Map Thread XIX

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A map game of Guess Where WW1 Started! The date is 1897, when in May 14, a particular event happened that caused the outbreak of the war.

You will use this map to guess where the outbreak may have started.

The alliances are:

Entente: France, Russia, Serbia, China

The "Cambray" Alliance: UK, Belgium, Mitteleuropa (Germany, Venice, Hungary), Ethiopia

The Ottomans, Italians, Japanese, and Aragonese are wild cards. They are in neither of these alliances but they eventually choose a side based on their situation in their borderlands with these other powers. Cause this war gets big.

The Americans choose to back up the Cambray Alliance and fight the French in 1899.
 
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I would go out on a limb and say that World War I started when Ethiopia either a) invaded French India or b) began to incite Indian separatist/ant-French rebellions in (the rest of) the subcontinent.
That actually happened in this universe, with Ethiopia exploiting civil unrest in French India, but it is not the inciting event.
 
View attachment 498838

A map game of Guess Where WW1 Started! The date is 1897, when in May 14, a particular event happened that caused the outbreak of the war.

You will use this map to guess where the outbreak may have started.

The alliances are:

Entente: France, Russia, Serbia, China

The "Cambray" Alliance: UK, Belgium, Mitteleuropa (Germany, Venice, Hungary), Ethiopia

The Ottomans, Italians, Japanese, and Aragonese are wild cards. They are in neither of these alliances but they eventually choose a side based on their situation in their borderlands with these other powers. Cause this war gets big.

The Americans choose to back up the Cambray Alliance and fight the French in 1899.
I'm gonna guess that whatever is going on with those claims in Iran is a flashpoint
 
View attachment 498838

A map game of Guess Where WW1 Started! The date is 1897, when in May 14, a particular event happened that caused the outbreak of the war.

You will use this map to guess where the outbreak may have started.

The alliances are:

Entente: France, Russia, Serbia, China

The "Cambray" Alliance: UK, Belgium, Mitteleuropa (Germany, Venice, Hungary), Ethiopia

The Ottomans, Italians, Japanese, and Aragonese are wild cards. They are in neither of these alliances but they eventually choose a side based on their situation in their borderlands with these other powers. Cause this war gets big.

The Americans choose to back up the Cambray Alliance and fight the French in 1899.

Some damned thing in the Balkans?
 
I will post in about 3 hours of Guess Where WW1 Started! where we will know where the where is. Have fun with your speculations.

(India is not it)
 
@TrucKola : Did Ethiopia (try to) invade that Free Port/Trade Concession/ in OTL Yemen? Or did Ethiopia try to take the (oil-rich as far as I know) eastern coast of OTL Saudi-Arabia from France?

Or there was a dispute/civil war/proxy war over who has the most influence in this Rashidi(?) Arabia?

EDIT: Am I right in thinking that North Whartonia is communist/socialist?
 
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So this is my latest project that I've been working on... I really wanted to mix up my normal style and went with a pretty near complete screw of Western civilization... POD was the battles of Marathon and Thermopylae, where Persia succeeds in taking over Greece and adding it to their empire (around 600 BC). This map is 1000 AD (I think)- major powers include Babylon, Carthage, Korea, Somalia, Egypt, and Israel. Babylon is arguable the most advanced country in the world, in virtually every regard- for centuries they've profited off the trade that passes through Middle East. Persia is on the brink of collapse, after centuries of economic decline and war in India. Somalia and Carthage are competing trade empires, Carthage with a virtual monopoly on the Mediterranean and Caribbean, and Somalia dominating the East Indian and African trade routes. Europe never really got out of the Iron Age, besides the Celtic Confederation (who is still decades behind the Eastern powers, having yet to adopt gunpowder and other modern technologies), and is still mostly a handful of tribal alliances- their populations getting decimated in plagues of the 4th and 6th centuries set them back even further.

This is still kinda a WIP but I wanted to put this out here so if there's any huge discrepancies you guys could correct me, this is my first time doing an alt-hist before Western civilization became a thing and so I'm still kinda new at working with the Middle Eastern and African civilizations... So any suggestions are welcome! Also I kinda feel like there should be more stuff going on in Africa and Eastern Europe and I don't really know what to do but any suggestions or idea would be welcome.
 
View attachment 498838

A map game of Guess Where WW1 Started! The date is 1897, when in May 14, a particular event happened that caused the outbreak of the war.

You will use this map to guess where the outbreak may have started.

The alliances are:

Entente: France, Russia, Serbia, China

The "Cambray" Alliance: UK, Belgium, Mitteleuropa (Germany, Venice, Hungary), Ethiopia

The Ottomans, Italians, Japanese, and Aragonese are wild cards. They are in neither of these alliances but they eventually choose a side based on their situation in their borderlands with these other powers. Cause this war gets big.

The Americans choose to back up the Cambray Alliance and fight the French in 1899.
Was it Spain? Or Italy?
 
