Just a thought on John and Bianca not consummating their marriage for several years- I realize it might be a little ichy in our modern culture, but I think it’s somewhat anachronistic to think that the marriage would not be consummated at that age or very soon. My two cents.
There are a lot of possibilities. I think places like Mongolia and Xinjiang could end up Russian. There’s a lot of “soft” territory in Asia for Russia to digest, others have already mentioned Persia. I think Asian gains (excluding against the ottomans) may be less offensive to other European powers.
I don’t think it’s an extremely likely course of events, but with a POD in 1814 I think you could have Russia at some point at war with Sweden over the course of the next 100 years.
Just invade Spain, no Franco already joining the axis. I’m sure he would join the axis when Spain is invaded, but the insane part of the idea is that it’s just done.
I am a naval novice, so excuse my ignorance, but would not a decisive German victory at sea in 1914 help with the blockade at least somewhat? More would get past, etc.?
I think it may be necessary to “show your work” a bit on the encirclement of 8 armies. I really like the general scenario, but when to my knowledge not one German army was encircled in Europe to go from 0 to 8 is a bit of a stretch. I could handwave a couple armies, but not 8. I guess to me the...
I don’t think they can win early convincingly enough to Balkanize Germany. I could see Germany sueing for peace early, but not accepting decapitation without major pain.
I see that, I think Britain would restrain a really whole sale partition. I can believe that Russia and France would take big bites out of Germany, but a balkanization seems far fetched without at minimum a more destructive war.