Which maritime republics besides Venice that could have survived

Venetian independence is a popular idea, since the republic is a favorite character of AH in general, but what about any other Italian city-states could have escaped being taken over by outside powers or being integrated into Italy? Genoa? Anyone else?
 
It is not Italian but Ragusa/Dubrovnik is a prime candidate.

And that's about it.

The advantage of Ragusa and Venice is that they were fairly defensible, geographically. The other city states simply were not - not against a great power, at least. And even Venice could not resist Napoleon.
 
If you kept France weak, especially in the south (perhaps a continuing semi-independent County of Toulouse) then Genoa could potentially carry on without fear of French attacks etc., leaving it bordered by fewer potential enemies.
 
The restoration of Genoa was suprisingly proposed at the Congress of Vienna with representatives of the republic being present. So if you manage to satisfy Sardinia-Piedmont without giving them Genoa (e.g. by giving them Corsica and a portion of Ticino) then maybe Genoa can live on for a few more years and thus, essentially, survive Venice.
 
The advantage of Ragusa and Venice is that they were fairly defensible, geographically. The other city states simply were not - not against a great power, at least. And even Venice could not resist Napoleon.

And yet Genoa lasted about as long as Venice...
 

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eh, longetivity wise, Venice outlived Genoa, but yeah.

Venice and Ragusa would've survived a lot longer, had Napoleon not destroyed the decrepit state in 1797, Genoa lasted 8 years after that, and Ragusa 3 years after that.

One way to go about this is for the French Revolutionary Wars to not be as successful as it did...maybe.

NordicBrit did give a good suggestion in keeping French authority weak, (to the point of a semi-independent County of Toulouse or even a fully independent County/Duchy/Kingdom of Occitannia, if possible), but there is still the possibility of a powerful Italian state (Sardinia-Piedmont in case one, Milan or possibly Savoy in Case Two) that would probably foil that plan.
 
The restoration of Genoa was suprisingly proposed at the Congress of Vienna with representatives of the republic being present. So if you manage to satisfy Sardinia-Piedmont without giving them Genoa (e.g. by giving them Corsica and a portion of Ticino) then maybe Genoa can live on for a few more years and thus, essentially, survive Venice.

This would be pretty interesting, simply because of how quickly there'd be revolutionaries on Corsica. I can see Corsican patriots and French reunifiers bumping elbows trying to fight the Savoyads in an expanded Revolutions of 1820.
 
I played a Revolutionary France nation simulation game last month. A bunch of Italian city-states declared war on us, but pointedly not the Republic of Venice. It was just a game but, I was hoping to write to Casanova to convince his city's government to stay neutral in a way favorable to us so the revolutionary armies wouldn't steamroll them on the way to Austria.

There's been a couple threads about this idea and basically, had Venice had better leadership prior to Napoleon's rise, perhaps they could have worked out some sort of arrangement.
 
Barcelona could be an option. I think you could also count cities like Hamburg, Lubeck, and Bremen as pretty important maritime republics. Amsterdam would be pretty viable as an independent republic. Antwerp could have been as well.

Other possibilities could be Gdansk, or maybe even Copenhagen could have been an interesting states. Montpelier could work as well.
 
I played a Revolutionary France nation simulation game last month. A bunch of Italian city-states declared war on us, but pointedly not the Republic of Venice. It was just a game but, I was hoping to write to Casanova to convince his city's government to stay neutral in a way favorable to us so the revolutionary armies wouldn't steamroll them on the way to Austria.

There's been a couple threads about this idea and basically, had Venice had better leadership prior to Napoleon's rise, perhaps they could have worked out some sort of arrangement.

Which game, If you don't mind me asking? That sounds cool.
 
If we're talking the Italian maritime republics, I don't actually see Venice as being in a great position. It's power/wealth and therefore it's ability to defend itself is based on it's trade. There's plenty of ways to cut off their ability to trade with the Near East, and considering that any PoD would probably be after the rise of the Ottomans and Enrique the Navigator, then the Portuguese will undercut Venice's trade with the East, the foundations of their wealth. Sure, Venice is in a good defensive position, but that won't last forever. Older fortresses will degrade and will be unable to counter emerging weapons technologies, and Venice won't have the money to upgrade them. Additionally, Venice is too-close-for-comfort to Austria, which was a major player in Northern Italy, and with their acquisition of Dalmatia, they can economically strangle Venice as the Venetians eventually grow unable to afford a powerful fleet. To be honest, it's amazing that Venice managed to tread water as long as it did.

