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Belorussia to India

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Continuing with my occasional “fiddling with other people’s maps” theme, I found an old “alternate colonization” map with an element so bizarre I decided to fiddle with it…
(OTL=Our Time Line, remember)

In this world, a young Genghis ate some bad sheep and died before he could become the Oceanic Khan. Although a century later a Nestorian Turkish empire expanded from the Pacific to the Dneiper, it was a smaller and less destructive entity than the Mongol Khanate, although it did hasten the decline of the already decaying Khwarizmi Caliphate. The bulk of the Russian states got off lightly with a few nasty raids and some tribute-paying. Lithuania never got the chance for massive expansion it did OTL, and eventually ended up converting to Orthodoxy and allying with the Russians vs. the Teutonic Knights.

Much of Russia eventually unified under a western dynasty centered in Poltosk. Poland eventually was divided up between the Teutonic knights (driven out of Latvia and Estonia, they managed to consolidate in Prussia and Pomerania) and the Russians, but a united Great Russia was not to be. Religious strife broke out between religious traditionalists in Vladimir and Ryazan and reformers favored by the monarchy. Eventually, after a bloody century of strife, Russia split in the 1500s between a western monarchy and an eastern near-theocracy.

Each expanded, the Holy Empire into Siberia, the western or “white” Russians southwards at the expense of the crumbling Nestorian Khanate: by the start of the 1700s they had reached the borders of Central Asia. Under a series of energetic monarchs, a march to the south and the east would begin which would not end for a century and a half.

In 1910, most of the world is divided up between Europeans as OTL, but a bit differently. Spain and Portugal, again as in our world, took the lead thanks to geography, and managed to avoid some of the economic disasters of our TL: although it has lost its American possessions as OTL, the Spanish remain in the colonial game, and the Portuguese Empire remains a major player, although coordinating strategy between the Four Thrones is increasingly an exercise in cat-herding.

The Swedes colonized Canada, although increasing difficulties in retaining control over the more populous (and largely non-Swedish due to extensive emigration from elsewhere) eastern half led to a division of their American holdings of a still Swedish-ruled (if largely nominally: think Australia OTL 1910) Sigmundsland and New Gottland, now an independent, if allied, nation under a branch line of the Swedish royal house.

Similar events took place in the Mississippian monarchy named after a Philipe rather than a Louis, although the positively decadently liberal Philipians don’t get along very well with the Old Country nowadays.

There is a long-standing alliance between the German-speaking Confederated States of Madiera (local name for the Americas) and the English-speaking Republic of Sylvania, beginning with mutual assistance in kicking out their respective colonial overlords and continuing with a long period of mutually beneficial trade. Of late, however, the Sylvanian practice of chattel slavery has fallen out of favor in most modern nations, and there has been an increased amount of finger-wagging north of the border, which greatly annoys Sylvanians who accuse the largely lily-white Confederates of hypocrisy.

The Brits, due to various political butterflies, were slower off the mark in getting into the colonial gig than OTL, but have made up for lost time in the last century. A major power, but they never did rule the waves unchallenged here.

Independent Ireland is a long story, and was ruled by the French for a bit, if that gives any ideas.

France is still a monarchy, and about as democratic as Germany under the last of the Kaisers: fortunately for global political stability, the current monarch is nowhere as disruptive as Silly Willy.

There never was such a place as the Netherlands, the particular economic and historical events that led to the emergence of that mercantile powerhouse never having taken place, but a largish concentration of noble domains in the Rhinelands-Low Countries area formed the core around which a *Protestant (a bit different from OTLs Protestantism) German state emerged. Due to resistance from the French and the Russians, ambitions to absorb the German bits of Catholic Pomerania and the Tripartite Monarchy have so far failed to materialize.

The formerly extensive Hungarian Empire was much reduced after the disastrous War of Luca’s Pig.

The Belorussian Empire is one of the world's great powers, and fully "part of Europe." Due to the relatively large numbers of Muslims and Hindus in it's empire, it has distinct forms of government for those regions of Parliamentary Administration (it is a limited rather than absolute monarchy nowadays) and those of Colonial Administration: still, due to the railways now running from Bengal to the Baltic, far too many Heathens looking for jobs are showing up in the western regions, and although the Empire is notable for its tolerance (Jews, Catholics and Nestorians all can occupy high office) Hindus and Muslims are a bit much, and there is talk of establishing an internal passfort system.

Although there was no organized Afghan state in this TL, the Pathans are still a pain in the ass.

The Holy Russian Empire is the most backwards of European states, but is large and populous, and sufficiently well-organized to discourage efforts to forcibly bring it into the 20th century. Indeed, under the current ruling Patriarch, an energetic effort is being made to import western science (well, aside from the blasphemous bits of geology and biology) and technology into the country. A railway to the Chinese border will soon be completed, and when that is the case, there may be some revisions made to the 1712 border treaty...

The Ottomans were butterflied, but another Turkish dynasty managed to complete the job of finishing off the Byzantines, and expanded eastwards with the disintegration of the Khwarizmi Caliphate. (They also did some expansion into Europe, but not as extensively as OTLs Ottomans). Currently they are a bit better off than the Ottomans 1910: rather than the sick man, the dispeptic man of Europe perhaps. Iran, Sunni rather than Shia in this world, survives as a buffer between the Turks and the Russian territories in Central Asia.

South Africa was settled later than OTL, in a bit of a rush, and there is still a great deal of grumbling by those who ended up with the crap bits.

The Jin Dynasty was not destroyed by the Mongols in this world, but a few changes of dynasty, wars, revolutions, etc. later, China is again unified. The last round of gunpowder warfare having run later than those in the formation of Qing China, the current dynasty is a bit better equipped to stand off further military assaults than its OTL equivalent, but foreign ideas and influences are increasingly corrosive. Japan, on the other hand, has been slower to modernize than OTL (the POD is well before the Tokugawa, which did not exist ATL) and is increasingly under British and French pressure.

If the original map-maker recognizes this, give a shout-out!
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