Alternate History Thread II...

I don't know. Until I decide to switch. The planned Mongol and Mayan timelines both look interesting, but not interesting enough to abandon this...

Das, if you can, put the trade centers on the map.

Will do, Your Cone-headity (if that's annoying, tell me. But NK has had to live through worse, I think...).

OOC: Continuing the beloved, but somewhat misnamed Shahrbaraz timeline.

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Aye. How about the After Romes Timeline (because you destroyed the Byzantine Empire AND the Papal States - you're really lucky Xen doesn't visit here very often now )?

and gathered on their side the Sultanate of Aquitane

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Not sure about that... Aquitaine seems a pretty natural enemy of the Idrisids. Although there is some short-term benefit here, ofcourse. Will we see a war between the Muslim powers of the West?

make up for this by campaigning northward, against the Moravians and Khazars,

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Where exactly? Not sure if these Bulgars have any borders with Khazaria at all, unless they invade Crimea... Btw, what about the OTHER Bulgars?

Anyway, do continue maestro!

1756-1769.

The remainders of the 1750s and most of the 1760s went by in something shockingly similar to peace, in Europe anyway. Apart from some revolts in France and some strife between Bulgaria and Macedonia, all the wars of the time were colonial ones, or mere border incidents. This gives us a good opportunity to assess the situation as a whole as of then.

The United Kingdom of Britain and Holland was arguably the world's strongest power, and, unarguably, one of the two strongest ones, together with the Kingdom of Spain. However, the 1750s were to be the last time these two would be the ONLY great powers with major overseas colonies. In 1759, Pierre Renard, a French emigre in the Tsar's service, has sailed across the Hyperborean Strait (OTL Bering Strait) and claimed the land on its other side, Alaska, in the name of the Tsar and the Russian government. And six years later, the most ambitious project in the history of the Most Serene Republic has, with generous funding and assistance from the Egyptians who were increasingly becoming Venetian puppets, was finished. The Francesco Grandi Canal, named after the present Doge Francesco Arlusconi who indeed came to be known as "the Great", and quite deservedly at that, was opened. Venice has gained access into the Red Sea; in 1767, Yemen fell to an expeditionary forces, and the Emperor of Ethiopia, using the British distraction elsewhere, signed a much-advertised treaty of friendship with Venice. British leaders at first considered taking punitive action, but this was quickly dismissed - the Spanish were quick to point out that the British signed no treaty with Venice defining the Horn of Africa as a British sphere, so quick that the British realized that very possibly the two Catholic countries would easily find a common language, and instead agreed, magnaminously, to modify the Treaty of Lisbon, including Venice in it with a sphere of influence in the Horn of Africa and Arabia, and the northwestern India where the Venetians were quick to set themselves up in spite of it then being a Spanish sphere; that was a deliberate ploy to play the Spanish and the Venetians off against each other, ofcourse. But regardless, Venice still was much weaker than the other two superpowers, and the bi-polar world continued to exist.

In 1758, in the boldly-declared "city" of Rouge (OTL Winnipeg), an assembly of the leaders of the Metis clans, French refugees (although to be honest most of those were also Metis, only less assimilated culturally) and several Amerind tribes has created the Rouge Confederacy, which encompassed a pretty large, but sparsely-populated area to the northwest from the Great Lakes. The Rougeans have immediately signed an alliance with a Spanish ambassador who just happened to be there at the moment of the creation of this Confederacy. This new state, often reffered to as the Metis Confederacy, has immediately made life worse for the British fur traders, especially the ones that by some horrible, completely unintended accident winded up in the "Spanish" sphere; aside from that, they also created quite serious competition. And in the meantime, despite the warm climate, furs became quite popular among the Spanish elite...

By this time, the Spanish have already established control over the entirety Mississippi, apart from the British eastern bank ofcourse. Much of South America was also consolidated by the Spaniards.

Back in Europe, both Britain and Spain were developing peacefully. King Felipe V of the latter has institued numerous "enlightened" reforms and generally encouraged the arts and sciences, the late reign of his father Jose and much of his own reign were in fact known as the Spanish Renaissance. The Spanish Inquisition, which was being weakened and restrained over time since the coming of Jose I, was finally disbanded, official discrimination against Moriscos and Marranos has ended and the already semi-autonomous province of Portugal was made officially bi-lingual and allowed to incoporate Brazil as well; this was done to quiet down the dissent there, lest the British use the Brazilians against Spain come next war.

The cripple-state of France was barely standing together, and Anglo-Spanish forces had to be commited all too often to keep the monarchy alive. One king, Louis XVIII, has tried to reconcile with the radical circles and adopt liberal "conditions" (as in, the Conditions that are in the basis of the United Kingdom), but, alas, fell out of his window before he could get the process going. His son has interpreted this omen well and decided to forget about his ambitions of independence for... ever.

