OK... and what the fuck is this abomination?Note: Not my work. Don't know who made it. I just know I want to share it.
Map Thread XX
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I think someone else has had the "what if Africa was transposed into South America" and ran with it.
I remember something exactly like that being made on this site years ago, though IIRC whoever did it started with transposing South America onto Africa.
My favourite part of this is how they went out of their way to make sure Egypt covered the important river delta of the region.
A Holy Roman Empire
A map of a French dominated HRE which under the Carolingians manage to retain their throne and consolidate their demesne within the Kingdom of France. The French Kings thus are able to assert their authority and influence within their borders. Due to a continued Carolingian dynasty, the idea of a unified Carolingian Empire thus continues into the Middle Ages. The Empire however rather than being more of a unitary state functions is more decentralized with each of its constituent realms under the influence of the Carolingians. However the Carolingians in ttl are more focused on affairs in the West and in Italy with it seeking to move against the Muslims in Iberia. Within Southern Italy, the Carolingians prosecuted a successful war against the Emirate of Sicily defending Rome from a Saracen raid and ultimately crushing the threat. By working with the Eastern Romans the two Empires were able to restore Christian influence over Italy. Basically in ttl the Byzantines retake Sicily while the Franks subdued the other Lombard States.
What do you guys think of this map? Also @John7755 يوحنا does this seem like an appropriate pod for a French dominated HRE?
The map looks pretty nice, though I have some questions on it and some suggestions:
1. By Royal Domain, does this mean that this is a singular realm or just a collection of realms all ruled by the same monarch?
2. In the original division of the Kingdoms, the Eastern Frank realm would have had its border around the Elbe. Did this realm spend the last 150 years or so expanding eastward more early than that of otl? Traditionally, it would be during the Reform Papacy that the expansion east would resume in a greater earnest after the decline of the eastern front of the Franks during the late Merovigian period.
3. Is there a singular king or is there kings in each titular kingdom? Perhaps a viceroy or such?
4. I am guessing that we are working with a series of realms of:
-Kingdom of Hispania
-Kingdom of the West Franks
-Kingdom of the East Franks
-Kingdom of Italy
-Kingdom of Lotharingia
-Kingdom of the Burgundians
The Unholy Alliance
WAR IN EUROPE!
USSR Invades Baltic States, Reject Ultimatum. "War Has Come": Chamberlain
The governments of France and Germany have similarly declared war on the USSR. The Nordic nations of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark have jointly declared their neutrality in the coming engagements, as have the governments of Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, and Turkey. On daybreak, the British ambassador to the Soviet Union and his family arrived at London following the disruption of diplomatic relations. "It is indeed the beginning of a war unlike anything we've ever seen," said the emissary. "Dark times lie ahead. Indeed, they do." There are also reports of Soviet military activity along the border with Romania, including unconfirmed border clashes in the town of Rascov.
Benito Mussolini at the Anzio Conference
19 July, 1939
19 July, 1939
Let me guess: After the war, Germany gains Memel, Poland gains chunks of Ukraine and all of Belarus, Lithuania is annexed into Poland too, the rest of the Baltics gain independence, Finland gets Karelia and Kola, and the USSR Proper is torn to shreds. Think TNO level.
Is Italy on the Allied or Comintern side?
While I can't yet comment on territorial changes, I can say that Germany isn't Nazi and Italy is the leader of a fascist bloc known as the Roman Pact, a third player in European geopolitics
Sadly I never remembered what the name of the format is. But there are countless of OTL and ATL ones by the same format, I mostly found the maps on deviantart.
