Alternate History Thread III

[North King]

The Red Sea sounds nice, actually. It wasn't completely dried up, rather, it was a narrow gulf, and there was some vegetation on its coasts... Oman sounds especially nice. Not so sure about Palestine...

Palestine is where they first domesticated crops. Perhaps a little further south, Nabataea, could be habitable to civilization in the Ice Ages.

 

[Thlayli]

Hmm, I think that the Sahara/Sahel would be fantastic for riverine, Egypt-style nations...and the land should be significantly more fertile than Egypt was.

 

[North King]

Hmm, I think that the Sahara/Sahel would be fantastic for riverine, Egypt-style nations...and the land should be significantly more fertile than Egypt was.

No Ethiopia or Uganda for silt to wash downriver. Not quite as fertile, methinks. Because in the end, Sahel soil is Sahel soil, no matter if it's been in a river or not.

 

[Symphony D.]

We've been over that point before. Just because it's wetter doesn't make it hospitable. Sort of like just because you used to be able to navigate the Empty Quarter, doesn't mean it was a place you really would've loved to have lived in.

I'd also like to note that during the last Ice Age, until 8,000BC the Sahara was larger than it is today.

 

[North King]

Sort of like just because you used to be able to navigate the Empty Quarter, doesn't mean it was a place you really would've loved to have lived in.

When did people navigate the Empty Quarter?

Most people went around, if I recall my history well. Unless you mean the isolated camel nomad. Dunes and sebkha are enough to keep most people away.

 

[Symphony D.]

Desertification has increased through the millennia. Before desertification made the caravan trails leading across the Rub' al Khali so difficult, the caravans of the frankincense trade crossed now virtually impassable stretches of wasteland, until about 300 AD.

See also Iram of the Pillars.

 

[North King]

Ah. That's... interesting. Thanks.

 

[das]

OOC: FINALLY DONE! I wonder if anyone actually remembers this timeline...

I'm not terribly good at 18th century warfare, I know; technically this particular war was more inspired by the Napoleonic ones, though isn't quite the same (the levee en masse isn't as huge, while the commanders generally have less leeway and in most cases aren't allowed to do as much crazy stuff, like many of Napoleon's campaigns). So, feel free to point out any glaring military errors - or continuity ones, as though I went to great lenghts to avoid them, this update IS a product of feverish work with lenghty intervals, even moreso than most of mine.

Oh, and bonus points to whoever recognizes all the more-or-less obscure people I have elevated to important positions! Personally I particularily like the uneaten, militarized James Cook. Trust me, there is a reason to all the biographical changes!

IC:

The Great Eastern War (or the Third World War, but we're getting ahead of ourselves) had begun with Russia-Poland and Byzantium fighting against Austria, Prussia and all the lesser states of the HRE (including Belgium); almost immediately, Sweden joined in on the Austro-Prussian side, and many expected the rest of Europe to join in as well - but not even Venice dared make a move, for the fear of being quickly and easily crushed if it were to take a risk. Though some countries voiced diplomatic support for one side or another, the rest of Europe chiefly looked on as the empires clashed.

The war begun with the Prussian capture of Danzig (due to a German rebellion within) and victories at Thorn and Poznan against some smaller Russian detachments. Austrians, meanwhile, advanced through Galicia, yet were fought to a standstill at Lvov by General Nikolai Larionov's forces, graced with luck and with a good commander. Lastly, the Swedes defeated the Russian Baltic Fleet in the Gulf of Finland; though the land advance to Vyborg was parried, a surprising landing in Estonia was very succseful, Revel falling with scarcely a struggle.

But already, the Russians had recovered from the shock effect; though they did lose some ground and the Russian Baltic Fleet was weakened at best, most of Pavel's land forces were not only intact, but also ready for action. This was the moment the Tsar had been waiting for - it did come earlier than he expected, but as his forces were already mobilized, the success of the early actions of the "Central Powers" was very dubious, as in September 1800, the Russian Empire struck back on all theatres. Though the invasion of Finland was no more succesful than the previous Swedish attack on Vyborg, the various Guard regiments, commanded by Graf Miloradovich, had isolated and pushed the Swedes out of Revel, surprising them just as the Swedes had previously surprised the local garrison. In Western Poland, the Prussians advanced on Warsaw, defeating all attempts to stall their advance but still hindered by the Cossack raids and by the Russophilic Poles; as for the Austrian advance, it was resumed, but Lvov still had to be besieged. In the Balkans, operations begun in the earnest, but the Austrians again fared badly - Russo-Byzantine forces had quickly defeated a would-be invasion of Wallachia, while another Byzantine army, commanded by General Ioannis Mavros, invaded Austrian Serbia and defeated the Austrian army stationed there at Leskovac. Although the Serbs themselves weren't awfully sympathetic to the Byzantines, they were mostly considered a lesser evil, and as rebellions spread Austrian authority in Serbia collapsed, with a single garrison barely holding out in Belgrade; these rebellions soon spread into Bosnia and Temesvar as well.

At this point the confusing political situation in Poland must be mentioned as well. Out of the various Polish factions, only one had a clear allegience - the present government, the Regency and thus the greater szlachta. The lesser szlachta and the newborn middle class, plus a few peasant leaders, constitued the vague "Polish resistance", which however splintered immediately upon the war's beginning. This was largely caused by the fact that neither the Russians nor the Austro-Prussians were particular friends of the Polish people; the Russians, usually considered the greater evil, now went out of their way to assure Polish cooperation, and though these efforts were not particularily succesful at first, the announcement of the Austro-Prussian "Partition Plan" (which called for total destruction of Poland as a state, as opposed to autonomy within Russia) quickly discredited and marginalized the pro-Prussian party led by Jacek Jeziercki. After that, many patriots defected to the Russians, attacking the Prussian supply routes to great effect. Others, unable to reconcile themselves with Pavel, continued to follow Tadeusz Kosciuszko, who decided to fight "without discrimination" against "all the invaders of the sacred Polish soil". And even with the Partition Plan in mind, several ethnic Polish legions were formed, especially in the Habsburg armies; their leaders either decided that Poland was doomed and there was no point in crying over spilt milk, either hoped to persuade the Kaiser and the Konig to change their minds. Lastly, several Polish rebel organizations, with ties to the Paris Patriots, took no action just yet and went into the underground; they awaited a decision to come from Paris, either from the emigres or from Fouche...

As autumn rains ruined the roads, and the logistical situation for the attackers (who still held the initiative) proved to be worse than expected, the rest of 1800 went by boringly, anticlimatically and indecisively. Both sides were preparing for the campaign season in 1801, and for now merely fought in a few skirmishes. Finally, with the onset of winter and the failure of a breakout attempt, Larionov surrendered at Lvov, allowing the Austrians to occupy Galicia. This and the early Prussian successes had predetermined the location of the main campaign of 1801 - the Wielkopolska, Central Poland, the Vistula Basin and especially - the vicinity of Poland's three capitals - Warsaw, Lublin and Krakow. All three remained in Russian hands; all three needed to be taken if the Russians were to be expelled from Poland. As the Russians had no intentions of being expelled from Poland, they gathered their troops in the area, set up redoubts, combed the area to eradicate resistance and prepared for the titanic struggle...

The titanic struggle begun immediately in March 1st 1801; on the Prussian part, that was probably a rather poor decision because the rains soon ruined the Polish roads yet again. Still, after a minor battle, the Prussians had captured the town of Lodz, and so their columns were now free to advance towards Warsaw itself from at least three directions. With raised banners and rising morale despite the aforementioned logistical problems, the Prussians were 30 miles away from Warsaw when bad news came from the south; the Austrians were repulsed at Krakow, while Russo-Byzantine forces invaded eastern Galicia, Bukovina and Transylvania, preventing the hoped-for Austrian thrust into southern Poland to link up with the Prussians. Still, the Prussian commander (Rudolf von Radowitz) was undeterred, and on March 27th the two Prussian armies (there was also the third, operating to the east from the Vistula) under his command secured positions just outside of Warsaw, daring the Russians to come out.

Come out they did, under the personal command of the militaristic Pavel I (who just had a falling-out with Suvorov; still, recognizing his talent, Pavel simply sent him away to chase some Austrians). Against 40,000 Prussian troops, the Russians had put out 60,000 of theirs - admittedly, this weakened their positions elsewhere, but if Pavel's army did have one key strenght then it was numbers (and thus, the ability to leave no theatre uncovered). Wishing a decisive battle, Pavel engaged the Prussians at the village of Pruszkow; the initial Russian attack went terribly, as the Prussians took up positions in the mountains and decimated the attackers with artillery fire; excited, Radowitz ordered a counterattack, routing several Russian columns, but also taking heavy casualties - both sides had underestimated the efficiency of rifle and artillery fire against large concentrations of infantry (and cavalry too; a suicidal charge done by a Prussian light horse brigade, devastated by artillery fire before coming anywhere near the main Russian positions, was made infamous by the British observer who has allegedly remarked: "'Tis beautiful, but 'tis not war; the Continent is yet to learn from Agincourt, so why do some of us expect it to learn from Burke?"). In any case, Pavel I almost immediately used Radowitz' rather sloppy and bungled attempts to exploit the early successes. The Tsar committed all his (tactical) reserves and thus started the general battle - a terrible, gruesome melee in the fields near Pruszkow (just below the hilly Prussian positions, now foolhardily near-abandoned), made worse when Radowitz too commited his reserves. The well-placed Prussian artillery still provided a certain advantage, but as ranks collapsed and soldiers from both sides intermixed in a chaotic battle, friendly fire was very frequent for both sides.

Across the field, as already said, a chaotic, confusing battle went on, individual companies and even soldiers often having to fend (and think) for themselves. At one point, it seemed like the Russians were at the breaking point, as Pavel I himself was wounded just as he rode into the battle; still, he climbed his horse once more and drunk with blood-lust charged into the fray anyway, miracilously surviving. Even as the Prussians were gradually expelled from the northern part of the fields and the Prussian batteries were once more attacked, Radowitz still thought he was on the brink of victory. Yet the hours went on, with Prinz Heinrich's forces still nowhere to be seen...

Prinz Heinrich, who was given command of Prussia's aforementioned "third army" to the east from the Vistula, was dead already two days ago - technically he was very old and ill for years now, and the king's decision that resulted in his appointment was from the start considered to bear the mark of senility. So Heinrich died from heart failure when his forces were caught in open field and attacked by Feld-Marschall Andrey Gagarin's vanguard forces and the attached Cossacks. Though unaware of the death of the enemy commander, Gagarin was still encouraged by the panic and confusion that suddenly spread in the enemy ranks, and by the apparent importance of this Prussian force for some insidious plan (that was, ofcourse, true - the Prussians intended to attack Warsaw from the north should their western attack fail); not giving the Prussians any time to recover, he ordered a general attack. The Battle of Plonsk, as it went down in history, saw the complete and sudden rout of the surprised Prussian force, which was soon cut down or surrendered. As for Gagarin, he went on to invade East Prussia as per plan, that was why he was there in the first place after all.

So the Russians were free to press on and on, and finally, as his northern batteries begun to fold and a general rout started in the field, Radowitz ordered his troops to rally, regroup and retreat, retaining a semblance of order. They were scarcely pursued - the Russians won a pyrrhic victory, they protected Warsaw but lost almost a third of their force here and more importantly nearly lost their Emperor. In the immediate aftermath of this battle, there was shock and trepidation at the size of the casualties; this was caused not only by commander mistakes, terrain (battles in open field simply invite bilateral massacre if they are not won or lost quicky) and technology, but also because it was simply hard for a central command to competently use so many troops; Pruszkow was an example of both sides having to resort to simply throwing everything at each other and hope that things are somehow sorted out then (well, that was how it came out for the Russians, but a large price). This experience proved both sobering and very valuable.

The dual shock of Plonsk and Pruszkow took the entire world by surprise; for one thing, it showed just how much the Prussian army had degenerated after years of peace and complacency, and thus immediately caused a scandal in Potsdam. Also, though at Prouszkow itself the Russians had, as already mentioned, won a very pyrrhic victory, that victory allowed Gagarin to easily occupy East Prussia, while Suvorov crossed the Carpathians to rout the Austrians at Baia Mare, allowing the Russo-Byzantine forces to overrun most of Transylvania. If initially the European onlookers feared that the Austro-Prussian alliance will quickly rout the inefficient Russian hordes and then, more strong and more united than ever, turn to conquer the rest of Europe, now a whole different fear emerged - the ancient, near-primal fear of "the Scythians", who, it seemed to some, would soon turn the Elysian Plains into a grazing-ground for their horses. Even though the French political elite was more sceptical of Russian military power, especially as the Austrians finally captured Krakow, still it was feared that the Russians might gain a decisive victory in this war, and nothing else - barring a decisive victory by the other side - could be worse for French foreign policy in Eastern Europe. So Joseph Fouche ordered the Paris Patriots to start working with the Prussians, even as the French government offered to intermediate between the Russians and the Austro-Prussians (the offer was considered thoroughly, but ultimately rejected).

Denied a quick victory, the Holy Roman Empire now had to settle down for a long, drawn-out war with an uncertain outcome. The euphoria of the early war was now gone, but a grim determination to still come out on top appeared, and after some initial reshufflings, purges and intrigues, the Prussian and Austrian monarchs (and their respective advisors and diplomats) met in Ostrau, on the 25th of May. There, a joint plan of action was formulated; requests for greater military and financial contributions were sent to the lesser German rulers; levies and conscriptions on a greater scale were ordered; loans were taken, chiefly from Britain. Initially, when the war had only started and the unslain bear was already cut up, it was intended to goad Denmark-Norway and Venice into joining the war on the Russian side, allowing Prussia the pretext to take over Holstein, while Austria could expand its Italian holdings. Now, the opposite was done, or at least attempted; Denmark-Norway, coming under domestic and British pressure as well as Imperial, agreed and officially pledged neutrality, but the Doge's stance remained ambigous. Still, at least it wasn't outright war... Also, ofcourse, the Austro-Prussians tried to secure French neutrality; smiling devilishly, Fouche promised them as much, though ofcourse the Austro-Prussians knew better than to trust any Frenchman, to say nothing of this particular one (that kinda made securing French neutrality a fool's errand, but it had to be attempted for the sake of form).

