Do you know why Russia didn't go for western Moldavia back in 1812? It conquered Moldova (eastern Moldavia) back then but not western Moldavia.
This is a much-different scenario, and I won't go into detail, becaue that would derail the thread. A short summary is: Russia had other shit going on at the time, and the conflict with the Ottomans was on the back-burner. In a "no Napoleon" timeline, things may well have been different. But that's a discussion for another thread, another time.
I also wonder: Is Lithuania going to get some kind of special autonomy within Russia in this TL? It's interesting because Russia here looks like a Russo-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Almost certainly not, considering Russian attitudes at this point.
@Skallagrim Did you ever make a map or detailed scenario for a Catholic victory? Also, what is the relationship between the Protestants and Orthodox on a religious level in the Protestant Win TL? Historically, they had good relations and communications.
I've never made a map for a Catholic victory, but
@raharris1973 has just posted some in the thread.
I think a long-term alliance between the Orthodox powers and the Protestant ones will have some pretty interesting consequences. They'd both view themselves as opposed to the Catholics and to the Muslim Ottomans. The fact that the Catholics would be in a tacit alliance with the Ottomans would only serve to under-score that point.
There would be a lot of talk about "freeing the Balkan Christians from the Muslim yoke", and Protestants would eagerly call for that, even though the Christians in question are Orthodox.
Protestants might stress the fact that the multiple Orthodox Patriarchs are in some ways similar to the way Protestants also refuse to recogise the supreme position of the Pope. And it might be noted that Orthodoxy has far more Platonist thought remaining within it (having misssed the neo-Aristotelian Scholastic revolution), whereas Protestantism has its own Platonist impulse, being a reaction to a Catholic Church that was dominated by Aristotelian thinking.
The Caesaropapist streak in Orthodoxy would also fit well with the Protestant focus of secular monarchs having primacy and being head of the national church.
Finally, it's conceivable that at least the Lutheran countries (Germany and the Scaninavian states), the organisation of the national Protestant churches might end up resembling Eastern Orthodox structures a bit more.
Here is @Skallagrim's original alternatehistory.com post in regards to this, if anyone is curious:
To be clear, it offers nothing that I haven't posted here, and in fact the version here is a bit "cleaned up" (the wording is improved a bit here and there).
On a Catholic victory
(...)
illustrative maps:
close-up
Europe-wide
Good maps! Really gets the point across.
Detail-wise, I do think that the borders in the Low Countries would favour the Habsburgs more, with them getting all of Limburg and Brabant, and also pushing the border with France a bit.
The borders being a product of war, they wouldn't follow pre-war political boundaries exactly, and various exclaves/enclaves would presumably be lost.
The Catholic victory would also mean, I think, that the HRE retains its holdings in Italy.
Finally (and this is more speculative) I suspect that the Habsburgs being in such a strong position, and the loss of certain HRE lands, could serve as a justification for them to "compensate" this by drawing their Croatian/Hungarian/Slovakian hldings into the HRE.
The map would then look rather like this:
Some stray thoughts:
-- The Austrian Habsburgs may be very interested in trading the Burgundian inheritance for the Italian lands of the HRE with their Spanish cousins (other than Milan, which the later already hold).
-- Conquering Venice and "convincing" the Papal States to become part of the HRE again would be another goal.
-- Presumably, if such were to happen, Italy North of the Kingdom of Naples (but excluding Corsica, I think) would be part of the HRE. But all the Italian lands would be ruled by the Spanish branch.
-- On the other hand, Istria and Dalmatia would be ruled by the Austrian Habsburgs, and would presumably be absorbed into the HRE.
-- The Greek holdings of Venice would surely fall prey to the Ottomans.
-- Longer-term, the Austrian Habsburgs would want to liberate all of Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia from the Ottomans. Precedent being there, I think they'd treat all these regions as just automatically being part of the HRE, if they're successful in such a conquest.
-- Poland-Lithuania would be a valuable Austrian ally, and their main goal would be to conquer Moldavia, Bessarabia and Yedisan.