Possibly its government had collapsed.
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DBWI: Explain this map of Europe.
- Thread starter Nelop
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Poles seem to have been displaced south by "Brandenburg" and the Prusyns
No idea what Hungary is.
Hungary-Bohemia might be a personal union.
Get a Roman emperor to convert to Christianity and I can see the Abrahamic religions being a bit more than a minority in the Middle East.
???? They are a majority on the Levant coast, in Mesopotamia, in some parts of Egypt, and in Abyssinia, and a significant minority in large areas of northern and Eastern Africa, Europe and Anatolia.
I assume they were thinking along the lines of the Arabia/Persia region, in which case it's a good point.
Why all the fragmentation in Lybia (OOC: North Africa)? It just feels quite strange, IOTL the region usually held up in four-to-five states at most, especially after the roman period.
Also, i must note that a Denmark controlling all of Fennoscandia quite annoys me, as the map is quite limited in scope i think that the Sami have independent polities further north, but i really can't stand the non-existence of Tavastia, huge overextension of danish power-projection IMO.
Digging up here i think it might be some sort of Hunnic successor state by the name, although idk why would they marry with the Bohemian Slavs and eventually generate a personal union. If the turkic theory for the ottomans is true, i don't think it makes quite sense for them just penetrate into Europe, Anatolia is much more turkic-friendly territory after all.
Also, i must note that a Denmark controlling all of Fennoscandia quite annoys me, as the map is quite limited in scope i think that the Sami have independent polities further north, but i really can't stand the non-existence of Tavastia, huge overextension of danish power-projection IMO.
What is a Hun?
Possibly the Ottomans took over the Eastern Roman Empire and just inherited that territory through the pre-existing bureaucracy?
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What makes Bohemia-Hungary different than Hungary-Bohemia? And who are these Golden Horders?
Oh yeah, the Huns were a brief ad-hoc nomadic state in the Volga region, they were quite peripheral and never made anything impressive, as per law, nomadic tribes can end up anywhere so why not the Huns ended up in Pannonia. About the ottomans, i think that probably it was inherited yeah, the territories in the Black Sea Region makes it clear for me.
What happened to Hibernia? It’s quite odd that it’s still so fragmented during this time period. Did it never get conquered by Rome?
"Horde" may be derived from orde/orda/ordu (Turkish for clan or headquarters and Qidan for a noble's court)
Seriously, that's at least three major nomadic invasions (possibly 4 : "Ryazan" does not sound like it came from that area. I don't know much about Slavic langages, but "Ryazan" sounds Jurchenic) into Eastern Europe, plus a Baltic state expanding massively where it has no business doing so.
Also, note how fragmented Lybia, Hibernia, etc. are.
I think this may be supposed to be a post-apocalyptic map where western and central Europe got a soft landing.
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What surprises me the most is the Gaulish state, this "France". Instead of possessing formerly Roman Germania and quite a bit of territory accross the Rhine, they've seemingly decided to go for Cisalpine Gaul. Sure, it makes historical sense, but are you going to tell me Cisalpine Gaul is a softer target than that mess up north? Hell, Trier (I assume that's Treveri) isn't even close to being in its borders, while IOTL it's one of the major Gaulish cities.
Also, how do the rulers of France manage to balance the interests of the Narbonensians, Aquitanians and the northerners without the state being pulled apart at the seams?
Also, how do the rulers of France manage to balance the interests of the Narbonensians, Aquitanians and the northerners without the state being pulled apart at the seams?
To be fair, both "Ryazan" and the Golden Horde seem like relatively minor states from the map, so its more like 2 minor invasions and 1 or 2 large ones. Although it does seem probable to me that the Ottomans and Hungary may have been formed around the same time, as I doubt 2 such massive invasions would be possible, so perhaps Rome collapsed rapidly in ATL instead of slowly shrinking after the East and West but retaining most stuff outside the periphery?
If you look carefully, the "Holy Roman Empire" is a crazy-quilt of minor regions (I love the bit that is just labelled "Small States") while everything around it is in fairly large and cohesive blocks, apart from Italia itself. Makes me wonder if the map is showing internal boundaries in the Empire, but not elsewhere.
