Can't fight over Alsace-Lorraine if there is no Alsace-Lorraine.
Map Thread XIX
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Can't fight over Alsace-Lorraine if there is no Alsace-Lorraine.
Any story behind Kazakhstan? I am unsure if they would really have raiders, though I can see the Kazakh shown areas are close enough to the unpopulated deserts. The industrial areas of the north with all the Russians, Germans, Ukrainians, etc seem to be with the hardliners here, but I am guessing it has something to do with them mentioned ethnic cleansing of the reformists, and how few of those groups (including a couple tens of thousands of Korean) would have much chance of getting to the land f their forefathers safely, so buckling down and continuing to produce raw materials or industrial goods seems a safe enough bet to stay alive. Not sure if the gulags would go anarchist, and I see a vicious civil war in them where the professional criminals, the ethnic groups, the Soviet veterans, the purged diehard communists, etc all get and each other’s throats to settle scores and grab the food supply. I am going to assume neither of the Soviet sides much care, as they put them in their to advance their own carreers and all either of them has to do is stop sending food and wait for them to starve. Though it seems some of the more remote gulags decided to not rise up. It like thy have anywhere to run. Also, weird how Poland doesn’t have Danzig and it appears that Lithuania has half of Memel, but perhaps not the part with the city and port. Also, I know that the thing with the Turks is supposed to be compared to what they did in Syria, but I imagine the border would be militarized here and would be more difficult or them to go into Georgia and Armenia. I would say there wouldn’t be many places they could hole up, but... Would Soviet border fortifications count? Anyways, seems they would bring up something about Adjara and Nakhchivan being autonomous in their treaty. Or just stay the hell out of it. As it is, all they would do is piss off the Armenians, Georgians, and probably the Soviets If they went down there. On a side note, Tuvan’s speak Turkic languages, even if one of their dialects has a lot of Mongolian influence. Buryatia is nearby. Though sticks out enough to be noticeable.
Dutch Calais? Oh dear. Also, who are the dark green people? I also feel Bretons or Norman’s should be on here. And what is the encircled green area south of Walloons?
WIP map questions:
I have some questions about a map that I'm working on. The POD is simply the French winning the 7 years war (wow shocker, how original, though to be fair, the only finished TL I know of with this premise is Disaster at Leuthen), to be specific, there are 3: British loss at the planes of Abraham and in the Carnatic wars as well as a longer lived empress Elizabeth of Russia (pretty standard stuff, I just want to make a few maps). This map is more or less North America in the modern day, though since I'm far from fully figuring out the earlier parts of the TL, if it can be called that, if I continue to add to it, the map might change. As for info pertinent to my questions, the Spanish empire survives longer, I was thinking up to the Carlist wars, though those may or may not happen so maybe some other major war in Spain or another big European war. The Russians, while during the war allied with the French grow increasingly dissatisfied with their ability to expand in Europe and drift towards the British over time, which is why they are allowed to go so deep into North America (though I intend to add some former British colony somewhere in there).
I have 2 major questions (finally, I get to the point):
Congratulations, you made it to the end! Thanks in advance to anyone who answers these questions.
[edit: not all of the flags are OC. IIRC, NY and Alyeska are someone else's, and New England is an edit of someone else's flag. The others are either mine or based off OTL flags]
I have some questions about a map that I'm working on. The POD is simply the French winning the 7 years war (wow shocker, how original, though to be fair, the only finished TL I know of with this premise is Disaster at Leuthen), to be specific, there are 3: British loss at the planes of Abraham and in the Carnatic wars as well as a longer lived empress Elizabeth of Russia (pretty standard stuff, I just want to make a few maps). This map is more or less North America in the modern day, though since I'm far from fully figuring out the earlier parts of the TL, if it can be called that, if I continue to add to it, the map might change. As for info pertinent to my questions, the Spanish empire survives longer, I was thinking up to the Carlist wars, though those may or may not happen so maybe some other major war in Spain or another big European war. The Russians, while during the war allied with the French grow increasingly dissatisfied with their ability to expand in Europe and drift towards the British over time, which is why they are allowed to go so deep into North America (though I intend to add some former British colony somewhere in there).
I have 2 major questions (finally, I get to the point):
- Should the British colonize roughly what was the OTL Oregon Country and how would it make the most sense for that to go?:
- They colonize it but only up to about the 53rd parallel, that is to say they do not connect it to Rupert's Land
- They colonize it and connect it to Rupert's Land (then I think they would end up being one country, centered in Oregon/BC
- They don't colonize it at all and the west coast stays as it is currently on the map (in my opinion the most unlikely)
- How does New Spain break up? Particularly, I'm concerned about the north of what is currently labelled as Mexico. It's important to note that the north of Mexico (what the US ended up getting along with areas along the current OTL border was generally more opposed to centralization. This may still happen ITTL simply due to the area's harshness and lack of government investment creating an independent, free, and self-sustaining spirit among the local population, though it may be easier to maintain control due to decreased Anglophone settlement (While I don't doubt some Anglo farmers would settle northern Mexico, getting there through largely hostile land is very hard. I would imagine more settlement just east of the Appalachians in Louisiana resulting in Anglophone rebellions and British attempts to seize these areas in some wars) resulting in an overall more cohesive mexico.
