The last proposal would be the most realistic one because only 36,000 people would remain with Canada.
Proposals and War Aims That Didn't Happen Map Thread
- Thread starter Beedok
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Quite like the first 3 proposals (sans Anticosti Island), strangely 2 and 3 roughly correspond to how one usually envisions an independent Quebec in a pre-1900 US wank ATL.
I don't think any of the Quebec proposals could have gone through, honestly. They all were completely idiotic. Either you have the Québécois heartland being slashed in two or you don't even have enough population being separated that the part being given independence majority voted for independence anyways.
So would he, if he was @Metropolis45
If that happen however, what would came next. Western Mediterranean? (I realy doubt that he would just sit in Macedon or Egypt or elsewhere and peacefully consolidate his realm). Assuming that there wouldn´t be new war with Persia/great rebellion here or there very soon, which I see as most likely
If that happen however, what would came next. Western Mediterranean? (I realy doubt that he would just sit in Macedon or Egypt or elsewhere and peacefully consolidate his realm). Assuming that there wouldn´t be new war with Persia/great rebellion here or there very soon, which I see as most likely
Skallagrim
Banned
Alexander would be in a far more difficult position than (he would have been, barring his premature death) in OTL. Dareios was no fool; he offered lands that he knew Persia would be able to re-take in time. When Alexander takes his entire army West, for instance...
As far as goals are concerned, note that Alexander had this idea of being the "liberator" of all Greeks: his understanding of "everything West of the Euphrates" would almost certainly extend North, to include Kolkhis, which is still Persian on the given map. This being because he'd want the Greeks of the Pontic colonies to come under his aegis, too. Basically, he'd want the Black Sea to be a Greek lake. In the South, I can see him being interested in pushing along the Red Sea coasts. He'd certainly want the Sinaï under his control, but probably more: that end of the Indian Ocean trade would be important to him. The reason for that is not just wild ambition, but also a need for increased revenue. Without the Persian treasury under his control, he will have more trouble funding his planned campaign into the West.
That campaign does remain his goal: he wants at least all Greek colonies, and he wants to crush the Samnites in particular because they killed his name-sake uncle/brother-in-law. But in OTL, he had vast amounts of Persian gold. This allowed him to finance his campaigns while still dramatically lowering the tax burden put upon his new satrapies. As you can surely guess, this made him ultra-mega-super popular with the satraps. He really was seen as a liberator. If he has to hike taxes back up again, that effect is somewhat diminished.
For these multiple reasons, I can see Alexander undertaking several "Eastern" campaigns (to the North and South) first, all with the aim of getting more tax-paying provinces and more control of profitable trade. At the same time, he can build up defensive forces to prevent Persian attempts at re-conquest. Once that is done, he can go West. Considering how poorly the Carthaginians did against just the Greek cities on the island, I can see him kicking Carthage off Sicily for good, and taking all of Megale Hellas. He'll probably make a treaty with the fledgling regional power, Rome, to crush the Samnites together. ("We both hate those guys.") That'll probably be the extent of what he can achieve. (And by that point, I think the Persian threat of re-conquest would start to become pretty acute, so he'd have to head back East to... discourage that.)
In short, whereas Alexander's Empire would be an early ERE, he would in some ways resemble an early Justinian, in the extent of his conquests.
As far as rebellions are concerned: those were rare, and hardly a threat. Alexander was very popular, since his reign was a low-tax, hands-off one. In Antiquity, when you don't get any real amenities in return for taxation anyway (and it's more "pay or die"), that approach is one that tends to make your subjects prefer you to any viable alternative ruler. The only ones who structurally wanted Alexander gone were the city-state Greeks, who resented being ruled by a "Northern barbarian". And they only rebelled when they got the (false) report that he was dead. When he really died, they waited to make sure it was true. Even the most rebellious were scared of making Alexander angry.
According to Diodorus of Sicily, and translated by M.M. Austin, "It was intended to build 1,000 warships larger than triremes in Phoenicia, Syria, Cilicia and Cyprus for the expedition against the Carthaginians and the other inhabitants of the coastal area of Africa, Iberia and the neighboring coasts as far as Sicily; to build a coastal road in Africa as far as the Pillars of Heracles, and, as required by such a large expedition, to build harbors and shipyards at suitable places; "
Skallagrim
Banned
He indeed had such ambitions (although this has also been interpreted as a thousand ships in total, including the fleets he intended for the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, with "only" 500 intended for the Med -- and the other two getting 250 each, presumably). The staggering thing is that (the ecological consequences of cutting down a gazillion trees in order to build ships notwithstanding) this was actually an achievable goal in OTL. The vast mountain of gold that Alexander took from the Akhaimenid treasury was more than enough to pay for hijinks like this... several times over.