How's this for a crazy theory - at some point in the Western Empire's decline, a Germanic federate revolted, seized Rome and proclaimed himself Emperor. His successors were later driven out of Italia and back over the mountains into Germania, but they kept the claim, and ultimately established themselves as overlords of the area. So now they claim to rule a "Roman Empire" even thought it's basically a Germanic tribal confederacy with minimal connection to Rome proper.
Doesn't explain why it's "Holy", though. Or who drove them out of Italia but somehow failed to consolidate power there afterwards.
Maybe they were mugged from the North by another bunch of Germans, who claimed the title by right of conquest, until some other rivals beat them up and claimed it, so now "Roman Emperor" means "baddest big chief in Germania".
But that's all missing the big one - why is Gallia "France"? The Francii were a Germanic group (and never lived in Gallia) - their lands are in the "Roman" Empire (about the top-left rusty blob), so if they were still around, you'd expect them to be too.
How's this for a crazy theory - at some point in the Western Empire's decline, a Germanic federate revolted, seized Rome and proclaimed himself Emperor. His successors were later driven out of Italia and back over the mountains into Germania, but they kept the claim, and ultimately established themselves as overlords of the area. So now they claim to rule a "Roman Empire" even thought it's basically a Germanic tribal confederacy with minimal connection to Rome proper.
Doesn't explain why it's "Holy", though. Or who drove them out of Italia but somehow failed to consolidate power there afterwards.
Maybe they were mugged from the North by another bunch of Germans, who claimed the title by right of conquest, until some other rivals beat them up and claimed it, so now "Roman Emperor" means "baddest big chief in Germania".
At least you found something in the right islands. I went looking for "England" and the best I could turn up was a minor Germanic group called the Anglii/Angrii who lived roughly where the map has the border between the "Empire" and "Denmark" - and given the size of those two, the Anglii are unlikely to have done well.
But that's all missing the big one - why is Gallia "France"? The Francii were a Germanic group (and never lived in Gallia) - their lands are in the "Roman" Empire (about the top-left rusty blob), so if they were still around, you'd expect them to be too.
Perhaps the Holy Roman Empire isn't Christian at all? Where IOTL European polytheism had no challengers in the imperial era and therefore developed into a fairly diverse, tolerant, syncretistic faith (much like its Indian counterpart), ITTL Christianity would be expansionistic and mutually incompatible with existing faiths. Said Christian exclusivism could lead to a countermovement among the polytheists, hardening attitudes towards one another. Perhaps the Mediterranean part of Rome went Christian while the parts further away stayed pagan; when Rome fell apart, the polytheistic successor states could have come to call themselves Roman (as opposed to those Christian fakers) and holy (unlike those Christian unbelievers) and conquered the Germans. Perhaps France was the one to conquer the Germans, perhaps France was at one point part of a single post-Roman empire with the German states, only to later fall away for political reasons or because it went Christian. Plausible?
Possible, but it still doesn’t explain why “France” seems to have part of its territory *in* the Empire. To be fair, I have no idea how to explain that one though.
Probably Bohemia-Hungary is just Bohemia, Hungary-Bohemia is just Hungary (or the other way around) and they just added the other name to signify it's a personal union.
Maybe it's Imperial lands occupied by France. Maybe the two are at war.
Presumably France broke away from the Holy Roman Empire at some point and while it was weaker than the united Holy Roman Empire, once it imploded it started to nibble bits and pieces of the HRE. However, while it has declined in hard power, the Emperor still has enough soft power to make things difficult; hence the territories of the French still being nominally imperial.
It is quite far fetched, admittedly.
What I really don't understand is that territory in Southern Italy they have, I can see invasion or soft power in the North, but the South is utterly confusing me, and that's saying a lot!
On further look Denmark also seems to have territory in the empire. Ugh, my head is spinning trying to figure out this monstrosity. What kind of empire has foreign powers controlling a sizable chunk of its territory?