Alternate History Thread III

Andalusia 4 me
 
Go for it. :) We're looking at about 2 weeks until I begin, it would be sooner if I didn't have all this awful AP work, and if I didn't have to start school on Thursday.

Maybe I can get it done by Labor Day if I really work on the stats...
 
egypt for me:band:
 
I claim Greater Lothringen.
 
I'll take Leon (as with all others, assuming das/Dis don't want it).
 
Reservations:

North King: (Please don't make me spell it...) Vijayanagara
ThomAnder: Persia
Insane_Panda: Byzantine Empire
LittleBoots: Leon
shortguy: Greater Lothringen
Wubba360: Egypt
The Farow: Bavaria
Swissempire: Andalusia
Reno-Sweden
Silver- Golden Horde

Ruleset: 100% Finished
Map: 85% Finished
Stats: 5% Finished

Expected Start Date: September 9th (Which gives you plenty of time to start writing stories... ;))
 
What's so difficult about spelling Vijayanagara? It only seems to be terrible, but even then, only before you see some of those Siamese names. ;) Phraphutthayotfa Chulalok! :p In any case, I probably won't be reservich anything, not yet anyway.
 
das said:
What's so difficult about spelling Vijayanagara? It only seems to be terrible, but even then, only before you see some of those Siamese names. ;) Phraphutthayotfa Chulalok! :p In any case, I probably won't be reservich anything, not yet anyway.
Click to expand...

My favorite is Satavahanihara. ;)
 
Thlayli said:
True, I think that I was overawed at first. Though by cutting and pasting that name, I inadvertently lost the 5 page story that I'd been writing for LINESII.

Five bloody pages!
Click to expand...

WORD! USE... WORD! :p What's so hard about saving stories to disk?
 
YES! YES! A blow by the great Divine Panda Empire against the sinister Thlaylish Polar bears! YES! :evil: It was in our plans ;)

I was expecting one of your stories in fact last night, but yet no story came... :(
 
Not unless you have some dark shrine to Bill Gates stashed away somewhere in your basement. Probably not even then either.
 
My favorite is Satavahanihara.
Click to expand...

Indian names only seem to be terrible, they are comparatively easy to pronounce and memorize, actually. Now, the various Indochinese names... and Tibetan ofcourse... these are scary. As are some of the Maori ones.

But I digress. Only one year of the Eurasian War left to do in my present althist, so I'll repost its previous part on this thread for quicker refference.

---

OOC: The last few paragraphs are a bit rushed (especially the Persian one). Not sure where do I intend to take this exactly; but I think I'll do the Eurasian War itself and the early post-war period, though I might continue this further, not sure.

IC:

It is a common, yet dimwitted mistake to think the world before the Eurasian War to be divided between two armed camps, the members of both awaiting the signal for an all-out continental melee; it is erroneous to say that the two alliance systems of the day have put each other in deadlock, unable to back away from their alliances and stated obligations. To the very end, the diplomacy remained volatile and geopolitics flexible - even chaotic, and the great powers of the world, as usual, watched out mostly for themselves and their interests, all alliances, no matter how often explained by dynastical ties or ideological affinities, being chiefly ones of convenience and accordingly changing as was convenient for the interested powers.

Thus the alliance system remained highly flexible to the very end. Very demonstrative of this is the fact that, in the beginning of the 20th century, the two main European alliances were the Franco-Russian Entente and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, whilst Great Britain, for instance, still clinged on to the policy of "arrogant neutrality" as some would later call it. Towards 1917, the diplomatical system was being constantly shaken and alliances were changed - often radically - by a myriad of wars and lesser crises, and treaties both official and secret.

At the outset of the century, one could already see that inevitability of the coming war. Already, the great European powers - and in addition to them, Japan and USA - were beginning to run out of expansion room, as both their direct rule and economical influence resulted in border incidents, colonial debates and ever more intensive economic competition, especially between the ascendant Germany and the still-predominant Britain. Meanwhile, on the continent, Franco-German tensions did not cease at all, while Austro-Hungarian and Russian interests clashed in the Balkans, where the Ottoman control was rapidly disintegrating. Younger powers - Italy and Japan - were seeking to expand their control and influence, the Japanese having made their debut with the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and the Italians having - less gloriously - established footholds in East Africa, but both having numerous ambitions and aware of several opportunities. The Russian giant was still playing its Great Game with Britain, competing with it in influence from the Balkans to Korea. The United States of America, still neutral, now at last emerged into the world stage, expanding into the Pacific andr eaching out into China's developing market, whilst winning enemies in both Britain and Germany, having not at all abandoned the Monroe Doctrine. Lastly, Ottoman and Chinese rulers tried desperately to turn the tide of the decline of their empires, but all in vain, as by now the Europeans infiltrated both of them thoroughly enough, and the two ancient, proud empires were quickly becoming economical colonies and political satellites.