In an ATL where he doesn't get that huge treasury under his control, it's naturally a rather different story.
I believe he would be content with western, coastal part... actually, wasn´t Persian control over most of "Transcaucasia" at that time theoretical?
Skallagrim
Banned
Yes, the Western region, as seen here. It would just be a matter of ceding a fairly insubstantial Persian claim, so it wouldn't be an issue.
Made a map of my interpretations of Alexander's plans for future territorial conquests had he not died in 323 BCE:
<--Note that some areas may not have been included in his plans, but needed to make his empire one single piece
I think he wanted more of India as well, though realistically, he couldn't take too much.
[edit: that is a nicely made map though.]
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Skallagrim
Banned
I think that's a realistic interpretation, although the big omission is Arabia. He was literally planning to launch an expedition there when he died, so that would definitely have been included if he lived longer. Basically vassalisation of the entire Arabian coast, instead of just the North-West.
Something I'm a little surprised I haven't seen been brought up yet: Operation Unthinkable.
When the European theater of World War II was coming to a close, Winston Churchill wasn't ready for the conflict to end completely. In fact, he wanted to escalate in the face of what he saw as communism moving too far west. out of Europe and possibly destroy the nation as a power.
The goal was for the Allied forces in Europe- 64 American divisions, 35 British and Dominion divisions, 4 Polish divisions, and even 10 captured German Wehrmacht divisions- to take on the Red Army's 264 divisions across Germany and eastern Europe, including 36 armored divisions, and push them out of Europe entirely and possibly even to destroy the USSR as a power. Additionally, with the development of the atomic bombs, his hope was that nukes could be used as a threat or even actually dropping them on targets such as Moscow, Stalingrad, Kiev, and Sevastopol.
The problem was that the Soviets, thanks to spies in the Manhattan Project, knew that the Americans only had 2 nukes. Truman also had no interest in starting World War III immediately after World War II, so the plan was never carried out.
When the European theater of World War II was coming to a close, Winston Churchill wasn't ready for the conflict to end completely. In fact, he wanted to escalate in the face of what he saw as communism moving too far west. out of Europe and possibly destroy the nation as a power.
The goal was for the Allied forces in Europe- 64 American divisions, 35 British and Dominion divisions, 4 Polish divisions, and even 10 captured German Wehrmacht divisions- to take on the Red Army's 264 divisions across Germany and eastern Europe, including 36 armored divisions, and push them out of Europe entirely and possibly even to destroy the USSR as a power. Additionally, with the development of the atomic bombs, his hope was that nukes could be used as a threat or even actually dropping them on targets such as Moscow, Stalingrad, Kiev, and Sevastopol.
The problem was that the Soviets, thanks to spies in the Manhattan Project, knew that the Americans only had 2 nukes. Truman also had no interest in starting World War III immediately after World War II, so the plan was never carried out.
Didn't Unthinkable also make Churchill lose his job?
Two things to think about as potential ATLs:
1. Since Churchill hated communism, how about a world in which he hates communism enough that when he takes over as PM he immediately negotiates a ceasefire with Germany? That’s 1940, which gives a decent amount of time for both of them to redeploy before the Soviet advance next year (you know, roughly). It would also cause the US Congress to demand that lend-lease to the USSR be immediately stopped.
2. Because Patton felt exactly the same–and since Patton knew that he had been purposely sidelined and denied supplies to prevent his march toward Berlin before the Soviets–what if, in 1945 after Germany surrenders… Patton and Churchill “defect” and launch their own offensive on the USSR using units loyal to them? Basically that would be British forces (maybe hand over their portion of occupied Germany to France) and the US Third Army (and whatever other forces decide to “defect” after an ATL rousing speech by Patton. In that situation, too, could the US justify continuing lend-lease to the USSR? They could maybe try to push the “it’s an ally and it needs our help against these rogue elements” kick, but with Britain (or a part of them) and Patton being those “rogues,“ people would start to look into why they‘re doing this…