With funds, supplies and troops prepared, the Austro-Prussians struck back in June, and not a moment too soon as Pavel I finally recovered enough to once more take supreme command (though he still lost a leg and all appetite for actually leading from the front), establishing a "stavka" at Warsaw. Russian armies had failed to properly capitalize on their initial Spring victories, and that was as much a fault of bad coordination as that of growing resistance and bad logistics. With supply routes more-or-less functioning and coordination now restored, the Russians were able to finish off the Austrian forces in Transylvania in the Siege of Oradea, while the Byzantines finally took Belgrade in a bloody assault. Despite his old age and bad relations with Pavel, Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov was still allowed to take supreme command of Russo-Byzantine forces in the incoming Danubean Campaign. Meanwhile, Ivan Gudovich (called Vasilyevich for his cruelty) was given command of the rehabilitating, reinforced Russian army on the Vistula; his goal was obvious, it was to expel the Prussians from Poznan. And ofcourse Andrey Sergeevich Gagarin was still in charge of the Russian army in East Prussia; he was to retake Danzig and the mouth of Vistula, and after that ward off the Austro-Prussians until further orders. The Russian plans for 1801 were quite modest, really; they only wanted to take over the entirety of Poland and Hungary, and after that move on to Berlin and Vienna...

The plan formulated in Ostrau called for large-scale counteroffensives in Hungary and East Prussia; more specifically, it was hoped that it would be possible to cut off and destroy at least some of the Russian forces involved. In particular, the Austrians intended to lure the Russians into the Great Hungarian Plains, where they would be at some point attacked from multiple directions and slaughtered. The Prussian approach was more straightforward; they sat on the defensive in Poznan, and attacked in East Prussia.

The summer saw action in all the theatres, excluding the Finnish one; but even then, off Finland's coast a volatile naval campaign occured. The Russians quickly won a battle at Kolari, seriously endangering the Swedish naval supremacy, and went on to fight several indecisive skirmishes; the Swedish fleet had to retreat to Turku, and the Russians broke out of the Gulf of Finland, but not for long; a large Swedo-Prussian fleet - reinforced, to Pavel's ire, by British ships - converged on the Russian navy in the Battle of the Entrance (in long, Battle of the Entrance of the Gulf of Finland). Outnumbered, outmaneuvered (being attacked by the Swedes from the north, by more Swedes and Prussians from the southwest and by the remaining Swedes plus Britons from the west) and, in the British regards at least, outdated, the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet fought valorously in these last few hours of its existance. A few ships did flee to Sankt-Petersburg, and in any case, an amphibious attack on the Russian capital was out of question due to its powerful fortifications (about which the Swedes had only the worst of memories).

At this a point, a digression is necessary, to explain and expand upon the British actions. Although the war with the Washington Republic was still ongoing, it was going nowhere, with the latest British campaign stalemating just outside of the besieged Philadelphia. In any case, Pennsylvania was not perceived as all that crucial to Britain; the growing power of France was rather more concerning, and so, even as sporadic warfare continued in the Americas, the Washington War was deprioritized. William Pitt and his government had all reasons to expect France to join in the present war on the Russian side, and when this failed to occur, paranoia only increased - with Washington and the HRE all fighting other enemies, Fouche's hands were untied, and that meant that he could try and strangle Bristol. Feeling war to be imminent, and doubting the Commonwealth's strenght to be sufficient to properly win a one-on-one struggle with France, William Pitt sought allies, and the HRE was a natural ally. It was British pressure that assured Denmark-Norway's neutrality, and it were British funds that made the Imperial mobilization (on the scale planned in Ostrau) possible. Still, Britain wanted to avoid official commitment... until news came of the Russian victory at Kolari. Gustav III panicked, and Friedrich Wilhelm III was also alarmed. In reply to their pleas, the British Parliament authorized the deployment of a Commonwealth Navy expeditionary force to the Baltic Sea, officially declaring war on Russia soon after. That immediately meant British blockades - although mostly nominal at present - and trade embargo against Russia, the latter being very damaging to Russia's economy as Britain - and Netherlands, which joined the embargo, if not the war - were its primary trade partners. However, to the displeasure of the Austro-Prussians, the British refused to commit any land forces to the main theatres. Out there, the events were developing uenevenly at best...

The Prussian plan almost ended in disaster. Feldmarschall Ludwig von Blumenthal attacked rather rashly, before properly securing the Vistula River, and ran into the also-attacking army of Andrey Gagarin at Marienburg. This time both sides were shocked, and confused fighting broke out. The Prussians had the numerical supremacy, but that also meant that von Blumenthal - a rather average commander - had more difficulty rallying his troops and restoring order. Meanwhile, the Russians rallied faster and also received reinforcements. Gagarin ordered a general attack on the Prussians in three columns; that wasn't as foolish a decision in the Vistula lowlands, and the Prussians were threatened with defeat. Finally getting his act together, von Blumenthal ordered a retreat, leaving a few regiments to cover his army as it tried to regroup. Though they held the Russians at bay for a while, eventually they were overran, and the Russians attacked again, preventing von Blumenthal from taking up proper positions in Marienburg itself. One Russian division even threatened to cut off the Prussian retreat route; it was shattered and routed, but the Prussians now had to fall back to the Vistula. By now the catastrophe had become apparent; the Russian numbers and aggression were underestimated, and a new plan was in order. Meanwhile, Gagarin sensed an opportunity and ordered a forced-march to secure the bridges over the Vistula. There his luck ran out; von Blumenthal's forces too were reinforced, and the tired Russians were beaten back from the bridges with considerable loss. Consequently, both sides surrendered initiative in the area, occasionally skirmishing and probing each other, but chiefly sitting by and waiting for the enemy to attack (this was "the Stand on the Vistula"). However, the Prussians at least quickly realized that nothing of importance was going to happen here, and consequently diverted forces and resources south, where things were going little better...

The combat in the Greater Polish Lakelands was quite straightforward at first, as the Russians advanced along the main Warsaw-Poznan road (tied there by the very large size of Gudovich's force), and the Prussians deployed forces on that road to block the Russians. In order to deny the Russians freedom of maneuver, the Prussians defended slightly to the east from major crossroads near the town of Wrzesnia. There a general battle occured. The Prussians wisely avoided attacking the enemy, instead shelling and sniping at him from afar. Enraged, Gudovich ordered a massive assault. It was not quite as simple as it seemed, though; a suicidal Cossack charge led the way, and though those chargers that reached the Prussian batteries were massacred before causing too much damage, this distracted the Prussians and nearly made them panic. Meanwhile, the main body of the Russian army came close enough, especially the grenadiers... The resulting charge cost the Russians many men, but the Prussian army was battered and launched a hasty retreat. Wrzesnia was soon taken, and after a rest the Russians pressed forth. Sroda Wielkopolska was secured in the south, and the Russians now split up forces, launching a two-pronged offensive to Poznan. Yet things weren't as simple as Gudovich thought they would be now. Firstly, the army that he defeated was but a part of the main Prussian (and lesser German) force at Poznan itself. And secondly, the quicker East Prussian campaign had already ended, and the Prussian reinforcements were marching from the north, poised to strike in the Russian rear from Gniezno. No decisive battle occured at Poznan; instead, both sides, surprised by the numbers and uncertain on what should be done, traded skirmishes and bombardments while waiting for each other's reinforcements. The Russian reserves were perhaps greater, but the Prussians were better-positioned; General von Scharnchorst quickly recaptured Wrzesnia from the north, severing the overstrained Russian supply route, and proceeded west. Upon hearing of this disaster, Gudovich launched a half-hearted attack on Poznan and, judging his situation hopeless (chiefly because the huge Russian army was already being barely supplied, and so had good chances of starving to death even if it survived the Prussian attacks that were sure to come soon), surrendered with his entire army. Pavel was enraged. There were some good news for the Russians in the area later, though; General Petr Alekseevich Pahlen took command of the remaining Russian forces, reinforced by some of the strategic reserves, and recaptured Lodz, proceeding to secure the eastern bank of river Warta and defeat all Prussian attempts to get across. Between Warta and Vistula, there was neither much of value nor a good route for an attack; so the Prussian theatre died down as well as both sides regroupped and recovered from their losses...

In Hungary, Suvorov's Russo-Byzantine forces were in full control of Serbia, Temesvar and Transylvania now, and to the north Galicia was also mostly cleared of Austrian troops, who only held out in Krakow and nearby. The Austrian situation detiriorated more quickly than Franz II had expected; the Russian forces secured the Tisza and begun to advance northwards along the Danube, while from the north another Russian army struck into Slovakia. The latter was defeated at Pressburg, failing to attain the hoped-for surprise effect, but Suvorov's main force on the Danube succesfully crossed the river to capture Buda in a morning assault, besieging an Austrian army in Pest. Soon enough it had to surrender, though not before trying to sally forth with the assistance of more Austrian troops. Further advance was complicated, both due to the mountainous areas ahead and due to the far greater Austrian attention (the Austrians neglected the Bosnian rebellion, and instead attacked the Russians wherever possible, winning local-significance battles at Pecs and Lake Balaton, but failing to retake the Danube; they also blocked Suvorov's more straightforward attack at Esztergom). And as if that wasn't bad enough, the Hungarians, antagonized by Russian cooperation with and assistance for the local Serbs and Romanians, suddenly became very loyal to Vienna, launching rebellions and worse still partisan attacks; that invited retribution, which in turn caused even more rebellion. As the war seemed to die down here as well, Suvorov decided to launch a daring attack; while most of his forces consolidated their gains and fought back Austrian attacks, several Russian divisions crossed the Dunantul Mountains (just to the west from Buda) and quickly captured Gyor, threatening the supply routes of the Austrians at Esztergom. This put the Austrians off balance, allowing a Russian victory in the second Esztergom, while Suvorov himself advanced further. Avoiding the heavily-fortified Pressburg, he raided towards Vienna itself, devastating the countryside and shelling the capital. Though his army wasn't nearly enough to actually capture the city, the Austrians didn't immediately realize that. They shifted forces to react to Suvorov, and were pleasantly surprised when he decided to fall back just like that. That surprise was no longer pleasant when it turned out that this was a diversionary attack, while a new multi-pronged invasion took over Slovakia and besieged Pressburg. However, even as another Russian army captured Szekesfehervar, the Austrians not only cut down Suvorov's smaller force, but also, in a lenghty battle, relieved Pressburg. The Russians took considerable casualties, and lost their initiative, but did take over most of Hungary and properly countered the later Austrian counterattacks. The Byzantines advanced into Bosnia after a considerable delay.

Though Russia was chiefly kept in bay, the much hoped-for counteroffensives had also failed to commence, or at least to gain as much as was hoped; and in the end, 1801 turned out to be a draw. The war was still far from resolved, but both sides were already quite damaged, both militarily and economically. Peace still wasn't seen as an option; the Austro-Prussians recovered and built up their forces, while the Russians introduced conscription and looked up diplomatic possibilities... with not much success. Venice was still unwilling to move openly against Austria, even though it did begin supporting Russia and Byzantium financially, whereas France - and all of its allies - were unwilling to move just yet, even though Fouche was a bit alarmed by the sudden change of British priorities. As long as Russia was holding out on its own, France limited itself to restraining Egypt, secretly encouraging Russo-Polish cooperation and secretly preparing for war. It was all too clear that Europe was going to have a general war after all, and that to make sure its interests are defended France will have to join in sooner or later. Fouche intended for it to join in the optimal moment, but that moment wasn't quite here yet.

 

[das]

For 1802, both sides, considerably sobered up by previous failures and bloodshed, had made - in most cases - far less grandiose and ambitious plans than for 1801. Both sides were seeking limited advantages and victories whilst hoping for additional advantages - the Austro-Prussians were listening hope-fully at the news of peasant uprisings in Russia and the Muslim rebellion in Persia, while the Russians still hoped to get more allies - to appear later along the line.

The British still refused to commit any troops to the continental fighting, but they did continue naval operations, enforcing the blockade on northern Russia at least (but very frustratingly the Spanish refused to let the British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea; this nearly provoked a British attack on the Spanish fleet at Gibraltar, but ultimately the French forced Britain to back down; still, obviously this increased the tensions between Britain and the Bourbon Powers). British ships bombarded Estonian coastal settlements, and likewise raided the White Sea, taking and razing Arkhangelsk and a few other settlements. In the Pacific, a similar campaign was attempted but failed due to insufficient British resources there; still, some Russian ships were sunk and the Russian colony on Quadra Island was captured. Raids occured in the Persian Gulf, as had supply runs and other assistance to the resurgent Persian rebels, led by a Zand survivor, Esmail Khan, who isolated several Russian garrisons and waged a vigorous partisan campaign against the Russians all over the western Persia.

In a rather risky move, Pavel I authorized an invasion of Finland, making use of the abortive February 9th rebellion and its somewhat more succesful offshots. Finnish troops and officers mutinied or simply defected, and the Swedes were busy fighting the rebel bands in the countryside; this enabled Feldmarschall Nikolai Kamensky's grand invasion with forces - regular and guard - based at Vyborg and Petrozavodsk. With the help of the aforementioned Finnish rebels, the Russians advanced into Swedish Karelia, outmaneuvered the Swedish border forces (forcing the surrender of all but the most stubborn of the southeastern border garrisons) and won a field battle at Vanda, after which a siege of Helsingfors was enabled. Again, the British assistance ensured that the city remained in supply, while the Swedish forces inside were strong enough to hold out for long. After being repulsed at Helsingfors, Kamensky continued to advance elsewhere in Finland, taking Abo and much of the country's southern half by the year's end. Meanwhile, Pavel I claimed for himself the title of "King of Finland" - though the Finns would've preffered independence, this way they still were offered considerable autonomy and self-rule after the war. Several Finnish divisions were formed to augment Kamensky's army, which they did admirably, especially the skiers. All Swedish efforts to push the Russians out of Finland came to naught, and with heavy casualties too. This was a noteworthy victory for the Tsar.

