Alternate History No Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.

[Buba]

-- Louisiana will still be secretly ceded to Spain by France.

Why? I don't get it ...

Paup was a total moron,

Peter. And most (all?) what we know of him was written with the prpose to make Catherine look good.

embroiling themselves in Poland is frankly totally unnecessary.

Russia has been embroiled in PLC since time immemorial. And since the seventeen teens Russia and Austria have held a sort of protectorate over it.

As long as they can swap Prussia

Prussia was to be swapped for Duchy of Kurland (and PLC Livonia?).

 

[Skallagrim]

Why? I don't get it ...

Following the Seven Years' War, France secretly ceded Louisiana to Spain in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Since the war will end in much the same way regarding North America, there is no reason to assume this would change.

 

[Buba]

Following the Seven Years' War, France secretly ceded Louisiana to Spain in the Treaty of Fontainebleau.

It was during the war. And done to lessen British gains at the negotiations' table.
As I believe we are going with the Miracle being no curb stomp after Kunnersdorf, there still are 2-3 years of war in NA and the European side of the war being a total disaster for Britain and its allies. Hence the fate of Louisiana is IMO in the air.
If Miracle is Elizabeth living 18-24 months longer - then yes, Louisiana c'est perdite!

 

[Skallagrim]

It was during the war. And done to lessen British gains at the negotiations' table.
As I believe we are going with the Miracle being no curb stomp after Kunnersdorf, there still are 2-3 years of war in NA and the European side of the war being a total disaster for Britain and its allies. Hence the fate of Louisiana is IMO in the air.
If Miracle is Elizabeth living 18-24 months longer - then yes, Louisiana c'est perdite!

You're mistaken about the treaty's intent. It wasn't done to reduce British gains; in fact it was a secret treaty and Britain didn't even know about it. It also ceced all of Louisiana to Spain, including the bits Britain nabbed, since it wasn't clear yet how much Britain would ultimately be able to take. But Spain understood that it was mostly about the city of New Orleans and the hinterland West of the Mississippi. This was compensation for losing East Florida. France, in turn, was quite ready to cede the land-- its other possessions already lost, Louisiana became worthless.

(Which is reflected in the fact that later on, Napoleon took Louisiana back because he had a plan to take back Haiti. When that went tits-up, he sold Louisiana to the USA. The latter only wanted New Orleans, but Nappy was insistent: all or nothing.)

The bottom line is: France isn't going to have any way to project power in North America anymore, with a POD in '59. Even if Britain takes a massive hit in Europe, that doesn't change things in North America. Nor will France aim to capitalise on European successes by demanding reversals in North America. They have higher-priority alternatives to spend that diplomatic credit on.

(After all: even if it comes to outright choosing between Hannover and the sugar isles, which were France's most valuable holdings in the Americas, Britain will just outright tell the enemy they can keep Hannover. And that's not even realistically on the table...)

 

[Agent23]

Why? I don't get it ...

Peter. And most (all?) what we know of him was written with the prpose to make Catherine look good.

Well, the guy wanted an alliance with the Prussians and did an idiotic heel face turn, so IMHO he wouldn't have made a decent tzar.

Russia has been embroiled in PLC since time immemorial. And since the seventeen teens Russia and Austria have held a sort of protectorate over it.

Well, it is not like you guys didn't start a few fights with Kievan Rus, it's leftovers and Russia, too.
Polish intervention, anyone?

In any case, I always thought that you were most outraged over Catherine's partition.

Prussia was to be swapped for Duchy of Kurland (and PLC Livonia?).

Take a look at what @Circle of Willis wrote above, and I don't recall your geography all that well, but IMHO some of the modern Belarus and Ukraine territories, if they were still yours after the Potop.
IMO you guys will probably get together with your fellow Catholics better than with the jackboot fetishists.

 

[Batrix2070]

Take a look at what @Circle of Willis wrote above, and I don't recall your geography all that well, but IMHO some of the modern Belarus and Ukraine territories, if they were still yours after the Potop.
IMO you guys will probably get together with your fellow Catholics better than with the jackboot fetishists.

Buddy, the Russians didn't want them. They wanted access to the warm sea and not more lands that they don't need anything. I understand that you bought the Russian propaganda about collecting Ruthenian lands, but it was bullshit. Secondly, Orthodoxy and Catholicism were of little importance. And above all, these lands were due to us and not to the "khanate" of Moscow.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks learned painfully that Moscow had nothing to do with the former Ruthenia.

