AHC: Europe Develop China-Like Idenity

Just as the title says, what change(s) in history would be needed so that Europe would develop the sense of one cross conantent identity so that like those in China see themselves as Chinese first and their regional identity second.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
Easy - Preserve the Roman Empire.

Or at the very least, Roman control of Egypt. There was a compelling argument I've read on the forum somewhere that insisted that there was a Roman identity throughout Europe, at least in the ERE and former WRE territories, that was only destroyed by the invasion of the Caliphate, and the rise of Charlemagne

There are alternatives suhc as the Islamic Caliphate conquering Europe, or a Mega-HRE. (One my favorites is a long-lived Macedonian Empire that conquers Europe).

But the most likely IMO, is in some way, shape, or form, preserve, or maintain a pan-European Roman Empire. It doesn't matter how you do it - it could be the perfect combination of using the Moors and the Berbers to be foederati against the Germanic ones, the heavy plow coming into northern Europe VASTLY earlier to increase the population and development of Germania to make it more worthwhile to conquer, wipe the Huns out in a plague, have Theodosius live longer, have constitutional reform/reform of the succession to help stabilise the Empire, have Islam be a Christian sect and find war against the Christian Romans aberrant and only invade Persia, have Justinian and Belisarius have more trust and some good luck, prevent the Plague of Justinian by having highly improved sanitation throughout the Empire, have a plausible invention of the stirrup, sort out the tax and enlistment issues in the West, have Majorian successfully invade North Africa.

Whatever it is, have it reach the point that Europe sees itself as Roman - which will inevitably require a Roman Germania, Marcomannia, Pannonia, and Hibernia to complete the conquests. Long term stability and significant prosperity, and you have Roman Germans, and Roman Italians, Roman Greeks, and Roman Moors(? I'm not sure about this one), etc, etc.
 

The identity of this “Europe“ will be significantly different to IOTL Europe. Its identity will most probably be determined by its resistance to invasions from the east(Persians and later Caliphates) and the north(Germanic and Slavic tribes).
 
Easy - Preserve the Roman Empire.

Or at the very least, Roman control of Egypt. There was a compelling argument I've read on the forum somewhere that insisted that there was a Roman identity throughout Europe, at least in the ERE and former WRE territories, that was only destroyed by the invasion of the Caliphate, and the rise of Charlemagne

There are alternatives suhc as the Islamic Caliphate conquering Europe, or a Mega-HRE. (One my favorites is a long-lived Macedonian Empire that conquers Europe).

But the most likely IMO, is in some way, shape, or form, preserve, or maintain a pan-European Roman Empire. It doesn't matter how you do it - it could be the perfect combination of using the Moors and the Berbers to be foederati against the Germanic ones, the heavy plow coming into northern Europe VASTLY earlier to increase the population and development of Germania to make it more worthwhile to conquer, wipe the Huns out in a plague, have Theodosius live longer, have constitutional reform/reform of the succession to help stabilise the Empire, have Islam be a Christian sect and find war against the Christian Romans aberrant and only invade Persia, have Justinian and Belisarius have more trust and some good luck, prevent the Plague of Justinian by having highly improved sanitation throughout the Empire, have a plausible invention of the stirrup, sort out the tax and enlistment issues in the West, have Majorian successfully invade North Africa.

Whatever it is, have it reach the point that Europe sees itself as Roman - which will inevitably require a Roman Germania, Marcomannia, Pannonia, and Hibernia to complete the conquests. Long term stability and significant prosperity, and you have Roman Germans, and Roman Italians, Roman Greeks, and Roman Moors(? I'm not sure about this one), etc, etc.

Have a link to the argument.
 
As zeppelinair intimated, Europe itself has a more flexible definition. A surviving Rome, to say, would have included North Africa, the Levantine coast, etc while excluding parts of Eastern and Northern Europe. The line could possibly be drawn at the Vistula-Dniepr, while everything north of the Baltic Sea is also considered Asia (with the various islands disputed). Iceland/Greenland would both be part of North America, or whatever it is named.

