Napoleon Bonaparte for Haiti. The suffering inflicted on the Haitian ex-slaves by the misbegotten LeClerc expedition in 1802 is almost unimaginable. I’m sure Haiti would be a much nicer place today if the Little General died a horribly painful death before 1801.
Best monarch or head of state to kill off early for a more prosperous future
- Thread starter OldScifi
- Start date
Which wouldn't matter too much as both were childless. If King Humphrey is sensible he'll name RoY as heir.
Sigismund III Vasa - his removal is a big victory for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
-no unnecessary polish-swedish wars
-no losing control over Prussia
-no Zebrzydowski's rebellion
-no distractions from capturing Moscow
-no unnecessary polish-swedish wars
-no losing control over Prussia
-no Zebrzydowski's rebellion
-no distractions from capturing Moscow
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For the United States I'd say Andrew Jackson or Johnson. Forced relocation was a mess, and shutting down the national bank caused an economic crisis. Johnson actively impeded reconstruction.
There are some Roman Emperors too. Constantine VIII basically ruined all of Basil II's hard work. The 11th century could've been the Roman Century, but a series of not great emperors ruined it.
Phokas also comes to mind. Without him there would've been no Roman-Sassanian war of 602-628, and the Caliphate wouldn't have been able to conquer Rome and Persia.
Alexios II Komnenos. Andronikos Komnenos doesn't take power, Bela-Alexios of Hungary becomes Roman Emperor and King of Hungary.
Wilhelm I of Germany. If he dies in 1878 Frederick III takes the throne, and Germany becomes a more liberal, democratic state.
Lothar von Trotha for Namibia. No Henero and Nama genocide.
Paul von Hindenburg for Germany. Weimar democracy has a much better chance of survival, Germany doesn't start WW2, no Nazi horrors, Germany doesn't lose Silesia, Pommerania, and East Prussia, and may even gain Austria in the future.
There are some Roman Emperors too. Constantine VIII basically ruined all of Basil II's hard work. The 11th century could've been the Roman Century, but a series of not great emperors ruined it.
Phokas also comes to mind. Without him there would've been no Roman-Sassanian war of 602-628, and the Caliphate wouldn't have been able to conquer Rome and Persia.
Alexios II Komnenos. Andronikos Komnenos doesn't take power, Bela-Alexios of Hungary becomes Roman Emperor and King of Hungary.
Wilhelm I of Germany. If he dies in 1878 Frederick III takes the throne, and Germany becomes a more liberal, democratic state.
Lothar von Trotha for Namibia. No Henero and Nama genocide.
Paul von Hindenburg for Germany. Weimar democracy has a much better chance of survival, Germany doesn't start WW2, no Nazi horrors, Germany doesn't lose Silesia, Pommerania, and East Prussia, and may even gain Austria in the future.
It would be difficult for Haiti to be worse so almost any change would be an improvement but the ceiling is also pretty low, bluntly when you start out as an overpopulated, resource poor island with no obvious root to economic development and no colonial sponsor to invest at least a bit of money you're very unlikely to end up prosperous.
True but Napoleon’s invasion wiped out the infrastructure and institutions Louverture was building setting Haiti down the path to total instability.
Sacer Bubonicus
Banned
Akhenaten.
People mostly remember him for being a religious nutcase who pissed off the Egyptian political establishment so much they pulled a He Who Must Not Be Named with him in the historical record, but there was another side to his insanity. For one, he had no foreign policy. Okay, that's not quite true, but it sure seems like it at times. To give one example, when the Amorites besieged the city of Byblos, an important vassal in northern Lebanon, the city sent at least 60 letters to Akhenaten pleading for him to send an army to lift the siege, and only surrendered when Akhenaten sent back an irritated letter telling them to stop bothering him. The Amorites, who had been Egyptian vassals themselves, then defected to the Hittites and Akhenaten did nothing about it. He also did nothing to save the Mitanni, his father's biggest ally, when the Hittites went after them. At absolute most, Akhenaten only ever sent limited forces to aid his vassals (in the event that he decided to aid them at all), whereas his predecessors' policy had always been to personally lead a large punitive army against the transgressor.