Already in 1900 - although it was technically the last year of the 19th century - the last phase of European colonial expansionism commenced, as the French and the British went about imposing order in their respective African colonial empires (the most notable part of this was, ofcourse, the Boer War), whilst the xenophobic Boxer Rebellion in China and the international intervention and defeat thereof already started the Scramble for China; though actual partition of the vast empire was (for now) prevented by American intervention and the "Open Door" compromise, great powers - Russia, Britain, Germany, France and Japan - leased Chinese ports and set up spheres of influence, and, along with a variety of other powers (most notably USA, ofcourse), established European "concessions" in pretty much every Chinese city of commercial importance. The humbled Qing government - which had supported the Boxers initially - was practically powerless as it watched China increasingly fall to foreign rule...

The 20th century formally begun in 1901 - the year when Queen Victoria died, and with her, an entire era, the era of the Splendid Isolation, for though the past British policies - general neutrality and diplomatical blocking any dangerous alterations to the balance of power - have worked well enough in the past, now a new, very real threat to Britain's great power status was on the rise - Germany, which challenged Britain economically, competed with it colonially and also threatened to overtake Britain in the naval arms race. Accordingly, Edward VII immediately upon his ascension begun to work to find allies, especially in France. The 1902 resignation of Prime Minister the Marquess of Salisbury was soon followed up by Britain's first alliance of this new age - that with Japan, a good British trading partner and generally a nation Britain had for some time now propped up to counter Russian expansion in the Far East. Meanwhile similar inroads were made in France and Persia.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, the era of 1901-1904 mostly coincided with Theodore Roosevelt's first term, a time very eventful both at home and - which is more important to us here - abroad. Having taken over the presidency after being the Vice President to the murdered McKinley for approximately a year, the overactive, charismatic new president's foreign policies in the first term, the continued consolidation of Pacific gains and the revision of Alaska-Canada borders aside, centered chiefly on the Carribean, where he not only worked to generally strenghthen American influence and impose the Platt Amendment (which for all purposes turned Cuba into an American satellite) and - after initially intervenning on the Conservative side in the Colombian Thousand Days War - organizing Panama's peaceful seccession with the subsequent creation of the Canal Zone and beginning of actual work on the Panama Canal to link the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans - but also, most notably, countered the Germans who, using the Venezuela's Castro regime's failure to pay up debts, begun shelling coastal Venezuelan towns. The Americans had the Germans evicted by threat of force (and Italians and the British as well, but more politely, in part because of Roosevelt's pro-British bias, in part because they didn't go quite as far as the Germans did in their "extraction"). And then Roosevelt forced Cipriano Castro to pay up his debts anyway, but that is beside the point; the point was that America was now following a strong, imperialistic foreign policy, and a very loud one too. Soon after his reelection in 1904, he had officially announced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, quite clearly defining the Western Hemisphere as a sphere of American interest and warning European Great Powers to keep out. This was bad news for Germany; it had gained a formidable opponent and whatever plans it may have entertained for the Carribean had to be scrapped (even though that direction was not of particular importance for Germany).

Back in Europe, it was a comparatively quiet time, even though some political reshuffling - especially in Britain, where the Splendid Isolation, the values of the Victorian Age and the aristocratic political predominance ("Rule of the Patricians") were slowly eroding - took place. Another country saw curious and important developments - Serbia, where the extremelly Austrophilic, autocratic and universally-hated King Aleksandar I was overthrown and brutally slain along with his similarily unpopular queen Draga by a conspiracy of patriotic officers, led by Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijevic (who would eventually found the Black Hand ultranationalist organization that would exercise enormous political influence in Serbia later on) in 1903; as he died heirless, the Obrenovic dynasty was declared overthrown, and in Aleksandar's stead a Karageorgevic, Petar, was crowned King of Serbia, and immediately begun a variety of reforms, turning Serbia into a parliamentary monarchy and breaking with the Austrians, instead seeking Russian support and protesting loudly the Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Soon enough the tensions gained an economic angle as well, as the Pig War - a tariff war, really - forced the Serbs out of Austrian markets... and into exporting beef to the rest of the Balkans and to Russia, causing Serbia to actually become even less dependant and connected with Austria-Hungary.

In Africa, this was a time of imperial consolidation, defeat of the last native kingdoms - most notably Sokoto which was finally conquered by Britain - and struggle against various rebels; also some border disagreements took place, but these were mostly minor and unnoticed. In Asia, the Chinese government tried to reform again - mostly concentrating on the military - but things remained very much uncertain for it; meanwhile, Russo-Japanese tensions grew rapidly, the interests and influences of both clashing in Manchuria and Korea, and the Japanese still being bitter over their humiliating indiction from Port Arthur by Russia, Germany and France back in 1895. In 1902, the Japanese raided Port Arthur, causing some minor damage, and provoking long, futile negotiations between Russia and Japan; in 1903, the Transsiberian Railroad was finished, and redeployment of additional Russian forces to occupied Manchuria begun...

The years 1904-1906 were of vital importance, as several crucial events took place, and the whole alliance system was seriously overhauled; it is from 1906 that the proper countdown to the eventual Eurasian War should probably begin, as the lines already begun to be drawn then, the cores of the two eventual wartime alliances having been defined. And generally, those were three very eventful years, so perhaps it would be best to start with a brief list of some of the less important events - specifically, the various failed African rebellions (especially the fatal Herero insurrection), the aforementioned Pig War, the separation of Norway from Sweden under Haakon VII, the Anglo-Egyptian acquisition of Sinai from Turkey and the uprisings in Persia with the subsequent adaption of a constitution.

