AHC: Eastern Europe economically more developed than the West

I think you could do it as late as the 1800s or 1900s if you're smart about it. Places like the Baltic states and Finland are nearly there already, and the Soviet Union at its peak almost got there.

First thing, let's say the League of Three Emperors makes it into the late 1890s. Then say that WWI breaks out with the League of Three Emperors on one side and Italy, France, and the UK on the other. Then let's say that after a few years of horrible war, the League wins.

You could end up with a new European economic order that is centered around Germany that strangles British, French, and Benelux economic growth for the next twenty years. And the pressures of war could force Russia and Austria-Hungary to liberalize and Germany to develop into dictatorship.

Then say WW2 happens in the 1920s or 30s with Britain and France and Germany against Austria-Hungary, Russia, and America. Russian alliance wins and in France and Britain communist revolutions happen and Germany is split into three. The new world order is now liberal Eastern Europe against a Stalinist-type Western Europe. By 2018 Eastern Europe is more developed thanks to globalization and the Information Revolution and Western Europe is a post-Soviet like series of impoverished and unstable republics dominated by American and Russian economic interests.
 
Time scale’s not quite right—the Seljuks weren’t hitting Byzantium until the late 11th century. By the time a Seljuks that conquered Constantinople would reach the Balkans Hungary would be Catholic.

Thanks for the feedback. I was mostly just spitballing, and the original scenario was starting a few hundred years earlier with the Caliphate instead of the Seljuks but then I modified it to fit with the OP's POD restriction.

However I think the ideas still stands - if we can make the Middle East more prosperous than Western Europe, Eastern Europe, being closer to the middle east, will end up more prosperous by extension.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I was mostly just spitballing, and the original scenario was starting a few hundred years earlier with the Caliphate instead of the Seljuks but then I modified it to fit with the OP's POD restriction.

However I think the ideas still stands - if we can make the Middle East more prosperous than Western Europe, Eastern Europe, being closer to the middle east, will end up more prosperous by extension.

I do agree with your general premise.

How about an Arab victory during one of their sieges of Constantinople? This would lead to a super-Islamic Golden Age and see much of pagan Europe convert to Islam even not considering how much farther the Arabs might reach.
 

raharris1973

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It cheats on the OP's designated start time by happened 30 years before 1000 AD, but what about this idea?

often consider the Battle of Arcadiopolis in 970 AD to be a good PoD for a Kievan Rus wank. Have Sviatoslav defeat Bardas' army at this battle and then proceed to besiege Constantinople successfully and there you have it, Russian (or at least Russian-influenced) Carigrad while John I Tzimiskes' empire is left with Anatolia and scraps of Greece, to be easily puppetized. After that, having Sviatoslav not die early should do the trick with preserving most, if not all, of his conquests. The sky's the limit for Russia from there, then.
 
It cheats on the OP's designated start time by happened 30 years before 1000 AD, but what about this idea?
Developing on the idea of a surviving Sviatoslav... if the Volga Delta is kept in Rus' hands, then the Volga-Caspian route will not be abandoned, and the Rus' might be able to continue their raids into Hyrcania (northern Persia), which is a quite wealthy region. Even if that's far from Eastern Europe, it could contribute to the growth of this Kievan Empire.
 
If we are at PLC you need to persuade the possessionates that economic policy of exporting basic goods and importing developed goods sucks for everyone but them. And persuade towns middle class that banning manufactures to protect their workshops also sucks for everyone but them.

I'm surprised by severals things in OTL :

Some polish magnates were wealthy to have entire towns belonging to them, Zamosc for the Zamojski family for example. Why didn't they develop local workshop to craft local products on western models ?

The polish Crown even poor as it was should have develop enough manufactures to furnish the Royal Court and the PLC armies and not rely on imported goods.

I doubt that PLC could be wealthier and more developped than western Europe, but at least more developped than they were OTL.

