The PoD in this tale is the marriage between “King” Jadwiga and Duke Jogaila. It doesn’t happen, and Poland’s armies cannot be brought to bear again the northern Crusaders. This is my first real scenario that I've developed, so feel more than free to levy any critiques you can think of.


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The siege of Troki; a vast crusader army massed around the Lithuanian fortress city in the heart of Autumn, slowly wearing down the beleaguered defenders that were desperately holding the walls. Finally, before the last leaves of the trees were fallen, Troki fell, and with it, the last city of the pagan Duchy of Lithuania. Forcing Duke Jogaila step down, and dismantle his territories, Konrad Zöllner von Rothenstein, Grandmaster of the Teutonic order, was crowned duke of Samogitia in 1389. The rest of Lithuania was divided into various duchies swearing fealty to the order.
The armies, however, remained under the control of Konrad von Wallenrod, and eventually tension bubbling between Rothenstein and Wallenrod erupted in 1392, with both sides mustering armies along the Neris river. Though Rothenstein possessed a significant numerical advantage, Wallenrod scored a decisive victory at the Battle of Kaunas against the forces loyal to the grandmaster, securing control over the order, declaring himself the 24th grandmaster of the northern holy orders, as well as king of ‘Teutonia’, centralizing the lands that the orders possessed from their conquests into a Baltic kingdom and placing the seat of the imperial crown in Danzig.

Consolidating administrative control over the new kingdom, he married Sofia Dmitriyevna, princess of Moscow, to make a brother-in-law of Vasily I in a desperate bid for legitimacy, and to secure the east, but, him being distracted dealing with constant rebellion in Lithuania, his imperial court in Marienburg slowly stagnated and grew more corrupt, further growing more audacious as his control over them waned with time. He finally dealt a crushing blow to the organized resistance in Lithuania in 1393, and turned back to deal with the increasingly defiant elite.
Meanwhile, with Timur’s conquests in the east began to fully build up steam, putting more pressure on the already troubled Golden Horde. The Ruthenian princes blatantly ignored their tribute payments to them, and Muscovy, with Teutonic support, began to solidify their hold on the region with an invasion of Tver. Pope Boniface IX declared a successful end to the Lithuanian Crusade, and with the birth of his son, Wallenrod officially created a new royal line, declaring himself Konrad I. Recognized by Boniface IX and recognizing fully Karl IV’s lordship of the east, Teutonia fully became an official duchy of the Holy Roman Empire. Being one of the largest realms in the empire, they lent support to, and were granted an electorship by, Wenzel IV, who was officially crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1396 with Teutonic backing, after an odd period of being ‘King of the Romans’ and not officially emperor.



More to come later, hopefully.
 
Very important question, my one major gripe. Why is the term Teutonia being used for the kingdom? There's no preexisting term for that in German proper. English uses the term Teutonic due to the Latin influence in our language, however the Teutonic Knights simply called themselves the German Knights. Even the Teutonic Order state would have been better translated as the German Order state.

Teuton translated into German literally comes as German.

So in short, what's the German term for the kingdom? Preußen was really the only term the Germans had for the region, which is why Royal Prussia and Ducal Prussia were used when the Teutons were secularized into Poland OTL.
 
Past that, I will be watching this TL and offering support. The Teutonic Order has been a bit of a pet AH topic of mine and I'm excited to see how you run with this. If you ever need general linguistics help lemme know. ^_^
 
The name of the Teutonic Knights Baltic territories was in German "Deutscheordenstaat" in English the translation would be "the German Order State". So I doubt their former territories would end be called Teutonia.
 
Very important question, my one major gripe. Why is the term Teutonia being used for the kingdom? There's no preexisting term for that in German proper. English uses the term Teutonic due to the Latin influence in our language, however the Teutonic Knights simply called themselves the German Knights. Even the Teutonic Order state would have been better translated as the German Order state.

Teuton translated into German literally comes as German.

So in short, what's the German term for the kingdom? Preußen was really the only term the Germans had for the region, which is why Royal Prussia and Ducal Prussia were used when the Teutons were secularized into Poland OTL.
Past that, I will be watching this TL and offering support. The Teutonic Order has been a bit of a pet AH topic of mine and I'm excited to see how you run with this. If you ever need general linguistics help lemme know. ^_^

Dang. In case you didn't notice, I make a lot of minor(and not so minor) linguistic mistakes. And thanks, I will definitely need some future help if that's alright. If you don't mind, I have a few questions.

