Map Thread XX
- Thread starter Balkanized U.S.A
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Some crossposting from my new TL (A redux of a previous one, if that can be considered new). Context here.
Deleted member 6086
Those are pretty much the OTL 1885-1912 borders, absent the bit of Dobrudja in Romania.
Not really. Still larger than the 1885 borders.
The border is essentially at the hills between the Arda and Maritsa, then the Rhodopes, and then the Pirin.
Let's stop tossing around insults, 'kay?
Scenario of an alt-Europe by 1850 where the Congress of Vienna had a different result and thus the continent evolved differently:
In this scenario, the main (but not only) difference compared to IOTL is that the UK promoted a stronger and expanded United Kingdom of the Netherlands, including the Rhineland, Nassau and French Flanders. Instead of a 'neutral' state, this UKN was a sort of British client state in the continent; in compensation for this changes, Prussia kept some of their former Polish territories acquired in 1795 (including Warsaw) and absorbed the Thuringian states; the Austrian Empire absorbed most of German-speaking Switzerland (which was not restored), Milan, Venice, Modena and Modena; and Hannover received Westphalia and other minor German states.
France contested this balance in the 1830s, so the British and the German states launched the occupation of all the French territory east of the Meuse river, as a buffer military territory. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands suffered a big anti-British riot in 1839 which deposed the Oranges as kings, being replaced by another more pro-German dynasty which engaged in the creation of the 'Germanic Commonwealth', a sort of super-Zollverein between the continental (West) Germanic states which also included the Polish, Hungarian, Italian and other non-Germanic territories ruled by the Germanic dynasties.
The Ottoman Empire managed to keep its integrity thanks in part to a more isolationist policy of the Russian Empire, which focused more in its Asian expansion (threatening British India) rather than in the Balkan affairs.
In this scenario, the main (but not only) difference compared to IOTL is that the UK promoted a stronger and expanded United Kingdom of the Netherlands, including the Rhineland, Nassau and French Flanders. Instead of a 'neutral' state, this UKN was a sort of British client state in the continent; in compensation for this changes, Prussia kept some of their former Polish territories acquired in 1795 (including Warsaw) and absorbed the Thuringian states; the Austrian Empire absorbed most of German-speaking Switzerland (which was not restored), Milan, Venice, Modena and Modena; and Hannover received Westphalia and other minor German states.
France contested this balance in the 1830s, so the British and the German states launched the occupation of all the French territory east of the Meuse river, as a buffer military territory. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands suffered a big anti-British riot in 1839 which deposed the Oranges as kings, being replaced by another more pro-German dynasty which engaged in the creation of the 'Germanic Commonwealth', a sort of super-Zollverein between the continental (West) Germanic states which also included the Polish, Hungarian, Italian and other non-Germanic territories ruled by the Germanic dynasties.
The Ottoman Empire managed to keep its integrity thanks in part to a more isolationist policy of the Russian Empire, which focused more in its Asian expansion (threatening British India) rather than in the Balkan affairs.
Xpost - my attempt at a 'realistic-ish' Sealion and to imitate the style of those old WW2 frontline maps. It was surprisingly easy to get information on where units were stationed in England and where they were supposed to land - for those who are interested in doing something like this, Wikipedia has shockingly detailed orders of battle for a whole range of conflicts.
Few would dispute that 1940 was the darkest year in the history of the British Isles. After the stunningly fast defeat of its continental allies in the summer of 1940 and the encirclement and near-total destruction of the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk, Britain soon found itself under siege by sea and air. Disaster after disaster at Scapa Flow, Narvik, Calabria, and Mers-el-Kebir robbed the Royal Navy of its substantial numerical advantage over the combined Axis fleets, while the utter defeat of the Royal Air Force left England defenseless against German strategic and tactical bombing. With total air supremacy, the substantially-smaller Kriegsmarine nevertheless successfully wrested control of the English Channel from the battered Royal Navy over the late summer and early autumn.
On September 22, 1940, the German 9th and 16th Armies under the command of Field Marshal Rundstedt landed in Kent between Folkestone and Seaford, marking the first successful foreign invasion of the British Isles since 1066. Simultaneously, an airborne assault on the inland part of Kent cut off roads to the peninsula, preventing Home Army's Eastern Command from responding in time to meet the invaders on the beach. Within days, the Germans successfully seized the ports of Dover and Portsmouth, opening the way for armored divisions to be brought in, against which the relatively lightly-armed Home Army had little defense. By early October, the Germans had landed 6th Army in Lyme Bay and pushed west to the Bristol Channel, cutting off most of the Southern Command from the bulk of the British forces in the north, and had crossed the Thames east of London. Over the next few days, German forces would encircle London, forcing the British government to flee north, and cut the Eastern Command in two by pushing north to the Fens and seizing a bridgehead over the Ouse.
