AH Three-Way Wank Challenge: E. Europe

SunDeep

Banned
So, along similar lines to the North America challenge, in another region where the underdog always seem to get screwed over; Eastern Europe. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with a non-ASB ATL which wanks Germany (specifically, Prussia), Russia, AND Poland. Up for it?
 
It's kinda impossible to wank Germany/Prussia, Poland and Russia at the same time, but you can wank Sweden, Poland and Russia.

With a very early PoD, avoid the Drag nach Osten, have Germany go west and south, Russia absorb much of Central and parts of East Asia, and have Poland eat up the Balkans.

It's seriously stretching plausibility, but I think just about possible.
 

SunDeep

Banned
It's kinda impossible to wank Germany/Prussia, Poland and Russia at the same time, but you can wank Sweden, Poland and Russia.

Impossible? Or just extremely difficult? For instance, WI you have a Polish-Hungarian Commonwealth being formed instead of the Austro-Hungarian Empire? Prussia/Germany expands west, Russia expands eastwards and northwards across Scandinavia, and Poland (the Polish-Hungarian Commonwealth) expands southwards to dominate the Balkans in the same way that OTL's Austro-Hungarian Empire did. It's possible...
 
Impossible? Or just extremely difficult? For instance, WI you have a Polish-Hungarian Commonwealth being formed instead of the Austro-Hungarian Empire? Prussia/Germany expands west, Russia expands eastwards and northwards across Scandinavia, and Poland (the Polish-Hungarian Commonwealth) expands southwards to dominate the Balkans in the same way that OTL's Austro-Hungarian Empire did. It's possible...

The difficulty is

ATL which wanks Germany (specifically, Prussia),

Germany at large would be OK, but making Prussia its core would be hard. Prussia, Prussia, Prussia everywhere. What people see in that Prussia I shall never understand. The German enclave which Prussia must be if Poland is to be strong may be troublesome if both are great powers. Unless you take some considerable liberties with the definition of 'Prussia', for example limiting it to Brandenburg in the east or something.
 
With a very early PoD, avoid the Drag nach Osten, have Germany go west and south, Russia absorb much of Central and parts of East Asia, and have Poland eat up the Balkans.

It's seriously stretching plausibility, but I think just about possible.
Seems like what I was going to suggest.
 
The problem is that any Prussian territorial gains would come at Poland's expense. West Prussia did consist of former PLC territory, plus some territory from the HRE.
 
So, any suggestions to resolve this issue?

Define Prussia.
After all, the state with the capital Berlin and the residence Potsdam was at its core Brandenburg.
[Warning: may contain simplifications]
That we call it "Prussia" is owed to the peculiar fact that one elector wanted a royal title because everybody else was getting them, too. So he bribed the emperor into accepting that the backwater possession of Ducal Prussia was suddenly a Kingdom. And even then he himself only was "King in Prussia", the "... of Prussia" came later.

So do you really mean that rather small area around Königsberg (a place that was never the capital or primary residence of the post 1700 Kdm of Prussia), or is it rather a shorthand for "Brandenburg and other parts of Northern Germany" ?

In other words, if we go back to the reformation age and have a Wittelsbach, Wettin or Welf as High Master of the OT who secularizes Prussia as his own domain, so later it somehow hands up in the hands of a Bavarian, Saxon or Brunswicker princeling -does that count?
 
Wanking Poland makes wanking Russia rather difficult, since once Poland gets beyond a certain size it tends to block Russian expansion into the Balkans, and the territories lost in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states aren't easily made up for easily. It strikes me that it's easier to wank Russia at the expense of the Poles or into the Balkans than elsewhere: sure, you can add sheer territory in parts of Asia, but not much in the way of easily assimilated populations. When one wanks Poland, one usually diminishes Russia: [1] if one needs to wank Russia, you need to make up for these losses so Russia overall is _bigger_ than OTL, and OTL Russia was probably pretty close to topping out on growth in any event. Where do you go beyond 1914 OTL?