But not much of this was noticed while the Russo-Japanese War and the Moroccan Crisis went on; these events just overshadowed everything else. Let us begin with the Russo-Japanese War itself; the disagreements between the two nations, once near-allies, were numerous, they went from possession of Port Arthur and Russian occupation of Manchuria to fishing boundaries and Japanese advisors at the Korean Emperor's court; yet the focal point was ofcourse the great naval base of Port Arthur, with its great strategic importance for both sides involved. It is apt - and logical, as the Russian Pacific Fleet was based there and nowhere else - that the war should begin with a Battle of Port Arthur. The Japanese surprise night attack allowed them to heavily damage several Russian ships, though the subsequent naval skirmishes were indecisive; the greatest achievement of that attack was, however, that the Russian fleet was at least temporarily forced to the defensive, whilst the Japanese one was free to roam the seas - and transport Japanese forces to various points in Korea, occupying the country and proceeding from it and across the Yalu into Manchuria; immediately after crossing the river, the Japanese won a major, if costly, victory in the Battle at Yalu; they routed the Russian forces there and in several subsequent battles. With naval supremacy and land initiative in their hands, the Japanese under General Nogi hadn't much trouble besieging Port Arthur - surrounding it with minefields and ships and attacking it with troops. Nogi was in luck when first Admiral Makarov and his flagship struck a mine and sunk, completely preventing any offensive Russian naval action, but on the land, though advancing with their numerical supremacy, the Japanese were forced to bleed hard for every inch. But in the end they managed to take up good positions, the 203 Meter Hill from where they were free to bombard the Russian Pacific Fleet with their howitzers. With the elimination of the fleet and the Japanese still advancing, General Stoessel in charge of the garrison panicked in yet another stroke of luck for Nogi, and, despite the fairly good positions for defending the port itself and more than sufficient supplies, surrendered instaed of waiting for reinforcements that were already near.

But no matter Stoessel's actions, the reinforcements did arrive, and the war seemed far from over. In late 1904, after the inconclusive and costly Battle at Shaho, the Japanese drive on Mukden was stopped by the terrible weather; that Manchurian winter was one of the worst for some time; as if the temperatures weren't bad enough, there often enough occured blizzards, in other words, it was not what is usually considered fighting weather, so the Japanese General Oyama had decided to wait the winter out and also give Nogi time to link up with him for a decisive offensive towards Mukden. Thinking fighting in such weather impossible, the Japanese soldiers didn't bother to prepare any proper defensive positions and were ripe for picking, though ofcourse the Russian commanders scarcely knew of this. Alexei Kuropatkin, the Russian commander-in-chief in Manchuria, was a very cautious man and argued consistantly against any risky offensives, but General Oskar-Ferdinand Kazimirovich Grippenberg, commander of the Russian Second Army, finally managed to persuade Kuropatkin to allow him to launch a limited offensive against the Japanese left flank, at Sandepu. Against all expectations, the attack was a complete success - the unprepared Japanese, despite occasionally putting up very fierce resistance, were mostly routed, the left flank falling back in disarray. After weighing all pros and cons, Kuropatkin decided to follow this victory up with a general offensive against the Japanese center. By now aware of the left flank's grim fate, the stronger Japanese forces in the center, at Sandepu itself, naturally put up a fiercer fight, but being outflanked they too were eventually overwhelmed; attempts to retreat under Russian pursuit resulted in even more panic, especially after several units, whether out of their own accord or due to being outmaneuvered, stood and fought instead of falling back; in the end the planned orderly retreat turned into a chaotic, panicked rout, and the Russian winter offensive proved a total success, Oyama's forces shattered decisively. Moving forward, the Russians intercepted and defeated Nogi as well, though his was a more orderly retreat; in any case, however, by the time the spring came the Japanese were largely forced back into Korea and Port Arthur, and in the former there already begun anti-Japanese rebellions, whilst first Russian units crossed the Yalu. Not all went well for the Russians, however; the initial assault on Port Arthur was forced back, and also, on the sea, after an odyssey around half the Old World, the Russian Baltic Fleet sent to relieve Port Arthur a while ago was defeated badly at Tsushima.

But this naval victory was a very limited success, as Japan was faced by an economical and political crisis; the war had badly overstrained Japan's economy, and consequently, the conservative Prime Minister Katsura Taro resigned and his pro-war government fell; instead, the anti-war liberal Saionji Kinmochi became Prime Minister, and begun making inroads for peace. In the meantime, riots occured in Russian cities; Russia's economy was also affected by the war, though not quite as badly as the Japanese one, and the conscription was very unpopular. Lastly, the British begun making threatening gestures; though they did not join into the war on the behalf of their Japanese allies, perhaps in part to avoid antagonizing the French with whom they recently signed a treaty of Entente Cordiale, that option was still open, or at the very least the British were more than willing to rectify Japan's financial problems, and also put pressure on Russia. In other words, everything pointed towards a negotiated compromise peace; as turmoil spread in the countryside, the Tsar, despite his initial reluctance, eventually caved in.