Further south, Russia, still reeling from the loss of Gudovich and his army, was put on the defensive. Fortunately, in Poland at least, the Russian positions were shielded by Warta, Vistula, and the assorted marshes and lakelands in between. Those lakelands did see some fighting, but it too ended in Pahlen's favour, Prussian attacks on the towns of Kolo and Wloclawek repulsed. The situation in East Prussia developed differently. With the help of local German patriots and the Anglo-Swedish ships providing artillery and logistical support, a large Prussian force had disembarked in the good marine terrain of Danzig Gulf coast, and recaptured Konigsberg in a night attack. Though unable to push further, the Prussians raided from Konigsberg, and badly damaged the Russian supply routes, provoking Gagarin's retaliation. Naturally, as soon as the Russians begun the siege of Konigsberg, the Prussians struck across the Vistula... Now, ofcourse, if the war thus far had taught Andrey - and the other commanders on both sides - anything at all, it was that minor attacks as the one at Konigsberg were first and foremost diversionary. So while Gagarin did march to Konigsberg, he left over a half of his force to watch the Vistula. Though succesfully clearing the coast with grenades and artillery bombardment, the Prussians still had to cross the river under unceasing heavy fire. Several Prussian crossing forces were forced to retreat sooner or later, but a few did hold out, most notably at Baldowo, where the Prussians had commited their strategic reserves and thus not only captured a position on the other bank, as some other units had, but also forced the Russians back considerably, advancing all the way to Marienburg. It was from there and some other points further down the Vistula that Blumenthal's autumn campaign had started; the Russians in the Vistula Delta were defeated at Nowy Staw, and ultimately the Prussians had captured Elbing as well, holding on to it in spite of Gagarin's counterattack (by then Konigsberg was retaken). Though the Vistula Crossing had decimated the Prussian army and forced von Blumenthal to curtail his plans considerably, the result - recapture of parts of East Prussia, i.e. a base for future operations - was quite acceptable. The Prussians bunked down and defended their gains for the rest of the year, taking advantage of Gagarin's weakened state.

The Danubean Campaign went disastrously for Russia. After Suvorov's death, the army there was taken over by Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov - a great commander, who however had trouble asserting control. Before he could do so properly, the Austrians, who had already realized the Russian ploy to overstretch their forces, mostly ignored Bosnia and Slovakia, and instead landed the major blow on Szekesfehervar, quickly retaking it. Led by a rising star Austrian commander, Erzherzog Karl, this concentrated Austrian force went on to rapidly envelop Buda and Pest, forcing their surrender and thus severing a major Russian supply route. After that, the Austrians, together with more forces coming from the west, converged on Kutuzov's forces in Gyor. The Russian executed a masterful retreat, but still lost lots of men and guns, and was later forced out of Nitra as well, retreating into the Slovakian Carpathians. While other Austrian forces, with the help of local partisans, recaptured Hungary and routed the Byzantines at Banja Luka, Karl pursued Kutuzov even further, although in Slovakia the Russians had the population support. Advancing across several mountain valleys at the same time, the Austrians forced Kutuzov to retreat and retreat, losing troops used as cover in the process. Eventually Kutuzov stopped his retreat in the Lower Tatras, at the town of Poprad where the exhausted pursuers were stopped and forced to retreat themselves. To preserve his forces (logistical situation in the Carpathians was awful) and use them somewhere they could make an impact, Kutuzov detached some of them to defend Poprad and himself moved with most back into Transylvania. There he was badly needed, as he had arrived just in time to rout the Austrians at Debrecen. Soon enough however more forces came in, led by Erzherzog Karl again, and this time it were the Russians that were overstretched. Karl retook Debrecen, and moved on southwards to capture Oradea, from there proceeding to capture Cluj-Napoca, Alba Iulia, and, reemerging at another Carpathian mountain pass, Timisoara and Arad. In the wake of this campaign, the Russian situation in Transylvania severely detiriorated; this eventually resulted in Kutuzov being relieved of command and replaced by Pavel's aging old mentor Nikolai Saltykov. Also, Friedrich Josias von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld had by then retaken most of Bosnia, and moved in to take over Temesvar, though his subsequent attempt to cross the Danube was defeated.

In the other words, the Russian situation outside of Finland was getting quite desperate, to a large extent due to the horrible supply problems, made worse by the continued economic collapse (under the pressure of the British blockade, commercial collapse, agricultural crisis due to the military settlement system and ofcourse the large-scale peasant rebellions that had already commenced - the Russian countryside has been in chaos for a while now). The only good news were that the Polish Commitee in Paris officially recognized Pavel I as Poland's sovereign, and many other Polish movements made their peace with him; Polish legions were formed for the Russian army (under the supreme command of hetman Piotr Ozarowski), major rebellions made the Prussian stay in Poznan a nightmare and Pavel I begun to regain hope...

In 1803, the war moved up a level, dramatically increasing in scale to become a true world war. That happened in July, but even earlier the year saw some very important developments. Helsingfors surrendered, for one thing, and the Swedish rule in Finland continued to collapse. The main Russian peasant rebel army, led by the village priest Mithradot, briefly captured Moscow but was later pushed out and broken. Against Saltykov's best efforts, the Austrians recaptured Transylvania and moved into the Danubean Principalities; the Russians pulled back into Slovakia and Ruthenia, taking up defensive positions there. The British North Pacific campaign begun in the earnest with the capture of Kodiak Island and Dalnopavlovsk (OTL New Arkhangelsk/Sitka) in Alaska and culminated later in the same year with Admiral James Cook accepting the capitulation of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky; in between, all the Russian North American settlements were captured one-by-one, desptie fierce resistance from the local merchant militias. By this point, ofcourse, Birmingham had already formulated Britain's Pacific Strategy - what had been lost in India and North America was to be made up for in the vast, newly-explored expanses of the Pacific, wherein lied Britain's future...

But in the short-term view, the most important event of early 1803 was ofcourse Pavel's main Polish campaign. A vast army, under Pavel's personal command, has been gathered for the main blow; Cossacks, Ozarowski's legionaries, Guard regiments, French and Venetian mercenaries, Byzantines and ofcourse the regular Russian soldiers and conscripts comprised Pavel's "Grande Armee" of nearly 300,000 men. There were about 40,000 men under Saltykov holding on in the northern Carpathians; their goal was to tie down the Austrians, and in that they indeed succeeded. Lastly, 70,000 men under Gagarin in the north covered the northern flank after pushing von Blumenthal's insufficient forces back across the Vistula; they followed up that success with a quick crossing of the river and a sudden (suddenly succesful) assault on Danzig, and through further advance proved impossible, considerable Prussian troops had been tied down in the north. With his northern and southern flanks safe, Pavel I and Petr Pahlen launched the campaign itself. This time, supplies were well-provided; the army advanced divided, ready to confront enemy forces anywhere in the lakelansd; the advance itself was made with surprising rapidity. The Prussians at Poznan were outflanked and outnumbered, and crushed; enthusiastic and ecstatic, the Grande Armee charged on, entering Silesia. The Prussians there were shocked, and their resistance was haphazard and divided. They were doomed, and crushed. After the surrender of Breslau, the Russians moved on into Saxony and Brandenburg, and, though by now their supply routes were overstretched and the troops themselves exhausted, they finally reached Berlin itself. Friedrich Wilhelm III woke up to the sound of cannonfire.

Fortunately, the Russian core had some trouble catching up with the Armee's vanguard, which couldn't take Berlin on its own, obviously. Friedrich Wilhelm panicked nonetheless, and called for reinforcements. The call was answered; conscripts and volunteers from all over Prussia gathered, as did Austrian, Brunswickian, Belgian and Lesser Imperial troops. Even the Swedes and the British sent troops, as did the Dutch. The Austrians gathered forces at Ostrava and Prague. All-in-all, the Russians were faced by almost 450,000 men, but these were noticeably divided, both in command and in geographic position. Meanwhile, the Russians stood camp just outside of Dresden, Wittenberg and Berlin. Gagarin overran East Pommerania as most Prussians were redeployed to Brandenburg (not necessarily to Berlin itself - Frankfurt an der Oder, already in Russian hands, too was an important objective - not a one reached, however, as the Prussian attack there ended in disaster).

Europe awaited with baited breath the word from the climatic clash of the Central and Eastern Powers. Initial reports were confused and contradicting, and the situation itself chaotic. The main battles raged around Berlin (especially at Charlottenburg) and in Silesia - there, Heinrich von Bellegarde's Austrians advanced swiftly along the Oder, but were stopped at Breslau and pushed back, then regroupped and attacked again. It was a chaotic war of maneuver, but ultimately the Austrians brought in more men and also attacked from across the Sudetes, eventually defeating the Russians, liberating Breslau and relieving Dresden. At Grunberg in northern Silesia, however, the Austrians were handled a serious defeat (the Russians making good use of natural artillery positions), while Wittenberg fell before they could do anything. Minding his casualties and logistics, von Bellegarde decided to abstain from further offensives for the moment. Meanwhile, near Berlin, the Russians had crossed the Havel and the Dahme west, and laid waste to the countryside. Skirmishes broke out around Falkensee and Potsdam; gradually these combined and evolved into two major battles. The Russians overwhelmed the defenders of Potsdam; in the final stages of the battle, some of them tried to hide in the Sanssouci Palace and fight back from there, refusing to surrender and taking potshots at Russian troops. The palace was wrecked by artillery fire on Pavel's personal orders. At Falkensee, however, the timely arrival of Anglo-German forces at the Russian right flank broke their charge and sent them retreating to the Havel in mild disorder. After pondering his situation, Pavel ordered an attack on Charlottenburg, conveniently placed between Falkensee (where the Central armies converged) and Berlin, and also beneficient due to its high area. Though the Prussians did put a division there, realizing the position's importance, it was unable to withstand a powerful attack from two directions, and retreated into Berlin. The First Siege of Berlin had commenced, and Charles-Joseph de Ligne's (the Belgian commander, given supreme command over the Central forces at Falkensee, except for the British Expeditionaries who acted in concert with their allies but were commanded exclusively by Ralph Abercromby) early attempt to raise it had failed. It was immediately obvious that Berlin couldn't hold out for all that long - there were simply too many people, and too little food. Therefore constant attempts to break the siege were made, sometimes with short-term success, especially on the Havel on the siege's third day. The Russians eventually strenghthened the siege and set up cordons and redoubts. Berlin was beginning to suffocate, and the constant bombardments didn't help the morale. A second attempt to retake Charlottenburg nearly succeeded, but Russian reinforcements forced a retreat. The situation was getting desperate.

Upon the arrival of additional British forces, Abercromby launched an indepedent attack on Potsdam, surprising the Russians with his rapid and stealthy light infantry maneuvers and especially with the British sharpeshooters. The town was recaptured, and the victory was exploited with a major offensive south of Berlin. A southern supply route was freed up, for a while at least; the Central Powers gained additional freedom of maneuver, and used it for a multi-pronged attack that finally drove the Russians from Charlottenburg with heavy casualties. Pavel was forced to raise the siege and fall back beyond the Oder; but the Central Powers weren't about to let the Grande Armee get its act together. Swedo-Germano-Prussian forces drove Gagarin out of Pommerania, and attacked Pavel from the north, Anglo-British troops converged on and recaptured Wittenberg and Grunberg and then moved to cut the Russians off from the south, and the main forces at Berlin, under de Ligne, attacked straightforwardly. The Russians retreated faster, however, and most of the Armee made it to Oder's other side, although there were many casualties. However, the chaotic retreat was rife with attrition, and the Russian army became an ever more juicy target even as it made it beyond the Oder. Central Power cavalry harassed it, while the main forces hurried to confront it. At the price of sacrificing Gagarin's army, Pavel succesfully reached Poznan and restocked there, regroupping his troops. Yet they still were tired and undersupplied, and had no time to regroup properly - soon enough, the Central Powers converged on Poznan, at the same time moving to take over the Poznan-Warsaw main road. Although Pavel eventually freed it, his army was shattered and forced to retreat hastily once more. At Kostrzyn, 13 miles away from Poznan, the Central Powers confronted the Grande Armee one last time and landed the coup de grace. Barely three thousands had made it to Warsaw (miracilously enough, Pavel was amongst them), the rest dying, deserting or captured.

Now fully insane, Pavel ordered a mobilization of Russia's and Poland's entire population and resources. Normally that would've gotten him assassinated, but the court was at Gatchina or in Sankt-Petersburg, and had no idea as to what should be done when the Tsar is so far away. Some suggested sending assassins after him and waiting until his death, but ultimately it was decided to do something else. The loyal ober-procurator of the Governing Senate, Peter Obolyaninov, was killed for disagreeing with the plan; instead, the morally-flexible Aleksey Kurakin was restored in that position, and, with the unanimous support of those senators that weren't killed off or otherwise removed, proclaimed Pavel to be insane and deposed. His young son was declared Emperor Nicholas I, and was forced to sign a constitution that restored to the Senate its powers of the "good old Petrine days", only this time de facto as well as de jure and with the omission of the monarchial veto. The Senate was then rearranged to make up for the casualties; liberal reformers, concerned patriots and opportunistic conspirators, such as Nikita Petrovich Panin, Platon Aleksandrovich Zubov, Aleksey Grigoryevich Orlov, Grigoriy Aleksandrovich Potemkin (OOC: who in this world never did reach the peaks of his power under Catherine, and hence couldn't afford such levels of gluttony and general unhealthy decadence, thus remaining alive longer...) and the Freemason Grandmaster Nikolay Ivanovich Novikov. These, along with Kurakin and some like-minded "old senators", soon took the real power in the country, forming a sort of a junta.

Events developed quickly. Pavel was naturally enraged and begun scrapping together the Russian forces in Poland, preparing to fight for his throne. A premature Russian Civil War was prevented by Pavel's assassination at the hands of his officers, led by Barclay de Tolly. Although negotiations with the Central Powers were opened by Kurakin, they soon died down, largely but not solely due to the Austro-Prussian insistance on massive reparations. This meant that at least for now, war had to go on. After a while, both the Senate and the officers in Warsaw decided to grant command to Nikolai Saltykov, who retreated with his forces into Poland after hearing of the disastrous Prussian campaign. After some disagreements and confusion, Saltykov took command and started preparing defenses at Warsaw itself. At this point, Tadeusz Kosciuszko suddenly resurfaced in the middle of Warsaw with a few retainers; apparently, Ozarowski promised him his support, but now betrayed him, after a Kosciuszkite patriot killed Potocki for him; Kosciuszko was ofcourse hanged, and his movement collapsed, its grand insurrection mostly stillborn but for a few local, uncoordinated manifestations. Piotr Ozarowski, through his military power and relations with the Russians, became the de facto leader of the mainstream Polish patriots, and from this position negotiated with the Russians. A Polish Republic was proclaimed, with Ozarowski as president with dictatorial powers; as such, he proclaimed a Polish commonwealth with Russia (in a loose confederation), and ordered a pospolite ruszenie; with the promise of independence, though limited, and territorial integrity, he gained great support and enthusiasm. Also, he somehow procurred lots and lots of funds... And lastly, Jyzef Antoni Poniatowski, previously a closet Kosciuszkite, was captured during the crackdowns... and after a personal interview with Ozarowski, agreed to take command of the new Polish army. Many other Polish military talents were similarily persuaded. Swelling, well-armed and well-equipped, and with visionary leadership, the Polish army soon gave battle to the surprised Central Power armies, and, taking advantage of their underestimation and general unpreparedness, caused a humiliating rout at Lodz. Meanwhile, in Russia, as the war's continuation became reality, the Senate issued another decree, proclaming the compensated abolition of serfdom within ten years, plus the abolition of the military settlement system. Most of the serf rebels were contented for now, and a semblance of order was restored. This was followed up by other liberal decrees to win the population over to the Senate's side; this included allowing the publication of much previously-forbidden literature. With the situation somewhat stabilized for now, a new call to arms was issued. Many peasant rebels were promised amnesty and freedom in exchange for joining the army, though a Polish-style levee en masse was seen as too radical and politically-unapt. The war was to go on, much to Pitt's displeasure. For he did receive reports on the French activities in Poland. The Russo-Polish reconciliation, the Polish funding, the Russian breking of negotiations - in all that, the work of Fouche's long arms could be noticed. Worse still, Kurakin was increasingly surrounded by French or French-affiliated diplomats.

