Sir Chaos
Banned
So, after a long absence I thought I´d like to give my pet timeline another try. Rather than continue where I left off the last time, I would prefer to start over from the beginning; I´ve lost my my note for the previous attempt at the timeline any.
Also, rather than having a firm scenario in mind that I´m steering towards, I will try to keep this one more open, depending on feedback by the other forum members.
Premises
The point of departure remains the same as before: Prince Wilhelm, grandson of Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany (and in OTL, later Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany) dies of diphteria in 1879 (rather than, as in OTL, his younger brother Waldemar). The second son of Crown Prince Friedrich, Heinrich, becomes Crown Prince after Wilhelm I´s death, and (as Heinrich I) Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia after the death of his father later than year.
I had a second PoD in the older version, involving the American Civil War going slightly differently (limited British intervention resulting in later Union victory), but I am not so sure I would even need something like it to achieve what I have in mind, so I´ll leave it out this time.
The main effect that this PoD was supposed to have was for the US to become more interventionist rather than isolationist internationally, since they saw that isolationism does not protect them from others intervening in their backroom, so why not return the favor?
One major event that goes differently from OTL is going to be that the assassination attempt against Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 fails; he and his wife survive, and Franz Ferdinand manages to prevent this event from triggering a war that then spirals out of control.
None of this removes the underlying causes of the war; more competent and far-sighted policies compared to OTL (especially on part of Heinrich I as compared to OTL Wilhelm II) manage to defuse a number of ticking time bombs, at least temporarily, but they cannot make the scores WW1 was supposed to settle disappear; the root causes of the rise of anarchism and communism in that time still exist, and while the abovementioned policies can manage to stave off bloody revolutions, for a time, sooner or later things will blow up in some fashion - and I believe that, the longer things take to blow up, the bigger the resulting explosion is going to be.
I had chosen the name "Century of Fire" for this timeline because the 20th century was going to be a interesting time, in the ancient Chinese sense, and I think that´s going to be true whichever way things continue to develop. Looking at the early differences from OTL at least (a sane and more competent German Emperor, no WW1 etc), this is going to look overly optimistic, but I really am a cynic at heart, and there´ll be enough death and destruction caused by the Four Pedestrians of the Apocalypse (Greed, Fanaticism, Vindictiveness and Xenophobia) to justify the timeline´s title.
Okay... enough introductory talk. Hope to see you guys along for the ride...
Also, rather than having a firm scenario in mind that I´m steering towards, I will try to keep this one more open, depending on feedback by the other forum members.
Premises
The point of departure remains the same as before: Prince Wilhelm, grandson of Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany (and in OTL, later Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany) dies of diphteria in 1879 (rather than, as in OTL, his younger brother Waldemar). The second son of Crown Prince Friedrich, Heinrich, becomes Crown Prince after Wilhelm I´s death, and (as Heinrich I) Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia after the death of his father later than year.
I had a second PoD in the older version, involving the American Civil War going slightly differently (limited British intervention resulting in later Union victory), but I am not so sure I would even need something like it to achieve what I have in mind, so I´ll leave it out this time.
The main effect that this PoD was supposed to have was for the US to become more interventionist rather than isolationist internationally, since they saw that isolationism does not protect them from others intervening in their backroom, so why not return the favor?
One major event that goes differently from OTL is going to be that the assassination attempt against Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 fails; he and his wife survive, and Franz Ferdinand manages to prevent this event from triggering a war that then spirals out of control.
None of this removes the underlying causes of the war; more competent and far-sighted policies compared to OTL (especially on part of Heinrich I as compared to OTL Wilhelm II) manage to defuse a number of ticking time bombs, at least temporarily, but they cannot make the scores WW1 was supposed to settle disappear; the root causes of the rise of anarchism and communism in that time still exist, and while the abovementioned policies can manage to stave off bloody revolutions, for a time, sooner or later things will blow up in some fashion - and I believe that, the longer things take to blow up, the bigger the resulting explosion is going to be.
I had chosen the name "Century of Fire" for this timeline because the 20th century was going to be a interesting time, in the ancient Chinese sense, and I think that´s going to be true whichever way things continue to develop. Looking at the early differences from OTL at least (a sane and more competent German Emperor, no WW1 etc), this is going to look overly optimistic, but I really am a cynic at heart, and there´ll be enough death and destruction caused by the Four Pedestrians of the Apocalypse (Greed, Fanaticism, Vindictiveness and Xenophobia) to justify the timeline´s title.
Okay... enough introductory talk. Hope to see you guys along for the ride...