Monday, September 29, 2014

Map Monday: The Partition of France by Xibalba

For all of those who get tired of seeing Poland partitioned again and again in every timeline, here is this week's map titled "The Partition of France" by Xibalba of AlternateHistory.com:
This is one of those situations where you have a really nice looking map, but a poor scenario. If you click on the link above you will see that this map comes from a timeline where the Commonwealth of England survived and allied itself with Germany against a France still ruled by a monarchy. A war later erupted after Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo.

Considering that we are dealing with a point of divergence in the 17th century, truly a lot of things still had to happen to not only get a man named Franz to take a trip to Bosnia that ends in a major war, but also to have Belgium exist, which was an invention of the 19th century and could have easily been butterflied away. Still I can sort of forgive the poorly thought out scenario based one just the nice-looking map above. Perhaps someone else out there can come up with a better scenario?

No honorable mentions this week.  If you want to submit a map for the next Map Monday, email me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com with your map attached and a brief description in the body of the email.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

4 comments:

  1. bastante interesante.

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  2. This sort of thing likely would have happened after the Napoleonic Wars, say, if France was treated the same way Germany was after WW1.

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    1. Rather than Germany, they way Austra-Hungary was treated after WW1.

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    2. The last period of complete and utter peace for France is the one that the Peace of Vienna should be compared to.
      That would be the time period following the Treaties of Luneville and Amiens. Compared to this, France lost the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Piedmont, Nice and Savoy.
      In addition, a major alliance, the Quadruple Alliance, was formed to contain future French expansion. France would remain a major European bogeyman for the years to come.
      So, territorially, Vienna was significantly harsher than the Germans went through. Economically, France did pay some reparations, although nowhere near the scale Germany did.
      Why did France accept Vienna and the Germans not accept Versailles, then ?
      Because France tried not accepting it (the Hundred-Days) and got bitchslapped. There were Cossacks in Paris. The German delegation didn't dare refuse, and so the Entente forces never got all the way to Berlin.

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