The Russian disaster at Berlin showed both that the threat of Russian hegemony receded and that the threat of the Austro-Prussian one increased yet again. Fortunately, the Holy Roman Imperials and their allies had concentrated forces on the Russian war, and that meant that this was a golden opportunity for France to move. Meanwhile, in a stunning coincidence, another opportunity appeared. Maria of Portugal died from an attack of acute porphyria. Her son Joao died in an accident several years previously, which left Portugal in a pretty poor state under Maria's unhinged later rule. And now it just so happened that by far the best candidate to the Portuguese throne was Infante Pedro Carlos, son of a Portuguese princess Maria Vityria Josefa and the Spanish infante Gabriel. This put young (yet already of governing age) Pedro Carlos in the position of "Prince of Spain and Portugal" - his official and recognized title. Although he wasn't really all that close to the Spanish throne (only third in line, and that if Salic Law is to be followed), it still was something. Carlos IV was quite principled, but even moreso he was easy to influence. In any case, under the Franco-Spanish pressure, the Portuguese court aborted plans of utilizing some cadet branch to preserve independence, and Pedro Carlos was crowned King Pedro IV of Portugal. Naturally, the British protested, and even threatened full intervention... In a different time, Fouche would've restrained his allies, but he was going to have to fight Britain anyway. The Bourbons didn't back down. Instead, they formally recognized the new Russian and Polish governments as well, and demanded that the Austro-Prussians withdraw from Polish territory. This two-front diplomatic offensive, despite provoking some severe criticism in the Parlement and the unhappiness of King Louis XVI, reached its objective. Britain was forced to declare war on France, while the Franco-Russo-Polish alliance was confirmed. On both counts, France secured the moral ground, and Fouche secured the Parlement's agreement to start the war and allow a mobilization of the French military reserves. The War went World.

 

[das]

It seemed to start out just fine for the French. The British invasion of Portugal, assisted by local mutineers, was quickly routed by Hispanno-Portuguese troops at Oeiras and Almada and became known as one of the worst amphibious landing disasters in the world's history (as those invaders that survived were captured anyway, along with artillery and supplies). The (admittedly smallish) fleet sent to support the invasion was then attacked and destroyed by the combined Franco-Hispanno-Portuguese navy at Cabo da Roca. Meanwhile, the reformed, modernized French army, with professional new officers in charge, overran Belgium within less than a month, largely thanks to the new steam-powered supply trains and artillery haulers (but also to the pro-French insurrectionists that paralyzed the state's reaction until it was too late). The star of Napoleon Bonaparte, soon to become one of Fouche's most prized commanders, first shone during the Battle at Waterloo where the Belgians made a desperate attempt to halt the French advance. Modern French artillery made short work of the Belgian redoubts, the Belgian army was routed, and pro-French rebels soon took over Brussels as panic spread. King Charles Augustus himself was captured. The French (under the supreme command of Charles Francois Dumouriez) only stopped on the Rhine and the Dutch border, and there, only for a while. And in Italy, all hell broke loose. Spain (=Parma), the Papal States, Venice, Genoa and, after some second thoughts, Naples joined France, while Austria and Franz II's Italian possessions (Lombardy and Tuscany) were assisted by Modena and Savoy. Lucca and San Marino retained neutrality. Anyways, the once-formidable, but now backwards and simply overrated Savoyard army was kicked aside like it was nothing, and the French, moving as quickly as was possible in the difficult terrain, took Turin and Asti. Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron, the French commander in Italy, went on to besiege Milan. There he bogged down a bit, but so did the Austrian relieve forces that bogged down in Venice's powerful fortifications. Meanwhile, Papal, Neapolitan and expeditionary Spanish forces under the overall command of the Neapolitan king Ferdinand IV attacked Tuscany, defeating the Austrians at Muntepulciano and at Florence. Modena and Austrian Mantua only held out due to Bourbon neglect and the French difficulties at Milan.

But soon enough, disaster struck at sea. Charles Hector d'Estaing's combined Bourbon fleet, fresh from the victory of Cabo da Roca, was eager for more, and this was skillfully used by the British Admiral Arthur Phillip. After some maneuvering near Portugal's coast with slightly-inferior forces, the British got the enemy attention and pretended to retreat; then, as d'Estaing bought the bait, they attacked and borught in reserves, suddenly hemming the Bourbon fleet in between two British lines. This maneuver was allowed by the previous British shipbuilding and naval technology-related efforts; they had better ships generally, better cannons, and also some experimental steamers that performed surprisingly well and proved to be something of a shock. Before the French could recover, d'Estaing was shot by a British sharpeshooter. Not giving the French any time to restore command, Arthur Phillip ordered the steamships to break the French lines while supporting them with cannonfire from the sailships. Despite explosions from lucky French hits, this tactic succeeded in the face of French disorganization. Their line broken, most of the French and their allies were destroyed or surrendered within the next three hours, with but a few fighting their way out. Although the small island was a league and a half away from the action, this glorious British victory came to be known as the Battle of Salvora. From the start, it was trumpeted as the single decisive battle in the naval war, and, some claimed, in the war itself.

Well, that wasn't strictly-speaking true, as the Bourbon Powers - especially Spain, which hadn't commited a half of its total fleet to the campaign, but also France which had many other fleets as a naval power should - still retained considerable naval assets all over the world, even in the European Atlantic, although these ofcourse had to retreat to port. British options remained limited due to powerful coastal batteries of the Bourbon Powers that barred Britain entry into the Mediterranean and made any amphibious operations against meaningful objectives even more suicidal than otherwise. As for strangling the enemy commerce, that tied down lots of ships with limited result (the Atlantic Ocean is a bit too big to properly control all of its lanes), and even then France, thanks to Physiocrat and other projects, could be self-sufficient if need be. Still, this battle meant that any Bourbon plans for an invasion of Britain had to be cancelled; the balance of naval power shifted back towards Britain, as had the initiative (at least, in the region); and last but not least, British confidence was soaring. Britain ruled the seas once more.

Despite this setback, the French continued their overland rampage, scoring victory after victory. Napoleon Bonaparte captured the Dutch border fortresses and, given command over the French forces in Holland, organized a series of ingenious attacks to capture the Dutch Waterlinie and thus cross the Rhine with remarkable speed and low casualties. Though risky, Napoleon's plan had worked; it was no doubt assisted by the fact that the weak and fragile Oranje absolutism had crumbled in the face of danger and the Patriots were re-formed under French auspices, providing all sorts of services, from information-gathering and diversions to assassinations and an all-out rebellion in Amsterdam and other key Dutch cities. The Anglo-Oranje troops were broken by Napoleon at Amsterdam; Holland was French by the year's end, and Napoleon was already advancing into Brunswick. Dumouriez in the meantime moved beyond the Rhine, occupying Nassau and capturing Frankfurt-am-Main, defeating an Austro-Lesser Imperial force at Offenbach nearby. Between Dumouriez and Bonaparte, Francois Christophe Kellermann occupied Westphalia, defeating a smallish Prussian force at Dortmund. Only the underpowered French invasion of Baden was repulsed by timely Austrian preparations, but it wasn't a very important direction anyway, at least not yet. In Italy, the Austro-Modenan forces crumbled altogether, and the grand Franco-Hispanno-assorted Italian army landed several major defeats on the Austrians outside of the fortresses of Brescia and Bergamo, although the Austrians did manage to retreat in good order. The French campaigns carried on well into the winter, as they entered Tyrolia in the south and reached out for Germany's heartlands in the north. These successes, it must be admitted, were not caused solely by the efficiency of the French military; in fact, the slow and haphazard way of Central Power reaction to this sudden and impolite change in the strategic situation was probably the most important factor here. The Central Powers lost much coordination, and desperately redeployed forces to face the French menace, while still trying to crush Poland (they did defeat Poniatowski at Plock, but Warsaw itself remained unassailable and the Poles already regroupped).

In 1804, more new elements were added to the war. The Washington Republic signed an official peace treaty with France at present borders, and launched a new offensive, startling the British troops in New Jersey. After some close-ran skirmishes, the British, confused and threatened with defeat in detail by the unconventional tactics of their enemies (who did a marvelous job virtually isolating all the key garrisons in the area), were forced to retreat northwards. Meanwhile, the colonial campaigning begun in the earnest; the French naval detachment defeated the deprioritized British Carribean fleet at Morant Point (Jamaica), but the attack on the island itself failed; all other British Carribean islands were soon captured, though, as was Dutch Surinam. The British forces, moving from the land and the sea, occupied eastern New France (including the cities of Quebec and Montreal) despite fierce resistance by the local militias (which had repusled late 1803's weaker sole effort at capturing Quebec). French troops in the area retreated for the Great Lakes area. Moving quickly and taking advantage of their control of the Atlantic, the British captured French West African colonies. The French made a stunning move with their Mediterranean Fleet; after years of sped-up work, the Suez Canal was finished, and a large naval detachment under the command of Admiral Louis-Rene Levassor de Latouche-Treville moved into the Indian Ocean, shelled Muscat (forcing Sultan Said to allow the French to restock there and variously assist them against the British - that included banning British trade in Oman - and also to acknowledge the French influence in Oman's ramshackle East African empire) and thoroughly defeated the British Persian Gulf squadron at Musandam; from there, he moved to defeat another British fleet in the Maldives (which the French had then captured). Although his forces weren't all that numerous, de Latouche-Treville still did succeed in wrecking havoc on the British and Allied trade routes in the Indian Ocean, and in this bold stroke seized yet-uncontested control over it. In India, peace was maintained as neither side felt quite ready to move, but the French were shipping in lots of troops now. Lastly, in the Pacific, the British invaded the Philippines, soon occupying all the key cities there. Also, ofcourse, Macao was captured from the Portuguese garrison with the help of local British merchants.

And ofcourse there was Russia, which once more was near civil war. The Senate's control of the country was imperfect; they were aware of it, but considered Nicholas I and each other to be the greatest threats to the Senate's power. This allowed two conspiracies made outside of Sankt-Petersburg to come near success. The first one, led by Nikolai Larionov, was suspicious enough for the Senate to nip it almost in the bud: Larionov, who was taken prisoner early in the war, suddenly returned in Sankt-Petersburg, and sure enough as many had thought he was an Austrian spy. He did befriend some of the senators and the discontent military officers, and attempted a coup d'etat, intending to take control of Russia and sign peace with the Central Powers (taking advantage of Russia's war-weariness). This backfired; Larionov's attempted coup made the Senate more careful, and at the same time increased support for the continuation of war in Russia. The other coup came not from the peacemongerers; rather, it came from one of the main warmongerers, Nikolai Kamensky, who felt hurt at the way he was left out of the new Russian power circles, felt that the Senate was going to lead Russia to disaster and, ofcourse, had the closest army to Sankt-Petersburg. However, he failed to secure any assistance in the city itself, and his army wasn't completely loyal (unlike his Finnish jaegers). So as he marched out towards Sankt-Petersburg, he was betrayed; though defeating the traitors and taking Vyborg, he took large casualties. Realizing his attempt to have failed, Kamensky surprised the Senate with a peace offer, promising to end his bid for total power in exchange for amnesty, continued service and being given full powers in Finland, Karelia and Kola for the duration of the war. Not trusting him, the Senate nonetheless decided that it had no choice. The north thus virtually became Kamensky's fief, although his popularity amongst the Finns and considerable military ability actually meant that locally it was a popular development. Yet now, the other military commanders started getting ideas as well. And finally, to make things even worse, the continued agricultural and economic problems provoked a new round of peasant rebellions, this time not as easily appeased. Another of the Senatorial armies sent to defeat the rebels was humiliatingly defeated at Orel, although Potemkin's army, augmented by personal levies, had more luck reconquering the Volga.

Meanwhile, the last Russian garrisons in Persia surrendered, several Russian officers actually defecting to Esmail Khan. Taking the old Zand title of Vakilol Ro'aya, Esmail declared Persia fully restored, although resistance in parts of Iraq, Aizerbadjan and Khorasan continued - not from the Russians, ofcourse, but from the various local tribes.

After pondering their strategy, the Central Powers decided that desperate measures were needed. A Holy Roman Imperial version of the levee en masse commenced, hampered by poor coordination and aristocratic grumbling. To deal with the former problem - both in the levee and in other issues - a combined Reichskriegsrat was assembled in Vienna, with representatives from all over the HRE. An economic mobilization was ordered. In military strategy, it was decided after some debate to concentrate on destroying Poland, so that the war could be a one-front one (with Russia in chaos); this was supported by the Swedes, naturally, but the Lesser Imperial states were outraged, as Poland was clearly only important for the Austro-Prussians. But Franz II insisted, and eventually they had to accept this, especially as the Austrians and the Prussians did promise to send some troops to help defend Brunswick and other threatened principalities. After some heavy debate in the Parliament, the British had agreed to commit a large expeditionary corps (commanded by Charles Cornwallis, who agreed to leave retirement for one last campaign) to northern Germany. So had the Danes, although the Swedes refused, wishing to recapture Finland (this drove something of a wedge between the Imperials and the Swedes, an event of future importance). Oh, and ofcourse the Serbian campaign had to be aborted; the Austrians decided not to push their luck too far and to defend on the Danube, which was in their hands now, whilst campaigning more actively on two other fronts.