Theodore Roosevelt was quick to jump into all this and promised to help intermediate a peace treaty on neutral ground, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Though only the Russian, the Japanese and the American representatives were invited, the British inevitably also begun to meddle in the negotiations, seeking to limit Russian gains as much as possible. Initially Nicholas II wanted direct and official control over Manchuria, Port Arthur, Korea and the Kurils, and in addition to that, restrictions on the Japanese military and war indimnities from Japan. Obviously enough that was a bit too much, and in the end, a compromise was reached - not a one Nicholas II particularily liked, but a barely acceptable one at least. Russia got to formally annex Manchuria, and Japan dropped all claims to Port Arthur whatsoever. By a separate protocol with Britain, Outer Mongolia and Sinkiang were recognized as Russian spheres of influence, in exchange for recognition of Tibet as within the British sphere. All Japanese advisors were evicted from Korea, which recovered full independence under the Gwangmu Emperor, although it did have to sign several agreements with Russia (yet in general, it remained a neutral, semi-buffer state; thanks to the Gwangmu Emperor's wise policies, Korea soon entered a sadly-brief era of independence, peace and prosperity as foreign investment and trade flowed in). Japan was forced to pay out some war indemnities to Rusisa, but mostly nominal ones.

Whilst Korea was, in a way, one of the biggest benefiters by gaining its independence, and America also clearly won from this, gaining greatly in prestige and winning allies in British, Russian, Korean and Japanese political circles (especially the Japanese ones; this and the rise of American-Japanese trade later into the decade was the beginning of the Americano-Japanese friendship, though the Americans weren't really willing to go as far as to sign an alliance), all the other great powers were also affected by this, and often enough it was unclear whether the effect was positive or negative.

Of immediate importance are the changes in Japan and Russia. In the former, on one hand, the liberals scored a significant political victory; on the other, revanchism was quick to appear. Japan defeat in Manchuria caused it to rely more on its alliance with Britain, which was expanded further; likewise, Saionji Kinmochi, a friend of Clemenceau's, fostered good relations with France. This line was pursued both out of ideological affinity and for more practical reasons - French relations with Russia detiriorated badly and bilaterally for a variety of reasons, while Britain was more concerned about the growth of Russian power in Asia than ever before - thus obviously, both Britain and France were Japan's natural allies against Russia; Kinmochi recognized the importance of checking the Russian power somehow.

In the latter, after the circumcised victory over Japan and the violent reprisals against the various revolutionary groups, as already mentioned, relations with France and Britain detiriorated. The former was increasingly disliked for failing to support Russia in any way during the war and for allying with Britain, which, in turn, consistantly acted to check Russian expansion and which (partially) stole the victory over Japan; indeed, both Britain and France were considered to be cowardly, treacherous and manipulative, striving to deny Russia its greatness. In France, meanwhile, outrage over the brutal Russian subjugation of the various rebels - both the socialists and the Polish/Finnish nationalists - grew, and infiltrated the circles of the political elite; and generally, foreign minister Theophile Delcasse favoured Britain rather than Russia. Though the Franco-Russian alliance wasn't abolished, it seemed deader by the day, especially after Nicholas II's personal meeting with Wilhelm II at Bjorko in Finland; the treaty of friendship signed there wasn't taken very seriously at first, but in fact it was quite important; Wilhelm II, acting with uncharacteristic tact and adroitness, fueled Nicholas II's growing Francophobia and explained to him that the French were against him, that they were behind all those risings, that he - Nicholas II - could only trust him - Wilhelm II - in this harsh and treacherous world (well, he ofcourse didn't say exactly that, but that was the spirit of his speech); and Nicholas II increasingly trusted his cousin. The Russo-German reconciliation was also in part preconditioned by general Russian distraction from Europe and attraction to Asia, where the Great Game resumed and Russia stood poised to take over vast landmasses from Persia to Mongolia. As long as Russia concentrated on Asian expansion, its interests didn't clash with the German ones - and clashed ever more with those of Britain and to a lesser extent France, the two powers that were clearly working against Germany.

The lines were drawn in 1906. For nearly a century now, Morocco escaped potential French domination by recruiting British assistance, but now that Britain and France were close allies, and the British officially gave France a free hand in Morocco, the French quickly moved to strenghthen their positions there. However, while Britain (and Spain, which was promised the Rif Mountains and lands north, and Italy, which by a secret treaty was promised diplomatical French support for any effort to acquire Cyreneica and/or Tripolitania) may have supported and even endorsed this, Germany, quite predictably, opposed any French encroachment on Moroccan independence; this also had much to do with the fact that German investments were pouring into Morocco as of late. So in 1905, Kaiser Wilhelm II arrived in Tangier and there affirmed his support for Moroccan independence. As one might expect, the French protested this meddling within their sphere of influence; a furious and futile diplomatic debate ensued, while at some point both Germany and France nearly launched mobilizations. In the end, the issue was settled by an international conference at Algeciras; though Germany was supported by Austria-Hungary and (much to Delcasse's dismay) Russia, everybody else, including the representatives sent by Roosevelt had imposed a compromise with some nominal French concessions and a guarantee of the safety of German - and other foreign - investments. French influence over Morocco was there to stay, and plans were already made for an eventual protectorate.