The Burgundian-dominated German Empire existed, and existed quietly and peacefully. The people were simply too tired of warring. But the nobles, especially the former Electors, never tired of intrigue; plots were prepared to end Emperor Philip. Unfortunately, Emperor Philip was prepared to end plots, and end them he did, by one way or another. Friedrich Wilhelm II of Brandenburg, however, never tired. His realm was the least threatened of all the German realms by Burgundy, and he already received some assurances of one or another form of assistance by Poland. Philip I had no proof of that particular conspiracy, but was pretty sure that he could not count on Brandeburg if war came. In 1762, a secret agreement between Burgundy-Bavaria and Russia was reached. Poland was a mutual threat, and the two agreed to cooperate. Burgundian specialists and advisors were sent to modernize the Russian army, and the Russians promised to support Burgundy-Bavaria if it is attacked by Poland. The waiting begun. In the meantime, Philip found another ally - the Esterhazies of Hungary and Macedonia were increasingly alienated from Poland, and seeked to dominate the non-Venetian Balkans themselves. The Sobieskys and Friedrich Wilhelm II found another ally for themselves - Sweden (to which the Poles returned Gotland) - but to that, Philip had already found an antidote by the name of Denmark-Norway, the Danes didn't wish for any sort of Swedish strenghthening in Germany.

In Italy, as elsewhere, Venice grew stronger and stronger. Savoy-Provence, Papal States and Spain aside, the Venetian money, soldiers and "agents" dominated Italy, bringing power over it to Venice; but it was clear that the Venetians would not advance further in Italy, not any time soon anyway, as Spain has allied with the Papal States officially and as Venice concentrated on consolidating its Balkan gains.

Meanwhile, in the Balkans themselves, Selim III plotted his revenge (albeit his capital Ankara was not in the Balkans, he visited Constantinople often for plotting sessions in order to avoid making me write a separate sentance about Turkey ), Greek separatists launched an abortive rebellion against Venice, and Bulgars and Macedonians came close to starting a war afew times. And Poland, having removed the somewhat suspicious Kantemirs from power, was now consolidating its power in the Danubean Principalities.

In Russia, Oleg Drevomyslov's star was fading, mostly because he was a rather naive, idealistic man despite his increasingly old age, and did not realize the opportunity he had to get power. Gradually, the radicals that demanded more radical (what a surprise!) moves became disenchanted with him, and the others didn't care too much about him. Only some members of the Tsar's Guard and some of the liberal groups still considered him any authority, although he still did have some respect among the less radical and at the same time less reactionary educated elite. There was one more man for whom his opinion still mattered, though - Tsar Mikhail II, who quite surprisingly befriended the man that made him concede so much power, maintaining a pretty regular correspondence with him. In part this was because they were, in temperament, rather similar, as were they in their naivety. Yet Mikhail II was taught by years of politics, especially in the presence of the Duma, to be more practical and less principled; and his friendship with Drevomyslov, though bilaterally sincere, was at the same time one of the weapons the Tsar had used in his hidden war of intrigue with the Duma. At the same time, the Duma members themselves were clamouring for power. And the people whom they were supposed to represent continued to suffer and to starve... and gradually, their anger begun growing again.

The darkness of the Dark Continent continued to retreat before the colonizers. Venice, as mentioned before, has begun taking over the Horn of Africa, in alliance with Emperor Jesus III of Ethiopia. Spain took over the coastline of Madagascar and expanded along the Congo, while Britain consolidated the southern coast of West Africa. And finally, Egyptian armies seeked fortune here after a defeat in a war with Persia over Syria in 1758. Assisted by Venetian advisors, the Egyptians took over Sudan. And bumped into Ethiopian forces campaigning there...

But that is a tale for later times. Meanwhile, the Persians were busy with problems of their own - Reza Shah was still alive and still working to consolidate his father's empire, but it was simply too large and since 1760 it was paralyzed by rebellions. Thankfully, Reza Shah has inherited some of his father's military vision and ruthlessness, and dealt with the enemies quickly, efficiently... and discouragingly. Persia survived 1766, when the rebellions reached their apogee with the siege of Teheran by Perso-Azeri rebels. But much time was lost, and it was rather weakened by this - the decline of Nadirid Persia has begun.

India was being further infiltrated by Britain, Spain and Venice, the latter basing its new Venetian East Indies Company in Gujarat. Meanwhile, in Delhi, a new neo-Mughal dynasty of Jahan II came to power and regained a few nearby territories. Finally, in the east, Anglo-Chinese strife grew over the ports of Indochina, while the Spaniards begun casting greedy eyes upon Japan.

