European regions that just couldn't quite unify

Strategos' Risk

My apologies, but when I think about regions within the vaguely same cultural group unifying, I think of Europe, with the formation of Italy, Germany, and the stomping out of local linguistic groups in France and Spain in the 19th century. I'm sure other parts of the Old World (I don't really think this happens in the Americas) did the same, but I can't think of anything similar.

So I've been playing EUIII as that Mary Sue of alternate history, Venice. I know it's pretty ahistorical, but I've decided to pursue a strategy of colonizing some nice sugarcane islands in the Caribbean (as well as preemptively taking the isthmus), and now I'm embarking on a long-term mission to wrest the Suez area from the Mamluks. And I'm thinking- I have no desire to get involved in Italian affairs. I don't want to waste my army fighting against other Lombards; I can already dominate their trade anyway. If I export this to Victoria, I'm not even sure if I want to seek to join any form of Italian federation a few centuries down the line.

And I'm thinking- are there any cases in history where a similar cultural group didn't join up a nation that formed? And in what cases could a region easily have avoided joining such a nation? I'll give an example of each: Austria, despite being Germanic, didn't join Germany... okay I guess partly its modern status is due to the restrictions imposed after WWII. But still. And an ahistoric example: Bavaria and maybe the other southern kingdoms decide not to join Germany?

So can anyone think of any other close-run examples of a region that might not join a nation that formed?
 

Falastur

Strategos' Risk said:
And I'm thinking- are there any cases in history where a similar cultural group didn't join up a nation that formed? And in what cases could a region easily have avoided joining such a nation? I'll give an example of each: Austria, despite being Germanic, didn't join Germany...
Click to expand...

A better example would be Switzerland. A state technically a member of three different ethnicities on its borders, each one which (eventually) turned into a powerful unified nation-state, yet the Swiss remained resolute in their determination to have nothing to do with France, Germany or Italy.
 

pa_dutch

Bulgaria avoided ever becoming part of Yugoslavia, despite being South Slavic. One could argue that Bulgaria represents a separate, Eastern subdivision of the South Slavic languages and dialects that differentiates it from the groups that comprised former Yugoslavia, but Macedonian is closer to Bulgarian than to the other Yugoslav languages and dialects.

Moldova is another good example, having never been absorbed into Romania.

One could even make an argument for Portugal's separation from Spain. Compared to all of the various Romance linguistic communities that eventually ended up in Spain, Portuguese isn't that distinctive... Galician is closely related to Portuguese, and even standard Castilian Spanish is closer to Portuguese than it is to Catalan. Portugal easily could have gone the way of Leon or Aragon at various points in its history.
 

Strategos' Risk

pa_dutch said:
One could even make an argument for Portugal's separation from Spain. Compared to all of the various Romance linguistic communities that eventually ended up in Spain, Portuguese isn't that distinctive... Galician is closely related to Portuguese, and even standard Castilian Spanish is closer to Portuguese than it is to Catalan. Portugal easily could have gone the way of Leon or Aragon at various points in its history.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that was the source of my confusion in my thread asking "why didn't Portugal get absorbed alongside the other Iberian states?"

I wonder if an independent Venice would be analogous to Portugal. Seafarers that looked outwards rather than inwards.
 
iori

iori

pa_dutch said:
Moldova is another good example, having never been absorbed into Romania.
Click to expand...

Moldova, or more specifically, Bessarabia was part of Romania from 1918-1940.
The Princiaplity of Moldovia, which Bessarabia was the Eastern half until the early 19th century, joined with Wallachia to form Romania and has remained part of it since.

The only reason Bessarabia did'nt remain part of Romania is because the USSR never recognized it, and once Romania was under Soviet Domination, they stripped it from them and forced the Romanian government to recognize the change.
 
Last edited:

Yorel

There is Ireland. Northern Ireland is still part of the UK due to historical and religious reasons: however the Northern Irish are Irish in terms of ethnicy.