War was avoided - not that it was terribly likely back then anyway. But already in 1906, the two alliances formed; United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Third Republic of France and the Empire of Japan had officially created the Entente Alliance, whilst the Second Reich, the Russian and the Austrian-Hungarian Empires, despite past and continued disagreements (especially in the Balkans, where the Russians and the Germans had to persuade the Austro-Hungarians to stop their tariff war, which failed anyway as already mentioned; nonetheless, ofcourse, Austria-Hungary still had pretty bad relations with Serbia, and suspicious of Russia even as the latter concentrated its attention on Asian expansion as opposed to a Balkans-first foreign policies), revived the Dreikaiserbund. Italy, having ominously opposed German meddling in Morocco, did not join the Entente, and remained part of the past Triple Alliance; but the one thing that was certain was that Italy was still aligned with "sacred egoism" and its own interests - and at the moment the Italian politicians saw their interests to be served best by working with Britain and France.

Almost from the start, one of the key issues between the two blocks was the Chinese one. All the three Entente powers maintained considerable presences and influence in China, especially in the southern regions; although Japan was pushed out of Korea and prevented from taking Port Arthur, this proved a blessing in disguise for its Chinese influence, as the Japanese now concentrated on China Proper and its small, yet prospering sphere of influence on the other side of the Formosa Strait, in the province of Fukien. The reviving Japanese economy soon begun to infiltrate China further, in concert with Birtain (which had longstanding interests and influences in China) and France (which ); the three powers also begun to push forward an agenda of liberal reforms in China, gaining allies amongst China's more progressive politicians - but dangerously antagonizing the conservatives and the Dowager Empress Longyu herself. Soon, the Entente found itself challenged by the Dreikaiserbund in the region; Russia vigorously asserted its spheres of influence, while the German advisors begun to appear in great number in Beijing, helping the Qing with their military reforms, and the German industrialists and businessmen assisted the Chinese industrialization (having been frustrated in its American and African ambitions, Germany quite naturally turned to Asia and there immediately found a golden opportunity). Alarmed at the prospects of a reformed, but pro-German Qing state, the Entente powers soon begun to work increasingly against the the Imperial Court, fostering dissent and destabilizing the empire, helped in this by the Empire's financial weakness and the disagreements between the reactionaries and the reformists of various factions in the highest echelons of power. Dissent indeed grew, and the situation soon became explosive...
 
But before a climax could happen in China, its events were briefly overshadowed by the happenings elsewhere in the world; while China simmered, the Balkans were already aflame. Though not quite as bad off as the Qing Empire, the Ottomans were in crisis; having with a degree of success defended the grater part of the Ottoman territory from external enemies and local separatists, Abdulhamid II was still haunted by the ghost of the constitution that he had suspended back in 1878. Conspiracy after conspiracy of constitutionalists was foiled, but nonetheless, their ideas only spread further. For a long time Abdulhamid II's regime was succesfully defended by his army, but eventually the Ottoman officers also were corrupted by the liberal ideals of the Paris-based Committee of Union and Progress. Finally, in 1908 parts of the Turkish 3rd Army Corps in Macedonia mutinied; unable to rely on other troops, Abdulhamid had to look on in powerless rage as the rebellion spread like wildfire; it was temporarily stopped when the Sultan declared the constitution restored, and rescinded censorship, disbanded the secret police and released the political prisoners. However, the Sultan himself was allowed to remain at first, although many members of the newly-assembled cabinet suspected that he was now conspiring against them. In the 31st March Incident of 1909, a reactionary counter-revolution took place, though Abdulhamid was careful enough to avoid fully embracing it even as the elected government fled for Salonika; a wise move, it nevertheless failed to save Abdulhamid's power when a few days later the CUP forces retook Constantinople. Abdulhamid II was forced to abdicate and was exiled to Salonika, while his brother Mehmed V came to "power" - a nonentity fit for a parliamentary monarchy. A CUP-dominated government was formed; and, as usual, having climbed to the top, the conspirators that succesfully gained power in their country suddenly noticed the threats all around them.

The 1908 mutiny provoked a chain of events, and not only domestic Turkish ones. Seeing that Turkey was as weak as ever, Austria-Hungary officially annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, almost provoking a war with Serbia but for Russian and German pressure; after some negotiations, Serbia agreed to abandon its claims on Bosnia-Herzegovina, in exchange for Austrian forces vacating the Sanjak of Novipazar (as they had intended anyway)... and allowing Serbia a free hand there, while the provisional government of Crete had unofficially accepted the union with Greece; having gained the Entente's support, the Cretan provisional ruler Eleftharios Venizelos triumphantly declared Crete's annexation into Greece, this diplomatic victory greatly assisting his political career back in Greece. The Ottomans were too busy overthrowing each other to do anything but protest, rather quietly at that. Meanwhile, things only got worse and worse - Serbian forces occupied Novipazar, while Ferdinand of Bulgaria declared himself Tsar and in this manner ended even the official Bulgarian submission to Turkish rule, though for all purposes Bulgaria was independent for some time now. When the CUP was secure enough domestically to start complaining about this, it immediately learned that it was virtually isolated; both the Dreikaiserbund and the Entente had, to a certain extent, supported one Balkanian landgrabber or another. Russia was predictably especially angry at the Ottomans; by contrast, the Italians were oddly quiet, because they were preparing to attack in a year or two, having long ago reached a secret agreement with the Entente leadership in exchange for supporting France in Morocco.