The stage was set, the pieces were in place. In 1766, Philip I died, and his heir Charles IV of Burgundy and VI of Germany (it was decided by the historians to count the Holy Roman Emperors as direct predecessors of the German ones) inherited all of his father's titles. Alas, he wasn't as skilled a ruler, and preffered to hold banquet after banquet in his new palace in Dijon. Or would have preffered to do it, had he been given any time to rule in peace - his rise to the throne of the German Empire was unrecognized and denounced by Brandenburg and Brunswick alike, and some lesser states; and immediately, they were supported by Swedes and Poles who sent their expeditionary forces. The Five Years War begun. Joachim Colbert rallied and gathered a Burgundian army at Frankfurt am Main, but his German allies kept trying to run away, which slowed his army down. He has defeated a Brunswickian army at Paderborn, but that was merely a feint - the main attack came on Bavaria, where the joint anti-Burgundian forces, assisted by Bavarian separatists, seized Regensburg and marched west along the Danube, spreading chaos and havocc in southern Germany.

For a while it seemed that Burgundy would now be simply crushed, but its allies were still there and still ready. By the end of 1767, having entered the war, Denmark-Norway had destroyed the Swedish fleet at Rugen and raided Uppland and other eastern coastal regions, Hungary had crushed the Poles at Darmanesti in Moldavia and thus firmly cut off the remaining Polish forces in the Danubean Principalities from Poland itself, Macedonia had taken Blagoevgrad and besieged Sofia and Russia's reformed army had stormed into Finland, eliminating all Swedish resistance east of Turku, whereas the Poles were only barely holding out on the line of Riga-Minsk. And the Burgundians themselves defeated the southern army sent against them and almost entirely defeated it, forcing the anti-Burgundian forces to commit all their reserves.

1768 saw the intesification of another conflict - between the United Kingdom and the Qing Chinese Empire. The British had tried to establish an embassy in China, for future usage and to make discussion of the issue of Indochinese ports easier, but the Chinese had consistantly refused, outraging the British opinion at home. That the negotiations didn't advance further and that the Chinese refused to restore the old British priveleges in Burmese ports didn't help neither. Finally, war has started, the British immediately taking initiative by inciting Indochinese rebellions and shelling port cities; HMMs landed in Saigon, Samut Prakan (near Bangkok) and Pegu.

But more on that later. Back in Europe, the Poles and their allies were clearly losing, and badly so. Sweden in particular was taking a horrible battering - Danish-Norwegian forces, having secured Gotland, were now invading Sweden from the land and the sea, while Russians finished off the Swedish resistance in Finland, causing the already-unstable country to be thrown into anarchy as the ever-unpopular (after unsuccesful wars and an economical collapse, plus the ascendance of powerful favourites) Ulrika I was overthrown. Eventually, Russia claimed Finland, and King Harald IV of Denmark-Norway, with the support of some Swedish nobles, revived the Kalmar Union. With the desertion of Swedish troops in Germany, the Burgundians scored another victory, at Nurnberg, putting an end to the Bavarian separatist rebellion and forcing the anti-Burgundian forces to finally move northwards. Russian armies were getting ever-closer to taking Riga and Minsk, albeit here the Poles did better, especially in the south where their aging great general Wlodzimierz Asnyk, with the help of Ukrainean separatists led by Bogdan Ivanovich Mazepa, overran much of Ukraine before the Russians could react properly. Meanwhile, despite some Bulgarian victories around Sofia and at Vidin, Hungaro-Macedonian forces still advanced relentlessly...

When war doesn't work as well as it should, one should either introduce new factors in his favour or remove present factors that damage his cause - both things could be achieved with diplomacy. Jakub Ludwig, the King of Poland, didn't see any way to do the former (at least after a few unsuccesful probes of netural powers), so he did the latter instead - in Lublin, he signed a peace treaty with Hungary, ceding Wallachia and Dobrudjia to it and ending the alliance with Bulgaria, which soon had to agree to sign an alliance with Hungary and "revise" its borders with Macedonia in the latter's favour. As for Denmark-Norway or the Kalmar Union, no formal peace was signed with it, but secretly it was agreed for them not to fight each other; the Danes indeed were beginning to have diplomatic complications with their Russian allies over the issue of Finland, while with Poland they had no real grudges or disputed borders. Some advisors also suggested negotiations with the Burgundians, but Jakub Ludwig was afraid that this would leave them too strong. However, the campaigns there quited down - the northern rebel states were regroupping and preparing defenses, while the Burgundians used this welcome break to rest and raise more troops in preparations for an eventual northern campaign.

The war with Russia, thus, gained primacy. But there, the Russians, having diverted forces from Finland, currently had the initiative. The assault on Riga has failed in part due to the aforementioned complications with Denmark which didn't send a fleet to help the Russians, and Minsk still held, but Asnyk's forces were only barely holding out at Chernigov, while Russian forces once more invaded Yedisan. Polish forces were desperately being diverted to this front, and with them were coming new weapons - state-of-the-art steam-propelled mobile artillery that however proved pretty useless in this particular situation, and, much more importantly, the new boulangers (needle-guns, named after yet another French emigre).