- Northern Mexico is divided between a number of smaller states. I'd imagine there would be a Texas (much smaller and more Hispanic than OTL Texas) and a state around the Rio Grande. Possibly also an independent California and/or an independent Sonora. Maybe Yucatan would take this opportunity to split off.
- A sort of "Antifederal League" that eventually develops into a "Confederation of Colorado" or Aztlan or whatever. Basically all of the same Northern Mexican breakaway states coalesce into a less centralized *Mexican country. Something like what southern apologists like to frame the confederacy as, just Hispanophone.
- Big Mex Big Mex.
- Should there be that many *American countries? I was thinking that when unrest begins, the British, not wanting to lose their land, grant the colonies limited local parliaments and allow each to send a representative to the parliament in Britain. The desire to split off would generally be weaker anyway ITTL, because the French remain a threat, so the majority of Americans continue to see British protection as necessary. Within this framework, I see the British coalescing the colonies into "Commonwealths" (collections of many colonies, more federal) and "Free states" (more unitary, typically smaller states). What do you think?
- Is what I have ok?
- Should there be more big states with a North-South-Middle divide? IE. New Wales and New York unite. (I'm afraid that this is visually too similar to "Another America")
- Should there just be a North-South divide? (I worry that this would be too much like "Disaster at Leuthen")
- Should they all just be one country?
Congratulations, you made it to the end! Thanks in advance to anyone who answers these questions.
[edit: not all of the flags are OC. IIRC, NY and Alyeska are someone else's, and New England is an edit of someone else's flag. The others are either mine or based off OTL flags]
And thus began the wars about the fishing rights on Lake Alsace...
Well the scenario is to put it simply:
France completely dissappears off the face ofthe planet with all french people except around 700 people.
Then the french weird national mixture is formed
Then that nation sinks to the sea and thus nation try redoing france (of course they cant make it as far.)
Those dark green people including the people on south of walloons are Immigrant populations (there were enough of them to be an ethnicity after france's popularion literally got cut in third.
Circled areas are ethnic provinces. there. that cleared it up.
What a wonderful map! Can't wait for the next part of the 2ACW
Deleted member 108228
Interesting, and I do need to know how this civil war continues. Do you plan on having it revealed in the next update?
Yeah of course, although I need to decide what will look like! Check out my thread if you haven't already for future updates and current lore.
Kazakhstan's communist government tired to declare independence like the other Stans in the South but hardliner and reformist armies over ran the government a few months after the civil war began. The Kazakhs have little resources and manpower to start an independence war so many former independence groups just relied on raiding and pillaging villages to prevent themselves from starving. The gulags aren't anarchist, it's just a flag symbolizing a uprising or revolt. The remote gulags who rose up do have nowhere to run but its better than starving to death when the food exports never come in. The Turks only have minor intervention, again, not trying to get stuck in the quagmire but at he same time, make sure the newly independent Armenia doesn't try to "reclaim" lost lands.
The PoD is that Theodoric the Great has a son, Amalaswinth, who is able to keep the Ostrogoths and Visigoths united after Theodoric's death (in true Gothic fashion, by murdering the Visigoth boy-king that Theodoric was officially regent for and claiming the throne for himself). Amalaswinth and his successors continue Theodoric's grand project of attempting to restore and revive the Western Roman Empire--geographically by reconquering the territory the Visigoths lost to the Franks, conquering the Burgundians and Mediteranean islands from the Vandals, and subjugating the Vandals, western Franks, Alemanni, Suebi, and Vascones to nearly match the former imperial borders--politically by formally uniting the Ostrogoth and Visigoth kingdoms then throwing off the legal fiction of merely being viceroys for the eastern emperor and claiming the title of western emperor for themselves--and culturally by seeking to unite the Goth and Roman peoples into one, abolishing the separate administrations for Goths and Romans and imposing a single set of laws and customs for both, fully adopting the Latin language to appease the Romans while fully enforcing the Arian church to appease the Goths, and building Ravenna into a great capital to rival Constantinople.