In 1910, the Italian plans were sped up by a conservative separatist rebellion in Albania. Ottoman authority there collapsed, although almost immediately after the Ottoman forces were sent in - the CUP was determined to hold on to Albania, as its loss was likely to trigger a similar collapse of authority in Macedonia. However, by invading Albania they made a pretty risky move; negotiations would've been viewed as a sign of weakness, but a military defeat there would have meant inevitable and ignominous loss of the Balkans. Fortunately, the Albanian tribesmen didn't make for very intimidating enemies. Unfortunately - at least as far as the collapsing, outdated, poorly-led Ottoman army was concerned - the Italian expeditionary corps was good enough to stop the Ottomans in their tracks. A day earlier, Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire, in the support of the Albanian rebels, whose leadership had, after some quick negotiations, reached an accord with Italy. Already, Emanuele Filiberto - the cousin of King Vittorio Emanuele III - had arrived, taking personal command of the army that he would need to defend his future kingdom. Meanwhile, the undergarrisoned Tripoli was captured, and the Italian invasion of Libya had commenced as well. Ottoman attempts to muster some support against Italy proved futile; the CUP regime was lonely and isolated. If anything, soon things got even worse - while the Ottomans and the Italians skirmished back and forth in central Albania, the Balkan League of Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece was assembled, shouted in chorus about national self-determination and charged in, to support the various ethnic rebellions all over Macedonia. Within months, Serbs were in Skopje, Greeks were besieging Salonika and the Bulgarian soldiers washed their boots in the Aegean Sea, although they also experienced a sharp debacle at Edrine, where the Ottomans finally found a competent commander in their rank, one Mustafa Kemal, who had succesfully fought back the Bulgarians and thus saved a large part of Thrace for the Ottomans. But elsewhere it was a disaster, especially after the Ottoman army in Albania surrendered at Elbasan, after the Balkanian armies severed its supply route. In 1911, despite some local resistance, the Italians secured much of coastal Libya. The Greek naval detachment rampaged through the Aegean Sea unchallenged, capturing the Ottoman-held Greek islands there; in Rhodes, however, an independent Federation of the Dodecanese was set up, and the Greeks had to temporarily abandon their designs there due to British support for the new state (in exchange for bases, naturally).

So in early 1911, the Ottoman government, after being stunningly and thoroughly routed everywhere but in Thrace, had agreed to end the First Balkan War. The Treaty of Edirne saw the creation of an independent Kingdom of Albania under Emanuele I and in alliance with Italy (Albania however had to give up a small southern slice of its territory to Greece, and a smaller one in the north to Montenegro). Italian protectorates were set up in Tripolitania, Cyreneica and Fezzan, though it would take some more fighting for the natives to be defeated. The Dodecanese Federation's independence was recognized, all other Aegean islands joined Greece, and Crete was also recognized as Greek. Macedonia was partitioned between Serbia (northwest, including Skopje), Greece (south, including Salonika) and Bulgaria (east, plus an outlet to the Aegean Sea and a few border regions of Thrace). Ottoman Empire only retained Constantinople and much of Thrace - including Edirne itself - in Europe. The new CUP government was granted official recognition, for all the good that did it - discredited by the defeat, the CUP party was forced by its political opponents to hold elections in 1912, which resulted in a disastrous defeat and a Liberal Union takeover. At first, the Young Turk officers rallied around Enver Pasha and prepared a coup; in the absence of military support, the Liberal Union government would have been helpless, had not Enver Pasha been betrayed by Djemal Pasha and Mustafa Kemal, who had feared that the coup would result in further instability and possibly civil war, something the Ottoman Empire could ill afford even in its better days. Enver Pasha's coup attempt was defeated and the more moderate CUP members joined the ruling coalition, still using their control of the military as a lever with which to move the government's opinions if other methods of persuasion failed. The Ottomans begun looking for allies; the Russo-German alliance left them with only one option. The Ottoman Empire didn't officially join the Entente, but French investments immediately begun to arrive, while British military specialists helped reform the army (now under authority of Turkey's only war hero, Minister of War Mustafa Kemal) and build up a more decent navy as well. Reconciling with Greece was rather harder, but an alliance of convenience against Bulgaria wasn't out of question...

And by then, ofcourse, China blew up too, and as already became custom, when things went badly in the Ottoman Empire, they went VERY badly in the Qing one. After years of simmering dissent, a spontaneous uprising in the Guangdong Province in 1912 triggered the beginning of rebellions elsewhere in southern and central China. The military mutinied, the peasants rebelled, students and workers rose up in the cities and - with some clandestine Entente assistance - several local administrators surrendered without a fight, and several southern provinces declared the Qing Dynasty overthrown. After the initial confusion and chaos, the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance, headed by Sun Yat-sen, Song Jiaoren and Huang Xing; although there were some disagreements between them, especially between Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xiang, the former was soon elected as China's first, albeit provisional, president and ordered that a National Assembly be assembled in Nanjing. The provisional government then proposed that the Dowager Empress Longyu abdicate in the Xuantong Emperor's name. That was when the Revolutionary Alliance's luck had ran out.