As the French pressed on and on, they finally begun to overstretch their lenghty supply lines. Although a major Imperial army was broken at Kassel, and Napoleon Bonaparte crossed the Weser and captured Bremen, the French centre was stopped at Bielefeld (a draw). That was the first major Imperial success in the war with France, but the Reichskriegsrat celebrated too early. The left and right flanks of the French strategic advance had by now advanced beyond the Weser, and, as far as they could, they moved to surround Hannover, taking Brunswick in the process. Kellermann resumed his offensive at Bielefeld, and with the reinforcements, he broke through, although the casualties were heavy. After a week or so of intensive campaigning, a large Imperial army was trapped in Hannover and the surrounding areas. After some more fighting, that army, and the Duke of Brunswick (Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand), surrendered. Fortunately the Anglo-Danish froces didn't arrive yet back then, and so were able to safely hide out at Hamburg, denying the French that route. Deciding that particular direction to be of secondary importance, the French staff pondered its options. An attack towards Berlin or Leipzig would be too predictable and get too immediate a response. In the meantime, there was a major uncovered direction, that of southern Germany. Although the Austrians, regroupped under the newly-promoted Feldmarschall Johann Josef Wenzel Anton Karl Franz, Graf Radetzky von Radetz, had turned de Langeron's Tyrolian campaign into a catastrophe (the Austrian jagers waged excellent partisan warfare, while the main army quickly cut off most French retreat routes, causing a panicked and rushed retreat with heavy casualties), central and the non-Austrian half of southern Germany were mostly open to invasion. So be it.

Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, led a second invasion of Baden and the nearby Austrian fief of Breisgau. This time, it worked. Quickly crossing the Rhine at several points, the French vanguard secured several key Austrian batteries in a frenzied melee, and the main force made it comparatively safely across. Soon the entire eastern bank of the Rhine was in French hands, and Freiburg and Baden-Baden were captured as well. Meanwhile, Dumouriez' army advanced into Franconia (central Germany); there, surprisingly serious resistance was encountered, and the French were even briefly defeated at Wurzburg, but with renewed effort and more forces on more directions the Imperials were forced to fold and fall back towards Ansbach. With major reinforcements, however, the Austrians held out in Bavaria and nearby territories; though Stuttgart was eventually lost, Radetzky had by then moved north and parried Rochambeau at Ulm, while Erzherzog Karl himself defeated Napoleon Bonaparte for the first time, at Saalfeld. Yet most of Franconia was in French hands, which allowed a late-year attack on Saxony. Jean Victor Moreau commanded that invasion, and achieved rapid success, defeating an Austro-Saxon army at Zwickau and capturing Leipzig. Saxony east of the Elbe was however quickly shielded by Prussia.

In the other words, the Reichskriegsrat's eastwards emphasis had disastrous results, and only the tactical brilliance of individual Austrian commanders saved the day from being a complete catastrophe. Fortunately, the proponents of the Poland First strategy did have much to show for it...

Firstly, after von Blumenthal's court-martial, Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher, who had returned to military service despite disagreements with pretty much all the Prussian authorities in 1802, was given the command of the Prussian army at Danzig. Quickly sweeping aside the remaining Russian troops in East Prussia, he utilized a maneuver rather similar to that of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Northern Campaign, sweeping in to take Bialystok, Brzesc and Lublin, defeating the startled Poles in a series of battles. His poor coordination with the other Prussian forces prevented a total replication of the French success; but the main, straightforward Prussian offensive under Prinz Hohenlohe achieved its main objectives too, and that happened largely due to the distraction created by Blucher (the long-awaited death of the very old Russian commander Nikolai Saltykov was useful as well). Thorn, Lodz and Krakow were captured, the Vistula was crossed and Warsaw was besieged; Barclay d'Tolly and Jyzef Poniatowski made a desperate attempt to break the siege, but despite initial successes, they were crushed. Meanwhile the Austrians once more occupied Galicia and Bukovina. Ozarowski fled to Wilna, and tried to gather forces there, but was defeated and captured by Blucher at Slonim. After that, Polish resistance lingered on, and due to the cavalry tradition it was particularily meddlesome; yet it lost coordination, and was eliminated as an active threat, being reduced to the level of a localized nuisance (the general Polish war-weariness helped). The Russians also lost one of their armies, although they did have troops in western Ukraine (OOC: not to be confused with Galicia) and the White Russia, which, with the help of local sympathisers, imposed control there. Mikhail Aleksandrovich Mamonov was put in charge of another army, assembled at Pskov, and used to occupy Lithuania and ward off the Prussian attempt to take Kaunas. However, the main reason the Russians were actually holding their own here was that the Central Powers were too busy mopping up Poland and didn't give much priority to its eastern lands. Meanwhile, Kamensky and his Finns faced a major Swedish onslaught, commanded by Georg Carl von Dobeln. The Swedes recaptured Abo and Vasa, showing off what they had learned from their previous amphibious operations, and briefly threatened Tammerfors and Helsingfors. Kamensky defeated the main Swedish thrust coming from Abo, routed the Swedes at Esbo and recaptured Abo itself, but the Swedes did capture Tammerfors. The Finnish jagers and ski troopers made their further advance hell, and Kamensky himself quickly maneuvered northwards... His assault on Vasa was repulsed by the Swedish reinforcements, but the mass of the attackers was now trapped in Finnish lakelands and fell apart a few weeks later. Vasa held out, however, and other Swedish forces retook Uleaborg in a surprise overland attack (that however could've been exploited better).

Still, the main goal of the Central Powers was reached; Russia was on the defensive, as was the Byzantium, and Poland had been wiped from the face of the Earth. As a bonus, the Bourbons, though triumphant in Italy, were unable to advance further - Dalmatia was denied to them earlier in the year by Erzherzog Karl's epic northwards march, during which the Venetian garrisons, except for those in Ragusa and Cattaro, were all defeated in detail. This meant that in 1805, they could safely concentrate the overwhelming majority of their forces on the German theatre. Allow me to rephrase that - it wasn't as much "could" as "would". The French had brought in more reinforcements and the heartlands of Prussia and Austria were being threatened yet again, this time - from the west, and perhaps even more gravely than when the threat came from the east.

1805 was a year of intensive fighting, and not just in Germany, but also at sea and in India. This time around, we'll start with Germany, for it was now confirmed as the primary theatre. Opposing the French and Francophilic (Belgian, Dutch volunteer, Spanish expeditionary, and some miscellanous Italian regiments) forces were the "Allies", as the Central Powers were now often called - this included the surviving Lesser German forces (including those that fought on after the fall of their states), the Prussian and Austrian armies (reinforced by vast numbers of volunteers and conscripts, and troops redeployed from other theatres ofcourse), the remaining pro-Imperial Polish Legions, Swedish, Danish expeditionary forces and Cornwallis' army, which was reinforced by Abercromby and a force twice the original corps' size from Britain - Pitt and much of the Parliament were genuinely scared by the stunning French victories, and feared that the Holy Roman Empire might not hold out on its own. A major concentration of Allied forces was along the Elbe, which was where the French had stopped last year. Notably, however, the Austrians, though deploying several corps to the Elbe Theatre, chose to concentrate on Franconia and southern Germany. An ambitious plan was designed by Erzherzog Karl, who personally supervised crash-course military reforms in preparations for his grand offensive...

Early on, France finally encountered serious logistical problems. Due to the stalwart Imperial resistance and mobilization, a quick and easy victory - which the French had anticipated, especially after the early successes - proved impossible. The supply routes were also seriously overstretched now, and this slowed down the French army's advance in late 1804/early 1805. It cost them badly, due to the Central Powers getting their act together, as already mentioned. And yet, as the Prussian Campaign commenced, France immediately scored a series of victories, not in the least thanks to skilled disinformation that distracted many of the Allied forces to Hamburg and the surroundings while in truth, Jean Victor Moreau crossed the Elbe at Torgau, quickly winning battles against smaller Prussian detachments at Finsterwalde and Cottbus. Meanwhile, Bonaparte, newly redeployed to assist Moreau, captured Dresden. It was only at this point that the Dumouriez' forces captured Magdeburg, crossed the Elbe at a more northerly point, then took the city of Brandenburg, intending to secure the northern roads to Berlin. It was around here that things begun to go wrong, as Cornwallis realized the French ploy earlier than was hoped, and although Dumouriez did initially succeed in his objective of separating the northern Allied forces from Berlin, and even defeated a Prussian army at Butzsee, the vital Battle of Neuruppin went decisvely against the French. Although Dumouriez had superior numbers, the British expeditionary force - which was the core of the northern Allied forces, by the way - had yet again proven the complete superiority of the British light infantry. The sharpeshooters in particular decimated the overconfident French columns, and at a later point Dumouriez himself was sniped by one of them. Bringing in more troops, most notably the Prussians from the east, the British routed the French army, and moved on towards Berlin - which was besieged for the second time in this war. Only this time, despite all prior preparations, things were going in some regards even more badly than before. Despite all efforts at coordination, the speed of French advance once again took the Prussians and their allies by surprise, and as Berlin was surrounded the initial counter-attacks were haphazard and, though coordinated, poorly so. The worst of the engagements was at Ludwigsfelde south of Berlin, where a large Austro-Prussian army was trapped by the French in a double-envelopment, and broken by powerful artillery barrage. The surviving Allied forces (notably those under Blucher in the east; these turned out to be the most intact after the initial round of battles) had to retreat, lest they risk a similar fate. On the other hand, they DID retreat in an orderly fashion, and regroupped there; also, the British now arrived from the north; and lastly, the Prussian garrison in Berlin was properly prepared this time, and the city had much more supplies. Though Friedrich Wilhelm III wasn't all that good a commander at all, his presence was inspiring and so the city refused to surrender. It became increasingly apparent to the frustrated French commanders that they had to settle down for a long siege, as Berlin's defenses, strenghthened even further after the First Siege, were too strong to take by assault. Yet the French refused to repeat the Russian mistake; instead of allowing the Prussians to tie themselves down at Berlin where they would lose initiative, they left a small force - just enough to conduct a steady siege and fight back the weaker relief attempts - at Berlin, and now struck north with most of their army. This was further augmented by Jean-Charles Pichegru's capture of now-undermanned Hamburg and swift forced-march through Mecklenburg. The Anglo-Scandinavian forces were first repulsed from the surroundings of Berlin itself, then forced to retreat along the Havel, and lastly, engaged at Neustrelitz by Pichegru's army. However, by then Cornwallis' troops already recovered from the early unsuccesses, and made good use of the terrain around them. Though ultimately they did contineu their eastwards retreat, Pichegru's advance was stalled and Cornwallis masterfully avoided what could've been a major disaster, securing for himself the fame of a second Marlborough. Still, the situation was grim as June begun...

 

[das]

But just then, after months of skirmishing and indecisive battles, the Austrians FINALLY moved. The French, under Rochambeau and Kellermann, weren't unprepared, in fact, they've been waiting for an Austrian offensive for several months now, but they had gravely underestimated the new "Karlovian" Austrian army. A child of massed conscriptions and military reforms (that were chiefly tactical and logistical, adapting the experience of the war so far, and also using Polish and British examples to create a highly-mobile, effective light infantry+cavalry force, though ofcourse the other units weren't completely neglected neither), it split up into several fairly large armies, which assaulted virtually the entire southern and central Germany, causing the French to rapidly redeploy along internal lines trying to hold the Austrians off. As already mentioned in brackets, Karl's main innovation was the Austrian light forces, which made any defensive operations in the comparatively-open German terrain very difficult, as a semblance of omnidirectional offensive by omnipresent armies was created with the help of cunning disinformation. The Austrians also prepared this well from the viewpoint of espionage and propaganda; as the Austrian armies went into offensive, they were constantly assisted by the German people, received many volunteers and made particularily good use of partisans, who terrorized the French supply routes. Josef von Radetz enveloped and broke Rochambeau's army at Herrenberg, liberated Stuttgart and advanced to the Rhine, although rooting out the French garrison at Freiburg took more time. As per his orders, Radetz didn't try to cross the Rhine, and instead advanced further north along its course, wrecking havoc on the French communications. This assisted Erzherzog Karl's personal offensive, which took place in Franconia, and was actually an operation of multiple armies coordinated by Karl. They landed blow after blow, gradually causing Kellerman to fall back; however, the attempts to force a decisive battle on the French backfired when it finally came on the Fulda Bridge. Reinforce, Kellerman forced the Austrians back with some losses, and before they could recover, counterattacked with great effect, making use of his cuirassiers to utterly rout the Austrians. Kellerman then blocked another Austrian army at Jena. However, Erzherzog Karl took to the field in the Battle of Gera, in which Kellerman, newly-reinforced, threatened the Austrian operations in Saxony (a less epic invasion under Karl Phillipp, Furst von Wrede, which nonetheless did liberate Leipzig). Outmaneuvering Kellerman and decimating his forces with persistant attacks and barrages, Karl managed to score a decisive victory, although a large part of the French army still did retreat in good order towards Frankfurt am Main. There, Radetzky was just barely stopped. In any case, he tied down considerable French forces, while the main armies of France were busy in Prussia (not very productively; the Allies were trying to avoid decisive confrontation for as long as possible, although their attitude begun to change with the Austrian successes, and the brutal French operations in Prussia to crack down on resistance and devastate the country economically - dismantling and "relocating" factories and manufactories, plundering the countryside and salting fields). The Central German roads were wide-open. In the east, Dresden was retaken by the Austrians, although it was soon lost again to Bonaparte who routed von Wrede and invaded Bohemia; west from there, things went better as Erfurt, Kassel and Halle were recaptured, and the Austrians set out further north.

The late 1805's main European campaign was fought out in the North German Plain.

As the Austrian forces approached the pre-war borders of the Duchy of Brunswick, it became increasingly apparent that the French had sorely underestimated both the Austrian army and the skill of Erzherzog Karl (both administrative and tactical). About half of their German gains - although it was the less important half - was lost, their communications there cut and the ones in Saxony damaged as well. One army was effectively neutralized, its remnants forced to retreat to Alsace. Another army was intact, but bloodied and forced back north. Still, those defeats weren't all that bad - what was bad was the new Austrian threat to the French communications in northern Germany. What was also bad was that the Anglo-Prussian and other Allied forces north and east of Berlin had recovered and regroupped as well. The French forces in Prussia were threatened with attacks from the north, the east and the west (Bonaparte blocked the venues for any attacks from the south by taking Prague). To make thigns worse, even though the situation within Berlin detiriorated, the fortress-city remained unapproachable. The winter was coming, and the French operations to devastate the local agriculture were threatening to bite back now, especially as the supply situation's recovery was threatened by the aforementioned Austrian advance. Initially it was planned to defeat the main enemy armies (three Austrian in northern Germany, one Anglo-Scandinavo-Prussian, one mixed Allied) in detail, but the risk of such a plan was too great. Also, though it was possible in theory to quickly outfit a new army to reinforce Kellerman and Jean-Baptiste Jourdan in Brunswick, that would have strained the economy and society too much, and the Parlement was generally unwilling to accept it. So after heated debating, it was decided by the French high military staff to abandon Prussia and give battle in northwestern Germany instead, where the strategic situation will be far more advantageous to the French (supply routes in better order+Allies only capable of seriously attacking from two directions, as opposed to three or more).