These boulangers turned the tide in 1769, as did the Polish forces that were now concentrated on the Russian front. A new invasion over the Dnieper commenced, Asnyk forced the surrender of Russian forces in Yedisan, Crimean Tartars rose up in rebellion, and Minsk was finally relieved, though Riga was lost. In a masterful campaign, the Poles, assisted by Ukrainean rebels, advanced to Kharkov and Smolensk. Russians launched a desperate counter-offensive, but it was defeated very badly at Vitebsk. And meanwhile, Denmark-Norway switched sides officially and invaded Finland.

These defeats, in combination with the loss of Ukraine to enemy forces and the previous war-time devastation of it, have landed a harsh blow upon Russia's stability and credibility of the Tsar and the Duma. Furthermore, the Tsar and the Duma, especially the merchants, became more hostile than ever, as the Tsar pressed for more money and the Duma pressed for peace negotiations. In an attempt to try and persuade the Duma to increase the war budget, Mikhail II decided to invite its leaders and Oleg Drevomyslov as well, who albeit retired from politics and a has-been was still of some importance. Unsure about the city's safety, Mikhail provided them with Tsar Guard escorts. All the Duma leaders got to Kremlin safely and without incidents.

As for Drevomyslov, in one of the more narrow of Moscow's streets where he and his escorts passed to get to the Kremlin as fast as possible, several shots sounded. Nobody noticed the assassin of Drevomyslov, but as the rumours spread - or WERE spread by certain persons - the masses became convinced that he was killed by one of his escorts upon Tsar's orders. But that didn't really matter, and neither did Drevomyslov. What did matter was that there was now an immediate cause for a rebellion that was brewing in the city for some time now. The Guard mutinied, the people marched out into the streets, someone ran up to the Kremlin just as the Tsar agreed to leave it for the Duma building to continue the discussion there upon the insistance of his enemies who didn't trust him enough and threw a bomb into the last Golitsyn to rule Russia for a long time or maybe forever, and by the end of the day the city was held by various rebel forces, while gunfights ensued in the streets and marauders used the opportunity to get rich quick.

And there were no leaders in sight, at first. Most Duma leaders were either dead, either discredited, either both. The commander of the Tsar's Guard, Mikhail II's brother Kirill, was one of the first to die. But soon after this revolution commenced, two major factions emerged in Russia among the revolutionaries (that in the meantime were taking over the rest of the country) - the Kitaygorodtsi liberals and the Belogorodtsi radicals. The two factions were named for Kitay-gorod, the region of Moscow where the liberals and their bourgoise supporters made their headquarters, and Bely Gorod ("White City", hence the other name for the Belogorodtsi - "Whites"), the fortress occupied by radical officers, respectively. They all agreed to form a joint Revolutionary Council in Moscow. The quickly-declared Russian Republic was to fight on, but now - to fight for survival.

This was the end. The Thaw was now over, and west of Russia Reaction has soon returned to absolute power, returned to compensate its long absence, returned to combat and defeat the Phantom of Revolution which was suddenly more visible than ever before, and a thousand times more scarier than when it first appeared in Paris 1684. But... it returned too late, as future would show.

This was the end. But only of the Thaw. The history continued, as did the war.

Dis, do another one of your summary things so that I could quickly correct any mistakes here.

das said:

Dis, do another one of your summary things so that I could quickly correct any mistakes here.

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You ain't the boss of me .

Is the kingdom Britannia Welsh?

emu said:

Is the kingdom Britannia Welsh?

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From the nation description it sounds irish/pan-gaelic.

das said:

Aye. How about the After Romes Timeline (because you destroyed the Byzantine Empire AND the Papal States - you're really lucky Xen doesn't visit here very often now )?

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Actually, the soon to be posted next section will restore the purpose of the name of "Shahrbaraz" to the timeline , but the Roman Empire might well be restored, so I don't particularly want to switch. Yet.

Not sure about that... Aquitaine seems a pretty natural enemy of the Idrisids. Although there is some short-term benefit here, ofcourse. Will we see a war between the Muslim powers of the West?

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As it happens, the Aquitanians saw a wonderful opportunity for themselves. Another wonderful opportunity to the south might indeed open shortly...

Where exactly? Not sure if these Bulgars have any borders with Khazaria at all, unless they invade Crimea... Btw, what about the OTHER Bulgars?

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Well, the Khazars *do* technically have control over Dacia, surprising as that may be... The Bulgar campaign pushed them out of there entirely, however, and now they are restricted to fairly "normal" Khazar lands.

Anyway, do continue maestro!

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Will do!

the Khazars *do* technically have control over Dacia

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Oh the horror. I mean that the region is enough of a mess ethnically in OTL, and you just added: Turks, Jews and possibly even Hungarians into the Grand Romanian Mix, to the Dacians and the Slavs I mean. Scary.

And Dis, yes, that's alright.

Kal'thzar, I know that you have looked on this thread after I posted the timeline part, so was your lack of response caused by laziness or did I do something wrong?

my lack of response was more to do with the inedequacies of airport internet access, The horrors of navigation being foremost.