Despite these early successes, the Ouse would be the high water mark of the invasion and of Nazi Germany's hitherto-unstoppable advance through Western Europe. Starting in mid-October, worsening weather weakened the advantage provided by German air superiority and broke the back of the already thinly-stretched logistical chain. Even in the last week of September, when cross-channel shipping was at its peak, the Germans were able to import an average of only 6,000 tons of supplies daily - less than 75% of the rule-of-thumb needs for frontline combat for the 25 divisions deployed to the island by that point. By the second week of October, as the weather turned and the number of attacks on convoys increased, this number had fallen to 4,500 tons. By October 25, the Royal Navy - by then reinforced by squadrons from the Mediterranean and Far East - began to recontest control over the Channel, leading the OKH to conclude it was no longer possible to support the invasion. After a substantial delay to convince Hitler of the need to abort the invasion, German forces were officially ordered to begin evacuating the island on November 16, and by December 9 the last surviving German forces had departed. Despite his early opposition to Sealion on practical grounds, Field Marshal Rundstedt was scapegoated for the failure of the invasion and was removed as commander of Army Group A. However, he was reinstated in advance of the invasion of the Soviet Union and served until the end of the war.
The costs of the failed invasion were enormous for Germany. Between ordinary losses of the campaign, 5 divisions near-totally encircled by British forces during the evacuation, and the substantial number of casualties sustained from sunken transports in the Channel, Germany and its allies lost over 200,000 veterans of its earlier campaigns - more than it had sustained in successfully seizing France and the Low Countries in the spring. To make matters worse, even those formations which successfully evacuated were forced to leave their heavy equipment behind. For instance, 15th Corps' 7th Panzer Division lost over 70% of its tanks in its hasty retreat via Portsmouth. These losses - especially of trained veterans and aircraft - crippled the Wehrmacht's future campaigns. Some historians speculate that Germany could have defeated the Soviet Union had Hitler heeded the advice of his generals and canceled the operation in early September.
Nevertheless, despite their victory, the invasion also posed a substantial setback to the Allies. Much of Britain's most industrially-developed regions sustained serious damage during the bombing campaign, occupation, and requisitioning by supply-starved German forces. The GDP of war-torn Surrey County, which saw fierce fighting both during the initial encirclement of London and as the Germans attempted to cover their evacuation, did not recover to pre-war levels until the 1970s. The diversion of colonial forces and naval assets to reinforce the Home Army also weakened the Commonwealth armies in North Africa, arguably leading to subsequent defeats at El Alamein and Alexandria. Some British historians claim the invasion dealt the killing blow to the British Empire, and suggest that Britain could have played the role of a 'third superpower' in the postwar era had it been prevented. Although the occupation was short enough to spare Britain the mass horrors experienced by the civilian population of continental Europe, 3,500 people, including Jews and prominent opponents of the Nazis, were arrested and deported to concentration camps in Germany. Only 800 survived the war.
General Brooke, who commanded the Home Army during the campaign, is now considered one of the greatest generals in British history for his successful defense of the island. Notably, his choice to redesign the defense plan to integrate a mobile reserve rather than a static defense is often credited by military historians as a key factor which allowed the Home Army to quickly build a defensive line to prevent the Germans from moving further north. After the threat to the Home Islands passed, Brooke was appointed Commander in Chief of the Middle East Command, where he oversaw the liberation of Egypt, advance into Libya, and initial landings in southern Italy. New scholarship has begun to challenge the popular memory of Brooke as a brilliant and honorable general, as historians began to question whether he was partially responsible for the encirclement of V Corps at Southampton, and recently-unearthed documents revealed Brooke favored the heavy use of chemical weapons in the defense, even in heavily-populated areas, only to be overruled by Churchill.
At the time, the invasion of England was the largest amphibious and airborne assault in human history. The Allies would use lessons learned by British forces during the defense of Britain to plan the 1944 Pas de Calais landings.
Or maybe we simply understand the difference between persistent food scarcity in a subsistence agrarian society due to cyclical drought and subsequent famines under the Soviets that killed more people then their worst Tsarist counterpart by factors of roughly ten and twenty and which were deliberately aggravated in areas inhabited by minorities.
Kick
There was nothing deliberately caused there, and even more so in areas populated by minorities. Russians suffered from famine in 1932-1933 no less than others. As for intentionality - idiocy and stupid decisions are not always made intentionally. And during collectivization in USSR, there many stupid decisions were made.
A user I know was temporarily banned for getting the Holodomor numbers wrong (it was an accident and it could be reversed for them)
To attempt to coax this thread back on topic, here's an old map from about 6 months ago that I'll probably never complete:
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According to a 2003 Joint Statement from 25 countries, INCLUDING the Russian Republic:
If it's good enough for the Russian and U.S. governments to agree on something this major, its good enough for me.
Kicked for a week for whitewashing/minimization of Crimes Against Humanity
While I love a big Netherlands, nationalistic revivals in will make that Germanic Confederation very ugly.
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