Incensed by Amalaswinth’s claim to the imperial title and suppression of the Nicene church, the Byzantines invaded Italy only to be beaten back bloodily (it didn’t help that Belisarius died along the way). Amalaswinth and his successors launched a few attacks on the Balkans as revenge and while they didn’t succeed at conquering the Byzantines outright they did so weaken them that eventually the Eastern Empire fell entirely to Avars, Slavs, and Sasanids. And so the torch of classical civilization was left burning bright, but in the west rather than in the east--and with a distinctly Germanic tint. In 700 the Gothic Empire (still officially calling itself the Roman Empire but adopting that name more and more) was at its height; over the next two centuries it would lose ground to various invaders--the Lombards, the Berbers, the Magyars--and be restricted to its Italian heartland, but even those barbarian kingdoms strove to emulate Gothic civilization, just as the Goths had with the Romans before them.
If needed, I would say that the northern border of an Anglophone Oregon may be at the parallel at the southern end of Alask Panhandle. As for Mexico, I would say Texas, New Mexico, Rio Grande chihuahua and Durango will secede into Greater Texas, and Californias plus Sonora and Sinaloa into Greater California. Theses areas would be largely decentralized.WIP map questions:
I have some questions about a map that I'm working on. The POD is simply the French winning the 7 years war (wow shocker, how original, though to be fair, the only finished TL I know of with this premise is Disaster at Leuthen), to be specific, there are 3: British loss at the planes of Abraham and in the Carnatic wars as well as a longer lived empress Elizabeth of Russia (pretty standard stuff, I just want to make a few maps). This map is more or less North America in the modern day, though since I'm far from fully figuring out the earlier parts of the TL, if it can be called that, if I continue to add to it, the map might change. As for info pertinent to my questions, the Spanish empire survives longer, I was thinking up to the Carlist wars, though those may or may not happen so maybe some other major war in Spain or another big European war. The Russians, while during the war allied with the French grow increasingly dissatisfied with their ability to expand in Europe and drift towards the British over time, which is why they are allowed to go so deep into North America (though I intend to add some former British colony somewhere in there).
I have 2 major questions (finally, I get to the point):
The map's visual style borrows heavily from "Another America", which was an important inspiration for this, though I'm not going for a similar TL. I want to be at least a bit more realistic rather than focusing on the rule of cool and obviously have only 1 (or I guess 3) PODs as opposed to throwing in as many as are needed to make a super diverse America (not that I have anything against that style, I love Another America, I just don't want to copy it, that would be dumb).
- Should the British colonize roughly what was the OTL Oregon Country and how would it make the most sense for that to go?:
- They colonize it but only up to about the 53rd parallel, that is to say they do not connect it to Rupert's Land
- They colonize it and connect it to Rupert's Land (then I think they would end up being one country, centered in Oregon/BC
- They don't colonize it at all and the west coast stays as it is currently on the map (in my opinion the most unlikely)
- How does New Spain break up? Particularly, I'm concerned about the north of what is currently labelled as Mexico. It's important to note that the north of Mexico (what the US ended up getting along with areas along the current OTL border was generally more opposed to centralization. This may still happen ITTL simply due to the area's harshness and lack of government investment creating an independent, free, and self-sustaining spirit among the local population, though it may be easier to maintain control due to decreased Anglophone settlement (While I don't doubt some Anglo farmers would settle northern Mexico, getting there through largely hostile land is very hard. I would imagine more settlement just east of the Appalachians in Louisiana resulting in Anglophone rebellions and British attempts to seize these areas in some wars) resulting in an overall more cohesive mexico.
- Northern Mexico is divided between a number of smaller states. I'd imagine there would be a Texas (much smaller and more Hispanic than OTL Texas) and a state around the Rio Grande. Possibly also an independent California and/or an independent Sonora. Maybe Yucatan would take this opportunity to split off.
- A sort of "Antifederal League" that eventually develops into a "Confederation of Colorado" or Aztlan or whatever. Basically all of the same Northern Mexican breakaway states coalesce into a less centralized *Mexican country. Something like what southern apologists like to frame the confederacy as, just Hispanophone.
- Big Mex Big Mex.
- Should there be that many *American countries? I was thinking that when unrest begins, the British, not wanting to lose their land, grant the colonies limited local parliaments and allow each to send a representative to the parliament in Britain. The desire to split off would generally be weaker anyway ITTL, because the French remain a threat, so the majority of Americans continue to see British protection as necessary. Within this framework, I see the British coalescing the colonies into "Commonwealths" (collections of many colonies, more federal) and "Free states" (more unitary, typically smaller states). What do you think?
- Is what I have ok?
- Should there be more big states with a North-South-Middle divide? IE. New Wales and New York unite. (I'm afraid that this is visually too similar to "Another America")
- Should there just be a North-South divide? (I worry that this would be too much like "Disaster at Leuthen")
- Should they all just be one country?
Congratulations, you made it to the end! Thanks in advance to anyone who answers these questions.
