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  1. Rubber as part of the Columbian exchange/early rubber boom

    Did any Spanish conquistador remark on the water-resistant quality of the clothing during the conquest of Mesoamerica? Pedro de Alvarado, given the rather large number of Aztec auxiliaries under his command during the subjugation of Guatemala, would seem to be the natural candidate for that. I'm...

  2. WI Napoléon II: Bourbon Hostage?

    Leopold the 1st of Belgium? I'm kind of impressed that (if the rumor was true) Josephine "still had it."

  3. US Balkanization- Long Term Russian Hyperpower

    Mexico's ability to project power into its northern territories was always flimsy, as was its willingness to invest in them--hence the Californios actually being somewhat open to US annexation by the 1840s simply because Mexico City was very remote from them. New Orleans, being downstream of...

  4. Post 1905 Sanity Options For Czarist Russia

    There's a difference between promoting pogroms and speculating about whether they'd be amorally effective in achieving a certain goal. For example, one can say that, if the USSR had reorganized itself as a unitary (rather than federal) state and ethnically cleansed the Baltic countries, Ukraine...

  5. WI: Atomic Bombing on German cities?

    IIRC, from other times this has been discussed, the answer tends to be "Yes, but it would have a hard time escaping the blast." (EDIT: Though I wonder if you could address that problem by putting a parachute on the bomb itself, as was done for the Tsar Bomba test, to delay the blast and let the...

  6. US Balkanization- Long Term Russian Hyperpower

    Wouldn't a balkanized US in the 1780s/1790s just get reabsorbed by Britain, if not outright politically than economically subjugated? New England drifting into trade and military agreements with the mother country, the rest becoming economically dominated like Latin America became? Louisiana...

  7. WI: Atomic Bombing on German cities?

    The early Cold War will certainly look a lot different if the taboo looks different. The obvious change is that the US Army and Navy might not be drawn down as much as IOTL--leaving them more ready to react in Korea. But that assumes the late 1940s progress in a recognizable way, which they...

  8. Post 1905 Sanity Options For Czarist Russia

    ...but they were already doing that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hundreds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bia%C5%82ystok_pogrom

  9. WI: Atomic Bombing on German cities?

    The US actually decided to make Japan the primary target for the bomb as early as 1943--the stated justification being that they'd be less likely to be able to reverse engineer a dud. The fact that the US didn't bother constructing B-29 airfields in the ETO helps support the idea that, by 1944...

  10. WI: rice and rubber became cultivated in the Mediterrranean and Europe starting from Roman times?

    I'm not sure you could get a donkey to not swallow it, or to bother chewing it at all if it doesn't eat it. With that said, maybe some kind of press or mill could be developed?

  11. WI: rice and rubber became cultivated in the Mediterrranean and Europe starting from Roman times?

    Rice cultivation in Spain got off the ground thanks to the Moors, but it depended on the introduction of extensive irrigation and drainage systems (one historian called that the "Syrianization" of Spain). Similarly in Sicily, before it made the jump to mainland Italy. Could you have the Romans...

  12. Joint Crusade/Jihad against an non Abrahamic/Anti-Abrahamic threat?

    Frederick Barbarossa might be the most plausible candidate, actually, given his bad relations with the Papacy--though it's hard to imagine a scenario where he doesn't patch things up with Rome if there's a prominent Jihad against him. Central Asian steppe peoples are unlikely, though. The...

  13. WI: All-Russian nation includes Poland instead of Ukraine

    I think you'd need a 1650s POD to achieve this--during the Swedish Deluge, have the Tsar decide turnabout is fair play and attempt the same maneuver the Polish Vasas had tried in 1610 in Moscow--push an army to Warsaw, proclaim himself King of Poland while the Commonwealth is in disarray due to...

  14. Varna Crusade Victorious: The Second Coming of the Conquest Armies.

    The Council of Florence in 1439 resulted in a Papal Bull, endorsed by the representatives of the east, uniting the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Emperor, and the Metropolitan of Kyiv with Rome. While this agreement was more or less ignored by most Orthodox Christians (and explicitly rejected...

  15. What if Napoleon tried to conquer the Barbary states instead of Egypt?

    Yes, that was a common thing the Arabs did with French soldiers they captured. Between that and torture of the prisoners and other culture shocks, Napoleon seemed to find Egypt rather disturbing compared to France and Italy. Britain has the naval presence to enforce a presence in Algeria and...

  16. What if Napoleon tried to conquer the Barbary states instead of Egypt?

    Given his interests at the time, he'd probably find some way to turn that into a Corsica-wank. "Islands are naturally-suited as the centers of trade empires, so the victorious Hannibal would relocate the capitol of his country to Ajaccio..."

  17. What if Napoleon tried to conquer the Barbary states instead of Egypt?

    With a POD this early in his career, it's hard to say. The French historian Bainville characterizes the whole Napoleonic War as over Belgium, and so long as the Republic was unwilling to yield it, Britain would keep organizing coalitions against it. If you subscribe to that interpretation...

  18. What if Napoleon tried to conquer the Barbary states instead of Egypt?

    That is a valid point--the though the British would not quite take over for a few years yet. A French conquest of North Africa, followed by a stronger implementation of the Parthenopean Republic and a Republic in Sicily (Magnagraecian? Syracusan? to follow the naming scheme), would seem to be a...

  19. Varna Crusade Victorious: The Second Coming of the Conquest Armies.

    Honestly, Wladek going with this choice isn't the worst idea. As King of Poland-Lithuania, he already rules over a large Orthodox population he might be disinclined to antagonize, and after the first big Hussite War and the ongoing struggles with the Teutonic Knights, the last thing...

  20. What if Napoleon tried to conquer the Barbary states instead of Egypt?

    Napoleon's objective was, in theory, to push on to India and make contact with Indian princes fighting the British. Algeria and Tunisia are a dead end from that perspective, except as stepping stones to Egypt (as Malta was). Once you take them, there's no "and then what?" except maybe Gibraltar?
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