MotF 100: The Centenary

The map entry. $@#! the upload limitations if there's DeviantArt.

Spain remained a republic after the proclamation of the First Republic in 1873, and soon fell upon harsher times than OTL. Cuba was granted to the United States with barely a fight, and the Spaniards could not stop machete-armed Filipinos from declaring the independence of the Republic of the Philippines and Guam. Puerto Rico became a Colombian Associated State after pressure by the world powers in 1901.

Economic growth was fast in the 1920s, but never recovered from a stock crash in 1927 and wars in the European continent, which devastated Spain. Seeing that Spain's aggressive policies got them in the wars, the border provinces of Navarre and Catalonia rebelled and won their independence, beating Spain in a humilliating treaty that also forced to give them Aragón north of the Ebro as a "condominium" between the three nations.

This map deals with the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Spanish Republic, celebrated in 1973, and its aftermath. The demolition of the Royal Palace by extremist republicans during the celebrations of the 100th anniversary were enough for royalists living both inside and outside of Spain, and they rallied behind three main parties for the restoration of the Monarchy. These were the Phalanx for People's Union (Falange por la Unión Popular) in the right, the Union, Progress and Democracy (Unión, Progreso y Democracia) in the left and the Convergence and Union (Convergencia y Unión) party in the radical centre. These three parties, however, became progressively more and more radical in terms of the Republicanism issue, becoming very violent.

In February 11 of 1973, bombs hit the Republican Palace in Madrid, as well as the house of prominent retired general and Monarchist Francisco Franco. With the President dead and one of the chief leaders of the Phalanx gravely injured, much of the population was up in arms. General protests began by Monarchists in Oviedo and Gijón, before spreading throughout much of the west and south of the nation. Communists also began arming up trouble in the more urbanised nations, as did Catalan and Aragonese nationalists in Saragossa, Valencia and Alicante.

This was a poster by the Spanish Monarchists, before push truly came to shove, before it was certain that the riots would result in the bloody Spanish Civil War of 1974-1982.



(Here's the version translated to English: )

New Zealand is colonised early and split between the UK and France.

Portuguese Republic

On April 12, 1961, the Confederate government decided, under pressure from organisations foreign and domestic, to hold a referendum over countersecession back to the Union.

Below is the UN-estimated, unbiased, vote map. The Confederate Government itself is all-but-known to have massively doctored the results, resulting in the official count, which only released KY, TN, and VA.

This map is from the same TLverse as the last several of my entries;

1515: Swiss forces win a costly, but decisive victory at Marignano, driving the French from the field. Francis I, newly King of France, barely escapes with his life and shortly afterwards abandons his Venetian allies and relinquishes control of Milan, for the moment, to Maximilian Sforza and his Papal-Swiss backers. A minor preacher from Glarus ascribes the victory to the ferocity of Cardinal-Bishop Schreider.

The years pass. In Italy the Swiss see temporary loss of Milan to France of the Habsburgs, but when the Italian Wars finally end in 1559, it is the Sforzas and their Swiss backers who retain control of the Duchy, albeit reduced in size. Short time has the ducal family to enjoy this, dying out in 1573, and the succeeding Republic would eventually become the Confederacy's 14th Canton.

Yet it is the internal situation that changes the most. From the north and from Geneva comes the protestant reformation, sweeping through Mulhouse, Neuchatel, Solothurn, Basel, Schaffhausen, the Thurgau, St. Gallen, Appenzell and into the Three Leagues. Zürich wavers, but with Zwingli preaching loyalty to the pope in Glarus narrowly resolves to remain Catholic, Bern, a late adopted in any case, decides to do the same. Yet having rejected the Reformation the Catholic church would not remain entirely unreformed in Switzerland. Already stripped of much political power within the cantons, now further was the clergy made beholden to the state though judicial and financial control, those few Ecclesiastical Princes remaining either ceding what little power they had left to the local villages as in Sion, or being dependent enough on Swiss arms for maintained authority to be subservient. Thus the Counter-Reformation proceeds apace, albeit for a particularly national church.

This TL's Kappelskrieg occurs later, begun in 1537 other disputes in the Thurgau, but after defeats at the hands of Zurich and Bern, the protestant cantons conceded defeat, and in the Landfriede of 1538 it is resolved that the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio be implemented in the Confederacy. Foreign policy, with 9 votes to 4 and both Zurich and Bern among the nine, would be dominated by the Catholic cantons, and crucially would be unified to a far greater extent than was witnessed in OTL.