Well, it is not like you guys didn't start a few fights with Kievan Rus, it's leftovers and Russia, too.
Polish intervention, anyone?

Where is the problem? It was the Middle Ages, there everyone screwed up with everyone. Then we inherited Halich Ruthenia, and then we received Ukraine peacefully.
Lithuania kept Belarus, Moscow had no rights to these lands except for its propaganda to justify their unbridled expansionism.

We rightly consider ourselves robbed of our lands. We spent the next centuries defending ourselves against Moscow's attempts to seize our lands. And only the fact that we were not interested in conquering Moscow in earnest saved the last " Ruthenian" state from liquidation.

 

[Agent23]

Buddy, the Russians didn't want them. They wanted access to the warm sea and not more lands that they don't need anything. I understand that you bought the Russian propaganda about collecting Ruthenian lands, but it was bullshit. Secondly, Orthodoxy and Catholicism were of little importance. And above all, these lands were due to us and not to the "khanate" of Moscow.

The Zaporozhian Cossacks learned painfully that Moscow had nothing to do with the former Ruthenia.

If the Russians wanted warm water poets alone it would have been easier for them to just focus on expanding towards the black sea and the Bosporus.

And that is exactly what might happen in this timeline of they can get some continental backing and settle things with Central and Western Europe.

TL;DR I want Russia less in Poland and more on the Balkans, preferably reaching the Dardanelles.

Also, remind me, didn't the whole Kemyanetski uprising start because you guys managed to royally piss off the cossacks?

Where is the problem? It was the Middle Ages,

Uh, huh, sauce for the Goose is sauce for the gander, or however it is spelled.

there everyone screwed up with everyone. Then we inherited Halich Ruthenia, and then we received Ukraine peacefully.

Ruthenia is something I consider a silly western name for the Rus, so IMHO Russia is the rightful heir to the lands that were once parts of Kievan Rus.

Lithuania kept Belarus, Moscow had no rights to these lands except for its propaganda to justify their unbridled expansionism.

We rightly consider ourselves robbed of our lands.

Um, I doubt the Belarussians were of the same view, considering how papists treated the Orthodox and the Cyrillic using Slavs as second class citizens...

 

[Batrix2070]

If the Russians wanted warm water poets alone it would have been easier for them to just focus on expanding towards the black sea and the Bosporus.

The problem is that their capital was unfortunately on the Baltic Sea, if Peter the Great had not taken away Sweden's lands where St. Petersburg was built, he would have built it right on the Black Sea because he planned to, but thanks to getting to the Baltic he decided that the mouth of the Neva was a better idea. That's why they pushed to have access to the non-freezing part of the Baltic, another thing is that the Black Sea is a trap from which if you want to get out you need a compliant Mr. Bosphorus. In the Baltic you can always get through the Straits of Denmark using force and Denmark was much weaker than Turkey.

Of course I would also like the Russians to go to the Balkans, that way the Ottomans will become our ally against Russia instead of being a problem. And anyway, we haven't had the Black Sea lands for centuries when we lost them to the Ottomans.

 

[Agent23]

The problem is that their capital was unfortunately on the Baltic Sea, if Peter the Great had not taken away Sweden's lands where St. Petersburg was built, he would have built it right on the Black Sea because he planned to, but thanks to getting to the Baltic he decided that the mouth of the Neva was a better idea. That's why they pushed to have access to the non-freezing part of the Baltic, another thing is that the Black Sea is a trap from which if you want to get out you need a compliant Mr. Bosphorus. In the Baltic you can always get through the Straits of Denmark.

Of course I would also like the Russians to go to the Baltics, that way the Ottomans will become our ally against Russia instead of being a problem. And anyway, we haven't had the Black Sea lands for centuries when we lost them to the Ottomans.

Good Polish Christians...

Look, in this timeline Poland might get a better deal than in OTL.

Do you think that it should squander it by trying to take lands with zero Polish population, far from its heartland while being surrounded by not so nice neighbors?

I mean, clean up your room before you start criticizing others and all.

Also, only Pole I know having any connection to the black sea is Vladislsv Jagellon don't remember if it was IV or VI, but we call him Vladislav of Varna because he died there.

In any case, Russia under Catherine did expand back into Crimea and the North-Weatern Black Sea with her expeditions managing to go as far as south of the Danube, and she had a project for the restoration of the Byzantine Empire with her nephew iirc as Emperor.

It is not a big stretch thet the Russians might be more determined and more successful in this than in the OTL.

 

[Batrix2070]

Look, in this timeline Poland might get a better deal than in OTL.