Thus, many of Egypt's vassals in Canaan abandoned it over the course of Akhenaten's reign, and the Hittites were allowed to become stronger without any effective opposition. Had Akhenaten presented a stronger stance in Canaan, as his predecessors had done, he could have saved his successors much trouble in trying to fix his mess.
People mostly remember him for being a religious nutcase who pissed off the Egyptian political establishment so much they pulled a He Who Must Not Be Named with him in the historical record, but there was another side to his insanity. For one, he had no foreign policy. Okay, that's not quite true, but it sure seems like it at times. To give one example, when the Amorites besieged the city of Byblos, an important vassal in northern Lebanon, the city sent at least 60 letters to Akhenaten pleading for him to send an army to lift the siege, and only surrendered when Akhenaten sent back an irritated letter telling them to stop bothering him. The Amorites, who had been Egyptian vassals themselves, then defected to the Hittites and Akhenaten did nothing about it. He also did nothing to save the Mitanni, his father's biggest ally, when the Hittites went after them. At absolute most, Akhenaten only ever sent limited forces to aid his vassals (in the event that he decided to aid them at all), whereas his predecessors' policy had always been to personally lead a large punitive army against the transgressor.
Thus, many of Egypt's vassals in Canaan abandoned it over the course of Akhenaten's reign, and the Hittites were allowed to become stronger without any effective opposition. Had Akhenaten presented a stronger stance in Canaan, as his predecessors had done, he could have saved his successors much trouble in trying to fix his mess.
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Andronicus III: The Empire avoids yet another civil war if he perishes at Pelecanum as had been rumored.
Napoleon: Pick one. Killed in/leaving Egypt (1799) and it's someone else's Brumaire. Bombed on the way to the theater (1800) the republic endures, likely under Bernadotte, but things like the code civil and, arguably, the Louisiana Purchase are already in the pipeline. Killed at Regensburg (1809) the empire lasts, but the man does not. Parliamentarism comes in under Joseph and Spain, restored to the Bourbons, still loses its empire as French control beyond Holland and the Rhine collapses. Stabbed in Vienna (1809) and the latest war is won without another in sight once Spain is resolved. Sometime before the first exile (1814) and there is no Hundred days, but maybe junior gets his shot one day.
Napoleon III: Killed in a duel (1840) against one of his uncle's bastards, he is not available to hinder the formation and endurance of the second republic. Assassinated (1858) by an Italian revolutionary, the second empire endures without Mexico, Italy, or Germany.
Napoleon: Pick one. Killed in/leaving Egypt (1799) and it's someone else's Brumaire. Bombed on the way to the theater (1800) the republic endures, likely under Bernadotte, but things like the code civil and, arguably, the Louisiana Purchase are already in the pipeline. Killed at Regensburg (1809) the empire lasts, but the man does not. Parliamentarism comes in under Joseph and Spain, restored to the Bourbons, still loses its empire as French control beyond Holland and the Rhine collapses. Stabbed in Vienna (1809) and the latest war is won without another in sight once Spain is resolved. Sometime before the first exile (1814) and there is no Hundred days, but maybe junior gets his shot one day.
Napoleon III: Killed in a duel (1840) against one of his uncle's bastards, he is not available to hinder the formation and endurance of the second republic. Assassinated (1858) by an Italian revolutionary, the second empire endures without Mexico, Italy, or Germany.
A personal hated figure that I would have wished to see gone would be Constantine I of Greece. If he had just dropped dead 48 hours after the end of the Balkan Wars there's a very real chance that my country's suffering during most of the 20th century would have beem reduced by 95%. If that bastard Paul, Fredericka's marionette is kept away from the throne as well the 20th century would be pretty much a breeze.
Without getting too much into the insane rabbit hole that are the Greek politics around that time, Constantine's dogged belief and desire to rule like an absolutist monarch in a country that had for decades an established precedent of constitutional monarchic rule and the concept of the King's power being exercised through an elected Prime Minister, created so much internal confusion and strife to the point that Greece was de facto in a civil war, the country basically had split in half, the divide between Monarchists and Republicans which persisted after his death can be directly blamed with much of the political violence of the 20s and 30s and the loss of the vast amount of WWI gains and generally made Greece weaker.
