Harleqin
Hippo Power
North King said:
True, that would solve some headaches. It's also mean the French army is more spread out and vulnerable... while still being strong enough to not be considered defeated.
Alternate History Thread II...
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True, that would solve some headaches. It's also mean the French army is more spread out and vulnerable... while still being strong enough to not be considered defeated.
North King
blech
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Harleqin said:
Furthermore, it would pull Wellington down from his ridiculously high pedestal and make the British hero worship someone else.
Harleqin
Hippo Power
North King said:Furthermore, it would pull Wellington down from his ridiculously high pedestal and make the British hero worship someone else.
Hehe... I'll do a little writing and see what I can come up with.
das
Regeneration In Process
The PoD would be the survival of Pavel I, he was just crazy enough to bail out Napoleon.
But, indeed, that very possibly could turn it into a French victory. The problem is that the British were the one deciding force at the time; on one hand, as long as Britain was a great power, it would NOT tolerate a strong France, and, barring madmen that could be slaughtered in entertaining ways as was done with Pavel, it had all the resources to eventually grind Napoleon (or his successors) into dust, if at a large price. BUT, if Great Britain is in one way or another removed from the scene, Napoleon becomes pretty much unstoppable unless he does something very stupid, which was not really a hobby of his.Only its Ekaterinburg now, and the specific region is the Urals.
About time someone pointed this out btw, as Siberia does not quite have the same industrial air and colourful puddles (NOT the dogs).Any candidates?
North King
blech
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das said:
His name starts with "N" and ends with "elson".
Harleqin
Hippo Power
Azale said:
Yeah, but it wont be launched for some 5 weeks. I got exams coming up soon and unless people want me to skip the update for one week when I have to grade a ton of papers then there is no point in starting yet.
Besides, I'm still hammering out the background and I'll also need to do a map.
das
Regeneration In Process
But he himself ends with a "Trafalgar". Although I did consider the possibility of him surviving in compensation and building a political career. Though I have some doubts about his political abilities and ambitions...
silver 2039
Deity
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@das so there is no Mughal Empire? Humayan never returns to reconquer Delhi with Safavid help? Very sad.... What happens to Akbar?
jalapeno_dude
AKA Panda Judo Eel
@Das: What happened to Martin Luther?
das
Regeneration In Process
No. But there is a Turkifying Gujarat, if its any consolation, and Viyajanagar. Not sure how North India will come out yet - IMHO it will be in chaos for the next few decades, but after that, well... noone knows.
Humayun is dead, Safavids don't exist. So it will be abit problematic for him to do so.
Also dead after a failed attempt to regain power.
He was never born; but even had he been born, he would've been rather useless. The Catholic Renaissance (and related reforms), the rise of strong Imperial power in Germany and the somewhat more frightening Turko-Muscovite menace have prevented the emergence of Protestantism, thoguh there were some heretical movements and rebellions in the 16th century as I had already mentioned. But Protestantism will not rise in this world. "¡No pasarán!" - Pope Adrian VIII (r. 1532-1558, prior to that known as Hernan Ibarruri; yet another one of these Pyrenean cardinals that dominated Vatican since Calixtus III).
My religion just ceased to exist. Lovely.
@das: what about Chelyabinsk? The water is very fine there, I hear.
Now I'm wavering about the topic of the NES that I can never seem to get off the ground. 1680s, or...
@das: what about Chelyabinsk? The water is very fine there, I hear.
Now I'm wavering about the topic of the NES that I can never seem to get off the ground. 1680s, or...
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
You could always do an ancient althist, we haven't had any good ancient PoD's lately. How about Athens wins the Peloponessian war? I started to write a timeline somewhere...
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Here it is.
The main departure from OTL will be the absence of that plague that killed Pericles. He has to survive. The conservative Pericles strategy can't be transformed into the aggressive Demosthenes strategy as it was after his death.
Athens will rely more on defending it's own colonies, and protecting the fortified cities themselves. Technically Athens has better abilities to survive a war of attrition, because it has:
1. Overseas allies.
2. A good route of supply for Athens.
3. Pericles.
Now, Sparta had a large army to maintain, (the longest Spartan campaign into Athens was only 40 days) and also the helots to worry about.