Well, yes, because the Russians have no reason to spoil Poland because it is a competition for the whole with one opponent. So it will be easier to pull out and there is even a possibility that we will avoid the disaster that was Stanislaw August Poniatowski and power will be assumed by either the next Wettin or, as originally planned by the party in which Poniatowski was, Kazimierz Czartoryski. (BTW, the Czartoryskis are cousins of the Jagiellons).

Do you think that it should squander it by trying to take lands with zero Polish population, far from its heartland while being surrounded by not so nice neighbors?

What land grab? And back then, nationality didn't matter. I said that we haven't had lands on the Black Sea for a century because we lost them to Turkey, and the only thing I want to take away from Russia is A)Kiev which according to the agreement they should give us back after two years, they never did. B)Smolensk and the surrounding area because to be close to Moscow if needed. C)Give back Inflants and Courland in exchange for Prussia and then get them back after the Continental War.
D) Recapture Zaporozhye and Right-bank Ukraine if possible.

Also, only Pole I know having any connection to the black sea is Vladislsv Jagellon don't remember if it was IV or VI, but we call him Vladislav of Varna because he died there.

This is Ladislaus III Varnesian (Władysław III Warneńczyk), King of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Unfortunately, he was young and foolish and unnecessarily renewed the war with Turkey instead of waiting out the truce and better preparing for war.

 

[S'task]

I'm not sure the US would fall immediately into the French bloc as proposed. Assuming roughly the same ending to the American Revolution, the largest trading partner with the US was still Great Britain, and continued to be for quite a few decades after independence. In fact both the Washington and Adams administrations were quite friendly towards Britain, and while Jefferson was more oriented towards the French, it wasn't the French markets that were buying up US goods, it was still mainly Britain and the Dutch.

This actually puts the US in an awkward position of wanting to thread the needle between the two continental blocs, further, assuming Washington still exists, his advocacy to "avoid foreign entanglements" was still fresh in everyone's mind, so you might see the US trying to play the neutral party between the British and French led blocs, especially as to the US neither side is actually a "bad guy" ideologically (as with the proposed timeline you functionally have a Anglo-Liberal* Britain, and Anglo-Liberal US, and a Anglo-Liberal France thus meaning that the Scottish Enlightenment and the Anglo-American Liberal tradition has completely displaced the Continental Liberal tradition). That said, the addition of the Spanish with the French bloc, and a stronger Spain able to hold onto it's American colonies, might be able to build a strong enough economic bloc to swing the majority of trade from the US to them over Britain.

-------------
* The Liberal tradition is arguably sharply divided between the Anglo-American Liberal tradition, as typified by the governments of the US and Great Britain, as well as what we call the "Classical Liberal" model / "American Conservative" model, and the Continental-Liberal tradition, as typified by the French Revolution. In the simplest sense the core difference can be summed up in the difference between "The Pursuit of Happiness" and "Fraternity", but there's a lot more to it than that. Embrace of traditional religion and values (Anglo-American) in opposition of aggressive rejections of them (Continental). Seeking change by slow, step by step processes and (generally) working within the system (Anglo-American) in opposition to revolutionary zero day remaking (Continental). And arguably acceptance of and working within an imperfect world (Anglo-American) versus Utopianism (Continental). So while they both espouse "Life and Liberty"... in the end they are very different ideological traditions.

 

[Agent23]

Well, yes, because the Russians have no reason to spoil Poland because it is a competition for the whole with one opponent. So it will be easier to pull out and there is even a possibility that we will avoid the disaster that was Stanislaw August Poniatowski and power will be assumed by either the next Wettin or, as originally planned by the party in which Poniatowski was, Kazimierz Czartoryski. (BTW, the Czartoryskis are cousins of the Jagiellons).

Ok, also didn't the Jagellons reign for quite a while after the battle of Varna?

What land grab? And back then, nationality didn't matter. I said that we haven't had lands on the Black Sea for a century because we lost them to Turkey, and the only thing I want to take away from Russia is A)Kiev which according to the agreement they should give us back after two years, they never did. B)Smolensk and the surrounding area because to be close to Moscow if needed. C)Give back Inflants and Courland in exchange for Prussia and then get them back after the Continental War.
D) Recapture Zaporozhye and Right-bank Ukraine if possible.

Not as much as now, but it still mattered to a number of people.
Religion mattered as well, around the Balkans we used to say "Better the Sultan's turban than the Pope's cap."And there is the whole 30 years war thing that happened a century earlier.

