To the Victor, Go the Spoils (Redux): A Plausible Central Powers Victory

[ReconGuy02]

Putting aside the practicalities of the Brest-Litovsk states exercising any independent power, I am struck by how... Balkan... it all is?

They're only just thrown together. Their ethnic groups are heavily mixed in a patchwork stretching right across all those new borders. And even if one were comfortable with the ethnic cleansing and forced homogenization that would OTL create nation states, these borders still wouldn't make any sense.

Poland is very much in an early-Serbia position. Lithuania (if that's the name) is a very familiar sort of artificial construct - how many people in there can have a basic conversation in Lithuanian? Then there's the apparent Courland-Livonia split of the Latvians, with Livonia extending into much of the region where Estonian is spoken.

Wild.

Well, that's pretty much were the real early-1918 German, Bulgarian, and Austrian plans for Balkans and Europe.
And Ukrainian/Polish borders do make sense, Germans used Congress of Poland borders, when establishing a kingdom in 1916, and in case of Ukraine, those were governorates claimed by UPR in 1917 and early 1918. Hetmanate also claimed Chelm, Polissya marshes( Pinsk-Mozyr area south of Pripyat river), and Belgorod.
Regarding Courland, Livonia and Estonia - those are internal borders. All three regions are supposed to be in United Baltic Duchy, a state run by the Baltic Germans, and theoretically, subjected to annexation into the Reich down the line. I doubt that it would have happened, however.
Lithuania - they held the claim to Belostok-Grodno-Volkovysk area since the Duchy times, and they didn't really care that those lands are full of Ruthenians(Belarusians) and Poles.
Sometime ago on KR mod subreddit someone ran math, and we discovered that Lithuanians would make 40-45% of population in those borders, followed by Poles, Ruthenians and Jews.
The most problematic of all the new configurations are actually Bulgaria and Lithuania. Their titular nations are like just a plurality.
While Bulgaria has a cop out with integrating Macedonians, who didn't have well defined identity at the times and oscillating between identifying Serbian and Bulgarian, as Bulgarians and therefore reaching majority, Lithuania would be very fragile.
Serbia is effectively dead , and it'll take them probably until 21st century to recover.
Another question is as of 1919 still non-existent Belarus. Per B-L Treaty, this is just Russian land occupied by Germany. Belarusian cultural and political leaders of the time lobbied hard for independence, but Germany lost in our world. As of 1920, Belarus basically had no national identity and its population was very diverse...

 

[gradje]

While Bulgaria has a cop out with integrating Macedonians, who didn't have well defined identity at the times and oscillating between identifying Serbian and Bulgarian, as Bulgarians and therefore reaching majority, Lithuania would be very fragile.

I seem to recall that the identity of Nis and surroundings was also rather fluid, but I don't know if by this time it had already settled down on Serbian. Bulgaria has "potential" so to say but it has to go through a period of consolidation as of now. The biggest problem can be Serbian revanchism coming about during a chaotic collapse of Austria-Hungary, but I doubt Germany would let that happen, even a war weary one

The part of the Eastern Settlement(tm) I'm mostly interested in is the fate of the Caucasus. Azerbaijan is obviously a Soviet republic. Georgia is one of those places crawling with German troops and secures their direct access to the Baku oil and provides a nice reminder as to why the Soviets should stick to the deal. The big question is Armenia. With Turkey not having to go through total defeat and its independence war it's probably "straight up not having a good time man."

 

[KingSweden24]

I seem to recall that the identity of Nis and surroundings was also rather fluid, but I don't know if by this time it had already settled down on Serbian. Bulgaria has "potential" so to say but it has to go through a period of consolidation as of now. The biggest problem can be Serbian revanchism coming about during a chaotic collapse of Austria-Hungary, but I doubt Germany would let that happen, even a war weary one

The part of the Eastern Settlement(tm) I'm mostly interested in is the fate of the Caucasus. Azerbaijan is obviously a Soviet republic. Georgia is one of those places crawling with German troops and secures their direct access to the Baku oil and provides a nice reminder as to why the Soviets should stick to the deal. The big question is Armenia. With Turkey not having to go through total defeat and its independence war it's probably "straight up not having a good time man."

The fluidity of Nis was more of a late 19th century thing, immediately after its absorption into Serbia after 1878. IIRC by 1914 it was mostly Serbian

 

[Višeslav]

I seem to recall that the identity of Nis and surroundings was also rather fluid, but I don't know if by this time it had already settled down on Serbian. Bulgaria has "potential" so to say but it has to go through a period of consolidation as of now. The biggest problem can be Serbian revanchism coming about during a chaotic collapse of Austria-Hungary, but I doubt Germany would let that happen, even a war weary one

The part of the Eastern Settlement(tm) I'm mostly interested in is the fate of the Caucasus. Azerbaijan is obviously a Soviet republic. Georgia is one of those places crawling with German troops and secures their direct access to the Baku oil and provides a nice reminder as to why the Soviets should stick to the deal. The big question is Armenia. With Turkey not having to go through total defeat and its independence war it's probably "straight up not having a good time man."