[edit: not all of the flags are OC. IIRC, NY and Alyeska are someone else's, and New England is an edit of someone else's flag. The others are either mine or based off OTL flags]
For the Atlantic coast, I shall give no advice
Joint entry by @Ernak and myself for the MotF 210:
The Kenyan States: Ophir and Azania
In 1902, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain visited the British East Africa Protectorate to examine the development of the colony. The Colonial Secretary's visit consisted of a trip along the recently constructed "Uganda Railway" from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean Coast to Kisumu on Lake Victoria. During this rail trip, Chamberlain and his entourage passed through the lightly inhabited territory of Gwas Ngishu. Located at a high elevation atop the Mau Escarpment, the thinly populated territory had an very temperate and agreeable climate. Furthermore, Gwas Ngishu was "isolated" from the rest of British East Africa by the Mau Forest. Chamberlain believed the territory would be an ideal location for European settlement. Chamberlain quickly began to imagine schemes to attract European settlers to the area. During the return trip to Mombasa, the idea of settling the territory with European Jews occurred to Chamberlain. Chamberlain noted to a colleague that "If Dr Herzl [the head of the Zionist movement] were at all inclined to transfer his efforts to East Africa there would be no difficulty in finding land suitable for Jewish settlers."
As it would happen, Chamberlain would meet Dr. Herzel within a year of making this comment. A few weeks after the outbreak of the Kishinev pogroms, Theodor Herzl was introduced to Joseph Chamberlain by Israel Zangwill. Chamberlain offered to Herzel 13,000 square kilometres at Gwas Ngishu for the purpose of Jewish settlement. After experiencing abject failure in convincing the Ottoman authorities to allow for the establishment of Jewish state in Eretz Israel (the land of Israel), Herzel decided to bring the offer before the Sixth Zionist Congress. At the Congress, Israel Zangwill made a forceful argument that accepting the proposal could provide the Jewish people with a temporary "ark" from which Jews fleeing the porgroms could find refuge. However, Zangwill stressed that a Jewish State in Eretz Israel remained the ultimate goal. The Sixth Zionist Congress, narrowly approved the proposal (with particular opposition coming from the Russian delegation), and the British cabinet formally delineated an area of British East Africa open to Jewish settlement.
In 1904, the Zionist Congress sponsored a surveying mission to examine the territory that had been granted to them by the British Government. The surveying mission reported favorably about the land, and the following year the first Jewish settlers began to settle in Gwas Ngishu at a site known as Eldoret (based on the Maasai word "eldore" meaning "stony river"). This grant of land in East Africa to Jewish settlers was not universally well received in the United Kingdom. In 1905, Parliament passed the Aliens Act, which significantly restricted Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe into the United Kingdom. Supporters of the act argued that if the British government were to cede good land to Jews instead of British colonists, then "the Jews ought to actually settle it". Thus, a number of the Jews who had originally intended to migrate to the United Kingdom ended up in East Africa. A small, but prosperous Jewish community soon began to develop in Gwas Ngishu. However, development of the territory would have ripple effects on the rest of British East Africa, and soon economic prospects in the port of Mombasa and the new East African Protectorate capital of Nairobi would lead to the establishment of Jewish communities in those sites.
On November 2, 1917, in the midst of the First Great War, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote a letter to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, to be transmitted to the Zionist Congress. Balfour stated that:
One unintended consequence of this decision was that it facilitated significant expansion of the Indian community in Kenya. The nucleus of the Indian commuanity in Kenya began in 1895 when the colonial government began to construct the Uganda Railway. Nearly all of the workers hired to construct the railway came from British India, and in particular from the Punjab. While most laborers returned to India after the railroad was finished in 1901, at least 7,000 resolved to remain in the colony. While a few of these workers were able to bring their family members to Kenya, the restrictive immigration policies in place had proven a significant hindrance. Now, with most of Kenya's immigration restrictions lifted, Indians poured into the colony to reunite with family members already established in the colony. Additionally, the strong growth of the Kenyan economy created a demand for Indian contract laborers, further expanding the Indian population. In certain years of the late 1920s and early 1930s, more Indian immigrants than Jews entered the colony.