Pericles stayed patient, and finally the Spartans, infuriated by the years of back and forth campaigning, attempted a direct assault of Athens, trying to storm it. It failed, the Spartans and their allies took some sections of the long walls, but not after losing many men. They are outnumbered and pushed back at a skirmish in Piraeus.
The Peloponessian Coalition starts to fracture. A helot revolt puts Spartan hegemony of the Peninsula in danger, and troops are withdrawn to put this down, giving Athens time to recover.
Sparta hadn't been dealt a devastating defeat yet, but it had certainly been humiliated. Athens managed to seize Megara as Plataia and Argos joined the allied coalition.
Next, Boiotia went over to Athens as Plataia and Delphi skirmished the forces of Thebes to a standstill. With the help of Athenian raids from Euboea, they keep Thebes under siege for the remainder of the war. Most of Attica, Boiotia, and Fokis are now under the control of Athens. Sparta during all this time hasn't been idle. They have attempted to assemble a navy, but are about as successful as the early Roman version, except that the Spartans don't have seafaring allies. They do manage to sack Naxos and Delos, but are crushed by the Athenian Navy at the battle of Melos.
So anyway, Sparta assembled it's largest army yet, (even encluding some helots which was quite revolutionary, but necessary due to the serious lack of manpower by now) and prepared to leave the Peloponesse. Their campaign plan was quite good, first to march from Korinthos to retake Megara, then send a diversionary thrust towards Athens. This is merely to distract them, because the real attack would then capture Plataia, (lifting the siege of Thebes) and then crush Delphi, effectively leaving Athens isolated and alone on Greece proper.
Sparta could then besiege the city and take it at their leisure, weakened as they believed it already was from the earlier assault. There was only one flaw in the Spartan plan, that they had forgotten as their massive army issued out of Sparta, Pylos and Mantinea. Argos. If Argos had remained neutral, Athens would most likely have been defeated.
The Spartans gave it a wide berth, but forgot to leave more than a token force to watch the city. The Argos militia was depleted, but as the large Spartan Army marched toward Korinthos, they did the only logical thing. That was to attack south, toward Sparta itself. Aided by a good-sized helot revolt (although many had been taken along with the campaign this time) the Argos forces attacked Sparta itself. An emergency levy militia, along with excellent Spartan discipline and fanaticism among the garrison forces, was enough to fight off the Argos assault. But a major detatchment from the army up north had to be dispatched in order to contain the attack.
The result was that two armies of equal strength met at the coming battle. Athens, watching the Argos events with amusement, took the extra time afforded to them to send military recruiters to Crete and Asia Minor (Greek portions) They returned with a lot less gold, but a lot more trained mercenaries.
So as a result, the Spartan forces had their normally stellar discipline lowered by the inclusion of helots, where the Athenian/Allied armies had their numbers and training raised by the fresh mercenaries, many former Persian Army soldiers. Granted, this lowered Athenian popularity among the citizens a bit, but no one was complaining, the assault on Athens taken into account. As the Spartans regrouped and moved toward Korinthos, the Athenian forces decided, for the first time in the war, to preemptively strike. The armies met a little east of the city.
Technically the Battle of Korinthos was a stalemate, with equal casualties on both sides. The Spartan charges were driven back with great loss. But Pericles (Commanding from the front in a manner that would be remembered epically by Thucydides) wisely decided to hold the mercenaries in reserve until the end. They proved to be particularly effective, and the helots broke at this point. Sparta was driven back to Korinthos, but they held the city. The First Battle was over.
Rapid naval communications went to Argos from the Athenian war camp, and Argos forces withdrew from their positions near Sparta. The exhausted levy forces were in no position to pursue them. Resupplying at Argos, they then moved north, effectively trapping the Spartan Army in Korinthos. The Second Battle was a failed Spartan attempt to break out south of the city, and the Third Battle of Korinthos was a devastating combined charge of the Argos and Athenian forces. The Spartan Army, formerly with no match in all Greece, was defeated. They had been besieged for a month, with little food, and the attack from both sides was too much for them. They were killed to a man, most choosing death over surrender.
The war would continue for two more years, but Sparta's end was truly at Korinthos. Their allies gone, the citizenry of Sparta itself perished in a mass suicide, followed by a burning of the city on the eve of the final allied attack.