If you're referring to Niš's particular Torlakian dialect being in between Serbian and Bulgarian, yes but Niš had been pretty firmly in Serbian hands since the 1870s and was fine with the Serbian identity, firmly seeing itself as ethnically Serbian by 1900. But on top of that the city had generally already leaned Serbian politically.

Linguistically speaking, the dialect there was indisputably far closer to Serbian than to Bulgarian. Surdulica and Pirot you could MAYBE debate about who they're closer to (though the consensus still tends to be Serbian) but Niš's dialect is still less divergent (for example it has one more noun case than Surdulica. Number of cases is one of the ways the Torlak dialects are categorized as closer to to Serbian or to Bulgarian). I imagine the area on the map below with 2 noun cases (Surdulica, Pirot, and other towns), though it DID view itself mainly as Serbian, could with a WWI POD be "Bulgarized" both linguistically and politically perhaps, but nothing as far as Niš IMO.

 

[MonarchistCanuck]

Damn I love AH.com, where you can learn the ethnic and linguistic history of small groups you've never heard before

 

[Pax_Nihil]

Damn I love AH.com, where you can learn the ethnic and linguistic history of small groups you've never heard before

Uritebro.jpg

 

[Višeslav]

Damn I love AH.com, where you can learn the ethnic and linguistic history of small groups you've never heard before

Definitely. I’ve learned all kinds of obscure stuff on this site.

The linguistic transitional region between Serbia and Bulgaria is super interesting when it comes to small subgroups. I’m gonna quickly dump lore in these 2 cool obscure groups that ITTL are likely to be subject to Bulgarization campaigns, in case OP wants to do anything with them.

Like I said most Torlakian dialect groups on the Serbian side of the border considered themselves pretty firmly Serb & most on the Bulgarian side firmly Bulgarian but there are 2 SUPER tiny groups that actually at least in part consider themselves distinct from both.

You have on one hand the Shopi, who the Bulgars define as Bulgarian (and indeed Shopi in Bulgaria consider themselves Bulgarian), meanwhile Shopi in Serbia are considered a separate ethnicity, and have been for a while. Serbia actually used “liberating the Shopi” as a propaganda point and justification for wars against Bulgaria. They basically hug the border though in Bulgaria people as far as Sofia can be classified as Shopi but are thought of as a subgroup of Bulgars and for centuries have been. It’s only right by the border that you find people identifying as a separate group. Today, there are only 142 self declared Shopi in Serbia & pretty much none anywhere else.


The others are the Gorani, one of my favourite Balkan groups. They live in Gora which is the far south of Metohija (or really, historically, a distinct region. The tri point between Serbia (or if you’re so inclined kosovo), Macedonia, and Albania. Classifying their language has been an ongoing battle between Serbia and Bulgaria, to a lesser extent Macedonia. What’s unique about them is that they’re MUSLIM. The only Muslim Torlak group. They have an interesting fusion of Slavic and Turkish culture, taking some cultural features from the Turks that other Balkan Muslims didn’t. They also, unsurprisingly given the proximity, have some Albanian cultural influence. Bosniaks sometimes like to claim them because they’re “Muslim Serbo-Croatian speakers” but this has fallen somewhat out of fashion as Bosniaks seek to define themselves more as a nation rather than some kind of ethno religious agglomeration and Gora has no historical connections to Bosnia whatsoever. They tend to consider themselves a distinct group and are most “friendly” or “aligned with” Serbia on account of Kosovar Albanians not always being very nice to them so they see Kosovo and Metohija’s reintegration into Serbia as a way to get better protection. Some also align with Macedonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia. Some try to reconcile with their Albanian neighbours on account of shared Muslim faith, but the most common lean is towards Serbia. This is very much a modern day thing though. Prior to WWII most if Gora was part of Albania, the only part of Kosovo and Metohija that has ever been part of an independent Albania. There are about 60,000 of them in the world.

The green areas here are their core area and broader distribution respectively:

 

[The Banker]

This is one word
Awesome

But there's a bigger word
REALISTIC

Finally a KR world where stupid things like 2nd American Civil War, Rise of Syndicalism and restored Qing empire don't happen

 

[The Banker]

Can someone please post latest map of this world 🙏

 

[gradje]

Oh yeah I'm very familiar with maps like these. From a current day perspective it's crazy to consider the stuff that happened in this part of the Balkans in general, seeing as these people are generally really quite closely connected. Yugoslavism is often derided, but this is what it what it was based on in the end. The fun part is also that the 6 area on the map could have been considered Slovenian at a certain point in time.

Finally a KR world where stupid things like 2nd American Civil War, Rise of Syndicalism and restored Qing empire don't happen

Not a bad word towards KR! KR is mostly just vibes you have to roll with

 

[The Banker]

Oh yeah I'm very familiar with maps like these. From a current day perspective it's crazy to consider the stuff that happened in this part of the Balkans in general, seeing as these people are generally really quite closely connected. Yugoslavism is often derided, but this is what it what it was based on in the end. The fun part is also that the 6 area on the map could have been considered Slovenian at a certain point in time.

