They were fascists, not communists. And the very extreme end of Irish nationalism.
Although speaking of which I think they did want to bring back the four traditional kingdoms and abolish the county system (seeing as it was English-imposed).
AHC: Newly built capital city in Europe?
- Thread starter Mister Mister
- Start date
Although speaking of which I think they did want to bring back the four traditional kingdoms and abolish the county system (seeing as it was English-imposed).
Federations and confederations tend to build new capitals to avoid one partner of the union being more powerful than another. Often the compromise is to locate it near the centre of the country or to have it be between two major cities. Ottawa is between Toronto and Montreal for instance and Canberra is between Melbourne and Sydney. If a country transitions into a federal government the same thing might occur. More recently new capitals have been built to ease congestion in already overpopulated cities, like Cairo or Jakarta. Or perhaps a city is constructed as an administrative centre for the European Union rather than Brussels such as Strasbourg or even Luxemburg. Brussels itself was kind of an example of the first process as well, being between Bonn, London, Amsterdam, and Paris as well as being a large city itself. I don't know much about Yugoslavian history but a new capital might work in an urbanizing national. Likewise a federal United Kingdom might select a new capital.
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I'm now imagining a Karlmarxgrad as the new capital of the USSR.
Rieti as the alternate Italian capital, with the eponymous province as the metropolitan (albeit small-scale) region.
This is true, but after the Zuiderzee in the Netherlands was turned into the IJsselmeer by building the Afsluitdijk, after that the Noord-Oost polder and Fleovland were reclaimed from the sea. In 1986 they became the 12th province of the Netherlands, almost completely consisting of reclaimed land (two former islands in the IJsselmeer, Urk and Schokland, were incorporated in the Noord-Oostpolder). Today Almere is on of the largest cities in the Netherlands, even though it's only established in 1976. Other cities in the province, like its capital Lelystad, Dronten and Emmeloord were established in the 1960s. So with a newly build province, we're already half way there.
I don't immediately see how one of those cities becomes the capital of the country, but the Netherlands already has the somewhat unique situation of having a capital, Amsterdam, which is not the seat of the government, that's The Hague. I don't think a worse WW2 will do it. Even if The Hague or Amsterdam are completely flattened, there's to much history there for not to rebuild it. Maybe a worse storm in 1953 will do it, flooding more parts of Zuid- and Noord-Holland leading to Amsterdam and/or The Hague being abandoned, while Flevoland survives and government takes its seat there. But such a storm might be ASB, and Flevoland not the obvious choice (there wasn't much there yet).
A few years ago there was a miniseries "Als de dijken breken" which had the premise of a bigger storm than the 1953 one hitting modernday Netherlands, leading to a big part of the country being flooded (and a part of Belgium too). A modernday storm, or in the 90s, might do it.
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True story: Bonn was made the FRG capital for literally no other reason than shortening Adenauer's commute.
Anyways, Bonn is a Frankencity. Half of it is like its sister city Oxford, the other half is like Brasilia. The core of Bonn was there before 1949, it was a quaint university town which the WAllies didn't even bother to bomb. Well, and then it suddenly became the West German capital. They wedged a government quarter into the 2km of open land between pre-war Bonn and Godesberg, and since this wasn't enough for the defense department they also razed the Eifel woods to old Bonn's southwest, resulting in the Hardtberg borough. All of this is still there, because "we'll scrap tens of thousands of jobs for literally no reason except continuity to Berlin as the pre-1933 capital" was a hard sell to the Bonn populace. But as a student to Bonn University, all of this was very far away.
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I've always personally liked the idea of a cross-channel capital city halfway between London and Paris in an alternate timeline where a Franco-British Union comes into existence in say, 1948. ATL's capital probably encompasses Amiens, Berck, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Dieppe, Dover, Folkestone, Le Touquet, Pas-de-Calais, and Rang-du-Fliers.
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These were already before 20th century and there question is about post-1900 potential built capitals.
But I don't think this being very plausible. Europe is pretty urbanised and full of cities so it is quiet needless to build new one. And many are already pretty old capitals and no reason to move. Even if capital is destroyed at war, it just would be reconstructed. And if old one is on some reason good enough it just would be moved to another city.
Only scenatios what I could imaginate are:
1. Soviet Union reforms as Eurasian Federation and decides that Moscow can't be capital since it is already capital of Russia. So it is decided that there will be new one. Altough even in such case it is probably just in another already existing city.
2. Future history but federalised EU might build new capital but even for this it is more plausible that it is just moved from Brussels, probably to Strasbourg.
3. Requires pre-1900 POD but united Scandinavia might has another capital instead Stockholm, Copenhagen or Oslo. But even in this case more plausible is that some already existing city close of border regions of Sweden, Denmark and Norway is picked as new capital, probably Gothenburg.
- A new city is built on the tripoint of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia, either during the first or second Yugoslavia
- At some point during the Weimar republic, the government decides to emphasise its discontinuity with the Prussian past and builds a replacement capital city somewhere in central Germany (somewhere in Hesse or Thuringia I suppose)
- A Soviet Union that wants to show how it's something new by building its own capital
- At some point during the Weimar republic, the government decides to emphasise its discontinuity with the Prussian past and builds a replacement capital city somewhere in central Germany (somewhere in Hesse or Thuringia I suppose)
- A Soviet Union that wants to show how it's something new by building its own capital
Doesn't Karlsruhe count? It was established as a capital that was built as a planned city.