u/Tag-Yurit

Howdy, I'm trying to plot out an alternate history scenario for World War I where a (comparatively) smaller war occurs around 1905 stemming from the First Moroccan Crisis. I'm aiming to have this be as accurate as I can, without changing two many events or altering the behavior or anyone to make it more "authentic" as it were to real history. However, my research is leaving me scratching my head.

For starters, I'm reading that Germany's war rhetoric from the Chancellor and Kaiser at the time were an intimidation bluff. Further, the French Rouvier cabinet was a bipartisan hodgepodge of pacifists recovering from the previous Combes' administration's military corruption and incompetence. The only one who was willing to call Germany's bluff, the foreign minister Theophile Delcasse, was basically hated by everyone else on the cabinet and never listened to. And this is simply the tip of the iceberg.

A lot of my research has come from "The Career of Theophile Delcasse" by Charles W. Porter (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.503361/page/n5/mode/2up), and frankly most any other source I can find is either behind some annoying paywall or is just quoting the vague Wikipedia article.

In the end, my question is if, in the end, is there anything(s) that can be changed to allow this Crisis to become a war, or is this one of those interesting-but-ultimately-impossible scenarios in history? If there's no direct answer, then any detailed sources to read up on would be really appreciated! Thanks and cheers!

Howdy, fellas. A little bit ago, I was goofing around on MapChart and made this frankly atrocious map design. Figured I'd show it off and give people something fun to talk about while I work on more ambitious projects. Any lines and nations are really only there because I thought it would be fun(ny) for borders to be drawn like this. Feel free to post your thoughts and ideas for the potential history of this ridiculous hodgepodge.

For a while now, I've been working on a fun little project of imagining if the Native American societies had developed a more "classical" form of civilization (written languages, mathematics, stamped currency, etc.), in the same way as India, the Mediterranean and East Asia. I mean, imagine if Columbus arrived in the Antilles and discovered a trading port of a Caribbean empire that connects and dominates the politics of what we would call the American Mediterranean Sea.

To TL;DR a sociological concept I've found, civilization as often understood is more of a fluke than a natural next step in a society's evolution. Once it's put into place, however, than it rapidly advances a society in every way possible, forcing the neighbors to develop society in tandem or become conquered ("societal evolution", I guess might be a fitting term). This process, like any technology or philosophical concept, travels as far as permitted by natural barriers, such as the Eurasian Steppe, Himalayas, Sahara or in our case the Atlantic Ocean.

This is why, as an example, most of Sub-Saharan Africa didn't develop nearly like the Europeans and Arabs and Egyptians and even Ethiopians because of the natural borders of the Sahara and Congo Basin and the like. The Congolese barely had any contact with the "civilized" (lacking a better term) north and never developed until they were forced to by the European colonists. Slightly differently, the Mali, despite seeing decent amounts of trade with the Mediterranean, never left the "mud hut" era of history; the Sahara made it next-to-impossible for any foreign invasion to conquer West Africa in any practical manner (until once again the Europeans sailed there), and they only needed to socially develop enough to trade with the oodles of gold that was literally flowing through their rivers. Not in the slightest a race thing like it was made out to be in the 19th century, but merely how societies develop and the machinations that force societal evolution, same as technology and philosophy.

TL;DR over, all of this to say that whatever societal fluke civilization is, it bites the Native Americans and forces this societal evolution across the whole of the Americas (hitting the natural barriers of the Sub-Arctic and the Amazon), or in this world "Hahnunah" ("Turtle Island", the northern continent) and "Abiayala" ("Land of Lifeblood" the southern continent). This is one such hypothetical map.

Obviously, if such a thing did happen, then these "Hahnunans" and "Abiayalians" would not develop into the "traditional" and well-known societies we're accustomed to, but frankly the fun of such a concept is imagining these societies as developing these traits of civilization and how they changes the course of "American" history and of course how it affects the inevitable arrival of Europe.

Hope y'all enjoy the map, and feel free to add your comments and critiques!