I liked it
Although another summary of the finikity things like, general allies, important agreements and so on. Would be usefull.

Did we say that you would write it up to 1800 or slightly earlier?

I WILL write it to 1800 and then write one hell of a total summary, like the one I did after the Condean War, but bigger and more detailed. It will be the Illiad of Summaries!

Goody

Then I have the task or reviving old NES, finishing it off (should take about 3 -4 more turns). Then start this NES up. Finish this NES. Start up old NES idea up again.

Disenfrancised said:

From the nation description it sounds irish/pan-gaelic.

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Ugh thats so god damned disgusting

OOC: Okay! One more installment after that, albeit a pretty long one, and a map, and the stats if Kal is too lazy to do them himself.

1769 - 1780.

The Thaw has ended gradually, over a fairly long period of time, rather than just end as suddenly and abruptly as did the Russian monarchy. As the shockwaves of the Russian Revolution rocked Europe, gradually the more enlightened and liberal policies begun to be once more abandoned, and witch hunts for disloyal elements begun. But that was only the beginning of the end, in truth.

And meanwhile, there was a war to finish. The rather unmilitant (after the purging of the Czatoryskis and their allies in 1741) and pragmatic Poles decided to use Russia's troubles as Poland's opportunities, and so did the Danes, who by then already secured much of Finland, but were yet to take Viborg. Polish-Ukrainean forces regroupped, and the northern group outflanked the Russian forces north of Riga, crushing them and liberating Livonia; in the meantime Danish forces assaulted and took Viborg, and landed near Tallinn, overruning Estonia as well. From there, the Danes pressed on to besiege Narvensk.

Russians tried to organize a counter-attack in Ukraine, but were stopped at Chernigov and pushed back again; despite Wlodzimierz Asnyk's peculiar death (he fell off his horse and died due to a rabbit jumping just ahead of it (something that nearly happened to Napoleon at one point in OTL)), the southern Polish forces defeated another ill-prepared Russian offensive in the general region of Crimea. These defeats have ended the brief liberal Kitaygorodtsi predominance in the Kremlin, as did the loss of control over much of the country as the peasant rising of Prokhor Davydov, who claimed to be velikiy knyaz Kirill, commenced, in combination with a Tsarist mutiny in Orel of the recently-defeated army there. The Belogorodtsi launched a coup d'etat and declared an institute of "provisional dictatorship" to save the Republic. The post of Dictator was taken by Vladimir Petrovich Arkhipov, an obscure man who was later blamed to have ordered the death of Oleg Drevomyslov.

Maybe he didn't do that, but he certainly ordered many other deaths, as the Ustrasheniye ("Intimidation") policy begun in the earnest. The Kitaygorodtsi were executted en masse, the army was purged and the more gifted of the "White" leaders were sent to take command in the place of those executted. Then they, in accordance with Arkhipov's desires to make Moscow a true Third Rome, started a decimation. It sorta weakened the army, but on the other hand there were no more mutinies. Yet.

Militarily, the Russians defeated the Tsarists in Orel, but Davydov continued to wage war on the Volga, content in the knowledge that Arkhipov had better uses for his troops than throwing them against him.

In 1770, the Polish forces that have been transferred to Germany in the end of the last year launched a new offensive from Brandenburg while the Burgundians were trying to break through the Brunswickian fortifications. This offensive threatened the flanks of Joachim Colbert, but the old Burgundian marshall turned his forces around, sent them on a forced march and stopped the Poles at Brocken. Brunswick already begun its secret negotiations with Charles IV, while the Poles begun secretly probing Arkhipov for a peace treaty. But thus far, it was all to unsuccesful.

And meanwhile, with the mass conscription enacted and associated rebellions crushed, the Russians started yet another offensive, behind which, it was rumoured, Arkhipov himself stood. It was a well-timed offensive, certainly, for it commenced just as the Poles moved out from Smolensk to threaten Moscow and try and intimidate Arkhipov himself into surrender. The Polish attack force came udner attack itself, from several directions and by overwhelming forces at Maloyaroslavets; ofcourse, it was crushed, and the Russians now advanced on Smolensk, having once more split up into several groups...

In the end, after numerous attacks and counter-attacks, the elimination of one of the Russian flanking force and the loss of much of Smolensk to the Russian forces, both sides agreed to negotiate. The Poles were now being hard-pressed elsewhere, so they agreed to give up on most of their gains and keep just the Eastern Ukraine and Western Crimea (meaning the former Khanate's territories west of the Azov Sea), which was good enough for their troubles. Another peace treaty was signed with Denmark-Norway, which was tired of besieging Narvensk in vain. It took Estonia and Finland. Arkhipov needed peace to consolidate the Republic, and this wasn't as a peace as what could have been before the battles at Maloyaroslavets and Smolensk.