However, this temporary trend would reverse itself in the late 1930s. In 1932, the DNVP, in coalition with other far-right and antisemitic parties (which would progressively attain greater influence within the broader far-right coalition), managed to seize total control of Weimar Germany. While this nationalist and ostensibly monarchist party re-established the German Empire on paper, the Kaiser did not return to Germany, and instead the "regent" of the German Empire exercised complete control as dictator. Antisemitic initiatives became official government policy in Germany. On September 9, 1937, the restored German Empire carried out the Kristallnacht, where the government backed paramilitaries destroyed Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes, rounded up community leaders, and murdered many Jewish civilians in the street. This resurgence of antisemitism led to emigration of Jews from Europe to pick up. While many of these Jews intended to go to Palestine, few were able to move to Eretz Israel. The White Paper of 1936, passed in an attempt to clamp down on sectional conflict in Palestine, had placed hard caps on Jewish immigration. As a result, many of these Jews immigrated to Kenya, one of the few places willing to admit them. Unfortunately, the start of the Second Great War disrupted the ability of Jews to emigrate from Europe, and many remained trapped under the jackboot of antisemitic governments. While the restored German Empire had initially been content to just let Jews emigrate, radical antisemites gained clout, and gained enough influence to enact their horrible "final solution to the Jewish problem" - the Holocaust. By the time the Second Great War had ended, nearly 5 million Jews had been murdered by Germany and its collaborators.
In 1948, the Jewish people would suffer a second tragedy. British Palestine had been a veritable powder-keg since 1936. While the Second Great War had put a temporary tamper on sectional tensions, the end of the war saw them rise to the forefront once more. With Palestine on the verge of civil war, the British resolved to terminate the mandate and withdraw from the territory. In 1947, the findings of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry were enacted, and mandatory Palestine was partitioned between Jewish and Arab areas (with the former receiving much of the coast and Galilee, while the latter received Gaza, most of the Judean hills, and the vast Negev). The Arab world rejected the partition and resolved to crush the nascent Jewish state, with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan sending their armies into Palestine (and other Arab states providing expeditionary forces). While the State of Israel was augmented by volunteers from Kenya, many of whom had fought in the Second World War, the superior numbers of the Arab states eventually overwhelmed the State of Israel. Palestine, was partitioned between the occupying Arab powers, and across the territory the Palestinian Pogrom was unleashed upon the Jewish community. There were similar, smaller pogroms across the rest of the Arab world in tandem. There would be no Jewish State in Eretz Israel.
Some Jews resolved to stay in Palestine after the Pogrom, but many emigrated. Most of these Jews opted to move to the United States or United Kingdom, which had since relaxed their previous immigration restrictions. However, some committed Zionists believed that Kenya offered the Jewish people the only prospect of a secure homeland, and significant numbers of Jews moved to the territory in the aftermath of the destruction of Israel. Recording strong economic growth after the Second Great War, Kenya was able to absorb these new Jewish migrants without too much disruption to the economy. This strong economy attracted a new influx of Anglo immigrants from the United Kingdom and Indians from the recently independent subcontinent. However, this strong economy did not benefit all the people of Kenya. The Native Kenyans had been forced into overcrowded reservations, and were still denied the ability to purchase and settle land in White Highlands. In response to the increasing pressure on the overpopulated native reservations, the Mau Mau uprising broke out in Kenya. While predominantly Kikuyu in composition, the Mau Mau uprising required British intervention to contain attacks on settler farms and suspected collaborators. While the last of the Mau Mau were cleared from their forest strongholds in 1959, the British government had been exhausted by the ordeal, and resolved to leave the colony within 5 years, granting the colony Majority Rule.
The prospect of Majority Rule was deeply alarming to the settler community of Kenya, Jew and non-Jew alike. They feared that the African majority would vote to confiscate their lands, and nationalize settler owned industries if given control of the country. While not treated as equals by the white settlers, the Indian community, shared many of the same concerns about Black Majority Rule, and threw in their lot with the settlers. Additionally, the Maasai community decided to align themselves with the Settlers and Indians, fearing their expansive lands (which unlike other native communities was actually able to sustain their community at a level of prosperity - a reward for helping the British establish themselves in East Africa in the 1880s) would be redistributed to other tribes. Together, this coalition of Jewish, non-Jewish White, Indians, and Massai lobbied the British government to reconsider their decision to abandon the colony. Fearing another Mau Mau, the British refused. However, London under significant lobbying from these groups and their allies, agreed to divide the territory. Comprising the central highlands, the Maasai reserve, and a corridor to the sea, the new colony of "South Kenya" had a majority of the groups opposed to Black Majority Rule. This would allow the settler community, Indians, and Maasai to remain in power even with Majority rule. The remainder of Kenya, (renamed North Kenya) had an overwhelming Black Majority. The decision to partition the colony was met with widespread opposition from non-Maasai Blacks. Unrest prompted the British to move up the timetable of Independence to 1962, with December 31st being the date of independence.
Shortly after independence, South Kenya renamed itself as the "State of Ophir," named after the biblical location of great wealth rumored to be in Africa. The unwritten Ophir constitution granted the Maasai their reservation as an autonomous territory. While ostensibly a race blind nation, the State of Ophir would impose many restrictions to effectively disenfranchise and limit the civil liberties of the non-Maasai African population within their borders. Ophir has informally aligned itself with the capitalist powers.