Crossposting from the MotF contest
As far as claims to Roman legitimacy go, the claimants are many and the strength of the claims themselves is also surprising. While one might usually associate Roman descent to Mussolini and his Roman-revival style of rhetoric, there is a much odder case in the world where, from the frozen shores of Novo-Arkhangelsk, in Aleyska, a wanna-be Caesar, Alexander Kolchak, styling himself 'Supreme Leader and Commander-in-Chief of All Russian Land and Sea Forces' for all the good that gives him, and his court of misfit émigrés, scions of once wealthy and powerful aristocratic families from Muscovy who now huddle around a dying flame, hoping to get warm, claim to represent a direct line of descent not only from the court of Peter the Great, even if that claim would already be suspicious, but from Augustus and Constantine themselves.
Allow us to explain: this story starts, as one would expect, in Rome, the mighty city that conquered the Mediterranean and became the first great titan of Europe. For centuries, Rome stood as the undeniable head of the mightiest empire the Earth had ever seen. However, as times changed, so did the necessities of its rulers and, in 330, Constantine, wanting to approach the Christian centers to the East, where his support base stood, and to get rid of the old brand of politicians that still dotted the ancient city, built a new capital for the Empire, a new Rome, a Second Rome, that, with time, would become known as Constantinople. As the empire suffered catastrophe after catastrophe, shedding away some of its provinces, losing even the ancestral Rome and the Italy in which it had first grown, but standing nonetheless. Constantinople, guarded by the mightiest walls Christendom had ever seen, and standing in the most advantageous position in the known world, at the Golden Horn, between Asia and Europe, lasted for one millennium after the fall of the First Rome, as the great center of the Empire, and the true head of the Orthodox Christian religion.
But that Empire too was doomed. Although it lasted through the great ordeal that were the medieval times, it was clear that the general trend for it was decline. With the rise of the Islamic Caliphate, it lost control of Africa, Egypt, Jerusalem and Syria, which had been in the empire's fold since Caesar's time. When the Turks first arrived, they took most of Anatolia, only to then cross to the Balkans, surrounding Constantinople on all sides until finally, in a fateful day in 1453, the city fell to their mighty cannons, its proud walls finding that their usefulness had run out. The Roman Empire of the East had fallen for good. Or had it?
Far to the north, a new people had been rising, the Russian people, centered around the city of Moscow. A proud people, they had been taught the ways of the Gospel by emissaries from the Second Rome, and they had adopted it whole-heart. This faith had given them strength against the Tartar yoke to which they had been subjected and now threw off with vigour. As Constantinople fell, they stood as a proud bastion for the Orthodox faith, and could boast descent from the last Caesars of Constantinople, having intermarried with their purple-gowned families. For them, the fall of Constantinople, although a tragedy, meant only one thing - that it now fell unto them to continue the legacy of the great Roman people. Without further to do, they declared themselves and their city of Moscow the Third Rome.
Now, one can contest this claim. It certainly seems like a stretch. Unlike Constantinople, no Roman Emperor actually legally changed the capital to Moscow. It was just a claim of religion and blood, much less strong than that of Byzantium. But, for the Russians, this claim was valid and gave them pride and strength. With that strength, they'd conquer their way across the Siberian wastelands, reach China, Japan and even cross the frozen seas to reach the shores of America, where they'd found the colony of Aleyska. They'd also continue Rome's death struggle with the Ottoman Turks, always with the goal of (re)taking Constantinople, in the process sending into a downwards spiral the great empire that had conquered the Romans.
The Empire of the Russians, the Third Rome, remained strong, a beast to be reckoned with for all accounts, establishing itself in Europe, Asia and America. It seemed unlikely, no matter how hard the Germans tried, that someone would be able of making the Third Rome fall, as they had the previous two. Which meant that it came as a great surprise for everyone when the Third Rome fell from within. Embroiled since 1914 in the Great War with the Germans and the Austrians, discontentment kept growing in the court of the Tsar, the Russian Caesar. Eventually, by 1917, the steam within Russia grew too powerful, and a revolution was launched that overthrew the Tsar and, after some serious convulsions, threw the country into civil war, between the Red Bolsheviks and the White... non-Bolshevik mix of monarchists, liberals and whatever else you'd find.