To the south are either relatively dense and very hostile to conquest Muslim populations in Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan or howling wastelands like Mongolia and the Tarim basin, and Tibet if you keep going, (there's that sheer territory I was talking about) while to the east are a zillion xenophobic Chinese, the Fairly Indomitable Japanese, and the Koreans, which according to democracy101 are impossible to conquer before 1905 anyway. :D Scandinavia? Expanding into Norway and Sweden fulfills no great Russian interest, would scare the wrong sort of people, and would not increase overall population much.

The Americas are hard to get large numbers of settlers to before the trans-Siberian railway gets in, which also makes American territories hard to defend.

With an early POD such as no Manchu dynasty or perhaps an earlier arrival of Russia at the Pacific, Manchuria might be snagged before it fills up with Chinese, but whether the addition of a mostly empty Manchuria strengthens Russia more than it is weakened by the loss of tens of millions of at least potentially assimilable Belorussians and Ukrainians, I dunno.

Bruce

[1] Not that many "UK of Poland-Hungary" wanks out there, at least when it comes to maps.
 
With uber-Russia and uber-Germany on the borders, I would consider the survival of Poland in any form at all to be a wank. ;)

And to be fair, that would still be better than how they fared OTL.
 
Wanking Poland makes wanking Russia rather difficult, since once Poland gets beyond a certain size it tends to block Russian expansion into the Balkans, and the territories lost in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states aren't easily made up for easily. It strikes me that it's easier to wank Russia at the expense of the Poles or into the Balkans than elsewhere: sure, you can add sheer territory in parts of Asia, but not much in the way of easily assimilated populations. When one wanks Poland, one usually diminishes Russia: [1] if one needs to wank Russia, you need to make up for these losses so Russia overall is _bigger_ than OTL, and OTL Russia was probably pretty close to topping out on growth in any event. Where do you go beyond 1914 OTL?

To the south are either relatively dense and very hostile to conquest Muslim populations in Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan or howling wastelands like Mongolia and the Tarim basin, and Tibet if you keep going, (there's that sheer territory I was talking about) while to the east are a zillion xenophobic Chinese, the Fairly Indomitable Japanese, and the Koreans, which according to democracy101 are impossible to conquer before 1905 anyway. :D Scandinavia? Expanding into Norway and Sweden fulfills no great Russian interest, would scare the wrong sort of people, and would not increase overall population much.

The Americas are hard to get large numbers of settlers to before the trans-Siberian railway gets in, which also makes American territories hard to defend.

With an early POD such as no Manchu dynasty or perhaps an earlier arrival of Russia at the Pacific, Manchuria might be snagged before it fills up with Chinese, but whether the addition of a mostly empty Manchuria strengthens Russia more than it is weakened by the loss of tens of millions of at least potentially assimilable Belorussians and Ukrainians, I dunno.

Bruce

[1] Not that many "UK of Poland-Hungary" wanks out there, at least when it comes to maps.

Would a Russia wank that involves more Russian expansion in Asia possible if we take the Manchus out of the equation? With regards to the Koreans, the Russians could surely work out a deal that turns Korea into a Russian ally. The real prize in my honest opinion, could be in the Western Pacific.

An earlier Russian arrival in the Pacific normally involves Dezhnev's mapping of Siberia and North America being noticed by the Tsar while it could be easy to take the Manchus out of the equation: if say Nurhaci was killed off early or even married a daughter of a prominent Mongol official, then the Jurchens/Manchus wouldn't be united. Preventing the Imjin War also helps because that war drained Chinese coffers long enough to have the Manchus come into China.

On the other hand, you could also have a different state existing in place of the Kazakh state though: the Dzhungar state. If the Chinese were extremely strong, the Dzhungars could be persuaded to move into Central Asia and Xinjiang where they could wage war against the Islamic khanates there. Dzhungars could also be useful Russian allies.

Final question: does this mean that the Ottoman Empire could also be screwed over as well? Because if this is the case, then could we get a Poland-Hungary union while if we can have Russia expand into the Balkans, they can give independence to the Balkan nations there.
 
