Quasi-War V: "The Interlude"

It's hard to imagine a WWI there.

After all, Austrian Empire is broken up, so no more Austrian-Russian rivalry in Balkans.
Even German-Russian rivalry would likely be by proxy, and besides ATL, for 80 years Balkans remained calm (if I remember well). Once the Ottomans were destroyed, neither Austria nor Russia nor France nor local nations stirred conflicts.
Prussia can't start anything serious on her own.
Russia has no reason to start anything in Europe, since she only has small states (no threat) on her border and already has broadly what she wants in Balkan. She grumbled a bit about dissolution of Austrian Empire but now it's done.

UK and France are getting cozy, German Confederation has friendly relations with everyone, and smaller powers can't do anything alone.

It's also likely UK stopped (finally) to harass Ireland, no ? After all, they were busy rebuilding both country, army and navy, and then with all overseas conflicts (Boers, Egypt and so on). So harassing Ireland over old grievances is probably starting to look ridiculous now (if it's continued). Especially as UK seems to get cozy with France, if they do that surely they can forgive Ireland.

Egypt was humiliated but I can't see Egyptians trying their luck against French AND British (and likely Ethiopians and Arameans too), even less being an actual threat there. I can see a long-standing alliance between Aramea and Ethiopia though since both have Egypt on their direct border and might not want to count too much on Brits and French.

Ottoman Empire-Egypt conflict (about caliphate) is now settled and Egypt is even coopted once again by Ottomans.

In Africa, France has no reason to try to go further and is getting cozy with UK (and has already good relations with USA), Egypt has her own problems, and southern Africa is either British, Anglo-US or promised to be Anglo-US (or Portuguese). So maybe small conflicts if Sierra Leone wants to actually conquer the unexplored zone (but the general mood isn't very colonialist so probably not).

Boers probably won't try anything while isolated, and after all they did get their independence.

At most we have :
tensions between China and White powers. After all, Europeans might support quietly Nippon rebels and publicly condemn Chinese atrocities in Nippon. Plus Russia or her vassals control Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Northern Manchuria. And hardline Chinese nationalists likely want to see Indochina free from French and paying tribute again.

But then Vietnamese hate Chinese probably as much as (if not more than) whites, and Chinese know it. Plus UK, France, USA and Russia ganging up on China might be too much. So not very likely that China does something incredibly stupid, but not impossible either.

Some wars in South America. Maybe between Brazils and/or Argentina, Peru and Chile, Argentina and Chile.

Italy wanting unification.

Spain going all irredentist about Catalonia and Basque lands (if I remember well France made them independent ? or outright annexed them ?). But only if they are INCREDIBLY stupid.

Prussia trying to actually conquer Germany. That would last five minutes though.

Troubles in Low Countries maybe. But France should more or less have quelled them for now (or maybe not really).

Non-Russian provinces wanting independence. In fact if THAT happens I can see the Chinese trying their luck at retaking lost provinces.

A Persian War of Independence maybe, too.

Or troubles in Mughal India (but it seemed fairly calm, understandable as any division could be used by the British to take revenge).

The only thing that could truly spur a big-scale war would be European non-Russian subjects rebelling against the Czar, followed by North Persia doing the same (and inevitable spread to South Persia), and China looking northwards. And Ottoman Empire trying to retake Trebizond and maybe even Transcaucasia.

And/or a war between Aramea-Ethiopia alliance and Egypt (and maybe Ottoman Empire). With Kurdistan and Mesopotamia vilayets aligning on Aramea (because they know the Porte resents their independence).

While at the same time Prussia, Italy and Spain start conflicts, and a South American war happens.

There it'd be global, but that'd be tricky. Even then, probably no major war in Europe.
 
I would think the Xhosa would be settled in British Cape Colony. The Zulus are heading the other way.

As for Prussia, I suspect that it would be Bismarck whom would have to mastermind that. Note that they'd spent years undermining the Confederation so I'm not sure how eager any of the members would be to opening the door, not to mention the neighboring nations with German minorities.

