up like that, which seems to indicate that the Roman state is merely divided rather than collapsing in the west and north, somehow (how?). Or east for that matter.

Its not as if, incidentally, the ERE is geographically favored when it comes to having large areas easily paced under one state.

Assuming Germania being incorporated is viable because I'm too lazy to hunt down the thread/s discussing the issues of Roman conquest there and thus can't provide sufficient backup for the contrary. Do want to point out it would be difficult and unrewarding even if its not actually a just plain bad idea.

On geography: Does China's geography favor the develop of small, local power centers instead of the kind of big states that lead to a much less balkanized situation (even if not an empire of all China)? Just having mountains and forests and swamps isn't a problem, having those and the absence of anything like the "broad and fertile river zones like those around the Ganges, Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, Yellow, and Yangtze" so that the geographical forces at play are the ones involving "mountain ranges and large forests separating the scattered population centers in the valleys" is what makes Europe divided by its geography in a way that China isn't.

This is a problem with any POD that doesn't alter the landscape completely - and the kind of massive deforestation it would take to render Northern (as in France, Germany, Poland...) Europe's forests irrelevant is kind of unpleasant to think about.

 

[Socrates]

A stronger basis, maybe...if things break up like that, which seems to indicate that the Roman state is merely divided rather than collapsing in the west and north, somehow (how?).

The Romanisation of Germany rather than the Germanisation of Rome, and the integration of Germans into the Empire. The tribes further to the East were much less advanced than the Germans and would be a lot less likely to cause the societal collapse. Instead what happens is regional governors lusting for glory.

Assuming Germania being incorporated is viable because I'm too lazy to hunt down the thread/s discussing the issues of Roman conquest there and thus can't provide sufficient backup for the contrary. Sufficient to say, it would be difficult and unrewarding.

Would love to see the thread to hear the arguments. I do think that political motives can play as much a role as economic ones though, as Rome is not a homogenous state. It just needs some budding military commander stationed on the Rhine wanting to seek glory and being successful. I could see Germany having a profitable logging industry at least - not to mention trade on the northern sea.

On geography: Does China's geography favor the develop of small, local power centers instead of the kind of big states that lead to a much less balkanized situation (even if not an empire of all China)? Just having mountains and forests and swamps isn't a problem, having those and the absence of anything like the "broad and fertile river zones like those around the Ganges, Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, Yellow, and Yangtze" so that the geographical forces at play are the ones involving "mountain ranges and large forests separating the scattered population centers in the valleys" is what makes Europe divided by its geography in a way that China isn't.

Didn't quite understand this, but am going with what I think it means. I would argue Southern China and Southern Europe are similar in their scattering of people into smaller valleys between mountainous areas. Northern Italy and the Northern European plain are pretty broad, fertile river areas - particularly after Roman era deforestation.

 

[Elfwine]

The Romanisation of Germany rather than the Germanisation of Rome, and the integration of Germans into the Empire. The tribes further to the East were much less advanced than the Germans and would prevent the societal collapse. Instead what happens is regional governors lusting for glory.

Integrating Germania into Rome only applies to the tribes that are there at the time (and which move in relatively peacefully). Tribes to the east - aren't the Goths from around the Baltic? - will be a problem.

Would love to see the thread to hear the arguments. I do think that political motives can play as much a role as economic ones though, as Rome is not a homogenous state. It just needs some budding military commander stationed on the Rhine wanting to seek glory and being successful. I could see Germany having a profitable logging industry at least - not to mention trade on the northern sea.

I'll hunt the one coming to mind first down (there are others, but it covers what needs to be said) then.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=132268

This (I haven't read it yet) may also be useful, either for this thread in general or the Roman question in particular: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=173143

It appears that as usual Eurofed is assuming the optimistic scenario, which is to say, things manage to add up properly every single time it comes into question. Butterfly this bad event, butterfly that, butterfly in this good event...

On the former: The discussion on Persia being too much to swallow is, in my opinion, relevant to the general issue of pan-European unification in regards to how much is too much even for strong states. In a general sense.

Didn't quite understand this, but am going with what I think it means. I would argue Southern China and Southern Europe are similar in their scattering of people into smaller valleys between mountainous areas. Northern Italy and the Northern European plain are pretty broad, fertile river areas - particularly after Roman era deforestation.

