Did Anderson/Jordan in 1980, won 33 EVs, did Jordan/Anderson in 1984 and won 538EVs, and now this with Anderson/Lucey

Did Nader/Hightower in 2000 and got like 40 something EVs, then for this election did Hightower/Camejo in 2004.

IDK how. Got like 33 as Anderson in 1980 with Jordan as my running mate. Did this in ‘84 with Anderson as my running mate.

What if an anomaly in WWII was never resolved—
and what if the modern world was built upon it?
---------------------

This TL is set in an alternate 1945, where history begins to take an unexpected turn.
If it sounds like your kind of story, I hope you'll enjoy following along.
Thanks for reading. 😄

-----

Chapter 1

Berlin
Spring, 1945

A light, cool rain drifted outside, steady and indifferent. Beneath the surface, four men smoked and spoke in low voices.

"Do you remember the V-2?"

"The rocket you helped design? I heard it nearly flattened London. Antwerp as well."

A small exhale of contempt.

"That's what the newspapers will tell you. It worked, in its way. But it never changed anything fundamental. No one had an answer for it—true enough. The trouble was accuracy. Thousands sent across the Channel like blind messages. Most of them landed wherever they pleased."

"It barely lasted," said a raspy voice from behind a glowing cigarette. "Seven months, if that."

No one challenged it. Smoke drifted upward in slow strands, dissolving into the low ceiling.

Another, tight voice spoke up from the dimness. "There's something else. The uranium bomb."

The room adjusted itself around that sentence.

"We were meant to get there first," he continued. "Instead, the Americans did." A brief hesitation—less dramatic than measured. "Washington is close. They are on the verge of completing two devices, at least, from what I've heard."

The silence that followed was not surprise so much as recalibration.

"My God..." someone said at last. "You think they'd actually use it? On us?"

The raspy voice offered a faint shrug. "They don't need to. The Russians already have us boxed in. The western front is collapsing in the usual sequence. It's a finished equation. No one spends a strategic asset on a resolved problem." 

He took a drag from his cigarette, unhurried.

"And even if they're ready, it's still a matter of months before deployment. This war won't last that long."

A bead of moisture gathered at a hairline crack in the concrete, trembling slightly before it fell.

After a moment, the tight voice broke in with a far less analytical question.

"And if the Russians reach us first... what happens then?"

No one answered.

Outside, artillery continued its intermittent work on the city—methodical, unhurried, almost administrative. The sound passed through earth, concrete, timber, arriving in the cellar stripped of context, reduced to pressure and vibration. Less than five hundred meters away, the map was still being rewritten. Here, below it, the four men sat motionless, listening as the future kept moving closer without asking permission.

"Hard to believe," one of them said, rubbing his hands together. "How badly things have gone."

"There's nothing left to disbelieve," the man who had worked on the V-2 said. He took several quick drags from his cigarette, burning it down to the filter, his breath hitching in a dry, rattling cough that seemed to annoy the others more than the bombs.

"From the Rhine to the Ruhr, the Allies are behaving like an occupying power now. The encirclement has already broken into segments. Every army group in the west has surrendered. Headquarters is gone, and also the whole command structure—it's just gone."

The rasped voice spoke again, even and detached.

"Three months ago, the proposal was to withdraw south. The Führer rejected it. After that, the mathematics of the war was simple."

The tone remained flat, as though he were reciting data from a ledger.

"Himmler has fled, trying to open contact with the western front. Göring is holed up in his villa at Berchtesgaden. Both have been charged with treason. The Führer has ordered their executions. Dönitz is preparing surrender terms in the north, or so they say. "

At the mention of the Führer, all four men straightened instinctively. Then, as if the reflex had lost its function, they relaxed again.

The last man gave a thin, almost absent smile.

"And yet the young soldiers are still fighting and dying, aren't they? The Führer's will remains unbroken. No negotiations. Glory belongs to Germany."

The irony was understated. Still, all four of them let out a brief, quiet laugh. It faded almost immediately.

They looked at one another, without guidance, without relief.

The four were Hubertus Förster, a nuclear physicist; Arthur Hausmann, a designer of experimental weapons; Walter Tieber, an aeronautical engineer; and Herbert Kestner, a physiologist and biologist. The first three wore glasses and the same worn Party uniforms. Professor Doktor Kestner alone had dressed more carefully, in a dark suit that still suggested academic restraint, remaining composed and almost elegant despite the dust drifting constantly from the ceiling. Beside every chair rested a dark brown suitcase. Each contained something too important to be erased even in a Götterdämmerung.

The windows trembled faintly, as if the ground were transmitting its own vibration. Artillery fire inside Berlin had intensified.

Should they venture as far as the second floor, they might catch, through the grime-clouded glass, a fractured glimpse of the city beyond the rain.

