This is a nicely done map, but I'm not too sure what to think about the scenario itself. Some critiques:
1.)I'm not quite convinced *Austria-Hungary, regardless of the name, can plausibly survive to the present day in anything even partly resembling it's old form, with a POD in 1916. That country was already having a lot of problems as it was.
2.)Same for the Ottoman Empire, too, and perhaps even more so.
3.)Can't see Korea staying as part of core Japanese territory to 2018, either; maybe as a puppet state? Same applies to Taiwan/Formosa as well.
4.)I'm not even sure Germany could necessarily plausibly stay Imperial with a POD in 1916,
regardless of a Central Powers victory, without something a bit on the drastic side. Maybe some widespread reforms of some kind happened later on?
5.)Also, what in the heck happened to the U.S.? And Australia + N.Z., for that matter?
6.)How did "Yugorussia" come about, exactly?
7.)And what happened to the Baltic States? Not necessarily implausible or anything, just curious as to how this happened.
But, on the other hand......
1.)Nice to see South African apartheid ending earlier, for sure.
2.)Too bad about Rhodesia seemingly being a North Korea-like state, but it's definitely believable, though. (Also reminds me of a similar idea I had for a TL in the works)
3.)Not too often we see maps with a thriving *Afghanistan, so that's a nice touch.
4.)Also nice to see that most of Africa is independent-it does get kinda boring seeing so many maps with surviving colonialism, you know?
5.)United Ireland!
So, yeah, while there are some questionable aspects.....to be quite fair, this may not necessarily be far off from OTL, anyway. And you did a good job of making this interesting, regardless.
Well, to address your critiques:
1. Imagine the European Union as it is now, except the rest of the world considers it one country. That's basically the United States of Greater Austria. Each separate area retains a great deal of autonomy, and they'd probably all be better off as separate countries, but this is the way it's been for several decades and they've gotten kind of used to it. Germany also helped to prop it up, and German troops were even occupying parts of the Balkans during the 1930s, but everything turned out somewhat okay in the end.
2. Okay, I admit I did that just because I like surviving Ottoman Empires far too much for my own good.
3. A combination of forceful cultural assimilation, a fair amount of Japanese settlers, and the fact that Japan allows them autonomy under the new, less authoritarian, regime has ended independence movements. That, and the fact that most of the pro-independence movements were viciously eradicated during the days of the old empire.
4. Germany's an empire only in name, and its system of government is more along the lines of OTL Britain. I should have probably put that in its footnote instead of a generic description of their dominance over Europe.
5. In the United States, there was a military coup in 2001 that led to the establishment of an authoritarian government. Naturally, the people wouldn't stand for this, and so they revolted. There was a bit of a three-sided civil war with the military fighting the people that wanted to restore the republic while various areas tried to split off and appealed for entry into various international blocs for protection. The end result was the American Federation, a more centralized, somewhat isolationist state with socialist tendencies, and the various regions that broke away. As for Australia and New Zealand, I don't really recall my reasoning, I just wanted to do something interesting with the continent.
6. There was some ethnic reshuffling under the various Russian governments before the establishment of the Second Republic, and for some reason many of them were sent to the southern parts of the Caucasus. Germany saw an opportunity to weaken Russia, and... well, let's just say that not everyone in Yugorussia was initially willing to enter the German sphere.
7. I took inspiration from the map on the Wikipedia page for the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and altered some things from there.
And thank you for your compliments! I did my best to not make this a typical CP Victory scenario, and in this case that meant making a timeline that wasn't necessarily worse nor better than ours, though different.
So there never was a Soviet Union in this TL? What sort of state came into being post-war, and when was it replaced by the Second Republic? (If it took a revolution to establish the Second Republic, presumably the First One didn't last).
When and how did France becoming a monarchy again, and when did that end?
Why did the UK join the German block?
When did the US have its revolution, and what was it about? What is the US like now?
How come they couldn't reconquer California? As someone talking re current Calexit rumors pointed out, cut off the water coming from out of state and south California is screwed.
There was no Soviet Union, no, and the First Republic didn't last. Imperial Russia managed to put down the revolutions and survived into the mid-20s, at which point there was another revolution that established a genuine republic. It collapsed after a few years, at which point the farther-right elements of the government established a fascist state. It collapsed due to internal issues, leading to the establishment of the Second Russian Republic.
France had a bloodless revolution in the 40s that led to a monarchy being reinstated under *Action Francaise. It took about a decade for the people to begin agitating for the republic to be reformed, and they ended up driving out the king and his supporters from the mainland. The situation nowadays is kind of like the current one with China and Taiwan, except they're both about the same nowadays in terms of morality and how many countries want to see them recognized by everyone as the "real France."
Though there were initially revanchist sentiments towards Germany, realpolitik led to the UK joining their sphere in the 30s.
There was a military coup in 2001 that led to the establishment of an authoritarian government and then a civil war. Nowadays, the American Federation is more isolationist, preferring to keep its sphere of influence to the Americas (Ireland being an exception), and it is more centralized, with the states having less jurisdiction over their internal affairs. Politically, the Federation leans left of center on most issues, excluding drug control. The military is closely monitored to ensure that another coup can't happen, and the number of cameras in the capital make it look like something out of
1984. This doesn't mean, of course, that individual citizens are monitored, but the streets and government buildings are watched with a near-religious fervor. The House of Representatives was abolished with the revision of the constitution, presidents can't be reelected at all, and there are strict term limits on all government positions save the Supreme Court. The standard of living is pretty similar to OTL America.
California was left alone thanks to its promise to still stay within the American bloc post-war and the cession of Jefferson. This was enough for the new Federation, which was more concerned with internal affairs and had already allowed areas like Cuba, Panama, and Puerto Rico to secede with similar arrangements. Jefferson was a bit like OTL Northern Ireland for a few years after the civil war, but that cleared up after the Californian president condemned the actions of the so-called "Californian Union Army."