Okay. Europe has favorable geography for division but does not have broad, fertile river areas like the Yellow and Yangtze in China, the Nile in Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc. China has both.

That line up with what you thought I meant?

 

[Tangerine]

So how's this for a solution. Rome conquers Germania instead of Britannia. This leaves Britannia as a lot less economically developed and less of a threat. It also gives a bureaucracy, road network and lots of deforestation to Germania - as well as integrating Germania with Gallia. When Rome collapses, it does so into much more centralised, larger states rather than weak, feudal societies. Perhaps one on the Northern plain, one on the Western Med and one on the Eastern Med. All three declare themselves as the true Roman state in their identity.

There are many problems with this. Even compared to Britain Germania is a backwater. The only regions which had any economic value were those directly across the Rhine from Gaul - there was no incentive for the Romans to penetrate any further, and to go as far as, say, the Elbe would yield a net loss for the empire like no other. The economic problems of the Roman Empire were already so dire that they had to run Europe's first market economy into the ground to maintain it for so long. Another worthless province is just going to make the collapse harder to avert.

The Romanisation of Germany rather than the Germanisation of Rome, and the integration of Germans into the Empire. The tribes further to the East were much less advanced than the Germans and would be a lot less likely to cause the societal collapse. Instead what happens is regional governors lusting for glory.

The tribes which caused the most trouble for the Romans during the Migration Period - the Goths, Vandals, Burgundii, etc. - originated east of the Elbe river. So, unless the Romans push to the Vistula (absolutely ASB) there's going to be no getting around Germanic invasions once the Empire weakens. Population pressure from the eastern steppe is going to be difficult to butterfly away, as are the climatological factors which precipitated the Migration Period.

I would argue Southern China and Southern Europe are similar in their scattering of people into smaller valleys between mountainous areas. Northern Italy and the Northern European plain are pretty broad, fertile river areas - particularly after Roman era deforestation.

Equating the North European and North China Plains is not a fair comparison. Let's consider agriculture: the Yellow River plain spawned one of the only independent inventions of agriculture in human prehistory. The region is really ideally suited for food production - a vast alluvial plain with fertile soil and a favorable climate and latitude. the Northern European plain, on the other hand, has none of these advantages - the cold climate resulted a very low population density, limiting agriculture which arrived late from more southerly regions. It took over a thousand years for agricultural technology to advance enough to get it farming a similar level of productivity in the northern regions of Germany and Poland as in France.

 

[Faeelin]

The Rhine valley has pretty much been the economic centre of Europe ever since the 13th century. This economic dominance was never translated into real political dominance until the German Empire came along.

Right, and yet this economic unity and importance didn't presage political unity. Once again, the statements we are happy to make about China don't apply elsewhere.

And if no one, alarmed by this, decides to interfere.

And so on.

The son of Isabella and Louis could be Emperor, but the electors are unlikely to want to support someone able to impose centralized authority on Germany.

Why not? In OTL there was a move towards reforming the HRE. Reichsreform and all that. Who would oppose them?

I think we have a tendency to assume there is a balance of power, and that people will unite to stop one group from dominating a region. Yet there are plenty of examples cutting the opposite way. witness how the Indian states didn't united against the Raj, or the native americans did not unite against the Europeans.

It is almost impossible to find an example anywhere in history of any kind of shift in borders happening without military force being used. This is just the nature of human societies. Conquest is a means to an end.

By this logic, there must have been social unity in... 18th century India between the Brits and the subcontinent?

 

[Elfwine]

Why not? In OTL there was a move towards reforming the HRE. Reichsreform and all that. Who would oppose them?

The same people who had a vested interest in the Emperor not cutting back on their power OTL, plus anyone with interests in avoiding this particular family dominating

Since this specific scenario never came up OTL, naming specific people would be difficult.

Reforming the HRE so its a functional confederation/state is one thing. Accepting being subject to potential imperial absolutism is another.

I think we have a tendency to assume there is a balance of power, and that people will unite to stop one group from dominating a region. Yet there are plenty of examples cutting the opposite way. witness how the Indian states didn't united against the Raj, or the native americans did not unite against the Europeans.

It is what happened in European history over and over again, which indicates the likely outcome in any given scenario is that the European states would again tend to rally behind the anti-hegemon forces for the same kind of reasons that happened OTL when people threatened hegemony.

