Miscellaneous >1900 (Alternate) History Thread

AHC: Prevent the San Fernando Valley from being annexed by LA.

Even though the Valley is technically part of LA, most people only think the areas south of the hills when they hear ‘LA’, and the Valley uses its neighborhoods in its addresses rather than Los Angeles, so how could the valley have ended up like the areas east of downtown as small incorporated municipalities rather than subsumed by the city of Los Angeles?
 
Forget "what's the hardest country to invade from a geological perspective", what is the easiest country to invade from a geological perspective? Memes say Poland, but I'm not sure if that is true.
 
Forget "what's the hardest country to invade from a geological perspective", what is the easiest country to invade from a geological perspective? Memes say Poland, but I'm not sure if that is true.
I think Poland was mostly just on the route of invading armies throughout history… Mexico on the other hand was conquered by a couple dozen shipwrecked Spanish dudes.
 
I think Poland was mostly just on the route of invading armies throughout history… Mexico on the other hand was conquered by a couple dozen shipwrecked Spanish dudes.
By the same token, Peru was curb-stomped by even fewer Spanish adventurers. (However, Peru's geography is actually not that bad vs. invasion, what with all the mountains.)
Also Mexico's geography isn't that bad for invasion? To the north: Desert. To the south: Rainforest. To the east and west: Ocean. I think the conquistadores had so much success due to guns, diseases, and native allies--geography played a role in terms of diseases, but less so in terms of "easy to conquer geography"?
 
Thanks for the quick reply, I thought this was going to take a week just for someone to say no, but i'm glad to be proven wrong.
 
France
They have literally lost every war since the 1700s
No, France has been on the winning team for several wars since the 1700s. Bold = Wars fought partially on French soil
American Revolution
War of the First Coalition (actually all of them except the Sixth and Seventh)
Crimean War
World War I
World War II
* (While the French government infamously keeled over quickly, the French Resistance put up a better fight. France was liberated at the end of World War II, so a part of a winning team.)
 
No, France has been on the winning team for several wars since the 1700s. Bold = Wars fought partially on French soil
American Revolution
War of the First Coalition (actually all of them except the Sixth and Seventh)
Crimean War
World War I
World War II
* (While the French government infamously keeled over quickly, the French Resistance put up a better fight. France was liberated at the end of World War II, so a part of a winning team.)
Yeah I was trying to make a list myself, I also think they won several colonial conflicts in the period, I would also add the Sino French war.
 
Forget "what's the hardest country to invade from a geological perspective", what is the easiest country to invade from a geological perspective? Memes say Poland, but I'm not sure if that is true.
Gambia lacks natural borders to defend as well as most of the strategic depth you'd expect for its size. Extra points for having actually been successfully invaded in the last few years.
 
Does anyone have any good South Africa or Boer Republic timelines? Either ones where the Boers won the Second Boer War, by say proceeding to Natalia rather than attempting to invest towns and wasting their mobility, or where South Africa continues on with its political isolation and nuclear programme.
 
Gambia lacks natural borders to defend as well as most of the strategic depth you'd expect for its size. Extra points for having actually been successfully invaded in the last few years.
Besides natural obstacles, like mountains or marshes, size of the country itself is often problem for invaders (European Russia is vast plain, yet its size sloved down several invaders). Thus I'd say Baltic States are way easier to invade than Poland.
 
Any advice on the suggestions made for my timeline, To Regain Your Lost Shadows? (I have questions about the suggestions due to historical accuracy, but I do need some advice due to not being much of a history buff as I would like. And there’s also my need for avoiding disappointment.)
 
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No, France has been on the winning team for several wars since the 1700s. Bold = Wars fought partially on French soil
American Revolution
War of the First Coalition (actually all of them except the Sixth and Seventh)
Crimean War
World War I
World War II
* (While the French government infamously keeled over quickly, the French Resistance put up a better fight. France was liberated at the end of World War II, so a part of a winning team.)
The Peninsular War
The Final Napoleonic War
They weren't doing well throughout ww1 and were always in the brink of collapse
WW2 doesn't count, if your government collapsed and occupied, you lost
Algeria
Vietnam
Those last two are actually very important. The lost in open battle against people not even the Americans lost to.
 
The Peninsular War
The Final Napoleonic War
They weren't doing well throughout ww1 and were always in the brink of collapse
WW2 doesn't count, if your government collapsed and occupied, you lost
Algeria
Vietnam
Those last two are actually very important. The lost in open battle against people not even the Americans lost to.
I'd say the worst French L of them all is the Franco-Prussian War (Even though it is pre-1900). France lost almost all the battles and eventually the war. Curb-stomp in Germany's favor.
That being said, there were also wars that I described where France was on a winning team.
 
What about Germany? In the middle of Europe, surrounded by potential enemies. A border that is hard to defend, because mostly fairly flat territory.
Germanies response: let's fight them all at once.
 
What about Germany? In the middle of Europe, surrounded by potential enemies. A border that is hard to defend, because mostly fairly flat territory.
Germanies response: let's fight them all at once.
To be fair that strategy of fight everyone had worked for Prussia, problem is it worked in a very specific time with specific circumstances and things had moved on.
 
What about Germany? In the middle of Europe, surrounded by potential enemies. A border that is hard to defend, because mostly fairly flat territory.
Germanies response: let's fight them all at once.
Germany was also very mountainous and it's only open border was in the east.
Unlike say France which is a very centralized unitary state with it's capital near the border of Belgium.
 

Cody is back.
I've watched the video and wasn't entirely impressed by the scenario.

I think a better Russian WWI alternate history would be had Russia actually contributed troops to the Gallipoli campaign. Since the 18th century, Constantinople was always a Russian imperial ambition. 6 months after Gallipoli, Russia begins a large-scale invasion of the Ottoman Caucasus and pushes a significant distance into Anatolia, putting the Ottomans off-guard. They successfully halt the Russians and Western Allies for a time, but by 1917, with new British invasions from Egypt and Kuwait, combined with Gallipoli and the Russians into Armenia, the Ottomans throw in the towel and call for a ceasefire (the Ottomans likely lose the war sooner given that the Young Turks are in power...)

Russian gains against the Ottoman Empire would reinvigorate the Russian public and keep them loyal to the Czar and would likely have de-radicalized the Russian political activists, even if some kind of revolution does occur in Russia.

With the Ottomans suing for peace in 1917, it is likely Germany would also sue for peace sooner than OTL and Russia actually gains significant bits of the Ottoman Empire at Versailles, though perhaps not Constantinople given it's strategic importance; it is probably turned into an international city like OTL (or a post-WW2 divided Berlin).

What happens to the Romanovs in this timeline? If Czar Nicholas is succeeded by a capable Romanov, then I think it's likely that 20th century Russia will follow 19th century France's history in the retaining of an emperor but with a strong parliament or having to vie for power with commoner military strongmen rising from the ranks. If not, the Russian Empire would have probably been dissolved sooner or later and be replaced by a military strongman from the left or right, likely a nationalist. Russia wouldn't become as much of a Communist hellhole as they are today, that's for sure. And they would probably be more pro-free markets too, which is a good thing for all Russians.
 
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