Ever indecisive and easy to influence, the Dowager Empress consulted the Regent Zaifeng, and then consulted the German advisors, and then, already at their advice, recalled Yuan Shikei from his honorary exile in his home village, and appointed him Prime Minister. Then she consulted him, and he consulted the German advisors, and, after receiving the guarantee of Regent Zaifeng's abstention from practical politics (with the Regent out of his way and the Dowager Empress as weak and easy to influence as usual, Yuan Shikei became the de facto absolute ruler of Qing China), formed his new cabinet and begun sending orders and taking measures. On the next day - if you're wondering, on July 19th of the year 1912 - the world, or at least China, was shaken by a flurry of news, bad news for the revolution. Yuan Shikei was appointed Prime Minister in Beijing; the Dowager Empress rejected the "Act of Abdication of the Emperor of the Great Qing"; the Chinese Empire signed alliances with Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary (though contrary to popular beliefs, the Dreikaiserbund was NOT renamed to Vierkaiserbund on this occasion); an ultimatum was issued by Yuan Shikei, demanding that the Nanjing government surrender and that all the southern provinces return into the fold, while the rebel leaders present themselves for trial (though the lesser leaders were promised amnesty, and it was hinted for the senior ones as well); the promised constitution was postponed indefinitely; and lastly, not waiting for Sun Yat-sen's reply to the ultimatum, Yuan Shikei ordered that the Beiyang Army - the strongest army in China, loyal only to the new Prime Minister - set out in four columns each commanded by one of his most trusted lieutenants, to crush the rebellion with blood and iron. The Chinese Civil War was on, the Nanjing government rejecting the ultimatum in a brave and insane act of defiance.

At the outset of the conflict, to an untrained eye the Qing seemed doomed - with scarcely any popular support, an oversized empire bursting at the seams and two-thirds of China Proper already lost. And indeed, they were doomed but for the Beiyang Army, which, however, was in itself powerful enough to be a kingmaker, or rather, to make its father Yuan Shikei the kingmaker (or maybe the emperormaker or the presidentmaker is a better term? Nah.). Even in normal times, it was the largest, the best-led, the best-equipped and the best-trained army in China - a peer for the armies of some of the European great powers, especially after it was reformed even further with German assistance. Most other armies defected to the revolutionaries, and they now had numerical supremacy... mostly on paper, as for years now, all of China's armies but the Beiyang Army gradually disintegrated. The already-high desertion rates jumped up even higher after the revolution. Add to this the facts that some officers had to be killed or were killed accidentally anyway, that storages of weapons, ammunition and supplies were frequently looted during the first few chaotic days of the revolution, and that disciplinne and organization were practically nonexistant even in those units still intact... and the revolutionaries are immediately the ones that seem doomed.

However, they weren't doomed neither; they too had aces up their sleeves. As soon as Sun Yat-sen begun to suspect that Yuan Shikei might side with the Imperial Court rather than with the nascent Republic of China, he begun working feverishly to organize some sort of defenses. Even as he ordered the mobilization of the militias and the reorganization of the remaining republican armed forces, he knew that the Republic was doomed without some sort of foreign assistance - and it was obvious that such assistance could be found in the Entente. Though both France and Britain refused to intervenne directly, citing the German alliance with Yuan Shikei (which they ofcourse previously protested, but in the end failed to act against it, neither country feeling ready for a clash with Germany), they agreed to assist the Republic in various indirect ways - weapons, funds, supplies, military advisors, intelligence and so forth. Japan offered all of this too, but also went further then that, commiting several divisions worth of "volunteers" to help the Republic on the battlefield. Grateful, Sun Yat-sen set about to create create a new "Republican Army" with the help of the aforementioned advisors; with great haste, an ersatz military academy was set up in Nanjing, and the preparation of a new officer corps begun, while recruitment offices were activated throughout the controlled territories. The Republicans had hoped to win time for the creation of this army by fighting a delaying action north of the Yangtze, but things there went beyond Sun Yat-sen's worst nightmares. Though slowed down by guerrila activities and logistical problems, the Beiyang Army defeated its opponents in battle after battle with disappointing ease. When Huang Xing, the Republic's most formidable military commander (admittedly, the early Republican military leadership wasn't a paragon of military brilliance, generally-speaking...), was defeated and killed in the Battle at Shangqiu and his army, possibly the best of those that the Republicans managed to salvage from the defecting elements of the Chinese army, literally fell apart leaving only a few ragtag militia garrisons and reservists between Duan Qirui's Beiyang column and the Yangtze's delta, the Republican leadership simply panicked, and,a fter some debate, ordered a levee en masse, in a desperate effort very similar to that of Revolutionary France in 1793.