In 1771, five years after it has started (what an incredible coincidence!), the Five Years War has ended, after the anti-Burgundian forces broke the frontline near Erfurt despite the Burgundian use of "trench war" tactics and forced Colbert to retreat beyond the Weser. The Treaty of Munster saw the dissolution of the German Empire, and the hard-fought (both in the battlefields before the negotiations and at the diplomatic table) retention of the united Burgundy-Bavaria. Germany was divided into spheres of influence - basically, the northwestern 1/4 was in Brunswick's sphere, northeastern 1/4 - in Brandenburg's, and the rest - in Burgundy-Bavaria's. Several lesser states within those respective spheres were annexed by all three (but mostly, by Brunswick and Brandenburg, for balance reasons), but many others remained.

In the meantime, the First Anglo-Chinese War, having started in 1768, was still dragging on, despite British victories. The British, assisted by local rebels and dominant on the sea, have managed to completely expel the Chinese from Indo-China by 1770, but an ill-planned, opportunistic invasion of South China itself, despite early gains, ended with overstretchment and collapse of the army. Since then, the war became limited to occasional British coastal raids. In 1772, the Chinese forces commanded by a promising young commander, Heshen (OOC: before Alex says anything, he isn't a 100% copy of the OTL one, otherwise he would've been a tad too young, plus he had a different career), have invaded Vietnam and pushed back the outnumbered British troops there in a desperate gamble for victory. But eventually, due to British naval raids behind his lines and Vietnamese guerrila campaigns, the invasion has bogged down (though, according to some of Heshen's enemies, it was the fault of his incompetence and his corrupt ways; indeed, Heshen has evidently embezzled many of the campaign funds that came after the campaign stalemated, prolonging it, according to his detractors, for greater financial gain (and, according to his supporters, to tire the British into signing peace)). Anyway, two years after, the Qianlong Emperor finally agreed to sign the Treaty of Canton, recognizing the British victory on the advice of his more conciliatory-minded advisors. A British consulate was established in the city of Canton (the British, after the first Chinese rejection of their original proposal, saw it pointless to demand an embassy in Beijing, it not exactly being the cause of the war), Siam and Burma became British protectorates, and Vietnam became independent and extended further west, becoming a buffer state between British protectorates and Qing China. This war has damaged the Imperial prestige rather badly, but the disorganized neo-Ming rebellions of later 1770s were defeated quite quickly. Both the defeat and the rebellions have allowed the, rather brief as it turned out, rise in influence of more reformist, progressive courtiers, including Heshen who has as usual adapted well to the situation.

Another Oriental empire suffered quite badly at the time - Nadirid Persia. Having survived the rebellion wave of 1760s, it still was badly weakened, and the Egyptians decided to use this opportunity to make another go for Syria in 1775, while Egypt's patron state, Venice, invaded Oman. The Persians were badly defeated everywhere, their army proving no much for the Westernized Egyptian troops that pushed them out of most of Syria, but a prompt Persian counter-offensive prevented Aleppo from being captured. The Persian fleet, however, was eliminated at Khasab, and the Venetians not only secured Oman, but also raided all the way into the Persian Gulf. And finally, in 1777, the Turks used the opportunity provided by Persian distraction and defeats to invade Persia in Eastern Anatolia and Armenia. Meanwhile, a new series of Central Asian rebellions started, and the Egyptians annihilated a Persian army at Al-Bab. As the emprie threatened to fall apart altogether, Reza Shah eventually had to sign a humiliating peace treaty, ceding Syria to Egypt, Eastern Anatolia and Armenia to Turkey and Oman to Venice, and paying out a contribution to all the victorious powers, and granting many trade priveleges to Venice, effectively opening the way for the transformation of Persia into a Venetian economic colony.

Towards 1780, in the rest of the world, the great colonial wave of the 1760s had died down, as issues back in Europe became more important. Britain and Spain were both rather suspicious of Burgundy-Bavaria, as was Venice. Besides, the situation in France was detiriorating further, with the assassination of King Charles X and the general rise of revolutionary terrorism. The Russian Revolution's effects were rather overestimated, in truth - Europe has by then quite naturally progressed to a new rise of radical republican ideology, and the bad harvests of the previous decade only made things worse. The events in Russia only made things worse, despite the disillusionment with Arkhipov that soon set in after certain "excesses". That and they were very noticeable. Whatever the true reason behind all this was, it still happened. As the murmurings spread, the governments of Europe begun listening carefully; and as revolutionary terror and calls for rebellion sounded, some of these governments at least begun cracking down hard on it all. In Spain, Jose II had finally consented to restore the Inquisition, although decreased in autonomy and ordered to hunt down "godless rebels" as well as the religious malcontents, that often enough were the same by the way. That was only the most extreme case, but elsewhere, like in the Italian states, Hungary, Burgundy-Bavaria, Denmark-Norway and France, reaction was similarily on the march. The Age of Reaction has reached its apogee.