1. Did I get the German names correct?
2. Did I get the country names correct?
3. What would the Teutonic kingdom be called? I hate to call it 'Prussia' or 'Livonia'.
 
Dang. In case you didn't notice, I make a lot of minor(and not so minor) linguistic mistakes. And thanks, I will definitely need some future help if that's alright. If you don't mind, I have a few questions.

1. Did I get the German names correct?
2. Did I get the country names correct?
3. What would the Teutonic kingdom be called? I hate to call it 'Prussia' or 'Livonia'.
From what I can tell the first two points are fine.

In terms of names for this Teutonic Kingdom you have limited options, Prussia is one of the few choices you have, however one of the names that I have Germanized before is that of Borussia, which is the Latin name for the region as a whole. So Germanized the name of the region would be Königreich Boreußen or Boreussen.

So if you don't want the term "Kingdom of Prussia" the term "Kingdom of Borussia" could be used. This would allow a more direct translation into German.
 
From what I can tell the first two points are fine.

In terms of names for this Teutonic Kingdom you have limited options, Prussia is one of the few choices you have, however one of the names that I have Germanized before is that of Borussia, which is the Latin name for the region as a whole. So Germanized the name of the region would be Königreich Boreußen or Boreussen.

So if you don't want the term "Kingdom of Prussia" the term "Kingdom of Borussia" could be used. This would allow a more direct translation into German.
Borussa seems good. Maybe Herzogtum, instead? I mean, Burgundy had to fight pretty hard to enter the HRE as a kingdom, if I remember correctly.
 
Now you've got the mindset, a ducal title would be much easier to enter the HRE with.
Nice, getting the hang of it. Any major events of the time going on that would have a noticeable affect on the duchy? I got how Timur would change the eastern European game, but is there any other sweeping event that would still happen in the new timeline?
 
I'm... sorry, but I just can't take this TL seriously. It's implausible to a T at the moment, unless some major explanations are made.

The PoD in this tale is the marriage between “King” Jadwiga and Duke Jogaila. It doesn’t happen, and Poland’s armies cannot be brought to bear again the northern Crusaders.
Alright, the PoD is simple enough. It shouldn't really affect anything immediate, however, because Jogaila's marriage to Jadwiga not only wouldn't have resulted in any Polish help against foreign invaders, but in some ways, the Union of Krewo made Lithuania even weaker (Jogaila placed an incompetent hated younger brother as his viceroy and thus caused the Lithuanian Civil War).

The siege of Troki; a vast crusader army massed around the Lithuanian fortress city in the heart of Autumn, slowly wearing down the beleaguered defenders that were desperately holding the walls. Finally, before the last leaves of the trees were fallen, Troki fell, and with it, the last city of the pagan Duchy of Lithuania.
...what.

Are you... aware... that Lithuania at this point stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Pontic Steppe?

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How could Trakai be the last Lithuanian fortress when they had all of Ruthenia to compensate?! What about Kiev? Polotsk? Grodno? Smolensk? Did the Knights somehow get around Lietuva Land and took over all of Ruthenia first?

What happened to the army of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania? Sure, they were unable to destroy the Order all by themselves, but at this point, they were a worthy and nearly equal opponent to them, and had a very reasonable chance of defeating them if they fought on home turf.

In OTL, this was the reason why at this point, the Knights actually abandoned any plans to take over Lithuania. Their immediate goals were to take Samogitia and install a pro-Teuton member of the House of Gediminas as the Grand Duke of Lithuania.

You say this is the late 14th century, but you write as if this was the mid 13th century. If you want a successful TO, then you'd have more luck by just setting it in the mid 13th century.

Consolidating administrative control over the new kingdom, he married Sofia Dmitriyevna, princess of Moscow, to make a brother-in-law of Vasily I in a desperate bid for legitimacy,
A member of a Catholic military order marrying an Orthodox princess isn't very plausible either.
 
Poland even without union will cooperate with Lithuania against Teutonic Knights, maybe even more effective than IOTL. Turning Order State into kingdom requires secularisation like in 1525, this is equall to loss of Imperial support and serious conflict with the King of the Romans/Emperor (emperors from House of Luxembourg claimed that Order State is part of HRE, no kingdoms expect for Czech one was ever created on HRE territory). Likely there would be crusades AGAINST Teutonic Knights if they try something such stupid.
 
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