Genoa too is in a similar position, it's Black Sea trade being cut off by the Ottomans, Tartars and later the Russians, while it's possessions in Greece are threatened by the Ottomans. The least vulnerable Italian city-states are in Central Italy, North of Latium and South of Lombardy, such as Pisa and Lucca. Pisa was snuffed out too early, but a Lucca that expanded and took Pisa would in effect be a maritime state. It isn't hard to butterfly away Napoleon, and therefore the events that led to the unification of Italy.
 
If we're talking the Italian maritime republics, I don't actually see Venice as being in a great position. It's power/wealth and therefore it's ability to defend itself is based on it's trade. There's plenty of ways to cut off their ability to trade with the Near East, and considering that any PoD would probably be after the rise of the Ottomans and Enrique the Navigator, then the Portuguese will undercut Venice's trade with the East, the foundations of their wealth. Sure, Venice is in a good defensive position, but that won't last forever. Older fortresses will degrade and will be unable to counter emerging weapons technologies, and Venice won't have the money to upgrade them. Additionally, Venice is too-close-for-comfort to Austria, which was a major player in Northern Italy, and with their acquisition of Dalmatia, they can economically strangle Venice as the Venetians eventually grow unable to afford a powerful fleet. To be honest, it's amazing that Venice managed to tread water as long as it did.

Genoa too is in a similar position, it's Black Sea trade being cut off by the Ottomans, Tartars and later the Russians, while it's possessions in Greece are threatened by the Ottomans. The least vulnerable Italian city-states are in Central Italy, North of Latium and South of Lombardy, such as Pisa and Lucca. Pisa was snuffed out too early, but a Lucca that expanded and took Pisa would in effect be a maritime state. It isn't hard to butterfly away Napoleon, and therefore the events that led to the unification of Italy.
So what if we have the Byzantine Empire survive?
 
So what if we have the Byzantine Empire survive?

I see the problem with this being that countries like Genoa and (especially) Venice depended on a very precarious balance. The Byzantine Empire had to be weak, but not too weak. It's often noted that Byzantine Christians often got on better with the Muslims than with the Latin Christians (Catholics), as the Catholics were very intolerant, and a lot of their experience with them was either crafty merchants from Italy or the Franks of the Fourth Crusade who sacked Constantinople (after sacking Zadar, which wasn't even schismatic).

If you have a strong Byzantium, it'll increase the fees for Italian merchants, cutting into their profits. If you have a Byzantium that's too weak, a worse alternative, the Ottomans, turn up. If you have Italian states occupy Greece (like after the Fourth Crusade), the cities become overstretched and lose money, as weel as having to put down revolts and have garrisons in Greece, making them vulnerable to any aggression coming from Anatolia. In short, I can't see the Italian maritime states staying dominant in the Mediterranean, although at least some of them could survive without Napoleon, IMO.
 
I see the problem with this being that countries like Genoa and (especially) Venice depended on a very precarious balance. The Byzantine Empire had to be weak, but not too weak. It's often noted that Byzantine Christians often got on better with the Muslims than with the Latin Christians (Catholics), as the Catholics were very intolerant, and a lot of their experience with them was either crafty merchants from Italy or the Franks of the Fourth Crusade who sacked Constantinople (after sacking Zadar, which wasn't even schismatic).

If you have a strong Byzantium, it'll increase the fees for Italian merchants, cutting into their profits. If you have a Byzantium that's too weak, a worse alternative, the Ottomans, turn up. If you have Italian states occupy Greece (like after the Fourth Crusade), the cities become overstretched and lose money, as weel as having to put down revolts and have garrisons in Greece, making them vulnerable to any aggression coming from Anatolia. In short, I can't see the Italian maritime states staying dominant in the Mediterranean, although at least some of them could survive without Napoleon, IMO.

So what if you have a Byzantine and Turkish Empire that just continually bash each other to bits (kinda like the Byzantines and Sassanids) but neither ever gains the upper hand?
 
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