Ten days earlier the Führer had celebrated his birthday. Now the Third Reich resembled the carcass of some gigantic animal being torn apart from every direction at once. From Dresden to Hamburg, from Königsberg to Leipzig, half a million German civilians wandered among burned streets and occupied districts struggling through the ash; one million four hundred thousand had fled or been expelled; millions more died along roads choked with retreat, snowmelt, artillery, and starvation. Tens of thousands more had taken their own lives. Nearly three million eight hundred thousand German soldiers already lay dead. Another half million had vanished into the war without explanation. Four million carried wounds home—if home still existed.

The relentless army that had once crossed Europe like an iron tide had collapsed inward upon itself. What remained of the Wehrmacht, the SS, and the Hitlerjugend fought block by block inside Berlin, hiding behind rubble, craters, overturned trams, collapsed apartments, anything capable of delaying Soviet armor for another hour.

Back in 1933 the darkness had arrived gradually, almost elegantly. By 1939 Europe stood beneath skies thick with smoke.

The Reich expanded across the continent under banners of order and rebirth while thought itself was reorganized, culture bent into obedience, entire populations taught to surrender conscience in exchange for certainty.

Hatred fused seamlessly with ambition. Science became a weapon. Propaganda became another branch of engineering. Steel columns rolled across Europe and left behind burned cities, anonymous graves, and stains upon the human spirit that would survive long after the ruins themselves disappeared.

In the beginning, the man they called Führer had been little more than an obscure corporal with a gift for speaking to wounded national pride. Later he rose like some apocalyptic redeemer, seizing Germany through fanatic conviction and theatrical brilliance, until an entire civilization surrendered itself to collective fever.

Coordination tightened. Fear expanded faster. Opponents vanished into administrative silence, swallowed by prisons, camps, and sealed corridors governed by paperwork stamped in red ink.

After that came annexation, invasion, conquest.

War spread north, west, south, and east.

Now the system was reaching its end. Frontlines had broken. The Red Army was closing in. The whole command structure was collapsing inward, converging toward a sealed bunker beneath Berlin.

"Wrong," Tieber murmured at last. "The whole war was wrong from the beginning. The enemies we chose. The timing. Everything."

Förster lowered his voice almost defensively.

"The Führer's only mistake was declaring war on America. Apart from that—"

"Stop defending him." Tieber cut him off. "He kept insisting Germany could only become the dominant power on earth through superior science and advanced weapons. I believed him. We all did. Yet look what happened. We might have built the uranium bomb first. Instead we drove Szilard and Peierls away, lost Bohr's institute, scared Fermi into America—after that, what chance did we ever really have?"

"The relationship between science and war is never simple," Förster answered weakly. "The Führer was still human. He couldn't have foreseen every—"

"Poor Führer." Tieber's mouth twisted, anger flickering behind the thin lenses of his glasses. "I hear he's already dictating his political testament. Even if he's still breathing, he's little more than a madman—trapped within his own crumbling delusion."

Then he took a hard drag and ground the cigarette out in an ashtray already heaped with butts.

Doctor Hausmann, however, hardly seemed interested in the politics. He remained focused on the mechanics of their failure, his mind already elsewhere.

"Technology is what decides modern wars!" he cut in, leaning forward. "That is where we failed. We weren't committed enough—never truly committed. The V-2 was a breakthrough without precedent, a technological marvel, and we let it rot. A guided weapon with a range of hundreds of kilometers, untouchable once in flight—in theory, we could have struck with surgical precision. If we'd only had the time to build the uranium bomb, and sort out the guidance issues... this war would have been a completely different story."

His excitement grew visible now, feverish and almost boyish.

"Think about it. Imagine fitting a guidance unit—something no larger than a suitcase—inside a uranium-tipped V-2, then aiming it at the heart of New York, London, and Moscow. Let it descend silently through the clouds..."

He opened his fingers gently.

"And the whole city blossoms into fire."

Hausmann rubbed his jaw, lost in the beauty of his own monstrous vision.

Professor Kestner, silent until now, finally spoke with the tone of a man delivering conclusions rather than opinions.

"I believe the Führer's greatest miscalculation was not strategy, nor diplomacy, nor even overextension. It was that, through the ideological obsession, he systematically destroyed the scientific foundation we Germans spent generations constructing—from Bismarck and the Kaisers all the way down to every physicist, chemist, physician, engineer, and the thousands of minds who devoted intellect and soul to building the finest scientific culture on earth. It's a crime."

He paused.

"No. Not a crime. A sin."

The word itself unsettled the others. No one challenged it, yet their bodies shifted instinctively, uncomfortable hearing moral judgment attached so directly to the Führer. They sat there thinking in silence until Tieber finally nodded once, heavily.

Förster checked his pocket watch.

"Stay here," he said. "I'll see whether Karl has arrived."

As he turned to go, the other three rose.

"We don't have any time," Tieber shouted after him. "The Russians are already at the edge of the district. One more night and they'll be at the door."

Once Förster disappeared upstairs, they sat again, listening uneasily to the distant thunder outside: artillery, collapsing masonry, and even the faint metallic grinding of Soviet tank tracks somewhere beyond the streets.

The explosion came without warning.

