SkunkyArt | RvBOMally — Slavery is Freedom

The PoD is France maintaining a constitutional monarchy during the French Revolution. This means no Robespierre or Napoleon. The French Revolutionary Wars ended with a peace settlement that left the constitutional monarchy in place.

The 19th century, of course, goes very differently, though some events still occur in different form. The American Civil War still happens with a Southern secession, but fewer states join the secessionists and the war ends quickly. Germany never unifies, thanks to a stronger France preventing it from happening. France maintains a strong sphere in the Catholic southern German states, and was able to prevent Prussia from unifying Germany even as the Habsburg Empire fell apart.

Without the French occupying Spain, Spanish power does not decline as sharply. While Simon Bolivar still marches, his success is much more limited ITTL, with much of South America remaining loyal to Spain. The independent Latin American countries are more cooperative with each other and richer than their OTL counterparts, and have successfully worked together to counter American expansionism and influence.

The Japanese are still forcibly opened and modernize, and their interference in Japan leads to the fall of the Qing Dynasty. They ultimately come to blows with the Russian Empire and the United States, the latter of which was interested in creating a friendly Chinese republic. The Japanese lose, and the Americans do succeed in creating a Republic of China modeled after their own republic.

The next great war was the Great Communist War of 1941-1948. Precipitated by a communist revolution in Russia, which itself was caused by the horrific losses during a war with Japan, the war ended in a stalemate.[1] The European powers opposing Russia lost many colonies to communist revolution. America, which was Russia’s erstwhile ally against Japan, became a sponsor of the anti-communist Europeans as Russia proved to be the bigger threat to its commercial interests.

The French colonial empire is much bigger than OTL’s, establishing large spheres of influence in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The French invested heavily in local infrastructure and elites, and so suffered less from communist revolutions than their British allies. Even as they were forced to leave, the established post-colonial states remained friendly and stable. Indochina is ruled by a Francophone, Catholic elite that is actually popular among the locals (though they still have a problem with communist guerillas), while the Levant came under the control of French-dominated Beirut. A major exception was Algeria, where the communists triumphed over the French after a long and bitter war.

Europe is dominated by constitutional monarchies, nowadays friendly to each other after the unified struggle of the Great Communist War.

The fall of the Russian Workers’ Republic put an end to the cold war, with the Russian Union that replaced it being a shoddy military dictatorship that has purged all communism from its government.

Africa was a hotbed of confusing politics, and still is. During the latter half of the 20th century, communist Nigeria and Katanga led the Workers’ Bloc against the colonial regimes and the powerful states of the Unitary Republic of the Congo and the Republic of South Africa. However, the fall of the Russian Workers’ Republic changed many things. Nigeria declined in power and the Communist Party of Katanga fell from power, while the Unitary Republic of Congo became a communist state and the South Africans barely survived a civil war.