The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1750 AD was a weak state. It had been for awhile. It was kind of a de facto puppet state of Russia's as well. It was subject to heavy foreign influence in general. It had weak executive powers.
But it had existed for quite awhile, nearly a century since being severely weakened by the events of the Chmielnicki uprising and the multiple invasions of the Potop or Deluge.
Certainly, weak states in Europe, and elsewhere, have live surprisingly long lives at times, protected simply by custom inertia, or whatever international equilibria or balance of power supports them.
As of 1750, what were the multiversal odds of the Polish-Lithuanian state being totally eliminated through a series of partitions, over the course of the next century, by 1850? As it happened, in TL we live in, it all happened by 1795, in a space of 45 years. But did weakness and debility such as it was in 1750 have to mean extinction in the near or long-term?
If you find the term multiversal odds confusing, I'll give a simple translation, if you were an ASB who were given the the universe as it existed in OTL 1750 and got 100 copies of this universe to play with, and simply let these 100 copies randomly play out, each in their own way, in how many of them, by 1850, would have a Polish-Lithuanian independent state still existing, and how many would we not?
But it had existed for quite awhile, nearly a century since being severely weakened by the events of the Chmielnicki uprising and the multiple invasions of the Potop or Deluge.
Certainly, weak states in Europe, and elsewhere, have live surprisingly long lives at times, protected simply by custom inertia, or whatever international equilibria or balance of power supports them.
As of 1750, what were the multiversal odds of the Polish-Lithuanian state being totally eliminated through a series of partitions, over the course of the next century, by 1850? As it happened, in TL we live in, it all happened by 1795, in a space of 45 years. But did weakness and debility such as it was in 1750 have to mean extinction in the near or long-term?
If you find the term multiversal odds confusing, I'll give a simple translation, if you were an ASB who were given the the universe as it existed in OTL 1750 and got 100 copies of this universe to play with, and simply let these 100 copies randomly play out, each in their own way, in how many of them, by 1850, would have a Polish-Lithuanian independent state still existing, and how many would we not?
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