OOC: Okay! One more installment after that, albeit a pretty long one, and a map, and the stats if Kal is too lazy to do them himself.

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Good and urrmmm yes I am lazy

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On the other hand, the provinces of Italy declared themselves independent from the Irisids under a daring general, Mahmoud of Tunis, who established the new Caliphate of Roma, and who led the way for a host of nations to declare their independence from the failing Irisid Dynasty. In stark contrast to the Umayyads, who had lasted so far for forty years, the Irisid Caliphate shattered within 10 years, by 680.

Various successor states emerged. One of the main ones were the Irisid Emirate of Tunisia, which was the last which harbored members of the Dynasty, and had conquered some land from the distracted Umayyads, and furthermore restored territorial integrity of at least part of the Dynasty’s former lands. Another major state was the Emirate of Fez, which was installed in Morocco. Just to its north, the Emirate of Al-Andalus was established under one of the various children of the last Irisid Caliph, and then in the far north, the tiny Emirate of Catalunya. The last land was that of Euskara, the Basques, who gradually converted over the Islam, much as they had converted from Solism to Christianity five hundred years before; they began to become just as Islamic as they had been Christian.

In any case, the succession struggles lasted from 678 to about 690, and thus precluded the lands of the former Irisids from taking much part in external military campaigning until the late 690s...

...But that didn’t prevent anyone else from military campaigning against the Irisid successors. Aquitaine attempted to conquer land down to the Ebro River, that is, Catalunya and Navarre, and in a swift campaign captured Barcelona. However, the Basques somehow held onto their territory despite all assaults, and the little Emirate of Euskara managed to remain independent for a while longer.

With the... distraction that the Umayyads were having at this period in time, the supposedly stable Caliphate wasn’t doing so well. In 680, when the distraction started, the nobles and peoples of the western half of the Empire grew more and more restless. Why should so much of the resources of the great empire be devoted to such a worthless afterthought? They of course had heard tales of the riches to be gained by this distraction, but they were still unhappy, as the lords and peasants alike knew little of this wealth was liable to reach them.

By 685, when the resources required for the distraction were rising higher and higher, the west of the Umayyad Caliphate rose up in revolt. There were three main centers: Egypt, under the Arabic Fatamids, who claimed the title of Caliph themselves, Anatolia under the Sultanate of Ankara, and finally Syria...

Syria was under the rule of one Ibrahim Parvez, a distant familial relation to the famed general Shahrbaraz. He claimed the mantle of the Roman Empire as the long lost successor to their long ago dynasty. His was an unlikely rebellion, but when he managed to convince several Arab lords in the Syrian area to his cause, and after he led them to defeat the rest of the lords of Syria in several pitched, hard fought battles, he managed to secure a large area under his new nation, and declared the Roman Empire to be born again.

Like his long dead relation Shahrbaraz, Ibrahim was a brilliant general and master strategist. Adopting a defensive strategy in the south, which meant the lords of Palestine focused on fighting the growing power of the Fatamids, he launched an attack deep into Mesopotamia, taking Baghdad from a surprised Umayyad garrison. He struck north, and gained the allegiance of Christian Armenia, and then swooped down south to crush the armies of the Anatolians, who had been massing in preparation to attack the vulnerable Damascus. A deep strike into Anatolia conquered that Sultanate easily, and a treaty signed with the Greek Empire reinforced by Ibrahim marrying the daughter of the Greek Emperor meant that his new Western possessions were secure.

He then rushed south to defend his capital of Damascus, but it turned out to be unnecessary. A few skirmishes discouraged the Fatamids from going any further north, and the Umayyad Caliph did not want to deal with both the distraction and the West, and agreed to peace with both the Romans and the Fatamids. Of course, this leaves us curiously complete with the timeline, at least, up until 690 or so. But of course, we haven’t covered the... distraction...

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The Indus Valley had been dominated for at least a century by the large state of Sindh. In most respects, this state was unremarkable; in the words of one modern historian, it was as if history, knowing that the Indus would get more than its fair share of discoveries with the Harappan civilization, decided to keep the Indus Valley as a backwater, out of the limelight. And indeed so it seemed, but it was certainly not stagnant.

From what can be pieced together from Chinese and Islamic chronicles of the region, Sindh was a prosperous state. It had a massive, thriving community of Buddhists, unlike most of India, which had converted back to Hinduism. It had several large cities, the coastal ones which traded through most of the Indian Ocean. And for years, it had been dominated by the sudra caste Rai Dynasty, but in about 640 CE, a usurper brahman, named Chach, took the throne.

This king Chach, for the early part of his reign, was mainly concerned with achieving what the Indians called digvijaya, a hard concept to explain, but what a digvijaya was, for the most part, was conquering land in all four directions to achieve balance and harmony in a realm’s spiritual being. And so, he conquered northward to Kashmir, south to the Indus Delta, westward, to conquer Baluchistan, and presumably eastward, though his gains there, into the Thar desert must not have been too substantial.