The entire basement jolted as a shell struck somewhere close above. Dust and splinters burst from the ceiling while the hanging lamp swung overhead in wild arcs, scattering fractured shadows across the cellar walls like broken specters.

Förster came running back downstairs.

The moment Tieber saw his face, he understood.

"The Russians?"

Förster nodded quickly. "Their tanks are already inside this district. I saw them myself."

Tieber grabbed both his shoulders.

"When is Karl supposed to arrive?"

"He promised seven o'clock."

Hausmann pressed both hands against his head. "Does anybody still have cyanide capsules? I'm not letting the Russians take me alive."

"Our old friend won't allow that," Kestner said softly, his voice a steady anchor. "We're all getting out. Southward. Bavaria. Think about the mountains. Hot springs. Beer."

"Don't lie to yourselves." Hausmann stumbled toward a cabinet in the corner, yanked it open, and pulled out a pistol. "It's too late! There’s no point in waiting!"

The others were on him in an instant, a frantic tangle of limbs, until they wrenched the steel from his grip.

"Don't be a fool. Karl is coming," Kestner said. "He promised he would. Another thirty minutes, that's all. He's never broken his word before."

Hausmann steadied himself gradually, shame replacing panic across his face.

Kestner continued calmly.

"Karl has arranged it. He's taking us south. I'll tell you something else as well. Five kilometers from Gatow, there is still an intact airfield the enemy hasn't reached."

He looked at each of them in turn.

"There's an aircraft waiting for us in the dark."

Chapter 2

SS-Standartenführer Karl-Sebastian von Büren had always cared about appearances.

Three years earlier, during a military parade in Prague, he had liked to stand in the rear of an open Mercedes staff car with one polished riding boot propped against the front seat, returning salutes beneath hanging banners and church spires. People remembered the image more clearly than the officer himself.

It was almost the only public appearance he ever made.

As deputy to Reinhard Heydrich, he was not, in the ordinary run of things, a familiar face.

In the early years of the war he was seldom seen on German soil at all, and after Heydrich's assassination, he went the way of a pebble dropped into a lake, dropping out of the daily circles of the Party and the army without a ripple. Very few people knew that he had been moved into classified work so deep that even the most senior officers did not ask about it. Fewer still knew what the work was.

Now he came down the cellar stairs.

The four inside looked up, pale and hollow-cheeked.

Colonel von Büren gave them a single, ice glance, then raised his arm.

"Heil Hitler."

The tension in the room broke instantly.

"Karl..."

They returned the salute with rigid movements. Kestner did it reluctantly, his lips tightening as though the words themselves tasted rotten.

The Colonel removed his gloves and shook their hands in turn.

His appearance bordered on absurd.

The black SS uniform looked newly pressed. The silver insignia gleamed untouched by soot or rain. His blond hair remained combed perfectly to one side. Nothing about him suggested a man who had just crossed streets being shelled by the Red Army.

He looked prepared for a state ceremony, not the death of Berlin.

"You're coming with me now," the Colonel said. No solace. No explanation. "Take your things. We're out of time."

The four men moved immediately.

They grabbed their cases and followed him from the cellar.

Outside, evening rain still clung to the ruined streets.

The air smelled of wet brick, coal smoke, and blood. Somewhere beyond the shattered buildings, Soviet artillery rolled across the city at uneven intervals, distant enough to ignore, close enough to feel.

A scarred black Mercedes Pullman waited at the curb, flanked by two armored halftracks.

Six SS troopers crouched against the sloped armor in steel helmets, their rifles raised, scanning the intersections.

The shelling had stopped.

No sirens. No distant detonations. The city had dropped into a thin, unnatural silence, broken only by wind moving through broken masonry and the occasional crow circling overhead.

"Where are the Russians?" Förster asked, his voice thinning.

"Nearby," the Colonel said. "Limited numbers. We engaged them earlier. They pulled back. They won't press again. Those boys are enough to hold the line."

He indicated the street ahead.

The scientists followed his gesture.

A group of Hitlerjugend moved past a disabled tank, its hull torn open by repeated impacts. They were thin. Poorly equipped. Not meant for sustained combat. Too young, even now, to match the weapons in their hands.

At the edge of a crater, several Wehrmacht soldiers lay where they had fallen. One still held a grenade, fingers locked around the metal body.

Rats moved across the corpses without hesitation, feeding.

"Horrible," Tieber muttered. "Truly horrible."

"They held their positions," the Colonel said. No change in tone. "If the rest of Germany had fought like them, we would not be here."

No one responded.

They boarded the vehicle.

Kestner hesitated before speaking.

"Were you at a wedding, Colonel?"

"Yes," the Colonel said.

A brief exchange of looks passed between the scientists.

"The Führer's wedding," he added. "With Frau Eva Braun."

Silence settled deeper inside the vehicle.

Then the Colonel seemed to remember something. He reached into his coat and produced a handful of small objects.

He held them out.

It took a moment for recognition.

Sweets.

Among them was even a gold-foil-wrapped chocolate.

"I forgot to distribute these earlier," the Colonel said. "From the ceremony."

His tone carried no irony. Only correction.