Scandinavia could count: the Nordic states shared a lot of common history and very similar cultures. However, save for the Kalmar Union, Scandinavia never unified.

The small states of Europe might also count: Andorra could be either French or Spanish (probably the latter), the Vatican & San Marino could be part of Italy, Lichtenstein of Austria and Monaco of France.

Falastur said:
A better example would be Switzerland. A state technically a member of three different ethnicities on its borders, each one which (eventually) turned into a powerful unified nation-state, yet the Swiss remained resolute in their determination to have nothing to do with France, Germany or Italy.
Click to expand...

In that case, there is also Belgium. The Walloons speak a dialect of French while Flemish is considered a Dutch dialect. And Historically, the region that is now Belgium shares a lot of History with both France and the Netherlands. But Belgium is not part of France nor of the Netherlands to this day.
 
SavoyTruffle

SavoyTruffle

pa_dutch said:
Bulgaria avoided ever becoming part of Yugoslavia, despite being South Slavic. One could argue that Bulgaria represents a separate, Eastern subdivision of the South Slavic languages and dialects that differentiates it from the groups that comprised former Yugoslavia, but Macedonian is closer to Bulgarian than to the other Yugoslav languages and dialects.

Moldova is another good example, having never been absorbed into Romania.

One could even make an argument for Portugal's separation from Spain. Compared to all of the various Romance linguistic communities that eventually ended up in Spain, Portuguese isn't that distinctive... Galician is closely related to Portuguese, and even standard Castilian Spanish is closer to Portuguese than it is to Catalan. Portugal easily could have gone the way of Leon or Aragon at various points in its history.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a quirk of Dynasty that Portugal is separated from Spain. Had it been Portugal that united with Castile rather than Aragon, things would have changed.
 
iori

iori

Yorel said:
There is Ireland. Northern Ireland is still part of the UK due to historical and religious reasons: however the Northern Irish are Irish in terms of ethnicy.
Click to expand...

Ireland has been Unified in the past, so I'm not sure that'd count.


The small states of Europe might also count: Andorra could be either French or Spanish (probably the latter),
Click to expand...

Considering Andorra speaks Catalan, I suppose it'd be Spain, though I think it'd be more of a case of having never fully unified with the Catalan Nation as well.
 
SavoyTruffle

SavoyTruffle

Iori said:
Ireland has been Unified in the past, so I'm not sure that'd count.




Considering Andorra speaks Catalan, I suppose it'd be Spain, though I think it'd be more of a case of having never fully unified with the Catalan Nation as well.
Click to expand...

Well, geography maybe the reason why the Occitan-Catalan sphere didn't unite.
 

Photovoltaic Array

wolf_brother said:
Which also goes a long way toward explaining why Switzerland managed to stay united instead of being absorbed by France, Italy, and Germany/Austria.
Click to expand...

Hitler wanted to invade and eventually annex the country for racial/imperial reasons ("Operation Tannenbaum") but attacking and holding down such a mountainous country would be costly, so he basically saved it for later. OTOH he was willing to give up the Italian parts to Mussolini when that happened. Otherwise taking away Switzerland is tough in general.

Aragon/Catalonia need not join Castile, as has been noted. Germany could have been kept dismembered, especially after the world wars, but more easily if Austria won against Prussia in their disputes. (Although there would be no state core of "Germany".) Italy and Yugoslavaia getting what they did were hardly forgone conclusions in unification.

I'm actually shocked united Scandinavia didn't form OTL, in all honesty.
 

The Uchronian

France + Germany = Mortal enemies in 2 world wars, and cultural rivals for far longer. The French get along better with the Brits than they do with the Germans.

Germany + Italy = Despite the Axis Alliance in WWII, these two countries are just too culturally different to be really unifiable.

Russia + Sweden = You would think, based on popular belief, that these two nations would easily unify. They most certainly would not. Russia is Orthodox and Sweden Lutheran for starters. Both countries may have shared some commonalities in their first years, but have since grown apart.
 