North Kenya became the "Republic of Azania", an appellation that many Black Nationalists in Kenya had adopted in opposition to the "colonial" term of Kenya. Shortly after attaining independence, the government of Azania implemented many of the land reform programs and nationalizations that the settlers of Ophir had worried about. The small non-African community within the country quickly uprooted themselves and relocated to Ophir. Azania has aligned itself with the Eastern bloc.
United for nearly 70 years, the former British colony of Kenya had been irrevocably split in two halves that carried substantial animus towards the other. As of 1965, the two nations have thus far co-existed without conflict, but disputes over water rights and allegations of abuses of minorities lead many to believe the two Kenyan states could soon find themselves at conflict with each other - another flash-point of the ongoing cold war...
The Kenyan States: Ophir and Azania
In 1902, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain visited the British East Africa Protectorate to examine the development of the colony. The Colonial Secretary's visit consisted of a trip along the recently constructed "Uganda Railway" from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean Coast to Kisumu on Lake Victoria. During this rail trip, Chamberlain and his entourage passed through the lightly inhabited territory of Gwas Ngishu. Located at a high elevation atop the Mau Escarpment, the thinly populated territory had an very temperate and agreeable climate. Furthermore, Gwas Ngishu was "isolated" from the rest of British East Africa by the Mau Forest. Chamberlain believed the territory would be an ideal location for European settlement. Chamberlain quickly began to imagine schemes to attract European settlers to the area. During the return trip to Mombasa, the idea of settling the territory with European Jews occurred to Chamberlain. Chamberlain noted to a colleague that "If Dr Herzl [the head of the Zionist movement] were at all inclined to transfer his efforts to East Africa there would be no difficulty in finding land suitable for Jewish settlers."
As it would happen, Chamberlain would meet Dr. Herzel within a year of making this comment. A few weeks after the outbreak of the Kishinev pogroms, Theodor Herzl was introduced to Joseph Chamberlain by Israel Zangwill. Chamberlain offered to Herzel 13,000 square kilometres at Gwas Ngishu for the purpose of Jewish settlement. After experiencing abject failure in convincing the Ottoman authorities to allow for the establishment of Jewish state in Eretz Israel (the land of Israel), Herzel decided to bring the offer before the Sixth Zionist Congress. At the Congress, Israel Zangwill made a forceful argument that accepting the proposal could provide the Jewish people with a temporary "ark" from which Jews fleeing the porgroms could find refuge. However, Zangwill stressed that a Jewish State in Eretz Israel remained the ultimate goal. The Sixth Zionist Congress, narrowly approved the proposal (with particular opposition coming from the Russian delegation), and the British cabinet formally delineated an area of British East Africa open to Jewish settlement.
In 1904, the Zionist Congress sponsored a surveying mission to examine the territory that had been granted to them by the British Government. The surveying mission reported favorably about the land, and the following year the first Jewish settlers began to settle in Gwas Ngishu at a site known as Eldoret (based on the Maasai word "eldore" meaning "stony river"). This grant of land in East Africa to Jewish settlers was not universally well received in the United Kingdom. In 1905, Parliament passed the Aliens Act, which significantly restricted Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe into the United Kingdom. Supporters of the act argued that if the British government were to cede good land to Jews instead of British colonists, then "the Jews ought to actually settle it". Thus, a number of the Jews who had originally intended to migrate to the United Kingdom ended up in East Africa. A small, but prosperous Jewish community soon began to develop in Gwas Ngishu. However, development of the territory would have ripple effects on the rest of British East Africa, and soon economic prospects in the port of Mombasa and the new East African Protectorate capital of Nairobi would lead to the establishment of Jewish communities in those sites.
On November 2, 1917, in the midst of the First Great War, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour wrote a letter to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, to be transmitted to the Zionist Congress. Balfour stated that:
"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
Zionists across the world rejoiced at this proclamation - for the establishment of a state in Eretz Israel seemed eminently attainable. Many believed that with this declaration, the brief Jewish experiment in East Africa would soon come to an end. Indeed, in 1920, the British East Africa Protectorate (soon renamed Kenya) could count only 20,000 Jews within its borders, roughly a quarter of that of Palestine. However, this belief would turn out to be unfounded. While the British administration in Palestine allowed for some Jewish immigration, they imposed immigration caps. Additionally, Nativists in the United States (which had been the largest destination of Jewish immigrants) successfully passed the 1924 immigration act, which had the effect of significantly curtailing Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. Thus, Jews continued to flow into Kenya. By this point, Jewish settlers were settling territories outside of Gwas Ngishu, and in particular began to establish themselves in the cities of the "scheduled lands" of central Kenya. These scheduled lands, informally known was the "white highlands" constituted the best farmland in Kenya, and had originally been set aside for the original settler community of Kenya, which was of predominantly British in extraction (though many were born in South Africa and Rhodesia). As Jewish settlers began to buy up land in the scheduled highlands, these non-Jewish Whites began to worry that the Jews would come to dominate their colony. The Non-Jewish White settlers lobbied the British government to impose quotas on Jewish settlement in Kenya. London, for its part, refused to impose a quota- viewing Kenya as a "release valve" for Jewish settlement that might have gone to an increasingly volatile Palestine. Additionally, since Jewish settlement commenced in 1905, the Jewish Colonisation Association raised significant amounts of foreign capital which had gone towards developing Kenya - turning the colony into one of the few net-revenue producing possessions of the British Empire in Africa. However, the British Colonial Office did adopt a compromise position to satiate the settlers - as Kenya as a whole was not intended to be a reserve for Jewish settlement, the colony would be open to British subjects from across the Empire and existing immigration restrictions would be relaxed to reflect this. As most non-Jewish settlers tended to come from other settler colonies in Africa, there was general acceptance of this compromise. While the Jewish settler population continued to grow faster than the non-Jewish White settler community, the latter group began to see some impressive growth in absolute terms.