Not all would be satisfactory from this, with Geneva under Calvin and the Principality of Neuchatel departing from their close association with the Swiss, albeit sometime allies still, due to religious concerns. Yet when this TL's equivalent of the 30 Year's War breaks out, the new situation pays dividends. Instead of sitting paralysed while France, Austria and Spain alike lay ravage to the valleys of the Three Leagues, it is into further Austria, much lately annexed by Vienna as spoils from the Schmalkaldic War, that Switzerland advances, allied with France to fight the ancient enemy of the Cantons. At the peace of 1632, Mulhouse is joined by land to Basel through cessation of much of the Sundgau, while the loss of other lands pushes Austria fully 'cross the Rhine and, after agreements with several Free Cities, near master of Lake Constance.

Thus after a century of internal religious peace, the securement of likewise external gain, and this happy Eidgenossenschaft dost rule, from Rottweil to the Po, and from Pays de Gex to the Vinschgau.

And the page stretchy map.

PROVINCIAS UNIDAS DEL RÍO DE LA PLATA
In 1910, The United Provinces celebrates its 100th anniversary. The country is, by far, the most prosperous and developed of all Latin America. The 100 years of independence have been, as the slogan goes: ‘100 years of prosperity, 100 years of progress’. But they certainly have not been 100 years of peace.

On May 25th 1810, the Junta Provisional Gubernativa de las Provincias del Río de la Plata took control of the entire Rio de la Plata viceroyalty. However, there were Deep divisions between the rioplatense rebels between Unitarians (Buenos Aires) and federalists (Liga Federal, Banda Oriental) that would lead to infighting among themselves and weaken them against the powerful Brazilian menace.

TTL, the Argentinians build a small fleet capable of avoiding the major effects of the Brazilian blockade, with resulting better logistics and morale that allow them to defeat the invaders, the peace result is that Brazil recognises the Provincias Unidas’ territories of Misiones Orientales and especially Uruguay.
After the war however, problems appear between the elected Rivadavia, a progressive leader but centralists and the powerful federalist caudillos, who will, after a brief civil war claim victory and their principles shall be upheld in the 1830 Constitution, with division of powers and decentralised government. Consolidation ensues.

Paraguay meanwhile remains independent from Buenos Aires, if claimed by it, but when Doctor Francia dies in 1840, anarchy ensues because of the personalisation of his regime and Río de la Plata pushes for the country to join the federation by less than peaceful means. The decision to join of Asunción will cause a brief war with Brazil. Argentina wins very narrowly and some concessions are made to Brazil, such as border rectification in the Banda Oriental and access to riverine trade in the Paraná.

From those times, the only expansion has been southwards, with the Conquista del Desierto and the war against the savage mapuches in a competition to outdo Chile in the race towards Tierra del Fuego. A treaty shall be signed in 1876 to the effect of legally assigning the territory to both countries.

The last 3 decades have been pretty damn good for Río de La Plata, the economy has grown steadily, the political system seems to work and its prosperity keeps bring in new (European) immigrants to work in the new factories and especially to toll the land.



Big version: here

100 years of FIFA World Cup

My entry... A bit of a hurry, so forgive me a wrongly coloured island or something.

This is a map issued to the 100th anniversary of the FIFA World Cup! And the World Cup took interesting turns from now to 2030:

In 2014, on July 13, a strong site of the Netherlands won their first World Cup ever, and the final opponent was... Belgium. Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, France, and especially Spain (home after the group stage!) all rather disappointed. Okay, France went to the semifinals, and Brazil and Argentina were in the quarterfinals, but there were surprising upsets in the 1/8-final. For example, when Ivory Coast defeated Italy with 9-8 after penalty shootout, or also (a bit) when Belgium won against Germany 1-0. Ivory Coast became the first African nation to go to the semifinals after the aforementioned victory against Italy and another victory against Chile 3-1.

Then, the Russian Civil War broke out when Vladimir Putin mysteriously died (officially of "natural causes" and a "sudden heart attack", but most suspect something else to be behind it) on October 8, 2014. Different factions of the KGB, the military, the CPR of Dmitriy Zyuganov, and separatists of different nations ran amok. FIFA knew it had to reissue the 2018 World Cup. And, instead of taking one of the bidders who lost (e.g. Netherlands/Belgium) Blatter totally reopened the bidding. Was he coaxed/bribed into it? Nobody knows, as the archives of FIFA are still secret...

