You can blame Eric Burns: if he can produce original material and put it on his blog, I damn well should, too.
I'm thinking of using this notion for a Pyramid submission, but I dunno if it's really a good place for an adventure. Interesting place to live, but would you want to visit?
Macedonia-2
In many histories, William Tecumseh Sherman was famous for
two things: his Civil War record, and his famous comment rejecting any thought
of political office ("If nominated I will not run; if elected I will not
serve"). On Macedonia-2, however,
he was offered the Princedom of Bulgaria, and for reasons still unclear,
accepted. Thirty years later, the unlikely
dynasty founded by him is subtly shifting European politics. Whether this will affect the general war
scheduled for the next decade is up to either Infinity or Centrum.
Macedonia-2, 1908
Current Affairs
Already-complex Central European politics are complicated by
a transplanted American presence in the Balkans.
1878; the Treaty of Berlin confirms American general William
T Sherman as Prince of Bulgaria. The
merger of Bulgaria with Romania (1881) and Eastern Rumelia (1885), plus its annexation
of Serbia (1886)
created the Triple Monarchy, a growing power in the Balkans.
Western (Multipolar)
Great Powers
Austro-Hungarian Empire (Dictatorship, CR4), British
Empire (Representative Democracy, CR4), German Empire
(Dictatorship, CR4), Ottoman Empire (Dictatorship, CR5),
Triple Monarchy (Representative Democracy, CR3)
Quantum: 6
Mana Level: Low
Infinity Class: P9
Centrum Zone: Yellow
It is unclear why Tecumseh
I decided to take possession of a
small Balkan country whose language he never learned to speak properly,
but he
proved to be exceptionally popular with his subjects. The American
general's linguistic problems
had very fortunate results for his new country; being largely shut out
of the
political sphere, Prince Tecumseh concentrated on the military. Within
two years Bulgaria's
armies were the best in the region, prompting Prince Karol of Romania
(dealing with Russian intrigues not present in Homeline) to offer union
with Bulgaria - and to declare Tecumseh's son Philemon his own heir, as
well. Now-King Tecumseh of the Double Monarchy
took personal command of the combined Bulgarian and Romanian armies to
decisively defeat the overconfident Serbian forces in the eponymous
Bulgarian-Serbian War of 1885. Sherman had been diligent in training
his army to the standards of the American army,
with equipment to match. The existing
Serbian monarch was sufficiently disgraced to be forced to abdicate the
following year; annexation soon followed, mostly at the Serbians' own
impetus. The Double (soon Triple)
Monarchy seemed powerful enough to hold off the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, and its
King was notorious for his willingness to defer domestic policy to the
legislative branch.
Tecumseh's son Philemon I (an older son was disqualified doubly, being both a Roman Catholic and a Jesuit) was crowned in 1891. While not the military genius that his father was, he has been a highly credible domestic leader, and pivotal in the ongoing integration of what were three largely distinct countries and cultures into a pan-Slavic constitutional monarchy. Unfortunately, the Serbians are adamant in their opposition to the proposed Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Bulgarians are pushing for the dividing the remainder of the Ottoman holdings in Macedonia with Greece and the Romanian Prince Karol (the second noble in the Triple Kingdom after the King) is actively working towards stronger relations with the German Reich. In other words, the mere existence of the Triple Monarchy threatens to undermine the stability of the pact uniting the Central Powers.
The rest of the world remains almost unchanged from the equivalent point in Homeline's, with the increasingly important exception of the United States. There has been a steady stream of revenue and adventurers flowing into the Balkans from America, attracted by favorable trade concessions and employment opportunities. British investment lagged behind, but recent Continental tensions have made the Triple Kingdom attractive as a possible counterweight to the Austrians and Germans. The net result has been increased American involvement in European affairs: in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed a continental conference to settle Central European issues (as opposed to his mediation of the Russo-Japanese War in Homeline, which spluttered out on its own). This conference will be held in Prague later in the year; it proposes to be a very complicated, very raucous affair.
This world was classified as an echo at first, as both the
low probability and type of its divergence point and its Quantum suggested
active intervention by Centrum. This
possibility was discounted about a decade or so ago, when Centrum actually stumbled across the timeline. The timeline is not heavily contested by either side, permitting a discreet amount of tourism.
Interestingly, both Infinity and Centrum seem to be working against a general European war in the next decade. The I-Cops' working assumption is that Centrum is not acting humanitarianly, but is instead engaged in a long-term pragmatic exercise to create an English-speaking regional power in Central Europe which would allow them to infiltrate the continent properly. There is some indication that Interworld personnel have exactly the same opinion about their rivals' goals.
Other Macedonias
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