Poland's political traditions were fundamentally incompatible with the Russian Empire, so there would always be a conflict even IF the Tsars had decided to continue to have one super autonomous province in the face of absolutism everywhere else. The Polish elite would continue to agitate for...
OK, this might be the most out-there AHC/WI I've ever read, and I'm saying that as the resident Jacobite expert. To put it bluntly, no. There is NO chance that the Jacobites could/would make a claim to the French throne. Any Jacobite who tried would be arrested and expelled from the country, up...
Basically what the title says. I've seen lots of different questions around the Russian succession after Peter the Great died (such as his daughter Anna inheriting, one of his short-lived sons surviving to inherit or his grandson Peter II living longer), but I don't recall anyone asking how a...
@DrakeRlugia considering how quickly the constitutional project in Portugal collapsed (as you said, none of the traditional elite had any faith in the charter), then could Joao VI have held enough control over Brazil until the "constitutional revolt" was inevitably suppressed? After all, the...
Sorry, but when your example being cited is Karl Marx the socialist (who had no access whatsoever to high levels of government and wrote about the events some 34 years after the fact, and was only twelve when said events happened), I have to question the source. It reads like an often repeated...
No, they could not have. If Russia was getting its butt kicked by the rebels, we would see Prussia and Austria offer assistance to the Russians, and all three crush the revolt. The LAST thing the partition powers would want is a revived, independent Poland. That would mean their own Polish...
An interesting idea, and one that does have a few potential routes that I haven't seen explored before. The obvious one would be the 6 February 1934 crisis turning into a March on Rome style situation, leading to the Far Right coming to power and restoring the monarchy, but that's kinda boring...
Meant to respond earlier, but to take a closer look at my Alt Louis XVI TL notes. Anyway, the Parlements. Basically their reform (and this is a major thing people should remember; the Parlements were to be replaced with new courts and councils staffed by various royal officials that were outside...
Eh, two different things. The Parlements were appellate courts with quasi legislative powers; the Parliament you're thinking of was the Estates-General. Very similar names, but different messes. Moreover, his father the Dauphin was not involved with either of those things; his grandfather Louis...
@Kellan Sullivan Sorry to say, but this is pretty ASB. Ignoring the well-known hatred the Bourbons had to Nappy and the Bonapartes, and the continuing role former Napoléonic officials played in Restauration France (there was simply too many to purge without destroying the government), I just...
Except by the time the the absolute check was sent to Vienna, it was 100% clear the Tsar would not back down. Not after the humiliation from the Bosnian crisis in 1908. If Willy actually wanted to avoid war, he would have told Vienna "yeah, no. You need to accept Serbia's acceptance of all but...
So the same time Willy and his government gave Austria-Hungary a blank check and "absolute support" in their dealings with Serbia? Do the mixed messages not seem very..... clashing to either one of you?
Which week was that? Because Kaiser Billy's opinions and plans changed depending on who he was talking to. There are existing details from a meeting in 1912 or 1913, between the Kaiser, the Chancellor, the heads of the army and navy and I believe the foreign secretary, in which he stated Germany...
Thanks. Its a real shame. AII's reign occupied such a pivotal point in Russian history, yet its furstraitingly difficult to find ways to make it a net positive. And I can't kill him off when young, sense that would just pass the crown to Konsantin, who'd be just as bad. That means either working...
Well darn. I had an idea for a competent AII TL, but couldn't come up with realistic answers either.
So basically AII needed the equivalent to the "modernizing conservatives" that surrounded AIII some 25 years later, perhaps mixed with getting experts to study the industrialization in western...