The Pomeranian Reductions

Timeframe: Early- to mid-1700s
Belligerents: Güntherite Pomerania vs. everybody.
Outcome: The dissolution of Pomerania as an independent state until the 1830s.

For most of the 17th century, the Baltic Sea was a Güntherite lake. The north was dominated by the sprawl that was Denmark-Sweden; the south, by sansinger Pomerania, the once unstoppable juggernaut that had toppled the Teutonic Knights and left the Holy Roman Empire moribund.

Then the Great Realignment came, and as the Russian Empire became a serious threat, the ever-struggling Polish-Ruthenian Commonwealth found itself facing a constant problem: Pomerania, for the longest time their vassal, was turning into a Russian cat's-paw. And while Pomerania was by no means the unstoppable military juggernaut of its youth, in alliance with Russia it would leave the commonwealth facing a two-fronted war.

At some point [when?], Pomerania did something tactically smart and strategically stupid: they did ally with Russia, very briefly, against Poland-Ruthenia. Krakow's worst fears had been verified.

The Warsaw School of ballistic thought

In the beginning, there was the Russo-Japanese War, in which Japan... didn't exactly win, but managed to make the Russian Empire lose. After that came the Russian Civil War, in which the Vechists decisively did win; and once the Vechist government had shored itself up enough at home, it addressed the fact that it was also at war with almost all of its neighbors.

There was, first off, a war in the Caucasus, which dealt a humiliating defeat to the by now space-filling (probably Turkic) empire that picked up where Constantinople left off. And after that there was the war in Armenia, and the war in Georgia, and possibly some struggles with the Sorani dynasty that took over most of Persia the last time the Russians had fought around there. There was, of course, that issue in Karelia that ended about a thousand days later.

And then there was the European theater. And the first opponent, as usual, was the Polish-Ruthenian Commonwealth. Here ends the backstory; let's move on to the gun porn.

The Polish-Ruthenian Commonwealth

I've mentioned it casually in the past. I've derped about it before. But since I've never actually said it yet, I may as well say it now: Poland exists.

It's a simple thing to say, because we're used to Poland existing - but for a long time IRL it didn't. Andalusada changes that; Poland survived the early-modern era, and has continued its existence uninterrupted to the present day. And even more importantly than that, it survived without significantly changing from the awesomeness of its IRL early-modern form.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Polish-Ruthenian Commonwealth. Social science doesn't get much more steampunk than this, people.

Poland-Ruthenia 101

The big question for Poland-Ruthenia is "Why?" The answer to that is simple: Rule of Cool. Every allohistorian has their own pet nations, the lost causes and might-have-beens - and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is one of mine.

So with that rationale out of the way, let me summarize Poland-Ruthenia in a nutshell:

• Who: Poles and "Ruthenians," however so defined. (The definitions are pretty vague.)
• What: The most steampunk monarchy
• When: Not exactly sure when it starts off, or even if it has claims to Lithuania; but in the form of Poland-Ruthenia it definitely lasts to the present day.
• Where: Most of IRL Poland (possibly incorporating IRL's Ducal Prussia, possibly not), less a swathe of the Pomerelian region which has been Germanic since the Teutonic Ordensstaat and broke away during the Burning Thirties. "Ruthenia" is a bit harder to define, but it includes at least the Eastern Borderlands and Galicia, and probably some other assorted bits and pieces of what we'd call Belarus, Lithuania, and the northwest Ukraine.