There would be some mistrust, but a new king could convince Europe that Prussia doesn't mean any harm. He could point to Rudolf as an example of a monarch who did a 180 from his predecessors' policies. Besides, if the Confederation actually does unify into a nation, the French will have to worry about their minorities acting up anyway. No German nation is going to be able to ignore minorities of its ethnicity essentially on their border. While Austria may be a moderating force (unlikely as I don't see the Austrians giving up their empire so easily. Here they're just trading a Balkan one for a German one), there will be tensions between France and Germany due to France owning German populated lands and France being suspicious of a strong unified state on their eastern border. Think about it. Even during the Napoleonic Wars, France was separated from its dangerous enemies by either land or sea. A German nation would plop a rival right on their border rather than across the Channel or other nations.
 
It's hard to imagine a WWI there.

After all, Austrian Empire is broken up, so no more Austrian-Russian rivalry in Balkans.
Even German-Russian rivalry would likely be by proxy, and besides ATL, for 80 years Balkans remained calm (if I remember well). Once the Ottomans were destroyed, neither Austria nor Russia nor France nor local nations stirred conflicts.
Prussia can't start anything serious on her own.
Russia has no reason to start anything in Europe, since she only has small states (no threat) on her border and already has broadly what she wants in Balkan. She grumbled a bit about dissolution of Austrian Empire but now it's done.

UK and France are getting cozy, German Confederation has friendly relations with everyone, and smaller powers can't do anything alone.

It's also likely UK stopped (finally) to harass Ireland, no ? After all, they were busy rebuilding both country, army and navy, and then with all overseas conflicts (Boers, Egypt and so on). So harassing Ireland over old grievances is probably starting to look ridiculous now (if it's continued). Especially as UK seems to get cozy with France, if they do that surely they can forgive Ireland.

Egypt was humiliated but I can't see Egyptians trying their luck against French AND British (and likely Ethiopians and Arameans too), even less being an actual threat there. I can see a long-standing alliance between Aramea and Ethiopia though since both have Egypt on their direct border and might not want to count too much on Brits and French.

Ottoman Empire-Egypt conflict (about caliphate) is now settled and Egypt is even coopted once again by Ottomans.

In Africa, France has no reason to try to go further and is getting cozy with UK (and has already good relations with USA), Egypt has her own problems, and southern Africa is either British, Anglo-US or promised to be Anglo-US (or Portuguese). So maybe small conflicts if Sierra Leone wants to actually conquer the unexplored zone (but the general mood isn't very colonialist so probably not).

Boers probably won't try anything while isolated, and after all they did get their independence.

At most we have :
tensions between China and White powers. After all, Europeans might support quietly Nippon rebels and publicly condemn Chinese atrocities in Nippon. Plus Russia or her vassals control Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Northern Manchuria. And hardline Chinese nationalists likely want to see Indochina free from French and paying tribute again.

But then Vietnamese hate Chinese probably as much as (if not more than) whites, and Chinese know it. Plus UK, France, USA and Russia ganging up on China might be too much. So not very likely that China does something incredibly stupid, but not impossible either.

Some wars in South America. Maybe between Brazils and/or Argentina, Peru and Chile, Argentina and Chile.

Italy wanting unification.

Spain going all irredentist about Catalonia and Basque lands (if I remember well France made them independent ? or outright annexed them ?). But only if they are INCREDIBLY stupid.

Prussia trying to actually conquer Germany. That would last five minutes though.

Troubles in Low Countries maybe. But France should more or less have quelled them for now (or maybe not really).

Non-Russian provinces wanting independence. In fact if THAT happens I can see the Chinese trying their luck at retaking lost provinces.

A Persian War of Independence maybe, too.

Or troubles in Mughal India (but it seemed fairly calm, understandable as any division could be used by the British to take revenge).

The only thing that could truly spur a big-scale war would be European non-Russian subjects rebelling against the Czar, followed by North Persia doing the same (and inevitable spread to South Persia), and China looking northwards. And Ottoman Empire trying to retake Trebizond and maybe even Transcaucasia.

And/or a war between Aramea-Ethiopia alliance and Egypt (and maybe Ottoman Empire). With Kurdistan and Mesopotamia vilayets aligning on Aramea (because they know the Porte resents their independence).

While at the same time Prussia, Italy and Spain start conflicts, and a South American war happens.

There it'd be global, but that'd be tricky. Even then, probably no major war in Europe.