Athens was hegemonic, and triumphant. The only question was, how long would the new Athenian Empire hold together? Pericles I may have seemed a demigod, but all mortals die eventually...
__________________
Edit: You know, I just might do this myself. I have to extend it a little...
The main departure from OTL will be the absence of that plague that killed Pericles. He has to survive. The conservative Pericles strategy can't be transformed into the aggressive Demosthenes strategy as it was after his death.
Athens will rely more on defending it's own colonies, and protecting the fortified cities themselves. Technically Athens has better abilities to survive a war of attrition, because it has:
1. Overseas allies.
2. A good route of supply for Athens.
3. Pericles.
Now, Sparta had a large army to maintain, (the longest Spartan campaign into Athens was only 40 days) and also the helots to worry about.
Pericles stayed patient, and finally the Spartans, infuriated by the years of back and forth campaigning, attempted a direct assault of Athens, trying to storm it. It failed, the Spartans and their allies took some sections of the long walls, but not after losing many men. They are outnumbered and pushed back at a skirmish in Piraeus.
The Peloponessian Coalition starts to fracture. A helot revolt puts Spartan hegemony of the Peninsula in danger, and troops are withdrawn to put this down, giving Athens time to recover.
Sparta hadn't been dealt a devastating defeat yet, but it had certainly been humiliated. Athens managed to seize Megara as Plataia and Argos joined the allied coalition.
Next, Boiotia went over to Athens as Plataia and Delphi skirmished the forces of Thebes to a standstill. With the help of Athenian raids from Euboea, they keep Thebes under siege for the remainder of the war. Most of Attica, Boiotia, and Fokis are now under the control of Athens. Sparta during all this time hasn't been idle. They have attempted to assemble a navy, but are about as successful as the early Roman version, except that the Spartans don't have seafaring allies. They do manage to sack Naxos and Delos, but are crushed by the Athenian Navy at the battle of Melos.
So anyway, Sparta assembled it's largest army yet, (even encluding some helots which was quite revolutionary, but necessary due to the serious lack of manpower by now) and prepared to leave the Peloponesse. Their campaign plan was quite good, first to march from Korinthos to retake Megara, then send a diversionary thrust towards Athens. This is merely to distract them, because the real attack would then capture Plataia, (lifting the siege of Thebes) and then crush Delphi, effectively leaving Athens isolated and alone on Greece proper.
Sparta could then besiege the city and take it at their leisure, weakened as they believed it already was from the earlier assault. There was only one flaw in the Spartan plan, that they had forgotten as their massive army issued out of Sparta, Pylos and Mantinea. Argos. If Argos had remained neutral, Athens would most likely have been defeated.
The Spartans gave it a wide berth, but forgot to leave more than a token force to watch the city. The Argos militia was depleted, but as the large Spartan Army marched toward Korinthos, they did the only logical thing. That was to attack south, toward Sparta itself. Aided by a good-sized helot revolt (although many had been taken along with the campaign this time) the Argos forces attacked Sparta itself. An emergency levy militia, along with excellent Spartan discipline and fanaticism among the garrison forces, was enough to fight off the Argos assault. But a major detatchment from the army up north had to be dispatched in order to contain the attack.
The result was that two armies of equal strength met at the coming battle. Athens, watching the Argos events with amusement, took the extra time afforded to them to send military recruiters to Crete and Asia Minor (Greek portions) They returned with a lot less gold, but a lot more trained mercenaries.
So as a result, the Spartan forces had their normally stellar discipline lowered by the inclusion of helots, where the Athenian/Allied armies had their numbers and training raised by the fresh mercenaries, many former Persian Army soldiers. Granted, this lowered Athenian popularity among the citizens a bit, but no one was complaining, the assault on Athens taken into account. As the Spartans regrouped and moved toward Korinthos, the Athenian forces decided, for the first time in the war, to preemptively strike. The armies met a little east of the city.
Technically the Battle of Korinthos was a stalemate, with equal casualties on both sides. The Spartan charges were driven back with great loss. But Pericles (Commanding from the front in a manner that would be remembered epically by Thucydides) wisely decided to hold the mercenaries in reserve until the end. They proved to be particularly effective, and the helots broke at this point. Sparta was driven back to Korinthos, but they held the city. The First Battle was over.