Not a bad word towards KR! KR is mostly just vibes you have to roll with

I liked KR but I hate how they pretend to be a realistic mod while having many gamey paths for nations and having unrealistic elements as a whole.
I also made a KR generator
Link: https://perchance.org/kaiserreich

That's why I love this timeline because it doesn't have unrealistic gamey stuff that KR has

 

[ChrisTheCat]

I liked KR but I hate how they pretend to be a realistic mod while having many gamey paths for nations and having unrealistic elements as a whole.
I also made a KR generator
Link: https://perchance.org/kaiserreich

That's why I love this timeline because it doesn't have unrealistic gamey stuff that KR has

That's unfortunately the problem with an alternate history video game - the 'video game' part does need to be considered, as if the game were realistic in the sense that this timeline is, things could potentially be very one-sided or worse, uninteresting, and thus not very fun.

Also in their defence, while KR isn't as realistic as it could be (meme paths aside, hopefully the many reworks of majors in progress will help with that), it's come leaps and bounds since the early days.

I really wish we could see more of this timeline and the consequences. It's just so well-written, but the trade-off for that is time. It's also completely volunteer so that factors in. Either way, this timeline is a gem and I hope to see more of it!

 

[Višeslav]

Oh yeah I'm very familiar with maps like these. From a current day perspective it's crazy to consider the stuff that happened in this part of the Balkans in general, seeing as these people are generally really quite closely connected. Yugoslavism is often derided, but this is what it what it was based on in the end. The fun part is also that the 6 area on the map could have been considered Slovenian at a certain point in time.

Yeah. On top of that Kajkavian, the dialect/language you’re referring to, in its vernacular form is way closer to Slovenian than most (Serbian side) Torlak dialects are to Bulgarian. Literary Kajkavian is very much modified to more closely resemble standard (ie Štokavian) Croatian but for a long time and even by some today it was argued to be a Slovenian dialect (I myself somewhat lean in this direction too).

Also I feel like a lot of people overestimate the similarities between standard Croatian and Kajkavian because their image of it is based off Zagreb vernacular which is pretty much Štokavian with a few Kajkavian words inserted, like saying Kaj instead of Što/Šta but still using standard grammar, kind of like how modern Niš vernacular is not all that Torlak anymore sadly (I like dialect diversity it’s cool), albeit in both cases the “true” form of the regional dialect is widespread in the nearby villages and towns.

But yeah you can quite literally view the South Slavic languages as a spectrum from Slovenian to Bulgarian.

On a scale of 1-10 you sort of have (in a very simplified and non-ideal sense):

1: Slovenian
2: Kajkavian
3: Literary Kajkavian
4: Northwestern Croatian vernacular Štokavian
5: Central Štokavian (Bosnian, Slavonian, Montenegrin, far Western Serbian), this includes New Southern, the basis of standard Serbocroatian, Croatian, Bosnian, Bosnian Serbian, and Montenegrin, as well as dialects closely related to New Southern
5.5: Standard Serbian in Serbia, essentially Ekavized New Southern
6: Southern Rascian & Central Montenegrin (New Southern with one less Noun Case and some minor vocabulary variations)
7: Niš dialect/Pomoravlje dialect/Western Torlak
8: Southern/True Torlak/Vranje Dialect
9: Western Bulgarian, far northern Macedonian dialects
10: Far southern Macedonian & Eastern Bulgarian

But I’ve already derailed the thread enough with Balkan dialect talk so I’ll end it here.

 

[Godwin]

Can someone please post latest map of this world 🙏

I had a running map I was working on with Ref a while back that I may find and post, but I'll have to check in first and so it won't happen till tomorrow morning if at all.

 

[The Banker]

I had a running map I was working on with Ref a while back that I may find and post, but I'll have to check in first and so it won't happen till tomorrow morning if at all.

Yes pls share
Thanks so much bro

 

[gradje]

I liked KR but I hate how they pretend to be a realistic mod while having many gamey paths for nations and having unrealistic elements as a whole.
I also made a KR generator
Link: https://perchance.org/kaiserreich

That's why I love this timeline because it doesn't have unrealistic gamey stuff that KR has

Yeah my opinion as well. The switch to HoI4 and the whole idea of "muh realism" has taken a lot of the shine away for me. I'll be sticking to DHKR 1.7 thank you very much.

 

[The Banker]

Yeah my opinion as well. The switch to HoI4 and the whole idea of "muh realism" has taken a lot of the shine away for me. I'll be sticking to DHKR 1.7 thank you very much.

I am an extreme realism chaser

 

[prester.john208]

DHKR 1.7

???

 

[Entrerriano]

???

Darkest Hour Kaiserreich, the version of the mod for the Darkest Hour version of HoI (and the original version of Kaiserreich I believe)

 

[gradje]

I am an extreme realism chaser

Nothing wrong with that in the end, but it's not really in the spirit of Kaiserreich.

Darkest Hour Kaiserreich, the version of the mod for the Darkest Hour version of HoI (and the original version of Kaiserreich I believe)

It originally was for HoI2, and then it moved to Darkest Hour. And originally it was just a White Russian victory which is also why Russia has such a easy run in most games since the Russia-wank still remains embedded.