What followed was ofcourse one of the most complex operations in the history of warfare. Any orderly retreat on a strategic scale is very difficult, but the French also had to: a) do as much damage as possible on the way out and b) turn around to immediately fight their enemies upon the completion of their retreat. And things were even worse than this - one could never emphasize enough the difficult supply situation of France, and the weather conditions, and the partisans, and the Allied harrasment tactics, and the fact that their enemies were hot on their trail from the start. And also, ofcourse, noone was happy to just retreat from Prussia like this, although most did know that their further presence there was senseless and very risky. Nevertheless, they performed admirably. Jean-Victor Moreau covered the retreat, giving some local battles to the Allies as to make them think that the the French were in fact keen on holding on to the area. Special "comissariat" detachment of cuirassiers and hussars were sent out to burn everything the French couldn't take, but could reach (this included some raids into Silesia and western Poland), including some manufactories - these exploits would have many interesting consequences, ranging from obvious ones like greater German national embitterment and Francophobia, as well as many condemnations of these actions, through logical, yet unobvious ones like Lazare-Nicolas-Marguerite Carnot's "Guerre Totale" (which first outlined the principle of Total War, revolutionising military theory just as the Great War revolutionised military practice), and to completely unexpected ones like the revival of the picaresque novel in France. Napoleon Bonaparte retreated from Bohemia, torching Prague; he provided the defenses for the retreat's southern flank, defeating the Austrians at Halle. Meanwhile, the mass of the French army set out westwards. Although partisan activities took their toll, especially insomuch they hindered the arrival of supplies, while Jean-Victor Moreau was forced to fold unexpectedly quickly when Blucher went straight for Berlin and routed the French army at its walls, cutting it off to prevent its retreat, the core of the French army made it to the Oker River intact. An Austrian vanguard force was repulsed at Wolfenbuttel. Another Austrian army threatened Hannover itself; yet a large French army appeared on its flank, and though it was actually very tired, the Austrians decided to fall back to Hildesheim. The largest challenge was presented by von Radetz, who captured Dusseldorf, in Belgium. However, the French did have some reserve forces left; an army commanded by Pierre Dupont, comte Dupont de l'Etang, situated in Belgium, crossed the Rhine and retook Dusseldorf, though taking large casualties. As a finishing touch, Jean-Charles Pichegru and some other French forces under his command defeated Anglo-Prussian forces at Luchow. Tired, the Allies had to discontinue their offensives, still stunned by the brilliant French maneuver.

Yet it would be a mistake to say that it was a complete success. By going on the defensive (though it was the only sensible choice now), the French had lost initiative, while the Allies had learned from the French winter operations near the beginning of the war. Blucher secured Magdeburg and the right bank of the Elbe, while Charles Cornwallis captured Schwerin and with the help from a new Danish corps and the British fleet at the mouth of the Elbe seized Hamburg, creating a potent threat on the northern flank of the French. Although the British Frisian Campaign (wherein Watkin Tench's forces occupied the Frisian Islands, but were repulsed from Leeuwarden, taking serious casualties from the coastal artillery, and ultimately had to withdraw) had failed, the French strategic situation was again a bad one; though their forces and supplies were considerably less overstretched now, they still were threatened from at least three directions, and their enemies remained essentially as strong as ever, despite losing a series of battles. The future plans were also unclear, though here two main factions appeared in the staff. One of them called for a new offensive into southern Germany and Tyrol, to punish the overstretched Austrians and devastate their heartlands. Yet this strategy was risky, and demanded either large-scale redeployments (putting the northern German positions at risk, although they were vital to the grand plan of this faction, due to tying up many Austrian troops), either conscription. The other faction was led by Fouche himself, who believed the German part of the war to be already "lost", in that Prussia was not knocked out. Therefore, there was no point in fighting on, and instead, another grand retreat was needed before the situation could be complicated further. The French armies upon their return from Germany would defend the Rhine, the Low Countries and Italy, and also help repulse the pesky British, who used their naval supremacy to launch ambitious raids on vital French, Portuguese and Spanish Atlantic port cities, never managing to capture them but often succeeding in doing considerable damage. France should, Fouche believed, conserve its land military strenght and defend those gains that were easily-defendable. These would serve as bargaining pieces. There was no real way to win this war now (after the Atlantic defeats and the failure to quickly break the German states) without expending so many resources that, even had the Parlement permitted their use, the negative effects would far outweigh the positive ones. Furthermore, defeating Britain would be very difficult if possible at all, even with Europe in the French sphere. Meanwhile, the British will be free to capture the remaining Atlantic colonies, dismantle the Spanish South American empire (where several conspiracies and rebellions - though mostly led by opportunistic members of the local elite - had already occured) and reverse the victories in India...

In India, a large French expeditionary force under the command of General Charles Mathieu Isidore Decaen arrived at Yanaon. Smaller French forces arrived in other ports, and marched out to assist the Tippu Sultan, who declared war on Britain. Mysorean forces, with the help of the French army and fleet, captured Madras in a surprise assault, and marched north into the Maratha lands, backed up by Decaen on his strategic right flank. Poona, Nagpur and Bhopal fell, and the various Marathans were defeated before they could even try and somewhat coordinate their moves. Many tribes decided to weather the storm, ally with Mysore or retreat to the northwest. Meanwhile, the Franco-Mysorean armies were ready to attack the real targets of this lightning-fast Indian Campaign. While the attack on Bombay in western India was repulsed, the main forces went straight for Bengal. They got help not just from local rebels and newly pro-Mysorean Maratha tribes, but also from Mughalistan; Shah Alam II was old, but only more ambitious for it, and he had particular designs on British-occupied Bihar. Franco-Mysorean forces, plus the ragtag "auxillary" Marathans and supporters, quickly moved into Bengal, where the utterly outnumbered and unprepared British defenders were quickly defeated at Calcutta and Berhampore, the survivors retreating beyond the Ganges - but were immediately followed and defeated again and again; in the meantime, the reformed Mughal army defeated the British at Patna and quickly claimed Bihar itself. Ultimately the British were thrown out of Bengal and forced to hide in Chittagong and Arakan, where they received Siamese reinforcements. These weren't enough to prevent the final French actions later in the year - namely, the capture of Chittagong in an overland assault and the invasion of the Irrawaddy River. At this point, Amarapura (the Burmese vassal state of Siam created after the Burmese War) declared independence and helped the French capture all the British-held portions of the Irrawaddy. The British forces in Arakan were cut off and ultimately forced to surrender. The Siamese retreated eastwards and repulsed the Amarapuran invasion of the Salween Basin at Taunggyi. But it was clear that their survival was due to the French forces in Vietnam being tied down by the British.

Although the British 1805 invasion of Vietnam relied too much on the native assistance (which proved to be too little; the French were good at dividing and conquering) and thus failed, elsewhere in the Pacific Britain was on the march. The Philippines were secured, as were Timor and the Moluccas. A minor incident occured when the British tried to open up Japan by force; Nagasaki was shelled and captured, but the Japanese stubbornly refused to start trading, so after looting the city for supplies and, well, loot, the British razed it and went away... for now. The little Hawaiian states proved more complacent and agreed to help supply and base the British operations; this was used for highly-succesful raids on Acapulco, Panama and Guayaquil, and for the operations in California, where the San Francisco Bay was invaded and El Presidio Real de San Francisco captured along with some nearby territories, including Pueblo de San Jose de Guadelupe. The Columbus Archipelago (Galapagos Islands) was captured as well. Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, the British decided to concentrate on America as breaking the Gibraltar seemed impossible and campaigning in Africa seemed essentially worthless at present. The campaigns in North America died down, the British basically on the defensive as the French and Washingtonian forces regroupped and probed the British defenses in New France and New England. Notably, the French were assisted by the Cree Amerinds in attacks on the British trade outposts in the Far West, and even secured some outposts and towns in Rupertsland. Instead, the British struck hard in the Carribean; the Franco-Spanish fleet, rallied by Pierre Andre de Suffren de Saint Tropez, fought hard in the Lesser Antilles campaign: aware that Arthur Phillip's fleet was far stronger, de Saint Tropez refused to grant decisive battle, but instead did his best to harass the British advance, keep them on their toes and make life as difficult as possible for his enemy. Nonetheless, Arthur Phillip persisted, and captured the Lesser Antilles, defeating several rebellions there; after that he surprised his enemies by suddenly attacking Venezuela and occupying the Orinoco delta, then circling around back north and capturing the Bahamas. From there he attacked Cuba and captured Habana in a surprise assault. Attempts to advance further inland failed, however. After that he continued raiding and chasing after de Saint Tropez. Another British fleet established a base in the Malvines, and raided Argentina from there, although the attempt to capture Buenos Aires was beaten back with embarassing ease. Still, all things taken into consideration, this was a success.

However, the British attempt to break into the Indian Ocean was defeated in the Battle of Bintan, by the same old Indian Fleet of de Latouche-Treville; the battle itself wasn't decisive tactically, but this path for British advance was closed, while the other, South African one, also became risky when Sudafrika confirmed its neutrality, an act that was immediately guaranteed by France; the Sudafrikans officially closed all harbours to British AND French war fleets for the duration of the war, but the French didn't intend to go anywhere near it, unless the British were to do so - and the Sudafrikan treaty with France provisioned for French assistance against any loosely-defined British aggression. The French dominance in the Indian Ocean - at least for the moment - was assured. At the same time, it was unquestionable that any campaigns against Britain in the Pacific or the Atlantic were doomed to failure until the French fleet could be rebuilt (and modernised, ofcourse). Thus Britain and France held each other by the colonies and the maritime trade routes. If this war was to go on, both powers will be only weakened commercially and colonially. The French were unwilling to allow this. The British were somewhat more enthusiastic, their situation in the world war being better overall and with clearly better chances in a war of attrition, but the grumblings grew in Birmingham as well.

...Fouche's arguments were met with comprehension from the bourgoise-dominated Parlement. By now, the war enthusiasm had passed away, and though France, as already mentioned, was self-sufficient, a long-term British blockade was damaging, if not to France itself then to the mercantile classes. They feared for the colonies, and wanted to resume trade, and were ofcousre wary of the increasingly-damaging British attacks on French ports. It was time to make peace while they held the advantage... What further sped things up further were the latest reports from Russia...

In Russia, the situation continued to detiriorate. No more open coups were attempted for now; but instead, Sankt-Petersburg intrigued and conspired, while the countryside kept rebelling. Great power and influence was amassed by "Generalissimus" Grigoriy Potemkin, thanks to his military victories that had pacified the Ukraine and Central Russia (a result of innovative tactics, even more innovative cruelty and unscrupulous negotiations that won over the allegience of the Cossack leaders - officially to the Tsar and the Senate, but really to Potemkin); however, the countryside was ruined, as was the economy, and rebellions continued. It became increasingly clear that no matter what the Senate does, Russia needed to get out of the war fast, no matter the casualties. Even though Potemkin performed surprisingly well against the (far-outnumbered, but supposedly far better in all other regards when compared to Potemkin's peasants and Cossacks with only a few proper regiments left in good shape) Austro-Prussians in Lithuania, basically forcing them back to the borders of pre-1569 Poland and repelling all of their attacks, while Kamensky entered Vasa, initiating an infamous massacre that assured his name going down in world history, Kurakin and the Senate knew that these victories were wholly dependant on the Austro-Prussians not even trying to do anything to hurt Russia further. It was clear that while Russia still held a - how ever fickle - advantage, and while the Austro-Prussians were still seriously involved in the west, peace needed to be sought lest it come later, and on Austro-Prussian terms. Diplomats were dispatched in November, and the Russians barely made any secret of their desire for a separate peace with the Holy Roman Empire and its constituents.

...yet the king, the nobility and the remaining bourgoise war-hawks were still unwilling to make peace. And neither were the Austrians; they had already launched a new campaign in Italy, and scored a surprising victory at Padua in December. Venice refused to surrender, but its long-preparing political and social tensions spilled out into total collapse of authority as the last Doge was killed by some derranged mainlander, causing frantic intrigue and preparations for Venice's trademark highly-expensive elections. They collapsed before even starting as the city's poor, fed up with the excesses of their decadent rulers, rose up. All over the city, battles raged, and Francesco Savorgnan, a prominent Venetian officer, defected to the Austrians - starting a wave of other defections. The terra firma was ripe for the taking even though the French secured Bergamo and Brescia.

In the end, the French war faction and the German revanchists assured the war's extension into 1806. It was quite obvious that the war had mostly ran its course by now; nevertheless, the war's last few events should not be discounted neither, for they did influence the eventual peace treaty.

 

[das]

This time, with experience and far better supply routes, the French strategic retreat went near-flawlessly. While the bulk of the army fell back beyond the Weser and ultimately moved towards the Ems, the strong rear-guard left behind for now fought an excellent holding action. While smaller forces dug in in key positions with artillery support, Napoleon Bonaparte maneuvered along the near-frontal French communication lines, and basically slapped the hands of the various Allied generals as they tried to attack the French troops. Never pursuing but about always inflicting considerable casualties on the enemy for little of his own, Napoleon succesfully held the enemy at bay for the first two months. Still, inevitably the Allies became more coordinated, determined and "insistant"; and so they begun to break through, taking Bremen and Brunswick and threatening to cut off Napoleon and most of the rear-guard. Realising this, Napoleon suddenly attacked the Austrians at Brunswick, broke off the engagement after forcing the Austrians to fall back towards the city and their retreat route, and force-marched his troops to the Weser, his otherwise-vulnerable retreat made safe by the distance of the Anglo-Prussians in the north and by the confused defensive stance of the Austrians to the southeast. To cut down on supply money, Napoleon foraged as he went, and destroyed much vital infrastructure as well, making the enemy pursuit all the more difficult. Still, with Bremen in enemy hands, that wasn't enough to let the French fall back at a leisurly pace, and so they continued the forced-march until reaching the Ems. Beyond it, they once more regroupped, and also secured the city of Siegen to the southeast. Between the Alsatian portions of the Rhine, the Rheinschiefergebirge (Rhenish Slate Mountains) in Siegen and the surroundings and the Ems itself, the French were now in fairly good positions for defenses. Still, carried on by inertia and rage, the pursuing Allies tried to assault these psotions. Soon realising the folly of this, the Austrians and the British stopped their attacks after a few early skirmishes that demonstrated all too well the strenght of the French forces beyond the river. Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher, however, was not called the Marschall Vorwarts for nothing; plus, the Prussian Francophobia was far stronger than any other. Lastly, the Prussians did surprisingly well at first, crossing the river, defeating a French corps at Telgte and threatening Munster. Encouraged by this - and at the same time, aware that retreating after such early successes will assure his disgrace both in the court, amongst the masses and in history - Blucher ordered an assault on Munster, which succeeded, then turned south and routed another surprised French force (actually en route to stop him) at Ascheberg. At this point another Prussian army crossed at a more southerly point and moved to link up with Blucher. Yet this was as well as the things got. The French had soon moved into place and chased back Blucher's would-be reinforcements. Meanwhile, several other armies converged on Blucher's, and it was overran, the last-moment attempts for a retreat failing utterly.