Anyway, a new bidding process opened. Australia bid, as did the USA and Egypt. But there was once again a surprise: A joint bid of Poland, Czech Rep. and Slovakia was not only issued, but then got the World Cup. They requested, and got, help from NATO and the EU in security questions, but staged a brilliant World Cup, in which Poland won against Germany in the final 2-1 a.e.t., showing that the generation of Lewandowski, Piszczek, Wolski et al. were even better than Boniek, Lato, et al. in the 70s. Third place was for Belgium, and the fourth was, to some people's surprise, Senegal. The second-ever joint-hosted World Cup went off without a hitch (okay, the usual small problems with a few violent "fans" or so, but nothing major) and brought FIFA to officially declare that joint bids will, from now on, be just as much considered as single bids. In Poland, Czechia and Slovakia, there was another surprise: African debutants Mali who nobody could really judge (and the opinion of whom was mostly negative) was drawn into Group H with France, Costa Rica and the People's Republic of China (who surprisingly qualified instead of South Korea) and exited the group stage. Even in the 1/8-finals against Group G strongmen of Germany, Mali gave the Germans a real run for their money and Germany needed extra time to defeat Mali 1-0 (Goal: Palacios-Martinez 107.) Burkina Faso was last in Group C, with only one point, but they also showed at least some competitiveness (so they were no Zaire 1974)

The 2020 joint UEFA European Championship hosting was a full success, too, with Germany winning 3-1 against France in the finals. Everybody on the continent was enthused about the European Championship, and it spurred the economies of most host countries at least to some extent. And the 2020 FIFA Congress, in the eyes of most football fans finally, deposed Sepp Blatter in favour of applauded UEFA President Michel Platini.

The Qatar World Cup had been in the news since it's being given to this small, but insanely rich and insanely hot, Middle Eastern country. However, the Russian Civil War had turned attention abruptly away from Qatar. Yes, there were issues at several points, and the Qatar World Cup was the first one to be held in winter. But the World Cup itself was very good, notable for not being too hot (nor too cool), and for not suffering from any protests or anything. Despite this sucess (in which Nigeria was the first African team to win the World Cup), due to criticism from UEFA's clubs and leagues which had to massively mingle with the seasons, it was decided to not hold another World Cup in winter. The debuts of Guinea and Ethiopia took place in this cup, and Guinea wasn't even that bad. The cup was expanded to 48 teams for the 2026 edition.

In 2018, and to everybody's surprise, the Indian bid for the 2026 tournament was approved making the 2022 and 2026 editions the first two to be held in the same, non-European, continent and within the same federation. India was, by all spectators and predictions, expected to do very badly in the group, and this prediction was still kept up when Ecuador and the newbies of Armenia and Gambia were drawn into Group A. Most people didn't think India was going to get a single point, and there were even some exaggerated "predictions" about things like three wins of 8 goals and more difference. However, India proved all of them wrong. The first, and opening, game of the 2026 World Cup was India vs. Gambia. And a certain, 19-year-old and hithertho unknown Narendra K. Elango playing the "true 9" (which had seen a massive renaissance since the 2014 cup and the misfortune of teams which used a false 9) scored twice to give India a 2-0 victory. The second game against Ecuador was lost narrowly 1-2, with the goal by Juan Hernando Ramos being scored in the 87th minute, and the last game went against Armenia. At first, it looked like a defeat was in the cards (Sargsyan 3., Tavserkian 21.), but then, Elango struck again and equalised before half-time (28., 40.). After half-time, Elango scored three more goals (47., 68., 81.) and forcing Khatisyan to score an own goal (74.) making it 6-2 and him getting hailed as the "second Eusebio" in remembrance to Portugal vs. North Korea sixty years earlier.
In the 1/8-finals, India had to play the strongmen of Group B, the French. And the French had to work hard: Despite Raphael Varane (now a experienced defender of 31 years) being tasked with guarding Elango, the latter scored first in the 31st minute. Only in the last minutes could Sow and Benzia secure the 2-1 win. Elango then changed first to FC Liverpool, but could not fulfil the high expectations linked with the vast sum of 83 million €, nevertheless after several matches and a further transfer to RB Leipzig for a much lower sum of 40 million €, he had quite a successful career and played a big part in the successes of Leipzig.
The other positive surprise of this World Cup was Senegal, a team built around Diawandou Diagne and striker Amadou Hamid Sy, who changed to Real Madrid for 64 million just after the World Cup. After this Cup, it was decided due to more competitiveness being seen to expand the Cup to 64 teams, as the 48-team system proved bad to handle. The 2026 edition was also the greatest success so far for the USA, which came in as runners-up.

For the centenary, FIFA president Michel Platini wanted to do something very special. And he wanted to bring the World Cup back to Europe. And so he did: A 64-team cup needed many more stadia and cities, and so FIFA decided to have a complete joint UEFA bid. Of course, countries like Luxembourg and Monaco didn't in the end host any games, but still, any country that could and wanted to (several nations declined, e.g. Montenegro, Macedonia, but also Norway and most notably Armenia) hosted at least one match. And this World Cup, too, was a full success, however, it was a very conservative World Cup as there were no debutants for the first time since 2010(?) and most lower-ranked countries went out in the group stage. It was also won, fittingly for the centenary, by England, the "motherland of soccer". Nobody was qualified as host for this World Cup, so that everybody, including the World Champion and all potential hosts, had to play qualification. This led to several of the hosts, notably Greece, Hungary, and Latvia, not being qualiied. Nevertheless, such continental/regional bids are now seen as a veritable possibility.