Atomicwalrus

Strategos' Risk said:
My apologies, but when I think about regions within the vaguely same cultural group unifying, I think of Europe, with the formation of Italy, Germany, and the stomping out of local linguistic groups in France and Spain in the 19th century. I'm sure other parts of the Old World (I don't really think this happens in the Americas) did the same, but I can't think of anything similar.

So I've been playing EUIII as that Mary Sue of alternate history, Venice. I know it's pretty ahistorical, but I've decided to pursue a strategy of colonizing some nice sugarcane islands in the Caribbean (as well as preemptively taking the isthmus), and now I'm embarking on a long-term mission to wrest the Suez area from the Mamluks. And I'm thinking- I have no desire to get involved in Italian affairs. I don't want to waste my army fighting against other Lombards; I can already dominate their trade anyway. If I export this to Victoria, I'm not even sure if I want to seek to join any form of Italian federation a few centuries down the line.

And I'm thinking- are there any cases in history where a similar cultural group didn't join up a nation that formed? And in what cases could a region easily have avoided joining such a nation? I'll give an example of each: Austria, despite being Germanic, didn't join Germany... okay I guess partly its modern status is due to the restrictions imposed after WWII. But still. And an ahistoric example: Bavaria and maybe the other southern kingdoms decide not to join Germany?

So can anyone think of any other close-run examples of a region that might not join a nation that formed?
Click to expand...

Wait I think were missing the most important thing you can export your game from EU3 to Victoria :D
 

HeWhoIsMe

Banned
Cyprus would be another such case. Even if geographically it doesn't count as a European region, it's an EU member so that settles this.

I don't know who they'd aspire to join with though. Turkey or Greece. In OTL, for instance, they'd probably choose neither! :D
 
iori

iori

HeWhoIsMe said:
Cyprus would be another such case. Even if geographically it doesn't count as a European region, it's an EU member so that settles this.

I don't know who they'd aspire to join with though. Turkey or Greece. In OTL, for instance, they'd probably choose neither! :D
Click to expand...

Cyprus is sort of like Switzerland, historically it was pretty close to being evenly split between Orthodox and Muslim populations, it was'nt until the 1920's that the Muslim population began leaving.
 

Uff Da the optimist

Donor
I think perhaps with the case of Scandinavia never unifying for long or very well, maybe it was because there was never any need to? At first you had three kingdoms which were very independent, then the black plauge killed off all nobility in Norway(making them subject to Denmark), but you still have Sweden and Denmark with strong nobility and will to govern themselves.

I think if maybe a stronger power close to Scandinavia attempted to spread their reign og outright conquer them, they might have banded together for survival. Not to mention that England, Holland and other trade powers were quite content with Denmark and Sweden staying on their respective sides of The Sound, not being able to extract a toll on baltic trade.

Why exactly didn't Portugal get absorbed with the rest of the Iberian kingdoms though? They weren't much different in terms of having a slightly different language than Castille, Aragon and Catalonia?
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
We have today Russia, Belarus and Uraine, even though one can argue it had to do with how the USSR arranged it's territory into different Soviet Republics. Still they are East Slavic and three different countries.

Also, the Czechs and Slovaks had a union that was broken. And of course Yugoslavia was a union that fell apart. However these examples are all post 1900.

Then we have the fact that the Dutch are split in the Flemish in Belgium and the other Dutch in the Netherlands. Of course Belgium and Netherlands were united into one nation in the early 1900s.

Luxemburg is interesting, since it could have culturally been a part of both France and Germany, but if the Belgians hadn't broke apart from the Netherlands it would probably still be Dutch. Also there was talk after WW1 about unifying Luxemburg with Belgium. (unified Benelux is underrated, need more TLs).

I could see the Sicilies as an ATL outsider of an Italian Union. I could also see Burgundy (the duchy and the free county) as well as Brittany ending up outside France if things had gone slightly different. An interesting alternate union would be one with Bohemia and Poland, kind of creating a West Slavic Monarchy. Navarra could possibly with luck and strong allies (preferably France) stay outside Spain.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top