Recent content by impspy

The Austrian successor state actually did claim the Sudetenland and the other German parts of Bohemia, but they didn't control it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_German-Austria You would have to have the Entente basically agree to screw over the Czechs (their loyal allies) in...

Couldn't you have killed him in the Beer Hall Putsch and gotten off relatively lightly? Iirc there were lots of murders of rival political "gangs" that happened in Weimer Germany that went either un-solved or un- or under- prosecuted by the authorities. Rudolf Höss (the commandant of Auschwitz)...

With a PoD from 1900 on, how can the Indian subcontinent be partitioned between the Hindi/Urdu speaking north and Dravidian south? While preventing the Muslims from seeking an independent state seems an obvious first step, how or even could an All-Indian league so alienate the south to have it...

If you butterfly away American participation in the World Wars you won't get the investment in heavy industry and military bases that happened iotl. The 1940's and 50's were when the South finally started to recover and grow (it had remained rather stagnant after the Civil War). You could also...

I'm trying to comprehend a Central Asian uprising. It would be like Chechnya on steroids and, depending on the butterflies, could have a safe haven/support network run from Afghanistan and/or even Iran.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Soviet_Union_-_Russian_SFSR_%281922%29.svg Personally I don't think the Soviets would have been able to get as much from the region as they did iotl. Granting the Central Asians (in theory) equal partnership in the USSR helped bring people in...

Suppose, for whatever reason, that the British Home Islands fall to foreign invasion in the 20th century as part of a major European and/or World War. I don't care who does it, how, or when (won't bring up our favorite Sea Mammal), I'm just interested in what happens next. I can see the white...

Well, I don't think we can understate how helpful they were to the cause. I think without royal support the movement is swamped by the national Italian identification but I could be mistaken. Nevertheless, turning Naples back into a great European city was definitely their crowning achievement...

http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars A good read for anyone curious.

Another problem is the dietary restrictions. Quite simply, in pre-industrial society agriculture on the scale needed to support the populations of those regions isn't possible without pigs. They are hardy enough to survive the winters, can eat a varied diet, and provide both food and fertilizer...

One way might be to not have Louis Napoleon assassinated by Felice Orsini in 1858, which pretty much made supporting Italian unification a poisonous prospect even for enemies of the Austrians like Prussia. You're also going to have the tank the popularity of the Sicilian Bourbons among both...

I'm more versed on the history of Vietnam and Thailand but I can tell you what I know about Laos relative to them. Laos' population was and is incredibly low compared to both Thailand and Vietnam. I think the most likely scenario is that it remains unified, but as a buffer state between the...

Considering how well the economy did under the KMT I would say the potential is there, but the socialist system that the Maoists use dooms the country. A more liberal and capitalistic model of government, I would argue, makes China at least a second-tier economy in the short term but given how...

At the same time, what's the point in attacking Italy and bringing them in further into the Reich? The Nazis were evil, and at times very stupid, but not totally without pragmatic elements (see the State of Croatia). Holding onto the East and occupying Italy, Romania, Hungary, etc, is just...

I mean, Maoist China just arrested another head of state, breaking a long string of diplomatic traditions dating back centuries. The PRC becomes a pariah state.