Meanwhile, on the more promising Italian direction, the Austrians continued to make progress, having shifted more troops there. After confusing street battles, fires and some other disasters, the Venetians (by then ruled by a coalition of lower-class radicals and middle-class reformers) were also threatened by the Austrians who had hastily, before the French could respond, blockaded it on the seas. Despairing, they accepted the Austrian conditions; Francesco Savorgnan was granted the position of Consul of the Popular Republic of Venice, and near-dictatorial powers. He immediately negotiated the peace with Austria; in exchange for the promised return of Venice's terra firma after the war's end, he agreed to formally sign off all the other Venetian territories to Austria and to sign an alliance with Austria, allowing it also to supply itself overland. The Austrians had by then captured Brescia and besieged Bergamo, and there were apparently plans to hijack the Italian nationalist movement by offering it Savorgnan as leader. But the movement was too weak; there were some rebellions in occupied Piedmont and in Naples, and some rioting in Rome, but all these were defeated soon enough. Sighing, the Austrians finished the siege of Bergamo and recaptured Mantua, having decided to limit themselves to simply retaking their northern and central Italian possessions, for now at least. But the French had already redeployed a new army to Italy. It defeated the Austrians at Monza and at Crema, effectively denying them Milan; in the meantime, a Hispanno-Neapolitano-Papal army reinforced the defenses south of the Po, effectively boxing the Austrians in the territories of Venice and Mantua. Not wanting to take any stupid risks, the Austrians and their new Venetian allies cordoned off their gains, especially as by then it became increasingly apparent that there will be no climatic battle. The French didn't want to leave things to chance, and so they didn't. All the Central Powers could do was sit there as well, or throw away many more lives for no gain. Or they could sign peace...

That was it. The French had held. By now the British too were tired of war, as already mentioned; Pitt was convinced that it could still be won and that in a few more years Britain could not only retake what it had lost, but also ruin the Bourbon colonial empires and thus ensure world domination for Britain - that was a possibility at least, and many in the British Parliament were willing to admit as much, but by now the peace faction had prevailed as well. Pitt received a vote of no confidence, and by a large margin too. John Cartwright, head of the Radicals, formed a new government on the behest of both the Lord-President (a position of chiefly-ceremonial powers, including official endorsement of a new PM) and several influential MPs from both parties - in return for the latter, John antagonized his own ranks somewhat by including many Moderates in it. But more importantly, he openly promised to sign a "fair and lasting peace". As Franco-British negotiations begun, the Austrians and the Prussians panicked, and agreed to negotiate as well; naturally, so did Russia. It was then that Joseph Fouche made a political masterstroke, declaring that the negotiations must not only end the war, but also guarantee the balance of power, shaken by many recent developments. Therefore, a "Congress of Europe" was needed; and what was a better place for it than Paris, which even in time of war remained a great cultural center, and had many accomodations for the representatives from all over Europe (the Austrians said "Vienna", but Fouche said it was a rhetorical question)? John Cartwright, who also looked favourably on balance of power (and figured that Paris was closer than Vienna geographically), agreed as well. Everybody else agreed too.

On March 19th 1806 the Paris Congress begun. Indeed, representatives came from all over Europe, from all of its countries, even the neutral Swiss Confederation and the isolated, exotic Montenegro. From outside of Europe, Persian, Mughal and Mysorean envoys arrived on French ships; and dignitaries were sent from the Washington Republic. Nobody invited any Irishmen, Poles or Finns, but they came anyways and stared accusingly at everybody, guilty or not. Nobody payed much heed to them.

The Paris Congress itself was partially a huge social event, somewhat sobered by mutual mistrust or even hatred, and partially the actual negotiations that dragged on and on, and were conducted as much by the semi-daily meetings officially designated for such purposes as by the whisperings and behind-the-scenes negotiations at the various balls and dinners. Informally, the powers that be agreed surprisingly quickly to partition the world; more specifically, Prussians, Austrians and Russians had little problems agreeing to partition Poland and have the Russians mind their own business east of the border as they had intended to anyway, while the French and the British agreed that the Indian Ocean should be in the French sphere of influences while the Pacific should be in the British, and as for the French and the Austrians, they agreed to stop fighting and divide Europe; the French could do whatever they want west of the Rhine, and the Austrians - east of it. Naturally, disagreements did appear even on this scale; France tried to woo Russia, attracting Austrian suspicion, while Britain tried to provoke as much strife between France and Spain as possible (which wasn't much as the Spanish representatives were told to bend over backwards to appease the trans-Pyrenean relatives of the reigning house, while the French representatives were basically hinted to bend over backwards to make as much use of Spanish complacency as possible and to otherwise rub in their superiority). The Swedes also annoyed many by trying to get land from friend and foe alike. Holland was also fun as the Dutch Patriot government and the House of Orange sent different representatives that ignored each other's existance and yet, government of Holland itself aside, demanded virtually the same things.

However, this informal concert begun to break down soon enough due to the actual issues, the revived mistrust (especially between France and Austria, the latter fearing that the former will trying pit Russia against Austria) and ofcourse by the need to create a vision of actually caring for the officially-important issues, such as the various moral issues, future peace and annoying deposed old governments.

It was easy enough to agree on the exchange of prisoners, in most cases. The Imperial demands of war reparations had to be curtailed considerably, and the British ultimately had to compensate damage to France, Spain and Russia as well in order for this to work. Naturally, the British grumbled, but they wanted the crystallizing HRE to be both strong and on their side. The Atlantic issues were resolved quickly enough; basically, status quo belle ante was restored, with exceptions such as the British taking over the Bahamas, St. Lucia (in the Lesser Antilles) and the Malvines, and the Washington Republic being recognised in its present borders (Virginia+Pennsylvania+Maryland+Delaware+New Jersey) in exchange for a guarantee of neutrality and renounciation of subversion in nearby British and French colonies and in Greater Georgia. This decision was especially controversial for the British, and doubly so for the American MPs, but ultimately it was decided that these areas were mostly in favour of rebellion (if only because those against it had largely fled north; the Washingtonians weren't exactly disciplinned...) and so it was a waste of time to try and win them back, especially as they formed a good (too weak for expansion, but strong enough for defense) buffer state and thus allowed Britain to concentrate on the Pacific and African colonial pursuits without fearing for the safety of the rest of New England. To ensure this further, limitations were placed on the French military presence in New France, which was granted a greater decree of autonomy and lowered tariffs on foreign (especially British) trade. Oh, and lastly, Newfoundland was returned to Britain. As far the French were concerned, this colony wasn't really all that tenable in the long-term; Africa and the Indian Ocean were far more promising, so colonial effort was to be concentrated there instead. Spain was more stubborn, but eventually agreed to renegotiate its old, pre-revolutionary (meaning the British Revolution, naturally) trade agreements with Britain, though still not going as far as giving Britain its monopoly on slave trade back. The Spanish wanted to concentrate on developing their American colonies now, even though Africa did offer some opportunities. Ultimately it was ofcourse inevitable that Britain, while failing to take over the Atlantic trade routes with Spanish America, succeeded in the Pacific where the Manila Galleons now sailed under the British flag...

For obvious reasons, European issues were the most difficult ones. The Portuguese one was bitterly-contested at first, but the ultimate solution was reached quickly and easily; Pedro IV and his successors were recognised in Portugal, but were strictly forbidden to unite it with Spain in any way, France and Britain both guaranteeing the independence of Portugal AND Spain - and thus guaranteeing their division as well. Thus Pedro IV also had to give up his title of "Prince of Spain". Nevertheless, Portugal did join the Bourbon Family Compact, along with a new Bourbon nation - the Kingdom of Belgium. The French had initially wanted to annex it, but neither the Imperials (who officially formed a common front, in a fairly ominous development) nor the British accepted that; so ultimately it was decided to let the Wittelsbachs keep the lands east of the Rhine, and to have the rest of Belgium become a constitutional monarchy, independent but clearly aligned with France. And Fouche shot two birds with one arrow when he secured foreign support for Belgium's new reigning family... the House of Orleans. It both contented the Belgian bourgoise and got their support for the French alliance, AND got that bloody lot of troublemakers and conspirators out of the country. Oh, and obvious, Belgium left the Holy Roman Empire; as it included most of Rhineland, the only Imperial territory west of the Rhine after the Peace was the small Prussian exclave of Upper Gelderland.

The House of Orange made it clear in no uncertain terms that it wanted Holland - and its pre-war colonies - back. That was mostly doable (apart from the French-occupied Maldives, which the Dutch ultimately gave up on); the Patriot government wanted to reinforce its international legitimacy, and its moderates also hoped that the presence of a monarch would balance the power in the country, checking the radicalism of many in the Staten-Generaal. Yet they also put forward certain clear conditions - there were to be no repressions or recriminations against the revolutionaries, and the Dutch revolutionary constituion - modified to fit in the monarch, with chiefly ceremonial power - was to be respected and accepted, along with the various social reforms already introduced. Outraged, Queen Wilhelmina rejected this travesty and demanded British intervention against the Republic. But Cartwright was obviously not enthusiastic for any such intervention, both for practical and ideological reasons; and Fouche made it clear that he was with the (quite Francophilic) Staten-Generaal. The Prussians were the only ones who really supported the House of Orange, as the Austrians were clearly not particularily concerned, and only for the sake of formality made repeated pleas for "compromise". Ultimately, the Dutch Republic was officially recognized, and the Staten-Generaal was also acknowledged as the real government. Wilhelmina and the rest of the House of Orange left Paris in a huff, settling down in Berlin (Wilhelmina being a Hohenzollern herself, though married to the unpopular, incompetent, complacent and mentally-ill Willem V of Orange).

Obviously enough, the French withdrew back to their pre-war borders - outside of Italy, where they did make some minor direct gains. Namely, they annexed Nice and Savoy. As per the Franco-Austrian secret agreements, both agreed to basically withdraw from northern Italy. While the French and their allies agreed to recognise the new Venetian government and its own agreement with Austria, the Austrians agreed to withdraw from their own (Habsburg) Italian possessions (a decision that greatly reflected both on the considerably less dynastical and more national policies of Vienna and on the Austrians giving up - at least temporarily - on the conquest of Italy, instead turning to the east). So, however, had the Spanish. Thus in the aftermath of the war, Italy's map was redrawn. Savoy was compensated with the remnants of the Habsburg Duchy of Milan (plus the Venetian exclave there). Venice got Mantua, rounding up its west terra firma borders. Modena, Parma and Guastalla were added to the Papal States, while the more liberal Tuscany was given to Naples (which after all already had a presence on its coast, in the "Stato dei Presidi"). Naples also gained Sardinia.

Russo-Swedish negotiations were very difficult and bitter. From the start, the Russians knew that they were going to be cheated out of their Finnish victory, and also knew that Kamensky was a dangerous, psychotic, unpredictable maniac who nevertheless had loyal following with him in Finland, and thus was likely to be a real pest in the aftermath of the peace. To make things worse, the Swedes kept making all sorts of demands, most notably demanding that Estonia and Karelia be given to them as well. Ultimately, however, Sweden had to content itself with status quo belle ante, plus Russian denunciation of Kamensky and all and any Finnish revolutionary movements, promising to help combat them. Surprisingly enough, Kamensky accepted this as well when the Peace itself was announced, and withdrew with his supporters - including many Finns - to Karelia. This put the Russians in a difficult situation that will be discussed later - for it did actually come AFTER Paris.

Poland was divided with surprising amiability and ease, as if no war had ever occured. Austria took Krakow, Galicia and Bukovina, Prussia took the rest of pre-Lublin Poland (basically, the lands west of the Bug), and the Russians took over the pre-Lublin Lithuania. Needless to say, that came out surprisingly well for the Russians, if we forget that the area was filled with warbands and insurgents right in the time when Russia itself was filled with those, and generally would have overstretched Austro-Prussian resources too much had they wanted to control and trully integrate it. Poland itself was troublesome enough, so the Central Powers sure as hell didn't want Lithuania.

A difficult issue arose in the Balkans, which was where the Austrians went all-out with territorial aggrandizement, demanding 95% of the Danube Basin. The Byzantines threatened to walk out of the negotiations, and even begun preparing to resume a war... but received no foreign support (their efforts in that field caused a Russian political crisis; Nicholas I demanded that Russia mobilize to defend his brother's empire, but the Senate "dissuaded" him, confirming the essential powerlessness - and uselessness - of the Tsar in the new Russian political system, and thus preconditioning the dire turn that system's development was about to take), and also were forced out of Serbia by a sudden Austrian offensive (the Austrians decalred that the Byzantine preparations were in clear violation of the truce). Some had feared that war will restart, but this was averted as the Byzantines realised that they were isolated, now that Russia was unable and unwilling to help them. So they agreed to compromise. With some French encouragement and insistance (which incidentally hinted the solution of Konstantinos X's diplomatic dilemma...), an agreement was worked out; the Austrians were given the Danubean Principalities, Dobrudjia and northern Bulgaria (including Vidin and Pleven, but excluding Sofia and Varna), and in exchange ceded the detached provinces they had gained from Venice to the Byzantines: specifically this was Corfu, the Ionic Islands, Albania, Crete and Cyprus. The Byzantines were quite happy with that. Meanwhile, Montenegro was allowed to annex Ragusa and Austrian Cattaro. Tripolitania now clearly had to go as well; many countries (Austria, Venice, France, Spain, Byzantium, Egypt, Naples) announced their claims to the area, with varying degrees of insistance, but ultimately it went to the least expected country (if it could even be called that) - the Knights of Malta. That said, Malta did do extensive trade with Tripolitania in all times, and under Venetian rule the Knights had particularily heavy influence and presence in the region, helping combat Muslim insurrections. The Egyptians weren't happy.