Yeah, I may have painted myself into a corner on this one. In the end, it will be the ethnic issues that drive unrest.

Even with a moderately more reform-minded Russia, there will be ethnic unrest.

The Dutch-Flemings, Walloons, Germans (of many nations), Piedmontese, etc will all be churning as well.

This would also be a likely time that any lingering ethnic issues in the Balkans related to territory (note the assorted Balkan Wars of 1810 to 1813) might spring up with Austria-Hungary gone and Russia in revolution.

There is always the China issue, which may do something to bring these nations together.

In that scenaria
 
There would be some mistrust, but a new king could convince Europe that Prussia doesn't mean any harm. He could point to Rudolf as an example of a monarch who did a 180 from his predecessors' policies. Besides, if the Confederation actually does unify into a nation, the French will have to worry about their minorities acting up anyway. No German nation is going to be able to ignore minorities of its ethnicity essentially on their border. While Austria may be a moderating force (unlikely as I don't see the Austrians giving up their empire so easily. Here they're just trading a Balkan one for a German one), there will be tensions between France and Germany due to France owning German populated lands and France being suspicious of a strong unified state on their eastern border. Think about it. Even during the Napoleonic Wars, France was separated from its dangerous enemies by either land or sea. A German nation would plop a rival right on their border rather than across the Channel or other nations.

Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to play this.

You have a German Emperor whom is erratic to say the least. He may try to conquer Prussia, for all we know. I'm not sure if a more closely-united Confederation would be attractive to the Prussia King if he will always be second banana to the Emperor of the Germans. He may decide to capitalize on the weakness of Confederation and try allying with various parties.

Weird alliances happen in war. Why else would Britain, France and Russia ever be allies in OTL?

From the French standpoint, in 1880 France may have been happy to substitute a mildly-closely-held Confederation under the Emperor's brother-in-law for the destruction of Austria-Hungary, their ancient enemy.

By 1900, that situation may change if the Germans decided they too (like the Prussians) want a united Germany of all Germans (French, Denmark, Poland, Bohemia, etc). Emperor Louis XVII may regret his decision.
 
Well, actually a united Germany may want to free Germans in French Empire, Denmark, Poland and Bohemia, and maybe even Lithuania.

Of course Germans may also resent being the ones without a colonial empire (left behind French, Brits and Americans, and even IBERIANS).

Plus as you said Walloons, Flemings and Dutch wanting their independence back, Italian unification activists (who will oppose BOTH Italian states and France in Piedmont).

There is also Finland that may want to split from Sweden (or not, I don't know that much about Finnish identity emergence), especially if Russia crumbles (and Finns decide they don't need Sweden as a shield anymore), and of course Norway from Denmark

If ALL possible issues (Scandinavia, Balkan, Iberia vs France, Italy, Germany, Russian European conquests, Ottoman Empire and Egypt vs Europe Armaea and Ethiopia, Persia, UK vs India, China, Japan, South America) boil enough it could lead to a world war yes.
 
Well, actually a united Germany may want to free Germans in French Empire, Denmark, Poland and Bohemia, and maybe even Lithuania.

Of course Germans may also resent being the ones without a colonial empire (left behind French, Brits and Americans, and even IBERIANS).

Plus as you said Walloons, Flemings and Dutch wanting their independence back, Italian unification activists (who will oppose BOTH Italian states and France in Piedmont).

There is also Finland that may want to split from Sweden (or not, I don't know that much about Finnish identity emergence), especially if Russia crumbles (and Finns decide they don't need Sweden as a shield anymore), and of course Norway from Denmark

If ALL possible issues (Scandinavia, Balkan, Iberia vs France, Italy, Germany, Russian European conquests, Ottoman Empire and Egypt vs Europe Armaea and Ethiopia, Persia, UK vs India, China, Japan, South America) boil enough it could lead to a world war yes.

yeah, with nationalism you can never tell where the cards are going to fall. Allies become enemies, enemies allies.

I suspect in 1880 many people would be glad to see the end of Austria but Germany may prove a bigger threat long term, especially under an intelligent but erratic ruler like Rudolf.

You are right, I didn't mention issues like Japan, Scandanavian (Finland, Norway and the German areas of Schleswig-Holstein), Persia, etc.