In late 1912/early 1913, luck seemingly smiled on the Republic. Having outran his supply routes and exhausted his troops in forced march, Duan Qirui had to stop his advance and make camp near Taizhou, less than 20 miles away from the Yangtze. Having learned of this, the Republicans immediately decided to seize upon this opportunity. Though the hordes of levied conscripts were undisciplinned and often untrained, and Li Yuanhong, their commander, wasn't particularily skilled, they had a vast numerical advantage and also something of a surprise effect; Duan Qirui simply wasn't ready for such a massive assault. Perhaps more important was the involvement of the Japanese "volunteers" in this Battle at Taizhou. In any case, after a brutal battle, Duan Qirui's forces were simply overwhelmed by superior numbers and fell back in considerable disarray, though Duan Qirui managed to salvage parts of his force and succesfully fell back towards Xuzhou. Though the rest of the Beiyang Army still pressed on, the myth of its invincibility was broken, and the immediate threat to Nanjing was removed. More good news came when the Beiyang Army stumbled again in Spring 1913 due to fierce resistance (and modern weaponry) of the Chengdu garrison; eventually, the city was captured, but with heavy casualties. These minor victories were good for the morale, while some of the Republicans in northern China Proper got bold enough to use this opportunity to rise up in arms. Several other rebellions, both in China Proper and the outer areas, followed this up, although they were harshly suppressed by the remaining garrison forces and, further north, by Russian troops; the rebellion near Beijing itself was put down with the help of the newly-arrived German expeditionary corps ("China-Korps"), led by General Erich von Falkenhayn.

The rest of 1913 went by indecisively, as the Qing forces recovered their balance, consolidated their gains and repaired their supply routes. Despite the several aforementioned setbacks, they ended the year predominant north of the Yangtze. In early 1914, the Republicans launched a preemptive offensive across the central Yangtze, culminating in battles at Chongqing and at Shashi, both of which the Republicans had lost; the Beiyang forces immediately used the opportunity to invade the Hunan Province, distracting the enemy attention there while Duan Qirui (who had received his chance to redeem his past defeat) and von Falkenhayn counterattacked in the Anhui and Jiangsu provinces lost back in 1913. The Beiyang Army was good; but the China-Korps was even better, and von Falkenhayn was an excellent commander as well. Despite this, von Falkenhayn's force was mostly held back in reserve while the two provinces were being overran. They were being saved for the moment when the Yangtze needed to be crossed. Long story cut short, Falkenhayn's elite troops forced a crossing, routing a numerically-superior Chinese force and capturing Zhenjiang. Two days later, Nanjing was already besieged, and all seemed bleak for the Republic.

Nevertheless, it didn't surrender. Sun Yat-sen had remained in the city and, despite his lack of military prowess, personally set about to organize the defenses, mobilizing a large percentage of the city's population - if not to fight, then to treat the wounded or deliver supplies or something. Barricades and machine gun nests were set up, while the local militias were beign drilled by those of the Japanese volunteers trapped in the city. Meanwhile, Sun Yat-sen's protege rising star commander General Chiang Kai-shek took charge of the relief forces amassing outside. Knowing that he needed to win fast, von Falkenhayn ordered a general assault...

What resulted was a bloody, gritty, epic battle - an excellent demonstration of the modern world's technological advances that greatly sped up the process of bilateral manslaughter, a classical urban battle. Parts of the city were utterly ruined - first by the artillery shelling, and then by the urban fighting. The streets were red with blood, and it took weeks to dispose of all the corpses and the bodyparts. Sun Yat-sen's forces were gradually forced back, deeper into the city, but they fought for every inch, while von Falkenhayn and Duan Qirui kept throwing more and more troops into the fray. But in the end, Sun Yat-sen held out, just barely; having suffered unacceptably high losses and been attacked by Chiang Kai-shek's troops, the Germano-Qing forces staged an orderly fighting retreat back across the Yangtze, defeating Chiang Kai-shek's pursuit attempt as if to say that this was not yet over.

This was not yet over; neither side proved capable to break the other in 1914, as Feng Guozhang was likewise forced to fall back from Hunan, albeit mostly because of his untenable strategic position and the accomplishment of his limited (diversionary) objectives, his army having tactically carried the field. War died down, with the River Yangtze becoming the frontline, the Qing reigning more or less secure to its north and the Republic generally safe in the south, having won enough time to organize a new military capable of, at least, holding its ground. Both sides exchanged local offensives, raids and skirmishes in 1916, but apart from minor Republican gains in the Sichuan Province (the only region where the front didn't coincide with the river at the moment), it didn't change much. Yuan Shikei used this time to raise more troops and further consolidate his power in China Proper and Inner Mongolia, appointing loyal friends and lackeys to positions of power and crushing resistance. China was in stalemate, but such situations rarely last long in the modern world.

Elsewhere in the modern world, other momentous events occured. For instance, in America, after a two-term presidency of William Howard Taft which saw American economical expansion in the Carribean and the Pacific (and subjugation of several out-of-line Carribean states), Woodrow Wilson came to power, despite Theodore Roosevelt's last-moment attempt to retake the Presidency; Wilson's victory meant partial reversion to isolationism after a short-lived American awakening; for one thing, he made no real effort to end the unprofitable bloodshed in China, for another, he mostly ignored the events in Mexico (well, as much as one can ignore events next door), where the local revolution was rather more succesful than the Chinese one, but where it nonetheless degenerated into warlordism and civil war. In Portugal there also was a revolution - the old parliamentary monarchy was overthrown and replaced by a radical republic on the 5th of October 1910, which however was chronically unstable, the triumphant Portuguese Republican Party immediately fragmented into a myriad of parties all over the political specter, with several governments replacing each other every year and the military leaders along with manipulative politicians all moving in to try and take power for all it was worth there.
 
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