The British had recognised the Indian Ocean as the "French sphere", and promised not to expand further in the area, and to not interfere with the French colonial activities in the area (this especially concerned East Africa and Indochina, at least in the short-term). To France, the British gave west Sumatra, in exchange for being allowed to keep their Malay lands. They also agreed to cede Bihar to Mughalistan, and Madras to Mysore (in exchange for keeping trading rights and privileges). They also had to restore Arakan and the Irrawaddy Delta to Amarapura, which regained its de facto independence despite Siam's continued reluctance to recognise it. Meanwhile, the restored Zand Persia was recognised as independent, and soon enough signed trade agreements with both France and Britain, later getting guarantees of their assistance against any foreign invaders, with Russia specifically in mind. Sankt-Petersburg was outraged when the news had reached it, but the Senate gave up on Persia long ago anyway. Lastly, Mysore's conquest of much of the Deccan during the Indian campaign was recognised as well, unstable though its new gains were.

And the French acknowledged the British sphere in the Pacific Ocean. Britain kept its Russian gains - the entirety of Russian America, the Aleutian islands and the peninsula of Kamchatka (mostly as an addition to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky/Port Peterpaul). It also kept Macao (and the Portuguese rights in China...), Timor, the Moluccas, the Phillipines and the Spanish possessions in Micronesia, though agreeing to withdraw from San Francisco (not from the Columbus Archipelago, though). In general, outside of Java and Sumatra, European possessions in the East Indies were more-or-less gobbled up by Britain, not always officially.

Immediately after the treaty was signed, the leaders got back to their plotting and scheming, and it was very clear that though this war did solve many issues, it had also created many new ones, and inevitably, new wars will come later. But for now, Tsar Pavel's War... the Great Eastern War... the Polish War... the Great War... the Third World War - whatever it was, it was over.

To be continued.

---

OOC: This althist is rather hard to keep up with, but my next installment should have something of a summary in it, plus I'll make a map for 1820 (reminder: that year will probably be the "end date", at least for the moment, as this history will reach the beginning of a new "IT" and thus will become a viable NES setting (that's the idea, anyway), while I will be free to develop one of my many other althist ideas... Possibly something outside of my usual time period).

 

[alex994]

Oh god Wow.....

I pretty much have nothing to say except about the Battle of Waterloo. Was it really necessary to use that name and have Napoleon win here?

 

[Imago]

Great work, as usual, das.

 

[carmen510]

It's the to be continued that's getting me. Please sell all your works to an althist publishing company and let me buy these stories in Barnes & Noble.

 

[The Farow]

Amazing Work das. Looking forward to the map and more installments.

 

[das]

I pretty much have nothing to say except about the Battle of Waterloo. Was it really necessary to use that name and have Napoleon win here?

All althistorians have their weaknesses. With me, its recycling battle names for ironic results. In any case, Waterloo is a good strategic point, if not a vital one; a battle there is a possibility in any campaign in post-medieval Belgium, IMHO. So it was as good a place as any.

Looking forward to the map and more installments.

The map I can do, but as I already said the next installment will probably be the last, at least for now.

 

[Harleqin]

Damn it das, just as I start work on something in the same era you do this At least I have another angle on it, so it should be different.

Stunning work as usual. Do you do "AltHis' for hire" because then I have one for you?

 

[Harleqin]

Right, as I said, I'm also working on something in the same period. I'm hoping to launch the nes something in spring or early summer. It is very much still a work in progress. The Napoleonic wars are not yet concluded and I'll need to do some 50-70 more years after that. Will take some time. Anyway, I'll post what I have so far so you can see if I've made any glaring mistakes or oversights (there are bound to be some).
---

The Napoleonic Wars 1800-1813

As Russia comes to an agreement with France and forms the League of Armed Neutrality consisting of itself, Prussia, Sweden and Denmark-Norway, Britain decides that it is a threat and a French ally, something that can’t be allowed to stand.
To deal with this and force the disbanding of the League, a large fleet under Hyde Parker and Horatio Nelson is despatched to deal with what is considered the weakest link; Denmark-Norway. Having had several clashes with the British in the years leading up to the formation of the League, the Danes were very much for the principles of free trade and against the British insistence of visitation of all neutral convoys. They were, however, reluctant members of the League. Faced with the British ultimatum of withdrawing the Danes found themselves in an unenviable position. If they refused it would mean war with Great Britain; if they accepted Prussian troops would invade Jutland and Swedish troops would invade Norway. It was a no-win situation and the Danes had no option to refuse or risk losing everything.
Most of the Danish navy was not battle-ready and trained crew was woefully lacking. Even so they managed to construct a formidable defence consisting of not only those ships that were ready, but also of old hulks. Crew was forcibly conscripted from the streets of the cities. Luckily for the Danes they had a few things going for them. With no charts or pilots the British were very much in uncharted waters and the Danish floating batteries lay too low to be hit by British cannonfire. Even so, the British were by far the superior force, better trained and equipped with more guns.

One thing neither side had any influence over was, however, to prove decisive. Strong northern winds made it impossible for the British fleet to make it south through the Sound to Copenhagen, allowing the Danes to not only gain some valuable drill practice, but also meant that the Swedish fleet, unbeknownst to the British, made it to Copenhagen and was held, hidden, in reserve some kilometres south of the Danish battle line. The British fleet made it to Copenhagen on the 8th of April 1801 and engaged the defenders.
After 4 hours of fighting the battle was still very much in the balance. Many Danish ships at the south of the line had sustained heavy damage and their guns were starting to fall silent. At the northern end, however, the Danes had a slight upper-hand due to some lucky shots that had heavily damaged 3 British ships forcing one of them to disengage. Aboard his flagship admiral Parker could only see the northernmost part of the fighting and thinking things were lost he gave the signal to disengage. As Nelson saw this he started to make a comment to the captain of the ship he was on, the Elephant, but was tragically hit by shrapnel before he managed more than two words. Shocked at this and faced with the very real risk of Nelson dying the captain ordered his ship to disengage. Several other ships along the line started to do the same as they saw the Elephant starting to disengage.
With the smoke and confusion of suddenly having to disengage from a fight that they appeared to be winning, no one saw the arrival of the Swedish fleet from the south. Using the prevailing Northern winds and full sails they quickly got on the other side of the British fleet and several vessels were caught in a cross fire, forcing many to strike their colours. In the end the Danes had snatched victory against all odds. Britain was stunned at this and the shock was doubled as Nelson died a few days as he wound festered.

Negotiations after the were slow as the British continuously tried to persuade the Danes to abandon the League and the Danes refusing and demanding compensation from the British for the losses they had incurred. During the negotiations the Danes learned, however, that Zar Paul had been assassinated, something the British did not know. Knowing that the League would now be dead anyway, they graciously accepted the British demand to leave the league in exchange for 5 British vessels that had been captured during the battle. The British didn’t learn about this until after the signing of the treaty and though annoyed at having been tricked, admiral Parker did express his admiration for the Danes.

Elsewhere in Europe things went ahead much as in OTL until 1805 where the British and the Franco-Spanish fleets met in battle in the Bay of Biscay. Sailing north under the command of vice-admiral Villeneuve the French fleet was headed toward Brest to aid the French fleet that was blockaded there.
The British sought to stop them before they could reach Brest and on the 15th of August the two fleets met in battle. The small numerical superiority of the French was off-set by the greater skills of the British fleet and the battle lasted for many hours. Eventually, however, the British fleet was forced to retreat in order to restock and resupply allowing the French to continue north. In terms of numbers the British secured a minor victory here forcing several French vessels to return to their base in Spain. They failed, however, in stopping them and on the 18th the French reached Brest. Outnumbered and facing not only Villeneuves fleet, but also the fleet they were supposed to be blockading, the British retreated allowing the French to link up their fleets. Unopposed they sailed to Boulogne where the French army was waiting.

Boarding the invasion barges the fleet set of for the British coast seeking to put the British out of the war once and for all. A hastily gathered British fleet under Keith and Cornwallis faced off with the French once again, but being heavily outnumbered they were only able to delay the landing of the French troops and lost virtually all of their vessels. The French fleet was also decimated, but their goal had been achieved and 180,000 French troops now stood at Bournemouth, ready to march upon Southampton and then London.

Against such numbers there was little the British could do and in a series of battles the French emerged victorious every single time. Eventually the British sued for peace and received it at a harsh price. Not only would French troops remain in England to secure the peace, but the British were also forced to give up their possessions in India to the French.
Having secured victory and hoping to reduce British power for all time, the French restored full independence to Ireland and Scotland along with a guarantee of independence.

Meanwhile, however, the rest of the French armies were busy fighting the Austrians and Russians. With the defeat of the British the continent was in shock and facing the French armies now coming their way, the Austrian and Russian emperors managed to persuade Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia to join forces with them.
The decisive battle stood at Budweis, some 120 kilometres south of Prague. Outnumbered, Napoleon nevertheless managed a draw in the battle, mainly thanks to inefficient communications between the allied commanders. Acting quickly he then moved toward Vienna, but the Austrian sued for peace before the army reached it.
Focus was instead shifted to Prussia and in a series of battles the Prussians were yet again defeated and in just a month Berlin had fallen to his victorious forces. With the Prussians out of the war the Russians saw themselves forced to sue for peace too. The wars had ended and Napoleon was now the undisputed master of Europe.

 

[Harleqin]

It was not to last though. French forces were scattered around Europe and were eventually pulled back as the peace seemed to endure. A large force was maintained in Britain, but other than that the only real presence of French troops outside France proper was in the newly formed Confederation of the Rhine.

The nations of Europe had not forgotten their defeats though, and behind the scenes Russian and Austrian diplomats were hard at work forming a new coalition. Austria, Russia, Prussia and Spain all joined together.
In May, 1809, war once again erupted in Europe and allied armies set out to restore the old order. Despite not being caught completely unprepared, the French army was not at the size or strength it was just a few years before and initially they were forced to fighting delaying actions. A Spanish thrust was easily stopped and furious of the betrayal of the Spanish Napoleon ordered a large part of his army south. The regular army was easily defeated and Spain fell into the hands of Napoleon. Having accomplished that he then left with most of the forces to reinforce his troops in the Confederation of the Rhine.

Here, allied forces had done well enough taking Bavaria and pushing the French back on all fronts. It was to change though as Napoleon arrived with 70,000 troops from Spain. One by one he beat the allied armies in a series of battles and by late August he once again stood in Berlin. Continuing the drive east in order to knock out the Russians, he soon took Warsaw and was preparing to move against St. Petersburg when word arrived that Spain was in flames. A large rebellion there had forced French troops back and Napoleon was faced with a choice between Spain and Russia.
After deliberating for many days he decided that Spain was more important to him and sent a large force back.
Taking his remaining troops north, the French and Russian forces met at Hrodna in a battle that ended in a bloody draw. Realising he didn’t have the manpower to take on Russia at this time Napoleon reluctantly agreed to peace yet again.
As the dust settled the French had become even stronger. Large forces now stood in England, Spain, Prussia and in the Confederation of the Rhine making the army severely spread out. Austria avoided occupation forces as Napoleon instead tried to secure them through a marriage alliance.
Spain, whilst nominally under French control, had frequent uprisings and the French grip on the land was tenuous at best.

Napoleon was not happy though that Russia was still a threat and began assembling a massive army to attack them. Having made Warsaw his second home he was close to the border and oversaw the gathering of more and more troops. Gathering half a million men, most of whom were troops from allied and subjugated nations, he launched the invasion in 1811. This was to prove the biggest mistake of his career. Fighting tenaciously the Russians opposed the French forces at every opportunity. A series of battles ended in minor French victories, but casualties were mounting and the Russians were still sending more forces against the French.
Several demands for capitulation were ignored by the Russians and eventually Napoleon had to give up. The Russians were refusing to give battle and destroying all behind them. Unable to get to grips with them, the French turned back.
Winter came early that year and hit hard. Ill-equipped for the Russian winter, casualties soon became appalling and when the forces finally made it back to Poland, less than 1 man in 15 were capable of fighting. Several hundred thousand had died with just as many taking wounds and suffering other mishaps rendering them useless.
Not about to give up the Russians pursued the French seeking to end the threat of Napoleon once and for all. Sensing French weakness the Prussians and Austrians redeclared on France. The Portuguese entered against the French as well seeking to take advantage of the instability in Spain and in the north Denmark-Norway were also persuaded to join in. This was not so much because of the strength of their army, but because their navy would be useful against France and could be used to cut off the connection between France and England.
This, however, had the unfortunate side-effect of causing Sweden to declare for France. Despite his hatred for Napoleon, king Gustav IV saw this as his opportunity to seize Norway and make sure that Finland would remain his. It would be a gamble, but it was well-known that Napoleon had large reserves to draw on and he was confident that he could turn the tide yet again.

What happened next were a series of campaigns all over Europe that are all interconnected. In the north we have the Scandinavian War. With most Danish forces deployed in Holsten the Swedes had a relatively easy time of it against Norway, seizing Christiania and most of the south. The overconfidence of king Gustav would prove costly however. Due to the troops deployed in the south of Sweden due to fears of a Danish attack and the number of troops attacking Norway, only some 25,000 men remained in Finland. Scattered out as they were, the local general pulled most of them back to form larger groups and have an actual army to fight with. This gave the Russians a free reign in the east of the country and they quickly captured most of the land.
As Swedish troops pulled back, Finnish partisans started rising and actually caused the Russians more trouble than the Swedish troops had. Stopping to deal with these the Swedish army was more or less left in peace. Unwilling to engage the Russians a stalemate ensured on land.
On sea the story was different. A joint Dano-Russo fleet engaged the Swedes and literally blew them out of the water making the few remaining ships strike their colours.

In Spain the Iberian War was fought between French, Portuguese and Spanish forces. Here it was more or less a free for all war. Under the pretext of securing law and order, Portuguese troops quickly took control with Galicia and then joined up with the remainders of the Spanish regular army. Slowly, but surely, control was wrested away from the French. By May, 1812, Madrid had been captured and soon Valencia and Zaragoza were also freed. By the end of the summer the French forces only held out in Catalonia and the Basque land.

Polish Campaign…

To be continued