Germany, from Rhine to Pacific edge

[Hnau]

Why did Russia gain their huge land empire? In my theory, it was because they were the closest civilized peoples to the Urals. The Urals kept out population diffusion, trade and civilizing ideas and technology until Europe had developed such an advanced package of technology that they were able to break explosively across the Urals to conquer the Siberian wilderness.

So what if European Russia can't keep it together, and for whatever reason it remains like Germany through the centuries: a disorganized mess of small states, tsardoms and kingdoms? Combine this with maybe earlier German successes at unification, maybe for some reason a higher population... is it possible that the Germans could step up to become the society strong enough to conquer such a huge landmass?

If so, such a power would be nigh unstoppable. I would think that they'd partition up central and eastern Europe between themselves and the Ottoman Empire, keeping unruly populations down. We might just see a huge land empire expanding throughout Eurasia before they collapse due to nationalist and ideological forces.

 

[carlton_bach]

There are a lot of peoples between Germany and Russia, and it is highly unlikely all of them would miss out on forming a nation.

I think the best POD to get something approaching what you have in mind is to reduce the East Germanic migrations and stop the Slavs from expanding. That gives us an Eastern Europe divided between mostly Germanic and Finno-Ugric and Uralic speakers, with the Germanics (being at the Eastern end of an exchange system that links them to politically more advanced nations) have the best opportunity to become dominant.

But to paraphrase Susano, that will not be anything like what we think of as Germany.

 

[rcduggan]

If the Mongols didn't invade, the Kievan Rus'ian states would continue to fracture and collapse... but then again, there wouldn't be the huge population loss of the Mongol invasion of OTL.

Maybe no Mongols, coupled with a worse Black Death that spares Germany but destroys everyone east of Germany... that could lead to westerly expansion.

But to get what you want, the POD would have to be much farther back, probably meaning that German[ic] peoples would be nothing like those of OTL.