He reigned gloriously for some time, driving back all Arab raids into his realm, and forcing them to avoid invading India, when in 674, he died, to put it simply enough. His son Dahar, who was equally brave and intelligent as his father, took the throne, and began what undoubtedly would have been a glorious reign.

However, the Umayyad caliph was increasingly annoyed with Sindh, due to pirates in the Indus Delta, the infamous Meds. These warriors preyed on Islamic shipping, and several gifts which were being sent to the southern Indian states to raise favor with the Caliphate were intercepted by these pirates. The caliph demanded that Dahar intervene, Dahar replied he had no control over the pirates–probably true.

This did not satisfy the caliph, who dispatched two naval forces to the Delta to destroy the irritating Meds, both of which were met with destruction. The caliph accused Dahar of participating in these skirmishes directly, and angry with the king’s calm denials, the Caliph ordered in 680 an all out assault on the Kingdom of Sindh.

A force of sixty ships escorting two thousand crack Syrian troops was to make its way parallel to a force of ten thousand warriors which were to march overland. After several delays due to the inherent troubles of the caliphate, the force was launched, and by 681, they had arrived at the Delta of the Indus, and besieged the city of Debal (Karachi).

Unfortunately for the Arabs, however, the walls of Debal were stout, and resisted even the massive trebuchets that the Arab forces brought to bear against their walls. The temple tower of Debal defiantly flew a massive red flag, taunting the Arabs; the commander ordered the trebuchets to be angled high, to take the tower down, and hopefully with it, the resolve of the Indians guarding the city.

Again, however, bad luck plagued the Arabs, as their preoccupation with the tower of Debal led them to be surprised in the north by the forces of Dahar, who had assembled his kingdom’s armies at an astounding rate and now led the forces en masse, directing them from atop his albino white elephant. Facing the twelve thousand Arab troops were ten thousand Indians with fifty war elephants at their head.

Charging the Arabs down, the forces of Sindh plowed through their first line, and their second line, and their third, until there was nothing left. In one of the great battles of Indian history, the Arabs were shattered, fleeing the field en masse, with thousands being taken prisoner. The force of arabs was nearly entirely destroyed, and the city of Debal was saved, for now.

With further losses as Dahar attacked into Baluchistan, retaking his old territories, and making the Arab garrisons flee in terror, he forced the caliph to respond, which he did, by sending another force to battle the Indians. However, this was defeated too in the wastes of Baluchistan, leading to a general Arab retreat in Afghanistan and Baluchistan. Twin advances of the Indian forces meant that the Arabs were defeated in battle after battle, and thus, by 685, it seemed like the Caliphate could not suffer another defeat without losing all legitimacy entirely.

However, rebellions and attacks by the native tribes kept the Indians from making good of their gains, and the Arabs were busy with their western troubles; all in all, the frontline was a stalemate until 689, when the Arabs launched another great offensive against the Indian forces. This managed to defeat Dahar, with the forces destroyed in Baluchistan; his conspicuous albino elephant had been hit with an arrow, and him slain with a sword blow after it toppled him onto the ground.

By 693, Sindh as a kingdom had lost the lower Indus Valley region, though the line of kings started by Chach managed to retain their hold on the north; most of it, anyway, as the lands west of the Indus, too, were taken by Arab invaders...

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they began to become just as Islamic as they had been Christian.

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Which means, ofcourse, something else entirely (IMHO when the time comes to found heretical sects, the Basques will be among the first - and even if not, they will probably agree with the OTL Turks on the issue of wine).

but what a digvijaya was, for the most part, was conquering land in all four directions to achieve balance and harmony in a realm’s spiritual being.

Click to expand...

Any other names this "digvijaya" goes under? Didn't find any in Britannica, though probably will find it in Britannica.

trebuchets

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*hands NK an Anachronism card*

Anyway, the Ripple has now reached India. IMHO Islamic infiltration will be less overland here, and more by the sea - abit like in Indonesia, actually.

das said:

Which means, ofcourse, something else entirely (IMHO when the time comes to found heretical sects, the Basques will be among the first - and even if not, they will probably agree with the OTL Turks on the issue of wine).

Click to expand...

Now why would that be? They were fiercely Catholic OTL, they are probably going to evolve into fiercely Muslim people... Wine? Well, since Europe almost depends on that, methinks the concept of abstinence will be rather less pronounced.

Any other names this "digvijaya" goes under? Didn't find any in Britannica, though probably will find it in Britannica.

Click to expand...

Not aware of other names... Knowledge of India is sorely lacking in European books, usually...

*hands NK an Anachronism card*

Anyway, the Ripple has now reached India. IMHO Islamic infiltration will be less overland here, and more by the sea - abit like in Indonesia, actually.

Click to expand...

Perhaps... Then again, perhaps not. In any case, with the next section, the ripple will reach China and Africa, Saharan and Subsaharan, so the only area left out now is the Americas...