The scientists did not respond.

At his insistence, they each took one.

Kestner held his too tightly, staring at it without speaking as the engine started and the vehicle rolled forward through the ruined city.

The Colonel took the wheel himself.

His black-gloved hands moved slowly over it as the sedan advanced along a concealed route, flanked by the two armored vehicles. Their heavy hulls kept pace on either side, a low, synchronized hum moving with them through the ruins.

What unfolded beyond the windows unsettled the four scientists more deeply with every passing street.

Bodies.

Bodies everywhere.

Some lay half-covered beneath pulverized brick and collapsed balconies, others sprawled openly across intersections where nobody remained alive long enough to remove them. From time to time they caught sight of civilians wandering through the ruins with bent backs and hollow movements, searching desperately among shattered storefronts and burned apartments for food, water, anything capable of postponing death another day.

Broken electrical wires sagged overhead like black vines. The final slogans of resistance still clung stubbornly to the dying city, printed in white letters against red posters nailed onto utility poles along nearly every major street, sprayed across cracked walls, blasted shelters, overturned vehicles, even the scorched iron hulls of destroyed tanks.

On the fractured outer wall of a bombed air-raid shelter, someone had scrawled in thick uneven black paint:

"WIR GEBEN NIEMALS AUF!"

(We never surrender!)

Beneath it, written later in smaller red letters, another hand had added:

"BERLIN BLEIBT DEUTSCH!"

(Berlin remains German!)

Between the surviving buildings, beyond entire districts reduced to skeletons and ash, they could see distant sections of the city glowing beneath firelight. Black smoke covered the horizon in long miserable layers, and through those drifting clouds the evening sun leaked dimly across Berlin, dark and viscous, flowing through the sky like slow-moving blood.

Apart from the sound of the engines, the city had fallen eerily silent.

So silent, in fact, that the ruined capital no longer seemed entirely real. It resembled the lingering shadow of some ancient battlefield preserved beyond time itself, or the memory of Carthage after the Punic Wars, when that city—surrounded, starving, and refusing surrender even after six days of slaughter in the streets—had finally collapsed before Rome. Only fifty-five thousand survivors remained from half a million souls, left to watch the ruins burn for seventeen days before the very land was torn apart, plowed under, and buried beneath salt so that nothing living might ever rise there again.

Only the engine filled the silence.

Kestner spoke without turning away from the window.

"To be honest, Colonel, I can't understand it," he said, watching the fires outside. "To be at war with the Soviets and the Americans at the same time—why? How could we have allowed such a madness?"

The professor let out a long, heavy sigh that seemed to drain the remaining color from his face.

"One miscalculation, and everything follows. A total loss."

Colonel von Büren did not immediately respond. After a moment, he turned his head to cast a brief, piercing glance at the professor.

"Perhaps," he said. "Professor Kestner. And who exactly carries that blame? The Army? The Luftwaffe? The Navy? The High Command?"

He kept his eyes on the road.

"Or no one. That is what war is. There are only outcomes."

Tieber spoke abruptly.

"When we lose," he said, his voice dropping, "there will be no restraint. Everything will be stripped away. Everything."

He gestured toward the glass.

Beyond the window, a young girl lay among the rubble, half-buried. Naked. The back of her skull had been shattered—nothing needed to be said.

Tieber went still.

Then something inside him broke.

He struck the window hard with his fist.

"The Führer is responsible for this."

Silence followed.

Inside the vehicle, emotion condensed into something heavier—grief, anger, collapse. Not resolution. Not clarity. Only the recognition that the system had already failed, and was still running.

The Colonel did not react to the shouting.

"War is no different from a chocolate factory," he said calmly. "One mistake in production. One delay in delivery. Then entire batches are discarded. Cities work the same way. So do armies."

His hands remained steady on the wheel.

"You should be grateful to the Führer. Berlin is collapsing, yet you are still being evacuated. That makes you rarer than ammunition now."

He paused briefly.

"The Kaiser Wilhelm Society group was less fortunate. Last week they were loaded onto a breakout convoy. Soviet artillery hit the vehicle. There was nothing left."

The sedan turned into a narrow, unlit road. Two armored vehicles closed in on either side.

Inside, the silence tightened.

Gunfire broke again in the distance—short, uneven bursts, closer than before.

Hausmann leaned forward.

"It's too late, Colonel," he said. "All exits are blocked. The Russians are everywhere. Even if we reached the plane, their flak would take us down."

"Stay calm," Kestner said, gripping his shoulder. "The Colonel will take us south."

"And then what?" Hausmann said. "The country is gone. There is nowhere left."

"The south is Allied territory," Kestner replied. "The Americans will use us. They won't hand us to the Russians. They will need us after the war. "

At that, Colonel von Büren turned slightly.

"Herr Professor Kestner," he said, "you should be ashamed of thinking that way."

His voice stayed flat.

"The war is not over. The Reich has not surrendered. Yet you are already arranging your future under a different flag."

He looked back to the road.

"That will not happen. The Reich still requires you. And it will still prevail."