So the question is which definition of Europe do you intend? The modern definition of Europe, or a more flexible one which shares more of the core of the peninsula but differs on the outer sections?
 
Even with a surviving Rome I am not sure that this is possible. Rome would need to adopt a more inclusive mindset in regards to integrating large swaths of the empire to Roman culture. The reason China has what it does is because it is freaking old and has shared cultural values and traditions even across it's many ethnic groups. Roman government, religion and culture doesn't lend itself to centralization and cultural establishment the same way Confucianism does.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
Have a link to the argument.

Infuriatingly I can't :( I'll look, but I think the premise was that because Egypt controlled access to luxuries, and trade, etc, whoever held it was able to perpetuate their culture across the Med. Considering most of Europe was focused on the Med, it meant that those peoples who are in formerly Roman territories, were still trading with merchants who had Roman customs, and learnt Greek, making Roman culture more accessible, and considering that Roman culture was substantially more advanced (or at least that idea) - these aspects of Roman-ness would be adopted much as the Manchu, or Mongols adopted Chinese culture.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
Even with a surviving Rome I am not sure that this is possible. Rome would need to adopt a more inclusive mindset in regards to integrating large swaths of the empire to Roman culture. The reason China has what it does is because it is freaking old and has shared cultural values and traditions even across it's many ethnic groups. Roman government, religion and culture doesn't lend itself to centralization and cultural establishment the same way Confucianism does.

You mean the Roman Empire that specialised in dispersing other cultural groups and settling them down to individual families across the Empire to overwhelm them in Roman and Greco-Roman culture? That Rome?

That Rome that prior to Christianity just shrugged and may have well have hung a sign saying that "Oh, that God is one of ours too, another aspect of one of our Gods". Even afterwards, the Church and Emperor did try and create cultural orthodoxy, as it was convenient.

Considering that many of the Empires rulers weren't 'Roman' as per the city, but from all over the Empire, that their armies were designed to integrate non-citizens into the citizenry, I'm not sure WHICH Roman Empire you're talking about - because IOTL the Romans worked very hard to Romanize their Empire. It is why we have "Romance" languages!
 
You mean the Roman Empire that specialised in dispersing other cultural groups and settling them down to individual families across the Empire to overwhelm them in Roman and Greco-Roman culture? That Rome?

That Rome that prior to Christianity just shrugged and may have well have hung a sign saying that "Oh, that God is one of ours too, another aspect of one of our Gods". Even afterwards, the Church and Emperor did try and create cultural orthodoxy, as it was convenient.

Considering that many of the Empires rulers weren't 'Roman' as per the city, but from all over the Empire, that their armies were designed to integrate non-citizens into the citizenry, I'm not sure WHICH Roman Empire you're talking about - because IOTL the Romans worked very hard to Romanize their Empire. It is why we have "Romance" languages!

The empire that was so bad at centralized government it repeatedly split itself into pieces? The empire that constantly had to fight off rebellions due to a lack of Roman identity? The empire that had such a chaotic government that it could never found a true dynasties like China? The empire that changed religions on a dime because it had so little established culture of it's own?
 
A European style mandate of Heave would be nice, could it be possible with a Christian Europe?

Literally Christianity was what kept Europe together against all "foreign incursions" - until the bad bad Protestants came along, of course. There's a reason why so many cities wished to be called "a nth Rome".
 
You don't even need a single continuous Roman state. China had various dynasties come and go in different places, but they maintained the idea they were inheriting the mandate of the previous polity. In addition, China had the idea that the best way to have a good society was war to conquer all the neighbours. Once that was done, you had one state so you could have peace. This never happened in Europe, which holds it back from unification.

Of course, this isn't necessarily a good thing for Europe. Without the competition between states, it's less likely you would get one nation stumbling on the balanced constitutions of England and Scotland, which was the magic formula for the industrial revolution. So a united Europe could make everyone worse off.
 