There are also the great political revolutions of the time, like the rise of Marxism in Russia in the days before WWI. It is possible that, with moderate more liberalization, Russia's upcoming internal strife may not be as bad (with Czarevich Nicholas surviving and Russia being spared Alexander III).
 
If Germans really badly want a colonial empire, of course, they have more leeway than OTL (on paper), since there are more non-colonized countries.

Africa is a no-go except for Ethiopia (except if the anti-Egypt alliance deepens and Ethiopia gets actual Anglo-French defensive alliance), South America is a no-go because of the USA (stronger than OTL), but there are probably some scraps in Oceania, islands useless to everyone else (sure they would be useless to Germans too but prestige issues).

And then there is Asia. India for starters (I could see Germans actually buying the BEIC and Madras, and maybe try to expand in India next), and I don't exactly remember who colonized what about Burma, Siam, Malaya/Brunei/Singapour, Indonesia, Papua-New Guinea, but I suspect there is still some lands to take.

Of course, India and Ethiopia (esp India) would also be tough nuts to crack (if not impossible).
 
Here is the updated Asian Map for Quasi-War in 1880.

Map of Asia - 1881 - Quasi-War Timeline.png
 
OK so I was wrong.
Technically Germans could only go for India, Burma, Ethiopia, South American countries (if they accept a possible war with the US), Boer nation. Or steal or buy French or British (or maybe Iberian) colonies.

Tough to expand for them. And even if colonialism is less trendy and more difficult, some Germans will resent for sure the fact they have nothing while even Iberia has a colonial empire, and UK France and Russia have big ones (and the US a small one).
With thoughts like "other European powers, esp. France, kept us down and disunited for a century while they won the colonial race".

That plus German minorities in France Denmark Poland and Bohemia. A perfect recipe for Germans to feel like the oppressed or proleterian nation and fall to fascist-like ideologies.
 
With all the renewed friendship between France and Britain, I'm surprised they don't start a coalition to attack China and restore Japan as a counterweight in the region.
 
OK so I was wrong.
Technically Germans could only go for India, Burma, Ethiopia, South American countries (if they accept a possible war with the US), Boer nation. Or steal or buy French or British (or maybe Iberian) colonies.

Tough to expand for them. And even if colonialism is less trendy and more difficult, some Germans will resent for sure the fact they have nothing while even Iberia has a colonial empire, and UK France and Russia have big ones (and the US a small one).
With thoughts like "other European powers, esp. France, kept us down and disunited for a century while they won the colonial race".

That plus German minorities in France Denmark Poland and Bohemia. A perfect recipe for Germans to feel like the oppressed or proleterian nation and fall to fascist-like ideologies.

Remember that the most profitable former colonies (the Americas, most of India, for all intents and purposes China) had ejected their former colonizers. The ones that are left aren't the crème of the crop nor overly profitable. It could be argued most aren't worth the cost of their upkeep.

The lightly populated lands have been populated by the British (Australia, etc). The rest have been widely accepted as being independent and probably have learned to play one advanced European nation against the others diplomatically, thus insuring independence. I think ,in this environment, any attempt to blatantly conquer, say, Siam, would be resisted by all other powers, not just one or two.

Also recall that this German Confederation is largely landlocked at this point. They have to accept Prussia or overrun some of French Germany to even have access to decent harbors. Then they have to learn to be a naval nation, which would take time. I would think even if Germany was united in 1880 to 1900, it would take half a century for them to challenge Britain, France, Russia and the US on the seas.
 
With all the renewed friendship between France and Britain, I'm surprised they don't start a coalition to attack China and restore Japan as a counterweight in the region.

After getting violently kicked out 20 years earlier, they probably know that China is no longer a pushover.

And the French and British relationship would likely take years to gel before they could seriously consider an expedition of that magnitude.

Basically, to challenge China by 1900, I think there would have to be a WWI and WWII type alliance system of Britain, France, Russia and the US to be able to win such a war unless their aims were limited to Honshu. If these nations are busy with a European, African, etc war, I doubt even this would be a possibility. It all kind of depends on the Chinese attention span to develop technologically and if they could manage a OTL Japan-style rapid industrialization.
 
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