Not so much related to that but relevant all the same:

It is probably telling of something that when Charles V stepped down, he did so by splitting the Habsburg inheritance, not merely personally declining to handle the task of managing Spain and the HRE. Spain, France, and the HRE is even more of a staggering expanse to try to rule - maybe not compared to China, but compared to anything European monarchs and proto-states have experience with?

That doesn't mean it necessarily happens in this Franco-Spanish dynasty's case, but it ought to be asked whether the same general issues with ruling both Spain (and in this case France) and the HRE will impact the Inheritor the same way they did Charles.

The conspicuous lack of pan-European empires, including the Roman Empire, might be a reason to suspect that unification goes against the developments that occurred in Europe post-Rome. And the lack of Roman hegemony over the whole of the continent wasn't for a lack of Roman desire for supremacy, either.

You could come up with a scenario, in a Let's Rewrite History sort of way, where factors align differently I suppose, but that would be so unlike OTL history by the point of The Empire as to be hard to given an assessment of if the nonhuman factors would or wouldn't reinforce one the tenancy towards several states rather than one.

 

[Tangerine]

I think we have a tendency to assume there is a balance of power, and that people will unite to stop one group from dominating a region. Yet there are plenty of examples cutting the opposite way. witness how the Indian states didn't united against the Raj, or the native americans did not unite against the Europeans.

By this logic, there must have been social unity in... 18th century India between the Brits and the subcontinent?

Both these are examples of conflicts in which one side wields a disproportionate amount of power due to technological and organizational advantages - in such cases the weaker group is destroyed (Native Americans) or becomes a colony (India). In either case the colonized region is locked into the colonizer's empire for however long it takes to decline, or until the colonized region has been thoroughly absorbed. It has nothing to do with social unity.

In fact, the Roman takeover of Western Europe (without which, by many peoples' criteria Europe would have been united) is another example of this.

 

[Wendell]

Maybe we're going about this all wrong...

Instead of uniting Europe and it remaining united, why not unite all or some of Europe more often over the years? First with Rome and so on and so forth until the 19th century? This creates more of a sense of cultural unity and then the issue becomes a lot easier to work with.

I think another option is throwing in a "Great Man" at some point like a Napoleon/Alexander the Great/Hitler all rolled up into one, but not evil, just nationalistic for a unified nation of Europe. If he is strong and attractive enough, he could inspire at least a Confederation.

This makes sense. Another idea is managing to unite much of the continent through a string of inheritances. I mean, there were points in time when the Hapsburgs controlled half of western Europe, largely due to inheritance.

 

[scholar]

The Yellow River is no more fertile than the Rhine. This is not the nile we are talking about, it's not a river that gives life to an otherwise lifeless world. Most agriculture came from the river lands and channels. The Yellow River itself was for fishing, trade, commerce, and warfare. Same the the Yangze. So please, stop making it out to be that China has an equivalent to the Nile. In fact, most agriculture is in terrain no different from France or Germany. But a very sizable amount of land is Terrace Farming, which has been around for thousands of years in China that makes the Mountains and Hills themselves productive for food growth.

In addition, almost all of China favored small feudal states. The Three Kingdoms era was the collapse of China into hundreds of small states. Some were a little bigger than others, or had some very talented people leading them, and they formed either small handful of Kingdoms to go after each other. And again, this was in a piece of land much, much, much smaller than all of modern day China or all of Modern Day Europe. It's roughly the equivalent of France, Iberia, and Britain. In time this would expand slowly to the point where it would have most of Europe.

 

[Saepe Fidelis]

I hate to point this out so late, but so far no one has given a workable definition of Europe. You've generally used the Roman Empire as a starting point, but that was by no means European-it was culturally closer to Egypt or Syria than it was to Gaul or Britain and its economic axis was East-West along the Mediterranean; as has been said previously, Gaul and Northern Europe were basically just marginal land for them.

We also seem to have excluded Russia, although I'm not sure if you're including Belorussia or Lithuania in this, given as how those areas are geographically close to Russia and far away from the Italian-French-German axis which comprises Central Europe.