Literally Christianity was what kept Europe together against all "foreign incursions" - until the bad bad Protestants came along, of course. There's a reason why so many cities wished to be called "a nth Rome".

The Orthodox-Catholic schism divided Europe far earlier. You need to keep Rome and Byzantium under the same power to keep the Pentarchy.
 
I remember reading that Alexander tg's plan for his empire involved swapping populations around to erase identities and make a more cohesive state. Assuming things held out, you could have an Emperor dig this up
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
The empire that was so bad at centralized government it repeatedly split itself into pieces? The empire that constantly had to fight off rebellions due to a lack of Roman identity? The empire that had such a chaotic government that it could never found a true dynasties like China? The empire that changed religions on a dime because it had so little established culture of it's own?

This was a problem in China too, right up to modern day if you look at the mainland/Taiwan split.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
The empire that was so bad at centralized government it repeatedly split itself into pieces? The empire that constantly had to fight off rebellions due to a lack of Roman identity? The empire that had such a chaotic government that it could never found a true dynasties like China? The empire that changed religions on a dime because it had so little established culture of it's own?

As pointed out below -

This was a problem in China too, right up to modern day if you look at the mainland/Taiwan split.

And the rebellions weren't purely due to a lack of Roman identity - sometimes it was taxes, sometimes it was to rebel against the Emperor (not necessarily) and many other reasons. A cultural identity doesn't mean that any polity will stick together - Germany has had various polities that represented the German culture, Persia - which has a Persian/Iranian identity broke up repeatedly. Being similarly cultural doesn't assure peace and stability - the various German, Arabian, Chinese, Japanese, British, Spanish, polities attest to this. (Hell, please, find me a culture that somehow totally prevented rebellion.)

Failure of centralized government isn't an indicator in any way that it cannot integrate other cultures - consistent rejection by other cultures yes, but the Roman Empire kept fighting each other because it constantly had power struggles for the throne - and no consistent way to handle the transfer of power, that indicates that there is an institutional weakness.

China had various periods where it wasn't united, it wasn't some universally peaceful polity. So I don't know where that point comes from, it had a strong philosophy that permeated the culture built around stability, but that is different from being able to assimilate other cultures, it is a facet of the culture. Confucianism and Legalism were products of Chinese thinkers that drastically assisted in stability, but it doesn't mean they can assimilate other cultures better - they just colonised the areas instead.

Change religion on a dime? Between an increasingly flexible Romano-Pagan tradition with the inclusion of the Imperial Cult, to Christianity? One for upto 1000 years, and then another for upto 1000 years? I'm confused. China had shamanism, ancestor worship, Taoism and Buddhism in its time. Both states had some overlap between religions having prominence.

But to say the Roman Empire had no culture? So the games and circuses, the monuments, the writings, the adoration of rhetoric, etc don't count? So they happened to adopt cultural influences from their neighbours, and adopt aspects of the cultures they conquered means they weren't theirs? By that logic the British love of Tea and Curry doesn't count as part of their culture.
 
I doubt about a European identity before Christianity, but that's another issue and it deserves is own thread.

Screw France at the 13rd century, by POD's like this: Louis Capet survives and Philip IV doesn't inherits the French throne. So, Louis X screw the French central government so the Pope still "rules" Europe. Or kind of.

Anyway, I think the best way to get a China-like Europe is through a much more powerful Catholic Church and screwing over local kings. And even better, and expanding, but still descentralized, Holy Roman Empire, until it occupies most of Europe, excepting the Byzantine Empire and Russia.

In fact, when eventually Russia and/or Byzantium falls, they can be liberated by the Holy Empire and annexed as well. The Reformation should be avoided as hell, but heresies must continue to pop up for making it most difficult to unite nations, just like Occitan Catars were a problem for Catholic-French identity.
 
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