The allies of Russia, worried about their eastern wall falling to the Germans and concerned in general with a government as radical as the Bolsheviks taking over the Empire, sent Alexander Kolchak, an officer in the Russian Navy, to take care of the situation, giving him the help needed to set up an army that they hoped would overthrow the Bolsheviks and restore normalcy to Russia. Kolchak took the title of Supreme Leader and, in his defense, did his best, but the Bolsheviks were able to overcome his forces, to the general surprise of everyone, including themselves, and sent Kolchak retreating through Siberia, as they advanced in his pursuit. Finally, in Vladivostok, the last White post in Asia, Kolchak and his forces retreated across the seas to Aleyska which, guarded by the ships of the British and the Americans, who weren't just about to allow the Bolsheviks to cross over to North America, remained as a bastion of the Russian Empire. Settling in Novo-Arkhangelsk, most expected Kolchak to give up shortly and simply head to exile in Europe, like many of his fellow Russians. But, stubborn as he was, he didn't, deciding that he'd stay put and keep this last flame of the Russian Empire alive to wait out the day in his heart he knew would come soon when the Bolshevik Anarchy would collapse unto itself and Russia would need a Savior. He declared that, since Moscow had fallen, Novo-Arkhangelsk was the Fourth Rome and, even though he didn't claim himself to be its Caesar (yet) the meaning was implicit.
Twenty years have passed since this Fourth Rome was established and, in all honesty, it seems the Bolsheviks have been doing fine. Lenin passed away and Stalin replaced him, there seems to be some funny business in the Ukraine, but apparently Russia is industrializing and exporting quite a lot of wheat. Again, that's from what we can tell, since Stalin doesn't seem exactly like the sharing-information type. Kolchak is greying but remains huddled around Aleyska, too proud to admit he might not see Moscow restored in his lifetime and ruling what remains of his country with an iron fist. After too many of his soldiers emigrated away from the frozen peninsula, he prohibited emigration outright, and remains vigilant in the discipline of his army. The natives also aren't particularly fond of Kolchak, who keeps denying their existence as anything other than illiterate Russians. The country is very poor and mostly sustains itself from support from its allies, who still don't want to see a Red Alaska. Lately, however, Kolchak has been receiving a number of German and Japanese emissaries, and has even joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, whatever that will end up being, which has left the British a bit suspicious, to say the least.
Novo-Arkhangelsk, a rather rustic and militaristic city, of mostly drunken Russian soldiers and filled with seabird colonies, caribou and seals, seems a far-cry from either Rome or Constantinople, or even Moscow for that matter. It's a sad city with a sad story full of sad people who would all rather be anywhere else. How long after the fall of Kolchak (inevitable, if not for his own mortality, by the way he has been conducting diplomacy lately) will the Fourth Rome remain standing, remains to be seen, but nobody really sees it lasting all that long. And the British have been trying to court the Canadians to see if they wouldn't want to get a new province full of impoverished and yet fiercely proud Russians.
___________________________________
Now, this is far from the most innovative of scenarios, but it seemed like a fun idea to try. I always like the entire thing of the Russian claim to be the Third Rome, so going a step further and making the most remote place of the Russian Empire the 'Fourth Rome' always seemed to be a fun idea. Sure, there's a bit of butterfly genocide between 1867 and 1917, but I've done way worse at times.
Anyway, I hope you like it.
Rome Never Falls,
it just changes places
it just changes places
As far as claims to Roman legitimacy go, the claimants are many and the strength of the claims themselves is also surprising. While one might usually associate Roman descent to Mussolini and his Roman-revival style of rhetoric, there is a much odder case in the world where, from the frozen shores of Novo-Arkhangelsk, in Aleyska, a wanna-be Caesar, Alexander Kolchak, styling himself 'Supreme Leader and Commander-in-Chief of All Russian Land and Sea Forces' for all the good that gives him, and his court of misfit émigrés, scions of once wealthy and powerful aristocratic families from Muscovy who now huddle around a dying flame, hoping to get warm, claim to represent a direct line of descent not only from the court of Peter the Great, even if that claim would already be suspicious, but from Augustus and Constantine themselves.