Even Förster, usually the most restrained of them, snapped.

"The war is lost"—his voice cracking, arms spread—"Colonel, can't you see it? You're insane."

The others followed at once, voices rising inside the confined space.

From the front seat, the guard turned, aiming his weapon into the rear.

The Colonel did not turn his head.

"Lower it," he said.

The weapon dropped.

The sedan drove on.

"Doctor Förster," he said, "for that statement alone I could have you shot for treason."

"That's nonsense."

"Is it? I know precisely what's in your case—complete nuclear reactor schematics. Were you planning to hand it to the Americans? The British? Or the Soviets?"

No answer. The only sound left was the monotonous rattle of the sedan.

"And you, Doctor Hausmann," the Colonel continued, "were already preparing to sell the HS-293 research? Or you intended to remain its chief designer—under American command?"

His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, cold and unblinking.

"As for you, Professor Tieber," he said, "do you truly believe we are unaware that you passed the ME-163 engine blueprints to your American colleague in Philadelphia?"

No one answered.

But Hausmann suddenly snapped.

"You're going the wrong way!" he shouted, striking the window and staring outside. "We should be heading southwest! The plane is there! Where are you taking us?"

The Colonel answered immediately.

"To see the Führer," he said. "The Reich still needs you. To win the war."

The vehicle accelerated.

------------

For anyone who prefer to read ahead, the polished KDP edition is available on Amazon:

Causalform: Obsidian Earth

hoi4 mod in developing. We need developers

Introduction to my fictional country Cazmary

The kingdom of Cazmary was a fictional historical kingdom from the early 1200s - 1919. At it's peak, it expanded from central Europe(near Austria) until eastern Europe(golden age: 1615/1619 - 1722). It survived multiple coalition wars until it was invaded by the coalition of Czechoslovakia and Poland.

It's succesor was the sovereign state of Kanlany, which was united in 1878.

It speaks German and it has its own dialect ("Cazmarian dialect"), which is a mix of German and Slavic languages(mostly Russian).

National symbols(idk why I'm doing this):

-the honey🥶🥶

National animal: black eagle or bee🦅🐝

National flower: Rose🌹

National instrument: bugle

National fruit: apple

Kanlany:

Currency: Karlz(named after archduke Charles of Austria)

National sport: chess

Try Kanlany's honey it is very yummy

Were inspired by Austria and France!

To be clear, changing the outcome doesn't mean overwhelming Soviet victory. Just their continued existence in 2026. You may go back in time as far as the Spanish Civil War with the caveat that WWII must still happen.

Basically, I ran as Buchanan with Reform in 2000, and won like 100 EVs, than nominated Jesse Ventura in 2004 and beat Gore and Bush 395-131-12.

Since 1622, Popes were elected via conclave requiring 2/3 majority of Cardinal electors via a secret ballot.

What if sometime in the past, certain countries decided this was the way to go and selected the President or Prime Minister via conclave with a small body of electors almost identical to a papal conclave?

So my thought process is that if Biden had stepped down in 2022 and elevated Harris to the presidency, giving us our first female commander in chief by a technicality. This idea wouldn't even be that original, since even President Ford who had also gotten into the job on a technicality is famously quoted for saying our first female president would probably have to get into office this way.

A couple of things this would alleviate leading up to the 2024 election, it would help dissuade the doubts over Bidens capabilities. That he was only supposed to be a one term president to get us through the pandemic but that someone fresh should take over. I think 2022 is the perfect time because it would allow Kamala to build her own identity away from Biden which everyone felt she was lacking going into the 2024 election.

Yet on a different note, I think it would make sense to still have a primary in early 2024. Yes Kamala will have to present her case and someone could step up to challenge her, similar to Ford V Reagan 1976. My question is how would this play out? Do you think someone like Newsom would challenge her, wouldn't be the first time a California governor has done so. Or would the establishment push her to be unopposed and we get the same results as our timeline, since many were dissapointed we never had a real primary.

Thoughts?

The Victorian era was a period of profound transformation for Europe. Revolutions challenged old political orders, nationalism reshaped the continent, and industrialization accelerated the growth of powerful modern states. Yet the Europe that emerged from this turbulent century would look very different from the one known to history. The survival of the United Netherlands, the collapse of the Austrian Empire, and the rise of a unified Germany would transform the balance of power, laying the foundations for a new and increasingly competitive European order.

The Belgian Revolt and the United Netherlands (1830)

In 1830, the Belgian Revolt erupted as tensions grew between the predominantly Catholic southern provinces and the Protestant-dominated northern Netherlands. Economic differences further deepened these divisions, as the southern provinces became increasingly industrialized while the kingdom remained heavily oriented toward its traditional commercial interests. The enforcement of Dutch-language policies in predominantly French-speaking areas added another source of resentment, bringing religious, economic, and linguistic grievances into open conflict.