Also, Polish Kiev sounds as outlandish and wrong to me as Serbian Sofia.
The Russians basically started there, and I see it as a Russian/Ruthenian/Rus what have you, city.

This is Ladislaus III Varnesian (Władysław III Warneńczyk), King of Poland, Bohemia and Hungary and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Unfortunately, he was young and foolish and unnecessarily renewed the war with Turkey instead of waiting out the truce and better preparing for war.

Known as Владислав Варненчик here, thought that the Varnenchik bit was something we'd tacked on.
From what I recall he basically charged headlong into the main force of Janissaries.
I wonder how things would have developed had he lived.

 

[Batrix2070]

Ok, also didn't the Jagellons reign for quite a while after the battle of Varna?

Yes, for some two centuries after his death. Although by his death the chance to unite Poland and Bohemia, and to stop the Ottomans in the Balkans and their liberation centuries earlier was lost.

Religion mattered as well, around the Balkans we used to say "Better the Sultan's turban than the Pope's cap."And there is the whole 30 years war thing that happened a century earlier.

Religion may matter, but in the Commonwealth much less than elsewhere. Although this is a post-tolerance period for dissenters, non-Catholics for obvious reasons *Sweden and Moscow* became objects of suspicion and distrust. It was not without reason that August II, a Lutheran, was forced to convert to Catholicism in order to become Polish King. On the other hand, thanks precisely to Moscow, the Orthodox elites in Poland were in a way forced to become either Greek Catholics or Roman Catholics. Which in the future manifested itself in Polonization and the permanent presence of Poles in all areas of the former Commonwealth.

Also, Polish Kiev sounds as outlandish and wrong to me as Serbian Sofia.
The Russians basically started there, and I see it as a Russian/Ruthenian/Rus what have you, city.

Well, yes, today it seems so, but then Kiev should have been a Polish city because we made such an agreement with the Russians after one of the wars that they would keep Kiev for two years, after which they would give it back. They never did, and at the time of the Partitions the city was Polonized from below which turned Kiev into a Polish city, and this lasted until the Polish Operation carried out by the NKVD and was a genocide committed against the Poles in the USSR.

As for whose city it was originally.... well such Wroclaw or Raciborz were Polish cities originally. After which, when the Princes who ruled these principalities paid fief tribute to the King of Bohemia, they fell into the orbit of German influence which eventually led to their Germanization. In these cities you won't find the characteristic Polish architecture that manifests from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, while in Kiev, Zhytomyr or Lviv you will. Kiev in its historical buildings has more in common with Krakow than with Moscow.

I wonder how things would have developed had he lived.

Quite differently, such an Empire would be an equal power to both the HRE, France and the Ottomans. It would be something like the Hasburg Monarchy but with the Jagiellonians. It is even possible that centuries earlier the Balkans would be liberated.

 

[Skallagrim]

I'm not sure the US would fall immediately into the French bloc as proposed. Assuming roughly the same ending to the American Revolution, the largest trading partner with the US was still Great Britain, and continued to be for quite a few decades after independence. In fact both the Washington and Adams administrations were quite friendly towards Britain, and while Jefferson was more oriented towards the French, it wasn't the French markets that were buying up US goods, it was still mainly Britain and the Dutch.

This actually puts the US in an awkward position of wanting to thread the needle between the two continental blocs, further, assuming Washington still exists, his advocacy to "avoid foreign entanglements" was still fresh in everyone's mind, so you might see the US trying to play the neutral party between the British and French led blocs, especially as to the US neither side is actually a "bad guy" ideologically (as with the proposed timeline you functionally have a Anglo-Liberal* Britain, and Anglo-Liberal US, and a Anglo-Liberal France thus meaning that the Scottish Enlightenment and the Anglo-American Liberal tradition has completely displaced the Continental Liberal tradition). That said, the addition of the Spanish with the French bloc, and a stronger Spain able to hold onto it's American colonies, might be able to build a strong enough economic bloc to swing the majority of trade from the US to them over Britain.

I can't speak for the thought process of others, but my thinking here is that with France ending up more similar to the Americans ideologically, the opponents of Franco-American alliance will have rather less "ammunition". In OTL, the revolutionary French diplomats quickly made trouble, outright trying to spead Jacobinism in America. This behaviour annoyed Washington personally, I seem to recall. Moreover, the excesses in France allowed the Federalists to dismiss the Jeffersonians as "Jacobins" who'd surely introduce their own reign of terror. (Jefferson's Francophilia and occasionally very 'revolutionary' statements made him an easy target.) It was also a bit troubling that the French monarchy had helped the USA in its struggle for independence, and was now overthrown-- a problem compounded by the fact that the Jacobins turned on Lafayette. Not to mention the XYZ affair...