Allow us to explain: this story starts, as one would expect, in Rome, the mighty city that conquered the Mediterranean and became the first great titan of Europe. For centuries, Rome stood as the undeniable head of the mightiest empire the Earth had ever seen. However, as times changed, so did the necessities of its rulers and, in 330, Constantine, wanting to approach the Christian centers to the East, where his support base stood, and to get rid of the old brand of politicians that still dotted the ancient city, built a new capital for the Empire, a new Rome, a Second Rome, that, with time, would become known as Constantinople. As the empire suffered catastrophe after catastrophe, shedding away some of its provinces, losing even the ancestral Rome and the Italy in which it had first grown, but standing nonetheless. Constantinople, guarded by the mightiest walls Christendom had ever seen, and standing in the most advantageous position in the known world, at the Golden Horn, between Asia and Europe, lasted for one millennium after the fall of the First Rome, as the great center of the Empire, and the true head of the Orthodox Christian religion.
But that Empire too was doomed. Although it lasted through the great ordeal that were the medieval times, it was clear that the general trend for it was decline. With the rise of the Islamic Caliphate, it lost control of Africa, Egypt, Jerusalem and Syria, which had been in the empire's fold since Caesar's time. When the Turks first arrived, they took most of Anatolia, only to then cross to the Balkans, surrounding Constantinople on all sides until finally, in a fateful day in 1453, the city fell to their mighty cannons, its proud walls finding that their usefulness had run out. The Roman Empire of the East had fallen for good. Or had it?
Far to the north, a new people had been rising, the Russian people, centered around the city of Moscow. A proud people, they had been taught the ways of the Gospel by emissaries from the Second Rome, and they had adopted it whole-heart. This faith had given them strength against the Tartar yoke to which they had been subjected and now threw off with vigour. As Constantinople fell, they stood as a proud bastion for the Orthodox faith, and could boast descent from the last Caesars of Constantinople, having intermarried with their purple-gowned families. For them, the fall of Constantinople, although a tragedy, meant only one thing - that it now fell unto them to continue the legacy of the great Roman people. Without further to do, they declared themselves and their city of Moscow the Third Rome.
Now, one can contest this claim. It certainly seems like a stretch. Unlike Constantinople, no Roman Emperor actually legally changed the capital to Moscow. It was just a claim of religion and blood, much less strong than that of Byzantium. But, for the Russians, this claim was valid and gave them pride and strength. With that strength, they'd conquer their way across the Siberian wastelands, reach China, Japan and even cross the frozen seas to reach the shores of America, where they'd found the colony of Aleyska. They'd also continue Rome's death struggle with the Ottoman Turks, always with the goal of (re)taking Constantinople, in the process sending into a downwards spiral the great empire that had conquered the Romans.
The Empire of the Russians, the Third Rome, remained strong, a beast to be reckoned with for all accounts, establishing itself in Europe, Asia and America. It seemed unlikely, no matter how hard the Germans tried, that someone would be able of making the Third Rome fall, as they had the previous two. Which meant that it came as a great surprise for everyone when the Third Rome fell from within. Embroiled since 1914 in the Great War with the Germans and the Austrians, discontentment kept growing in the court of the Tsar, the Russian Caesar. Eventually, by 1917, the steam within Russia grew too powerful, and a revolution was launched that overthrew the Tsar and, after some serious convulsions, threw the country into civil war, between the Red Bolsheviks and the White... non-Bolshevik mix of monarchists, liberals and whatever else you'd find.