A simple fact to consider while western Europe was under roman rule one millenia before most eastern European nations became nations and kingdoms.
 
I'm surprised by severals things in OTL :

Some polish magnates were wealthy to have entire towns belonging to them, Zamosc for the Zamojski family for example. Why didn't they develop local workshop to craft local products on western models ?

The polish Crown even poor as it was should have develop enough manufactures to furnish the Royal Court and the PLC armies and not rely on imported goods.

Honestly, I don't know. PLC had more burghers than Netherlands had people and we still had to import muskets from them.

I doubt that PLC could be wealthier and more developped than western Europe, but at least more developped than they were OTL.

A simple fact to consider while western Europe was under roman rule one millenia before most eastern European nations became nations and kingdoms.
I read that in good years (until mid 17c) people in PLC made 70% of what their western counterparts did. Then the west went up and PLC regressed due to wars and mismanagement. Germans were doing well too, despite not being part of RE and not having the world to loot. PLC could do as well as Germany or better if it was competently governed.
 
Considering the success of Poland-Lithuania, they're a good way IMO to achieve this.

I think if you can reign in the power of Sejm, you could have the right avenue to keep PL on top, in a position to perhaps even overcome the Teutonic Order - which I think is a big deal, if only because you could see Poland and the Hanseatic League form an alliance.

The merchants of the Hanseatic League could form an integral alliance that could turn the Baltic Coast (primarily Danzig), into the heart of a major Polish merchant fleet. Essentially an alliance between crown and the League that can provide a huge counter balance to the Sejm (perhaps even introducing them to it to oppose the nobles.)

If Poland can work to secure the Oresund (likely by invading Denmark, trading Danish Sweden and Norway in exchange for a vassal in Denmark/control over Copenhagen, etc), then from that point they have the resources, in theory local allies (Sweden), and if this includes control over Iceland/Greenland, a path to Atlantic trade.
 
all the answer only affect prosperity for some areas for period of time, in hundreds of years Western Europe will regain its ascendancy.

By 1000, Western Europe advantage in: more developed Manorialism, more dense population, less clannish society, more developed towns and guild, maritime technology and location, safety from Steppe nomad, easy coal deposits (in England/Wales, Belgium and Ruhr), more divided states with geography less suited for empire is already too great.

better, more successful PLC / Russia / Byzantine cannot change that fundamental advantage.
 
Maybe the Crusades were carried out by the Byzantines and the Orthodox church. Convert the Pechenegs and they’d have a pretty solid Orthodox alliance from Russia down to Jerusalem. Introduce the heavy plough perhaps.
 
The thing you're referring to have happened quite some time after 1000, so it's perfectly avoidable (just have the king bash some heads in when the first upstart noble starts mouthing off about privileges, especially economic ones, treating it as treason). Applies to both Poland and Russia.

The noble privileges in the PLC had part of their origin in bones thrown to nobles by Louis of Hungary. If you eliminate the Polish-Hungarian Union, by either keeping the Piasts strong or having some other monarch take Poland, you could preempt that and have Poland develop toward a more centralized system.

My personal favorite way is to have Poland unite with Denmark (or the entire Union of Kalmar) and the two squeeze the Teutonic Order into dust between them—this ties Poland into a stronger maritime tradition with access to the open ocean, and possibly keeps it from turning to the wide open lands of the Lithuanian/Ruthenian east (through which it hemorrhaged millions of serfs, nobles, and educated clerics in slave raids). The more urbanized, commercialized Poland can then break into the Ukraine when modern firearms allow them to decisively break the horde’s power.

Rolling back noble privileges after the Union of Lublin is harder. Maybe Henry Valois could have done it?

Going back to an earlier time period, perhaps preventing the fragmentation of Piast Poland would also help—a sturdy Piast State occupying roughly Poland’s present borders might have a stronger urban and industrial base in Silesia, which can spawn greater urbanization in the eastern part of the country.
 
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