Things would be quite different if the "French revolution" is instead a much more moderated palace coup that introduces liberalism (in the same tradition that also informed the American revolution) as the king's policy and sees the commanders who aided the Americans raised to prominent positions. The (alt-)Jeffersonians would have the wind in their sails, politically. Unlike in OTL, their accusations aimed at the Federalists (specifically that they were crypto-tories) would be the louder voices, not drowned out by the OTL yell of "Jacobin! Jacobin!"

Add to this a number of familiar and beloved friends of the USA high in the French government and/or military, plus the fact that without the incompetent and corrupt gaggle of loons that ran OTL Revolutionary France even getting in charge, there's no XYZ affair to cause trouble... Well. I'd imagine the (alt-)Jeffersonians winning the Presidency when Washington decides to leave office. And they'd aim for closer ties with France. Washington himself wouldn't support that, but I think it would still happen.

This would of course cause relations with Britain to be chillier than in OTL, and if the pro-French faction is dominant enough in America, this may cause earlier tension akin to the sort that sparked the War of 1812 in OTL. I think the USA would avoid such a conflict this early on, having barely recovered from its own independence war, but it would be a festering source of resentment between America and Britain. Which I think would be enough to push America into the French camp if it comes to a new war.

 

[S'task]

I can't speak for the thought process of others, but my thinking here is that with France ending up more similar to the Americans ideologically, the opponents of Franco-American alliance will have rather less "ammunition". In OTL, the revolutionary French diplomats quickly made trouble, outright trying to spead Jacobinism in America. This behaviour annoyed Washington personally, I seem to recall. Moreover, the excesses in France allowed the Federalists to dismiss the Jeffersonians as "Jacobins" who'd surely introduce their own reign of terror. (Jefferson's Francophilia and occasionally very 'revolutionary' statements made him an easy target.) It was also a bit troubling that the French monarchy had helped the USA in its struggle for independence, and was now overthrown-- a problem compounded by the fact that the Jacobins turned on Lafayette. Not to mention the XYZ affair...

Things would be quite different if the "French revolution" is instead a much more moderated palace coup that introduces liberalism (in the same tradition that also informed the American revolution) as the king's policy and sees the commanders who aided the Americans raised to prominent positions. The (alt-)Jeffersonians would have the wind in their sails, politically. Unlike in OTL, their accusations aimed at the Federalists (specifically that they were crypto-tories) would be the louder voices, not drowned out by the OTL yell of "Jacobin! Jacobin!"

Add to this a number of familiar and beloved friends of the USA high in the French government and/or military, plus the fact that without the incompetent and corrupt gaggle of loons that ran OTL Revolutionary France even getting in charge, there's no XYZ affair to cause trouble... Well. I'd imagine the (alt-)Jeffersonians winning the Presidency when Washington decides to leave office. And they'd aim for closer ties with France. Washington himself wouldn't support that, but I think it would still happen.

This would of course cause relations with Britain to be chillier than in OTL, and if the pro-French faction is dominant enough in America, this may cause earlier tension akin to the sort that sparked the War of 1812 in OTL. I think the USA would avoid such a conflict this early on, having barely recovered from its own independence war, but it would be a festering source of resentment between America and Britain. Which I think would be enough to push America into the French camp if it comes to a new war.

Politically that might be the case, but you're ignoring the elephant in the room when it comes to America's alignment in that period: trade. The vast majority of trade in the US was still with Great Britain even in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, and even with a moderate French Revolution that political alignment isn't going to overcome that inertia, or the decades of economic manipulation the British had done to orient the US economy to be tied to them.

In order for France (and potentially Spain) to replace Great Britain as major US trading partners they'd need to see a massive increase in shipbuilding (which in this timeline there's a good chance at happening), see tobacco use become common, and see a major textile industrial revolution. This covers the major exports of the US of the late 18th century. The first two I can see happening easily enough while the third, which is critical for tying the rather rambunctious US Southern States into things, I have doubts about accomplishing.

That said, without the excesses of the French Revolution and subsequent Napoleonic Wars (of which the US did actually play a part in albeit small) you might see a closer tie to the French. I just feel the economic interests of the US would force them to play a neutral role in things, and the lack of same-said Napoleonic Wars would also keep tensions from rising with the British, as many of the big issues the US had with Great Britain were a direct result of England's Napoleonic War policies and stresses of that conflict.