Of course, you could go for the old historical definition of Europe and define it as Christendom. I know this hasn't been that popular since the 16th century when it got kinda shattered but so many of our ideas about Europe are based on Christianity. If you're taking that as a definition then you include Lithuania as well as the ERE because although the ERE was considered schismatic, it was still seen as part of Christendom. If this is the option you take then the best bet would be to have no reformation and thus no splitting of European Christianity. It might not mean political unification but it would mean more cultural homogeneity.

So yeah, in true debating style I challenge you to define your proposition.

 

[Elfwine]

The Yellow River is no more fertile than the Rhine. This is not the nile we are talking about, it's not a river that gives life to an otherwise lifeless world. Most agriculture came from the river lands and channels. The Yellow River itself was for fishing, trade, commerce, and warfare. Same the the Yangze. So please, stop making it out to be that China has an equivalent to the Nile. In fact, most agriculture is in terrain no different from France or Germany. But a very sizable amount of land is Terrace Farming, which has been around for thousands of years in China that makes the Mountains and Hills themselves productive for food growth.

It may not be a river that gives life to an otherwise lifeless area, but what influence does it have on there being a large, wide area with food production for many "toiling peasants"? Simply supporting a vast population from which to build a power base that can overwhelm the little states instead of how Europe has no similar region providing the owner with a more populated and fertile region than the rest of "Northern" (in the sense of not Mediterranean) Europe would do.

That's Nile-like by comparison to the Rhine or the Danube or other major European rivers.

And I'm sure this is my fault and not yours, but I'm not sure I follow this:

"Most agriculture came from the river lands and channels. The Yellow River itself was for fishing, trade, commerce, and warfare. Same the the Yangze. So please, stop making it out to be that China has an equivalent to the Nile. In fact, most agriculture is in terrain no different from France or Germany. "

Is most agriculture from the river lands and channels or from terrain "no different from France or Germany"? Or are you saying those are the same thing?

In addition, almost all of China favored small feudal states. The Three Kingdoms era was the collapse of China into hundreds of small states. Some were a little bigger than others, or had some very talented people leading them, and they formed either small handful of Kingdoms to go after each other. And again, this was in a piece of land much, much, much smaller than all of modern day China or all of Modern Day Europe. It's roughly the equivalent of France, Iberia, and Britain. In time this would expand slowly to the point where it would have most of Europe.

Which does not seem to have had nearly as much deterrence in being able to crush and assimilate those states as in Europe.

I hate to point this out so late, but so far no one has given a workable definition of Europe. You've generally used the Roman Empire as a starting point, but that was by no means European-it was culturally closer to Egypt or Syria than it was to Gaul or Britain and its economic axis was East-West along the Mediterranean; as has been said previously, Gaul and Northern Europe were basically just marginal land for them.

Since for reasons that the original poster and the God-Emperor alone know, Russia is excluded, I have a definition (posted it earlier but posting it again): Portugal to the Dnieper. Asia Minor isn't in Europe. Scandinavia and the British isles are. Iceland and such are optional.

The Roman Empire covers much of this.

Whether it was culturally European or Mediterranean or Martian or whatever is not relevant (to this definition, as I'm using it).

 

[scholar]

German and French farmland is mostly by rivers and channels (irrigation channels), so I see no difference. French Agriculture.

And the Yellow/Yangze rivers have a lot more going for them than food production, in fact, food production is almost of minimal importance compared to the flow of trade and it being used as a buffer in war.

Normally, when a country enters a stage of civil war, the two opposing sides tend to attack one another rather than attacking a foreign power. These were civil wars, the break up of China lead to powers always claiming to be "The real China", thus the others were enemies that had to be destroyed for their country to have true legitimacy. In Europe if a civil war goes on for a few decades or even a century or two normally they split into separate nations or another power will step in and support the independence of one of the belligerents. This wouldn't really happen in China, a lot of times it was tried, but the basis of Chinese culture and government states that there is only one Chinese Emperor, for that Emperor rules all under heaven. This concept of Tianxia made conquering all the other fragments of the previous dynasties a priority. Even times when two Emperor's allied with one another it was always made very clear that the alliance would last only as long as the enemy they were allied against was still alive. Even the famous Wu-Shu alliance which has been idolized in popular culture as a joint resistance against a more powerful foe, was only to last as long as Wei was still around.

They didn't pull themselves together because some freak of terrain allowed it to do so, they pulled themselves together because they had to, even if it took a thousand years, in order for their "China" to be the legitimate and only "China."