All the Maps are Correct – The Shape of Eastern Europe, 1938 (alt-Earth)

"The Vilayet of Taras. Never heard of it? Good; neither have I." - Edith Ponsonby.

Four separate empires collapsed at the end of the Great War in 1918; Hohenzollern Germany, Hapsburg Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Turkey, and Romanov Russia (which suffered a revolution and resultant civil war beginning in 1917).  Winston Churchill put the resulting scramble among various Eastern European nationalities and nascent nations best when he famously said, "The war of giants has ended, the wars of the pygmies begun."

After a series of revolts, revolutions, pogroms and `brush fire' wars, culminating in the Polish-Russian War of 1920-22, the various borders stabilized and treaties of varying levels of adherence were negotiated.

Any Grand Tour of the new face of Eastern Europe must begin at the Baltic Sea, with the new republics of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Poland's attempt to absorb Lithuania into a new Commonwealth foundered on the Lithuanian's insistence on remaining independent. Facing war with the Soviet Union, Marshal Pilsudski did not press the issue.

Poland was the largest state in the new map, maintaining as it did a watchful eye on its eastern border with the USSR. It and its government were trying hard to revive and start up various industries in an effort to keep its independence between its two larger and better-armed neighbors, Germany and the Soviet Union.  In order to avoid the embrace of the Bear, Pilsudski and his successors were leaning toward an alliance (or at least an association) with the Germans.

South of Poland is the Western Ukraine People's Republic, with its capital of Lviv. This state, the second-largest after Poland, was part of Pilsudski's Intermarum (Between the Seas) idea, where there would be a belt of Polish-oriented states extending from the Baltic to the Black Seas. The WUPR is still under Polish `protection,' a fact that irritates many Ukrainian nationalists in their government. However, the support of the Poles is necessary in order to fend off attempts by the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR to
extend their hegemony.

The Balkans are still largely as the end of the Great War left them – still staring daggers at each other and squabbling over small slices of land.  Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia and Greece are all monarchies, with only the Albanians and the Yugoslavs enjoying domestic dynasties (the others displaying, if nothing else, the fecundity of the various German noble houses).

Hungary invited the twenty-year-old Archduke Otto von Hapsburg to be crowned as its Apostolic King in 1932. He took as his regnal name Ferenc (his first baptismal name), and dismissed the Regent Admiral Horthy.

A variety of small Carpathian and Danubian principalities arose or were resurrected after the Great War, and by and large the Big Four let them be.  Geopolitically they were of little consequence, and had little economic impact apart from tourism and postage stamps (interestingly, the Spontoons have similar industries; think dirndls instead of grass skirts). They may not have any armies to speak of, but they do have some of the best cheeses in Europe.

These small states are:

The Duchy of Teschen;

The Principalities of Anheim, Azieuza, and Kuhk-Mönge;

The Grand Duchy of Ruritania, and

The Vilayet of Taras.

(It is believed that Ruritania was established as a joke on the League of Nations; perhaps not surprisingly, none of the delegates ever got the joke).

The Vilayet of Taras was a former Ottoman governorate, and before its absorption into the Empire was a very minor state at the mouth of the Danube. It declared its independence, but hardly anyone noticed apart from the Rumanians. The Tarasian ruling family claims descent from the original ancient Greek settlers of the area as well as the Byzantine Lascarid Dynasty, while glossing over the facts that they are actually one-half Turkish, one-quarter Hungarian, one-eighth Greek and one-eighth Norwegian (no one can figure this out).

Taras partly straddles the mouth of the Danube, but is surrounded on three sides by Rumania; the rulers know better than to try and close the river to traffic.  Its primary exports are stamps, grain, cheese and dairy products, and occasional court intrigues that mimic the classic English garden parties, complete with the obligatory murders.