View attachment 498838

A map game of Guess Where WW1 Started!
Considering it was stated that “iran is geographically close (but not correct):
Iran generally is not a possibility, as it is shared by two allies and the only other bordering nation is one of the neutrals

Egypt might wanna break free from France, and also borders Ethiopia, so it could be related to that, even if the other neighboring countries are exclusively neutrals

Tibet might want to remove the yoke too but is otherwise bordered by mostly Russia and China (allies) so relatively unlikely
Saudi Arabia could be an area of importance too especially since I don’t see already established SoI, but then again it’s less likely to start a war over not yet existing SoIs or if someone is expanding their SoI in Tibet or there (unless a treaty prohibited that)

which more or less leaves out south india and probably something involving one of the smaller statelets being bullied (eG occupied) by ethiopia or France, which would be a more direct infringement on SoIs, and considering both empires are huge and brought a lot of foreign land directly under their control (see practically unified french india) these small states might actually be protected by some treaty.

my bet would be on India or maybe Saudi-Arabia, both in regards to SoI infringement.
It’s sad that we don’t know the categorical (diplomatic insult, simple conquest, SoI infringement, trade threats, uprising, boi killed etc.) cause of the war since it would make things easier and more creative than wild guessing but yeah
 
Considering it was stated that “iran is geographically close (but not correct):
Iran generally is not a possibility, as it is shared by two allies and the only other bordering nation is one of the neutrals

Egypt might wanna break free from France, and also borders Ethiopia, so it could be related to that, even if the other neighboring countries are exclusively neutrals

Tibet might want to remove the yoke too but is otherwise bordered by mostly Russia and China (allies) so relatively unlikely
Saudi Arabia could be an area of importance too especially since I don’t see already established SoI, but then again it’s less likely to start a war over not yet existing SoIs or if someone is expanding their SoI in Tibet or there (unless a treaty prohibited that)

which more or less leaves out south india and probably something involving one of the smaller statelets being bullied (eG occupied) by ethiopia or France, which would be a more direct infringement on SoIs, and considering both empires are huge and brought a lot of foreign land directly under their control (see practically unified french india) these small states might actually be protected by some treaty.

my bet would be on India or maybe Saudi-Arabia, both in regards to SoI infringement.
It’s sad that we don’t know the categorical (diplomatic insult, simple conquest, SoI infringement, trade threats, uprising, boi killed etc.) cause of the war since it would make things easier and more creative than wild guessing but yeah
This is deductive reasoning that takes the cake. Best guess by far.

So, I've waited long enough to allow people to speculate, and I'm gonna reveal the two inciting incidents that escalate to war.

Due to the dramatic rise of nationalism and nationalist philosophy in the mid 1800s (which contributed to Germany unifying earlier than OTTL), a lot of these proxy states under foreign rule have a lot of sentiments to be very volatile.

An international crisis in the Strait of Hormuz between the French and Ethiopians is one contributing factor. In a peace summit in Rome on May 3rd, 1897, the ambassadors from both these empires asserted that they aren't going to back down from it, since the oil boom has influenced these nations to be so aggressive in the Middle East. The crisis escalated when a standoff between an Ethiopian convoy and French fortified guns at Suez was occuring. The Arabian government was also present at the peace talks, quietly spectating.

The second incident that nullified all peace talks was the Armenian Incident. An Islamized Armenian allegedly part of an Ottoman-funded terror group "The Crusaders" shot the Prince of Armenia, within the Russian sphere of influence. As soon as the Russians caught wind of the attempted assassination during the peace talks, they cried out a conspiracy was being plotted against the Entente.

War began, and the Ottomans joined the Cambray Alliance to compensate for the four front war they are about to defend themselves against.
 
This is deductive reasoning that takes the cake. Best guess by far.

So, I've waited long enough to allow people to speculate, and I'm gonna reveal the two inciting incidents that escalate to war.

Due to the dramatic rise of nationalism and nationalist philosophy in the mid 1800s (which contributed to Germany unifying earlier than OTTL), a lot of these proxy states under foreign rule have a lot of sentiments to be very volatile.

An international crisis in the Strait of Hormuz between the French and Ethiopians is one contributing factor. In a peace summit in Rome on May 3rd, 1897, the ambassadors from both these empires asserted that they aren't going to back down from it, since the oil boom has influenced these nations to be so aggressive in the Middle East. The crisis escalated when a standoff between an Ethiopian convoy and French fortified guns at Suez was occuring. The Arabian government was also present at the peace talks, quietly spectating.

The second incident that nullified all peace talks was the Armenian Incident. An Islamized Armenian allegedly part of an Ottoman-funded terror group "The Crusaders" shot the Prince of Armenia, within the Russian sphere of influence. As soon as the Russians caught wind of the attempted assassination during the peace talks, they cried out a conspiracy was being plotted against the Entente.

War began, and the Ottomans joined the Cambray Alliance to compensate for the four front war they are about to defend themselves against.
Why are there so many extra islands?
 
Happy Halloween good mappers.
irishempire.png

This is just something I whipped up real quick to commemorate the fact that Halloween has it's roots in Ireland, I decided to make a brief map of an Irish colonial empire.
I don't really have a p.o.d. for this, but if I had to guess, Ireland was unified and ruled by a viking descended dynasty some time in the 10th century.
 

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Happy Halloween good mappers.
View attachment 498907
This is just something I whipped up real quick to commemorate the fact that Halloween has it's roots in Ireland, I decided to make a brief map of an Irish colonial empire.
I don't really have a p.o.d. for this, but if I had to guess, Ireland was unified and ruled by a viking descended dynasty some time in the 10th century.
The internal borders are not realistic, the Robinson projection distorts. Unless you wanted unnaturally curved borders, of course.
 
Happy Halloween good mappers.
View attachment 498907
This is just something I whipped up real quick to commemorate the fact that Halloween has it's roots in Ireland, I decided to make a brief map of an Irish colonial empire.
I don't really have a p.o.d. for this, but if I had to guess, Ireland was unified and ruled by a viking descended dynasty some time in the 10th century.

Aw, it should really have New Ireland, also, the Faroe island (just like iceland, irish monks went there before the norse), also i think it would have been nice to add some territory in Australia, considering how much of the current population has irish roots.
 
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