One unintended consequence of this decision was that it facilitated significant expansion of the Indian community in Kenya. The nucleus of the Indian commuanity in Kenya began in 1895 when the colonial government began to construct the Uganda Railway. Nearly all of the workers hired to construct the railway came from British India, and in particular from the Punjab. While most laborers returned to India after the railroad was finished in 1901, at least 7,000 resolved to remain in the colony. While a few of these workers were able to bring their family members to Kenya, the restrictive immigration policies in place had proven a significant hindrance. Now, with most of Kenya's immigration restrictions lifted, Indians poured into the colony to reunite with family members already established in the colony. Additionally, the strong growth of the Kenyan economy created a demand for Indian contract laborers, further expanding the Indian population. In certain years of the late 1920s and early 1930s, more Indian immigrants than Jews entered the colony.
However, this temporary trend would reverse itself in the late 1930s. In 1932, the DNVP, in coalition with other far-right and antisemitic parties (which would progressively attain greater influence within the broader far-right coalition), managed to seize total control of Weimar Germany. While this nationalist and ostensibly monarchist party re-established the German Empire on paper, the Kaiser did not return to Germany, and instead the "regent" of the German Empire exercised complete control as dictator. Antisemitic initiatives became official government policy in Germany. On September 9, 1937, the restored German Empire carried out the Kristallnacht, where the government backed paramilitaries destroyed Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes, rounded up community leaders, and murdered many Jewish civilians in the street. This resurgence of antisemitism led to emigration of Jews from Europe to pick up. While many of these Jews intended to go to Palestine, few were able to move to Eretz Israel. The White Paper of 1936, passed in an attempt to clamp down on sectional conflict in Palestine, had placed hard caps on Jewish immigration. As a result, many of these Jews immigrated to Kenya, one of the few places willing to admit them. Unfortunately, the start of the Second Great War disrupted the ability of Jews to emigrate from Europe, and many remained trapped under the jackboot of antisemitic governments. While the restored German Empire had initially been content to just let Jews emigrate, radical antisemites gained clout, and gained enough influence to enact their horrible "final solution to the Jewish problem" - the Holocaust. By the time the Second Great War had ended, nearly 5 million Jews had been murdered by Germany and its collaborators.
In 1948, the Jewish people would suffer a second tragedy. British Palestine had been a veritable powder-keg since 1936. While the Second Great War had put a temporary tamper on sectional tensions, the end of the war saw them rise to the forefront once more. With Palestine on the verge of civil war, the British resolved to terminate the mandate and withdraw from the territory. In 1947, the findings of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry were enacted, and mandatory Palestine was partitioned between Jewish and Arab areas (with the former receiving much of the coast and Galilee, while the latter received Gaza, most of the Judean hills, and the vast Negev). The Arab world rejected the partition and resolved to crush the nascent Jewish state, with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan sending their armies into Palestine (and other Arab states providing expeditionary forces). While the State of Israel was augmented by volunteers from Kenya, many of whom had fought in the Second World War, the superior numbers of the Arab states eventually overwhelmed the State of Israel. Palestine, was partitioned between the occupying Arab powers, and across the territory the Palestinian Pogrom was unleashed upon the Jewish community. There were similar, smaller pogroms across the rest of the Arab world in tandem. There would be no Jewish State in Eretz Israel.