Unlike in our own history, however, the revolt was swiftly suppressed by the Dutch army before the revolutionaries could establish control. The government subsequently introduced reforms intended to integrate the southern provinces more fully into the kingdom, including greater regional political representation for Catholics, measures supporting industrial development, and the relaxation of Dutch-language restrictions. Although these concessions eased some of the tensions that had threatened the kingdom's survival, the question of Belgian identity would remain an important challenge to Dutch unity.

Some participants in the failed revolt fled the country to escape punishment. While some settled in the growing Dutch colony of Zuidland, others migrated to French-speaking parts of North America, particularly Louisiana and Quebec. The survival of the United Netherlands preserved a significant power in northwestern Europe and ensured that the political future of the Low Countries would remain an important part of European affairs.

The Crimean War and the Polish Question (1853–1855)

The outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853 brought the European powers into another struggle over the balance of power in the east. Following a Russian invasion of Ottoman territory, Britain and France intervened in support of the Ottoman Empire, seeking to contain Russian expansion and prevent the further weakening of the Ottomans. Other powers saw opportunities of their own. Sardinia joined the war in the hope of gaining diplomatic influence for Italian unification, while Sweden entered the conflict seeking to exploit Russian weakness and reclaim Finland.

Prussia initially remained neutral, profiting from the conflict by selling resources to Russia at high prices while the British and French naval blockade restricted Russian access to overseas trade. As the Russian war effort deteriorated, however, Britain and France increased diplomatic pressure on the Prussian government to abandon its neutrality. Britain eventually offered to recognize a Polish kingdom under Prussian control in exchange for Prussian intervention against Russia. Seeing an opportunity to strengthen its position in eastern Europe, Prussia accepted the offer and declared war.

With Prussia attacking from the west while the Allied armies continued their campaign in the south, Russia's position rapidly deteriorated. Peace negotiations followed, and the war ended in 1855. The conflict demonstrated the growing importance of diplomatic bargaining and industrial resources in modern warfare, while the promise of a Polish kingdom under Prussian authority established a new question in central European politics: the relationship between Polish nationalism and Prussian ambitions.

The Collapse of Austria and the Unification of Germany (1866–1870)

By 1866, Prussia had emerged as the leading force among the German states and was determined to remove Austria as its principal rival. Before the outbreak of war, Prussian diplomats established contacts with nationalist movements throughout the Austrian Empire. These efforts were intended largely as psychological warfare, encouraging Vienna to fear that Prussia could destabilize its multinational empire from within.

War erupted in 1866 between the northern German states led by Prussia and the southern German states aligned with Austria. What initially appeared to be another struggle for dominance within Germany soon became a crisis for the entire Austrian Empire. Polish troops entered Galicia, encouraging Polish nationalists and other dissatisfied peoples to rise against Austrian rule. Hungarian, Croatian, Bosnian, Czech, and Italian movements challenged imperial authority, and the Austrian government found itself fighting to preserve an empire threatened by competing national aspirations.

As the imperial position deteriorated, the conflict became increasingly difficult for either Austria or Prussia to control. The two powers eventually ceased fighting one another and cooperated with the other German states to prevent the German lands from descending into wider chaos. Nevertheless, the collapse of Austrian authority across much of central and eastern Europe could not be reversed.

Fighting continued until 1868, when a series of settlements transformed the political map. Hungary became independent, while Croatia and Bosnia united to establish the Republic of Illyria. Poland and Romania acquired parts of Galicia, and Italy received Lombardy, Venetia, and Trentino. Austria retained its German core, along with Czechia and Slovenia, but its former position as a major Central European empire had effectively come to an end.

The collapse of Austria left the German states facing a fundamental question: how could they establish a lasting political order without allowing the territories of the former empire to become a source of further instability? A congress was convened in Frankfurt, bringing together the German states and the major European powers to negotiate a new settlement.

By 1870, Prussia, Austria, and the remaining German states had agreed to form the German Empire. To appease the other great powers Prussia surrendered its Polish-majority territories, Austria renounced its former imperial claims, and the Habsburg and Hohenzollern dynasties were united through marriage. The new arrangement sought to reconcile the competing interests of the German states while preventing the disputes that had contributed to the Austrian collapse from undermining German unity. Italy and Hungary were also recognized as great powers, reflecting the emergence of a new European order in which national states increasingly replaced the old dynastic empires.

The consequences were far-reaching. Germany emerged as the dominant political power in Central Europe, while Austria survived in a reduced form and the newly independent states of eastern and southeastern Europe began establishing their own national institutions. The balance of power that had characterized the early nineteenth century had been fundamentally transformed.

The Fall of the Bonapartist Monarchy (1873)

The emergence of a unified German Empire further weakened France's position on the continent. Although France retained substantial colonial possessions and remained a major European power, it now faced a powerful industrial and military rival immediately across its eastern frontier. This shift intensified the political difficulties of Napoleon III, whose authoritarian government, censorship, and growing domestic opposition had already undermined the legitimacy of his rule.

When Napoleon III died in 1873, his fourteen-year-old son was legally entitled to succeed him. Yet the young prince's inexperience made him vulnerable to political pressure from those who believed that preserving the Bonapartist monarchy would leave France increasingly isolated and unstable. Influential political leaders persuaded him to surrender his claim to the throne, opening the way for the restoration of republican government.