From all that chaos, our Royal Family got the idea that they should be even more involved in politics with their meddling derailing Greek politics in the 50s and 60s to a point that enabled the Colonel's Regime to come into power which is it's own little black chapter.
And it really is down to Constantine, his style of rule and beliefs. His father was more of a constitutional monarch in the British style while his brother Alexander who was briefly King showed the same tendencies.
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Where does this come from?
I mean, I constantly see on this forum people talking and talking about how Frederick III has been the biggest missed opportunity of the 19th century and what has happened to the German Empire.
Usually with both bombastic and unspecific claims about how Frederick would have essentially aligned Germany to be Britain's ally/hound/sepoy on the Continent, as well as using his own strength of character to turn Germany into "Great Britain with a German accent", implementing reforms towards to convert the Kaiserreich in "OTL Federal Republic of Germany but with a Kaiser"...
(details vary from commenter to commenter, but the idea is that F-III assuming the throne somehow allows him to purge all opposition and implement all those reforms)
...in ways that no one develops beyond "well, it's evident that's the way it is, and in any case it can't do worse than Willy II."
Louis XVI peacefully passes away after slipping on a baguette
His son takes the throne as a constitutional monarch and with the revolutionaries in charge France becomes a Republic in all but name
No Reign of Terror under Robespierre and no napoleonic take over without him to favour Nappy
Even then his military skills still lead to him and the likes of Bernadotte to command the french armies into battle and be utterly victorious
After coalition number 16273719 Britain and Austria agree to make peace and without France being led by a egomaniac it takes it
The abolition of slavery on Haiti sticks and so does its autonomy under Louverture, with that becoming the model which the new France uses to deal with it's current and future oversea territories, prefering to work alongside them rather than treat them as extractive colonies like the Ancien Regime did, resulting in the country of Lys to become a light of hope for the nations of the world
His son takes the throne as a constitutional monarch and with the revolutionaries in charge France becomes a Republic in all but name
No Reign of Terror under Robespierre and no napoleonic take over without him to favour Nappy
Even then his military skills still lead to him and the likes of Bernadotte to command the french armies into battle and be utterly victorious
After coalition number 16273719 Britain and Austria agree to make peace and without France being led by a egomaniac it takes it
The abolition of slavery on Haiti sticks and so does its autonomy under Louverture, with that becoming the model which the new France uses to deal with it's current and future oversea territories, prefering to work alongside them rather than treat them as extractive colonies like the Ancien Regime did, resulting in the country of Lys to become a light of hope for the nations of the world
Depending on how early Louis dies (for example, say, late 1790 or early 1791), the War of the First Coalition might not even happen in the first place...
That is true, though Im not sure if the new status quo would be accepted by the other powerw regardless
My thought was he dying as he was about to atempt his ill fated flight to Vienna so that France would dodge that metaphorical bullet at the last second
Varennes, actually. And besides, the real goal of the travel was to get to Montmédy and the royalist troops that were stationed there.
But in any case, it's two bullets - him getting caught trying to flee not only made the other monarchies even more alarmed as to what was going on in France but also helped radicalize the revolution even more by discrediting the monarchy - remove that and two of the great incentives for the first war are much smaller.
And of course, that would butterfly away his attempts at trying to use the war, when it eventually happened, to reverse the revolutionary gains, which made things even worse.
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Would this include colonies thoroughly acculturated to France like Ile de Bourbon (Reunion) and, at the time, Ile de France (Mauritius), or do they become integral departments like the former in OTL? How does this king treat his Spanish allies?
Ramesses XI.
I mean, seriously. The man was so weak he allowed the High Priest of Amun to divide the country and become pharaoh of the south in all but name.
I mean, seriously. The man was so weak he allowed the High Priest of Amun to divide the country and become pharaoh of the south in all but name.
Why age 20?
Henry VI's ubcle, Humphrey of Gloucester, lived until 1447, so RoY still couldn't become king until age 36.