Everybody is looking forward to the 2034 World Cup which is going to be hosted in the USA!

1914- Franz Ferdinand assassinated, Austria-Hungary annexes Serbia.
1916- German supported Mexico founded, north becomes Greater Sonoran Republic.
1917- Anarchist movement gains support.
1919- Russia and Japan invade China after Russian diplomat killed and Japanese join in, citing an alliance.
1920- Republicans smash Democrats in election. Nicholas M Butler of New York wins.
1921- Andrew McCain, an anarchist, shoots Nicholas M Butler in Chicago. McCain is gunned down by police.
1924- Nicholas II assassinated by Anarcho-Nihilist in St. Petersburg. Beginning of Russian Civil War or Nihilist Revolution. His son, Alexei, becomes head of Royalist Forces.
1925- The Ottoman Empire, in the midst of consolidating, sells a lot of land to Britain.
1926- German Chancellor killed by Anarchist in Berlin.
1927- Russian Civil War ends with establishment of Greater Anarchist Union and the rump Tsardom under Alexei in the east.
1931- Frederick Lugard, Governor of Nigeria gunned down by Muslim who wants independence. It prompts vast resources devoted to clearing British colonies of rebels.
1935- Bulgaria invades the Ottoman Empire, but is defeated.
1937- Bulgaria falls to Anarchist rebels and goes into the GAU sphere.
1937- Ireland becomes a Dominon. An insurgency begins in the north.
1939- The Irish Question is solved when Ireland is divided into rule between the Catholic and Protestant districts, each under a separate administration.
1940- Austrian Noble Heinrich Schronerer is killed in Pristana by a Serbian nationalist. The wars of Austrian Dissolution begin.
1945- Germany begins supplying Austria with troops.
1949- Germany annexes what is left of the German part of Austria-Hungary, leaving behind a lot of new states.
1953- Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia is assassinated by an anarchist. He is linked to Russia, possibly correctly. Germany invades as a complete surprise a few days later. France declares war on Germany in support of Russia.
1955- As Germany advances, they discover mass graves of Jews and other groups disliked by the anarchist government. The French switch sides.
1957- Peace is made with the Germans getting some land.
1958- An semi-independent Jewish homeland is carved out of Alaska.
1959- The Raj is made independent under a cadet branch of House Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The first atomic bomb, a German one, is tested in the Arctic Ocean.
1961- US President Mills Godwin Jr., a segregationist from Virginia, is assassinated in Boston by some crazy guy. His older progressive vice-president, also a Democrat, takes over. Southerners are unhappy.
1963- The states of Hawaii and the Philippines are admitted to the Union.
1965- The Sino-Japanese War occurs again.
1969- Japan finishes carving up China, a US puppet, the United States of China, comes into existance.
1969- The French institute a Dominion, in the form of the West African Federation.
1970- Socialist Party head Wolfgang Beyer is assassinated. Brief civil war breaks out.
1971- The Federation of Arabia is formed.
1972- Federation of Egypt and the Sudan (Nile Federation) founded.
1973- British governor Harry Haig of Ireland, a Protestant, is shot by a Catholic triggering the Irish civil war.
1977- War breaks out in Britain after Socialists rise up.
1979- The Romanian King is assassinated. The Russians quickly move in and annex the place.
1980- The British Peoples Republic is declared. The monarchs are killed, though some of the Royal Family flees to the South American colonies. The new independent African nations are unstable, and south africa is now under the rule of an Afrikaner government.
1988- A St. Thomas Christian shoots the Hindu Emperor of India. Massacres follow.
1989- US purchases Greenland.
1991- Germany annexes Poland.
1992- Chairman Jim Olmstead of Britian is shot in what is widely belived to be a German attempt. Britain attacks Germany, and Germany faces a war on two fronts with the Russians joining in.
1996- Iraq is given independence.
1997- The Germans defeat their enemies. In Britain, the brother of the Emperor of India, Naresh Edward is put into power, while the Sternberg King of Mongolia is made Emperor of Russia, which pisses off the Americans who have the Romanov Emperor in their sphere.
2010- The US knocks off President Carlos Alvares of Mexico and invades in the name of "peace-keeping", making the place a US protectorate.
2011- The Caucasusian Federation collapses.
2012- Iosef Arakelyan, Nobel Peace Prize winning President of Armenia is shot by an Azerbaijani.

I hope I am allowed to post this, too, as an extra addendum to my above map and description...