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.
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.