Some Jews resolved to stay in Palestine after the Pogrom, but many emigrated. Most of these Jews opted to move to the United States or United Kingdom, which had since relaxed their previous immigration restrictions. However, some committed Zionists believed that Kenya offered the Jewish people the only prospect of a secure homeland, and significant numbers of Jews moved to the territory in the aftermath of the destruction of Israel. Recording strong economic growth after the Second Great War, Kenya was able to absorb these new Jewish migrants without too much disruption to the economy. This strong economy attracted a new influx of Anglo immigrants from the United Kingdom and Indians from the recently independent subcontinent. However, this strong economy did not benefit all the people of Kenya. The Native Kenyans had been forced into overcrowded reservations, and were still denied the ability to purchase and settle land in White Highlands. In response to the increasing pressure on the overpopulated native reservations, the Mau Mau uprising broke out in Kenya. While predominantly Kikuyu in composition, the Mau Mau uprising required British intervention to contain attacks on settler farms and suspected collaborators. While the last of the Mau Mau were cleared from their forest strongholds in 1959, the British government had been exhausted by the ordeal, and resolved to leave the colony within 5 years, granting the colony Majority Rule.
The prospect of Majority Rule was deeply alarming to the settler community of Kenya, Jew and non-Jew alike. They feared that the African majority would vote to confiscate their lands, and nationalize settler owned industries if given control of the country. While not treated as equals by the white settlers, the Indian community, shared many of the same concerns about Black Majority Rule, and threw in their lot with the settlers. Additionally, the Maasai community decided to align themselves with the Settlers and Indians, fearing their expansive lands (which unlike other native communities was actually able to sustain their community at a level of prosperity - a reward for helping the British establish themselves in East Africa in the 1880s) would be redistributed to other tribes. Together, this coalition of Jewish, non-Jewish White, Indians, and Massai lobbied the British government to reconsider their decision to abandon the colony. Fearing another Mau Mau, the British refused. However, London under significant lobbying from these groups and their allies, agreed to divide the territory. Comprising the central highlands, the Maasai reserve, and a corridor to the sea, the new colony of "South Kenya" had a majority of the groups opposed to Black Majority Rule. This would allow the settler community, Indians, and Maasai to remain in power even with Majority rule. The remainder of Kenya, (renamed North Kenya) had an overwhelming Black Majority. The decision to partition the colony was met with widespread opposition from non-Maasai Blacks. Unrest prompted the British to move up the timetable of Independence to 1962, with December 31st being the date of independence.
Shortly after independence, South Kenya renamed itself as the "State of Ophir," named after the biblical location of great wealth rumored to be in Africa. The unwritten Ophir constitution granted the Maasai their reservation as an autonomous territory. While ostensibly a race blind nation, the State of Ophir would impose many restrictions to effectively disenfranchise and limit the civil liberties of the non-Maasai African population within their borders. Ophir has informally aligned itself with the capitalist powers.
North Kenya became the "Republic of Azania", an appellation that many Black Nationalists in Kenya had adopted in opposition to the "colonial" term of Kenya. Shortly after attaining independence, the government of Azania implemented many of the land reform programs and nationalizations that the settlers of Ophir had worried about. The small non-African community within the country quickly uprooted themselves and relocated to Ophir. Azania has aligned itself with the Eastern bloc.
United for nearly 70 years, the former British colony of Kenya had been irrevocably split in two halves that carried substantial animus towards the other. As of 1965, the two nations have thus far co-existed without conflict, but disputes over water rights and allegations of abuses of minorities lead many to believe the two Kenyan states could soon find themselves at conflict with each other - another flash-point of the ongoing cold war...
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Thanks for the advice. Assuming that they share such a large border, I would imagine Oregon coming to control Rupert's Land eventually. Do you think that that makes sense?
I'm not sure about Sinaloa, but I'm gonna try out the rest of your suggestions on the map and see how they look.
On the other hand, wouldnt this border be located in mountainous, waste, sparsely populated area which would made traveling from Pacific to Hudson bay pretty uneasy? RL maybe could end with stronger ties to New Founland or even mainland Britain... or maybe not
is english different ITTLThis is a map on an alternate New York City I made based in a world where a whole bunch of past predictions of the future that is now as well as scientific misconceptions and obsolete scientific theories of the 20th century primarily are true and / or come true. My partner helped me by doing the phonetic spelling of all of these based on these links:
https://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Fall_2014/ling115/phonetics.html
How to write ten in phonetic script:
phonemicchart.com
So thank you to them, and here's the plan for an expanded NYC this is based on:
This world is known as the 'Retro-Present' universe
The reason the New Island is made into a new borough is because other predictions say that by 2000 America would have, at max, 500,000,000 people and at minimum 350,000,000, and I thought that since NYC's population would grow so big considering America is so big that it warranted a new borough. I do plan on making this into a timeline eventually.
If you want to help me plz send links of predictions, preferably dystopian or middle ground since I mostly have utopian shit, preferably original sources but I'll appreciate it regardless, and also stuff on misconceptions from the 20th century and obsolete scientific theories from then too, or things from even before then if they are interesting enough, thank you
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