With uber-Russia and uber-Germany on the borders, I would consider the survival of Poland in any form at all to be a wank. ;)

And to be fair, that would still be better than how they fared OTL.

Depends on what sort of Germany we're talking about. If it's a Catholic-dominated HRE unified by the Habsburgs in Vienna (including the Netherlands, why the hell not :) ) they aren't going to be particularly interested in expanding into Poland and may be an ally of Poland, which will be a buffer between them and the Uber-Russian menace.

Bruce
 
Final question: does this mean that the Ottoman Empire could also be screwed over as well?

Hey, it's not a 4-way wank, so sure we can screw over the Ottomans. Probably we want to have PODs after the Mongol invasions, because without the devastation of South Russia by the Temujin Gang an expansion of Catholic Poland into Orthodox Russian territory is much less likely: but if you wanna cut them down at any point after say the 1360s I don't see a problem.

Bruce
 
Hey, it's not a 4-way wank, so sure we can screw over the Ottomans. Probably we want to have PODs after the Mongol invasions, because without the devastation of South Russia by the Temujin Gang an expansion of Catholic Poland into Orthodox Russian territory is much less likely: but if you wanna cut them down at any point after say the 1360s I don't see a problem.

Bruce

Fine. I'm thinking that a continued Polish-Hungarian Union would exist alongside a "Russian" state unified by an Orthodox Lithuanian kingdom while the Holy Roman Empire trudges on.
 
Geography makes this immensely difficult, given that the OP wants Prussia as the unifying component of Germany. Geography, however, makes this difficult already, as the fluidity of Eastern European frontiers historically is very much what helped to destroy Poland to the benefit of the Germans and Russians.
 

SunDeep

Banned
Geography makes this immensely difficult, given that the OP wants Prussia as the unifying component of Germany. Geography, however, makes this difficult already, as the fluidity of Eastern European frontiers historically is very much what helped to destroy Poland to the benefit of the Germans and Russians.

Well, if easy=boring, then immensely difficult should=immensely interesting. I did relax the Prussia stipulation earlier, so it's no longer a requirement if you think that this can only be pulled off without it. I'm still offering bonus points for anyone who can come up with a feasible proposal which keeps Prussia as the unifier of Germany though, because it just makes this challenge so much more of an actual challenge. Sure, it's difficult. But if anyone can come up with a good, detailed proposal which achieves this, it'll be worth it...
 
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A Prussian-dominated "North German Confederation" goes west rather than south; into the Netherlands/Belgium/Burgundy/Northern France. This obviously requires a greatly weakened France, but gives Germany access to prime land for Industry and possibly a greater maritime presence/overseas Empire.

Russia already went through a wank otl before the screw-over than was the last century; preventing that and adding additional gains in Manchuria/Inner Mongolia/Xinjian will strengthen it further. Growing into the South-Eastern Balkans (with possibly the Ultimate dream of Constantinoupole) is a greater Wank, and will require a weaker turkey (and a possible Polish-Hungarian alliance?)

An alternative Russian scenario could arise from an ATL Orthodox reconquista of Anatolia post 1200 that sees a much more southern, Kiev-centrered Russia arise on the back of fewer hostile muslims and much more prosperous black-sea trade. This could much more easily evolve into southern-power projection into the Balkans/Caucasus/Anatolia, and possibly the middle east. For this to work you'd probably also need to screw the various Khanates however, and an additional challange is why the Russians would want to still go east (and gain the vast mineral wealth of northern asia) when the lands to their south are ull of nice orthodox christians and so much richerin the short-term (but less so after industrialization/the rise of nationalism)

If you get a southern-centered Russia, it leaves open room for Polish/Lithuanian expansion into the Baltic/Novgorod/Finland. Probably won't create a super-power, but a great power is at least possible.

Alternatively, if ATL Russia is still muscovy-focused, Poland can follow the south-western Path, forming a Union with Hungary and expanding into Croatia, Northern Italy, Bohemia and Austria. This will not be easy, especially given the power of the latter two, but that is where an alliance with Germany could come useful (and a weaker Austria/Bohemia would help Prussia advance west much easier).
 
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