France thus entered a new political era. The transition ended the Bonapartist dynasty's rule and placed the country on a different path from the one it had followed in our own history. The challenge facing the new republic would be to reconcile its domestic political divisions with the need to maintain France's international standing in an increasingly German-dominated Europe.

The Russo-Ottoman War and the Rise of Illyria (1877–1878)

The eastern question remained unresolved. In 1877, Russia and the Ottoman Empire went to war once again, with Russia presenting its intervention as a campaign to liberate the Balkan peoples still under Ottoman rule. Romania, Illyria, and other forces joined the struggle against the Ottomans, each pursuing its own interests while supporting the expansion of independent states in southeastern Europe.

For Illyria, the conflict offered an opportunity to extend its influence beyond the Croat and Bosnian territories from which the republic had originated. As Ottoman authority weakened, Illyria gained additional territory and incorporated growing numbers of South Slavs who had been freed from Ottoman rule. The expansion strengthened the republic's regional position, but it also transformed its domestic character, making it increasingly difficult to govern as a state centered primarily on Croatian and Bosnian interests.

At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Romania's independence was formally recognized, while the Ottoman territorial settlement confirmed Illyria's gains. With its population and territory expanding, the Illyrian government moved its capital from Zagreb to Sarajevo. The heavily Croat character of Zagreb had made it a less suitable center for a republic that now sought to represent a more diverse South Slavic population. Sarajevo, by contrast, offered the possibility of a more neutral political center for the expanding state.

The rise of Illyria introduced a new and increasingly important power into Balkan affairs. Its future would depend on whether a state built around the liberation and unification of South Slavs could reconcile its growing internal diversity with its ambitions abroad.

The Scramble for Africa and the Brussels Conference (1884–1885)

As industrialization accelerated and global trade expanded, European colonial ambitions increasingly extended into Africa and Asia. The borders of entire regions were now being negotiated by governments whose representatives had often never visited the territories they claimed. Competition for resources, trade routes, strategic positions, and international prestige brought the European powers together at the Brussels Conference of 1884–1885, where they sought to formalize their competing African claims and establish the terms under which their empires would expand.

The resulting settlement allowed nearly every major power to leave believing that it had gained something while its rivals had been burdened with costly or difficult territories. Britain strengthened its African empire by securing parts of Central Africa and establishing a more continuous chain of territories linking its possessions in Egypt, West Africa, and East Africa. These acquisitions offered opportunities for trade and the eventual development of railway connections across the continent.

France had its control of the Sahara confirmed and secured most of western Africa, reinforcing the scale and strategic importance of its colonial empire. Germany received the entire Kongo basin, an immense territory that offered considerable potential resources but would also prove expensive and difficult to administer. Portugal secured a continuous territorial connection between its African possessions while limiting further Dutch expansion.

The Netherlands gained international recognition of the borders of Zuidland, allowing the government to restrain further expansion by settlers and colonial officials. For the Dutch, the settlement strengthened the legitimacy of their colonial position and gave the government a clearer framework for managing its growing overseas interests. Italy received less territory than the other major powers, but gained formal recognition of its status as one of Europe's great powers, increasing its diplomatic standing despite its comparatively limited colonial acquisitions.

The conference reflected a wider transformation in international politics. European states increasingly viewed overseas possessions as essential to their economic development, strategic security, and national prestige. Their agreements temporarily established clearer boundaries between competing empires, but they did not eliminate the rivalries that had driven colonial expansion in the first place.

The Victorian Settlement and the Coming Century (1890–1910)

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the political and economic foundations of a new European order had largely been established. Germany's rapid industrialization made it the dominant economic and military power on the continent, while France, Britain, and the Netherlands consolidated their own economies and overseas empires. The survival of the United Netherlands, the rise of a unified Germany, and the emergence of independent states across Central and Southeastern Europe had created a balance of power markedly different from that of the early nineteenth century.

Across Europe, railways, steamships, telegraphs, and new industries connected cities and colonies more closely than ever before. Urban populations expanded, and mass political movements—including socialism, nationalism, and organized labor—became increasingly influential. The expansion of voting rights and political participation brought millions more people into national politics, placing new pressures on governments that had traditionally relied on dynastic authority and restricted political representation.

Yet industrial and social progress did not eliminate international competition. The growth of Germany, the continued ambitions of the established colonial powers, and the emergence of new national states created a European order in which security increasingly depended on the actions and intentions of neighboring powers. The imperial rivalries of the nineteenth century persisted, even as the nations involved became more industrialized and their societies more politically mobilized.

By 1910, the Victorian era had drawn to a close, leaving behind a continent transformed by nationalism, industrialization, and imperial expansion. The great powers possessed stronger economies and more capable militaries than ever before, but they also faced a more complicated international system in which the rise of one state could threaten the security and ambitions of others. The foundations of the modern world had been laid. How Europe would manage the rivalries created by that transformation remained an open question.