Rapid naval communications went to Argos from the Athenian war camp, and Argos forces withdrew from their positions near Sparta. The exhausted levy forces were in no position to pursue them. Resupplying at Argos, they then moved north, effectively trapping the Spartan Army in Korinthos. The Second Battle was a failed Spartan attempt to break out south of the city, and the Third Battle of Korinthos was a devastating combined charge of the Argos and Athenian forces. The Spartan Army, formerly with no match in all Greece, was defeated. They had been besieged for a month, with little food, and the attack from both sides was too much for them. They were killed to a man, most choosing death over surrender.
The war would continue for two more years, but Sparta's end was truly at Korinthos. Their allies gone, the citizenry of Sparta itself perished in a mass suicide, followed by a burning of the city on the eve of the final allied attack.
Athens was hegemonic, and triumphant. The only question was, how long would the new Athenian Empire hold together? Pericles I may have seemed a demigod, but all mortals die eventually...
__________________
Edit: You know, I just might do this myself. I have to extend it a little...
das
Regeneration In Process
Don't worry, the Catholics in this world will have none of this easy-going attitude!
I'll bet they don't have quite as much dead fish on the coasts of their rivers, though.
You already posted this, Thlayli, and I already criticized it.
Anyway, Pericles is way overrated - exactly by Thucydides, btw. Demosthenes' strategy, though more risky, had much more perspective, while the failings of Pericles' strategy were apparent even before his death.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
I'm not sure, all Perecles has to do is simply wait for the Spartans to attack, and the rest will evolve from there.
das
Regeneration In Process
He didn't have infinite time you know. Athens could have surrender without a battle (due to simple, banal realities of plague and starvation; the elite would probably have overthrown Pericles to avoid being overthrown by the poor driven to desperation, and would have signed peace anyway), the Spartans knew it and didn't assault it for this reason.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Again, Athens had too good of a naval supply route for any starvation to happen without a prolonged siege, a siege that Sparta didn't risk until the later stages of the war, when naval superiority was lost for them. The Spartans could only manage to wage short campaigns due to the needs of the homeland.
If the Demosthenes strategy of capturing small forts all over the Peloponnese wasn't implemented, the Spartans would have spent less time concentrating on defending their homeland, and more taking direct action against Athens. Likewise, even an indecisive Pericles strategy would allow the Spartans to attempt, and fail, to finish the war in one blow, due to more forces being concentrated in Attica itself.
Or at least that's how I see it. Anyway, I only reposted the timeline because I'll be extending it, probably.
If the Demosthenes strategy of capturing small forts all over the Peloponnese wasn't implemented, the Spartans would have spent less time concentrating on defending their homeland, and more taking direct action against Athens. Likewise, even an indecisive Pericles strategy would allow the Spartans to attempt, and fail, to finish the war in one blow, due to more forces being concentrated in Attica itself.
Or at least that's how I see it. Anyway, I only reposted the timeline because I'll be extending it, probably.
das
Regeneration In Process
No matter what naval supply route Athens had (and speaking of it, why such a low opinion of the Spartan fleet?), it still did begin to starve due to the utter devastation of the Athenian countryside and the overcrowding caused by the arrival of refugees. It also resulted in the plague and the rising hatred against Pericles; the old man was IMHO extremelly lucky to die before it reached a certain critical point. Pericles' strategy mostly consisted in giving up the initiative and ignoring the Spartans out of hope that they would go away; but they didn't (and neither did they attack Athens - as I said, starvation and plague were doing all the work for them), and thus such leaders as Demosthenes and Alcibiades were eagerly supported in their plans to take the initiative. It was the only reasonable thing to do. Athens' one good chance of winning would have been an adoptation of a DECISIVE, united offensive policy, but its political system sorta doomed that, being prone to bickering and intrigue as democratic countries tend to, for better or worse. IMHO had Alcibiades been a more ruthless and pragmatic man, he could have not just saved Athens but also could have himself become the hegemon of Greece, and technically there was no need to stop there.
Then again, its your althist - the above is just some musings on the topic.
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