The allies of Russia, worried about their eastern wall falling to the Germans and concerned in general with a government as radical as the Bolsheviks taking over the Empire, sent Alexander Kolchak, an officer in the Russian Navy, to take care of the situation, giving him the help needed to set up an army that they hoped would overthrow the Bolsheviks and restore normalcy to Russia. Kolchak took the title of Supreme Leader and, in his defense, did his best, but the Bolsheviks were able to overcome his forces, to the general surprise of everyone, including themselves, and sent Kolchak retreating through Siberia, as they advanced in his pursuit. Finally, in Vladivostok, the last White post in Asia, Kolchak and his forces retreated across the seas to Aleyska which, guarded by the ships of the British and the Americans, who weren't just about to allow the Bolsheviks to cross over to North America, remained as a bastion of the Russian Empire. Settling in Novo-Arkhangelsk, most expected Kolchak to give up shortly and simply head to exile in Europe, like many of his fellow Russians. But, stubborn as he was, he didn't, deciding that he'd stay put and keep this last flame of the Russian Empire alive to wait out the day in his heart he knew would come soon when the Bolshevik Anarchy would collapse unto itself and Russia would need a Savior. He declared that, since Moscow had fallen, Novo-Arkhangelsk was the Fourth Rome and, even though he didn't claim himself to be its Caesar (yet) the meaning was implicit.
Twenty years have passed since this Fourth Rome was established and, in all honesty, it seems the Bolsheviks have been doing fine. Lenin passed away and Stalin replaced him, there seems to be some funny business in the Ukraine, but apparently Russia is industrializing and exporting quite a lot of wheat. Again, that's from what we can tell, since Stalin doesn't seem exactly like the sharing-information type. Kolchak is greying but remains huddled around Aleyska, too proud to admit he might not see Moscow restored in his lifetime and ruling what remains of his country with an iron fist. After too many of his soldiers emigrated away from the frozen peninsula, he prohibited emigration outright, and remains vigilant in the discipline of his army. The natives also aren't particularly fond of Kolchak, who keeps denying their existence as anything other than illiterate Russians. The country is very poor and mostly sustains itself from support from its allies, who still don't want to see a Red Alaska. Lately, however, Kolchak has been receiving a number of German and Japanese emissaries, and has even joined the Anti-Comintern Pact, whatever that will end up being, which has left the British a bit suspicious, to say the least.
Novo-Arkhangelsk, a rather rustic and militaristic city, of mostly drunken Russian soldiers and filled with seabird colonies, caribou and seals, seems a far-cry from either Rome or Constantinople, or even Moscow for that matter. It's a sad city with a sad story full of sad people who would all rather be anywhere else. How long after the fall of Kolchak (inevitable, if not for his own mortality, by the way he has been conducting diplomacy lately) will the Fourth Rome remain standing, remains to be seen, but nobody really sees it lasting all that long. And the British have been trying to court the Canadians to see if they wouldn't want to get a new province full of impoverished and yet fiercely proud Russians.
___________________________________
Now, this is far from the most innovative of scenarios, but it seemed like a fun idea to try. I always like the entire thing of the Russian claim to be the Third Rome, so going a step further and making the most remote place of the Russian Empire the 'Fourth Rome' always seemed to be a fun idea. Sure, there's a bit of butterfly genocide between 1867 and 1917, but I've done way worse at times.
Anyway, I hope you like it.
Diagram that sentence. I dare you.
I do. I’m a sucker for nations which are forced to move around who then have “absurd” claims in weird places. Like that map with Connecticut trading off claims until it owns the Upper Peninsula. Or sentences with very turn of last century British-style clauses.
Huh, coincidentally I was just trying to find that map a few days ago.
Speaking of which, does anyone remember where that North/South America border swap map is?
Diagram that sentence. I dare you.
I do. I’m a sucker for nations which are forced to move around who then have “absurd” claims in weird places. Like that map with Connecticut trading off claims until it owns the Upper Peninsula. Or sentences with very turn of last century British-style clauses.
Christ no. I come from a language that has such a tendency to do large sentences that the Education Ministery actually discontinued diagrams one year into it because it was just so complicated for the kids to follow.
I know I should cut them up, especially in English, but it's a habit that's hard to break.
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