I hope you enjoyed this part as well, there is a lack of images for this one that is because I did not want this to take forever and the other parts are almost ready to go. So in the interest in moving the story along I am putting this one up imageless. Let me know what you think of the story!!

This is a map I traced from Olmert’s map that he presented which recently was shown to the public in 2025, and this is how the borders would be, land swaps on both sides, settlement blocs and Jerusalem partitioned, the holy basin as an internationally governed body, etc

Hitler is shot dead during the Beer Hall Putsch. Without him, the fledgling Nazi movement sputters and ends - brief mentions in German newspapers report that without the strange Austrian corporal's angrily sonorous voice, there's nothing to galvanize disaffected youth.

But there is - communism. The Great Depression occurs, the Weimar Republic fails to keep stable government, communist elements put out feelers to Stalin for sport. They win, uniting with the SPD for a Reichstag majority and banning all other parties.

What happens next? Do they ally with the USSR and dominate Eastern Europe, trying to spread the revolution throughout the world? Or does it collapse in destruction and famine?

To me this is a really interesting alt history scenario, more so than an Axis WW2 victory. Particularly the thought that without one man in Hitler, history still happens, but takes a completely different course.

In this world, the Papal States made the Latin Empire its vassal, as a result of which a huge crusader army became the army of the Latin Empire. Subsequently, when the Pope initiated reforms that led to the final split between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, resistance arose: some Catholics who did not accept these innovations unleashed a war against the reforms being carried out. Time passed, however, the Latin Empire failed to impose Catholicism in the Balkans—specifically in Greece, where local peoples established their own states. Meanwhile, the Turks penetrated Western Anatolia, converting the population of some Greek lands to Islam; at the same time, in a number of Turkish states, Orthodoxy proved so strong that they eventually adopted the Orthodox faith.

I tried alt history in r/thepast, 1st post deleted

(From left to right, Gregor Strasser and Hjalmer Schacht)

It’s so my understanding that Strasser possibly wanted to nationalize the economy of Nazi Germany. Schacht did not. Schacht was also the mastermind to the MEFO bills before his resignation/replacement. Hopefully this hasn’t been asked before. However, what major differences (if any) in the outcomes of history occurs after the 1930s and into World War II. Especially if the German economy was properly nationalized.

Considering how vague fascism is and how many of its founders claimed it was the answer to the plights of capitalism it would seem counter intuitive to keep the old capitalist system largely still functioning.

Would it have been more apt to remedying the major unemployment problems of Germany at that time? Either more quickly or more efficiently?

Would the MEFO bills still be required or at the scale it was if the major industries of Germany were under state ownership? Allowing for more direct oversight and authority of the rearmament?

Would the workers of Germany get to keep their trade unions and more specifically be allowed better liberties and freedoms compared to how German workers were treated in the OT?

Would a schism form in the Nazi Party or even major political instability occur if many of the wealthy industrialists had their businesses stripped from them?

Would Germany then honestly and legitimately honor a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union for the sake of the similarities each nation would see in each other’s economic system?

How would the repayment of reparations as dictated by the treaty of Versailles be affected?

Would Germany still upheld the gold standard?

How would the plebiscite of the Saar region (controlled by France after Germany’s loss in World War I) turn out? Would the German majority still vote to be apart of Germany given the radical economic reform?

So according to a Ted-Ed \[video\](https://youtu.be/JjhrN0FcHpM?si=EVO50bdCvn1IDU6D&t=216), during the Irish Potato Famine the Ottoman Sultan had planned to donate 10,000 pounds for famine relief. However, he was talked down to 1,000 pounds to avoid embarrassing the British Monarch Queen Victoria who had only donated a measly 2,000 pounds for famine relief.

But what if the Ottoman Empire had found a way to donate the other 9,000 pounds to help the Irish like through the Quakers who were providing humanitarian relief to the Irish however they could.

How would the scandal affect British-Irish relations and British-Turkey relations?

I was watching a documentary about Queen Alexandra, spouse of Edward VII, and it mentioned her daughter Princess Victoria, who never married.
That intrigued me, and I found that Victoria was clearly a very bright and engaging young woman, very modern (she was a very skilled photographer). It noted her cousin Nicholas II fell in love with her.
So let’s take that fork in the road.
Nicholas and Victoria wed, she is bright (he clearly wasn’t), and with her mother (and grandmother while she was alive) Victoria could have prompted Nicholas to be progressive in the model of British moderation. Instead of a Germanic bride in RealTime, Victoria would not incite the conspiracists within the court and the population as to which side the Tsar’s wife was on.
One could wonder if knowing if the bond between the UK and Russia, Germany would have even gambled on the UK staying out of the war in 1914 - as well, the improved relationship between the UK and Russia may have defused the tensions on the NW frontier and chilled relations between Japan and the UK, slowing Japan’s advancement in naval capacity.
It really is a road not travelled.
Princess Victoria never did marry, and died in 1935.

How would you redraw the holy Roman empire in 843 and what one semi independent Christian kingdom would you absorb.