Capto Iugulum Background Thread

[Luckymoose]

The Allies had higher quality ships. You had no decisive victories. Most of your fleets were dated going into the war, whereas the British, American, and Brazilian fleets were almost entirely scrapped and rebuilt before or during the first year of the war.

 

[Grandkhan]

There was never any chance in hell that we would win the naval war.

For starters, we were up against a coalition including Britain, Brazil, the United States, and Japan. Their only land warfare commitments were against colonies, while we had to defend our own mainland territories as well as build a fleet at the same time. There was no way in hell that we could ever match the Allied ship output, their naval quality, or their designs while we were still embroiled in a land war against Brandenburg, Poland, and Occitania. If you recall, I said as much to you during the war - I'm not projecting my annoyance at the betrayal onto this, I told you this when it was happening. The odds were not in our favour, given that I'm fairly sure that we had a inferiority in ship numbers and even if we didn't we would have next turn anyway, because the Allies could do nothing but build ships and still be militarily secure. A naval war was, barring luck, unwinnable.

What we could have done, however, was force Berlin and Occitania into a peace, offer the US and Japan basically everything they took (which was basically everything they wanted anyway, how much are they going to take?) to drop out, and then, with our terrestrial borders secure, begin building ships and take out the British.

Could we have kept all our colonies? Probably not, because we were never going to be able to secure the seas. Could we have kept most of them and gained the British and the Brazilian ones, split Brandenburg in half, retained Nordhannover, annex Poland and neuter Occitania? Yes.

But the rest of the Continentals had this pipe-dream of winning the war at sea against four of the largest navies on the planet, thought you could win a war by not advancing ever, and were more scared of their own allies than they were of their enemies (and rightfully so, given you could sell out Denmark and Spain, though it could have been avoided), and the rest is history.

Incidentally, the Franco-Burgundian fear of Russia was probably your greatest undoing in the long term. Me and Germany harped on it like crazy - believe it or not, Spain cutting off its alliance with the FBC over the Russian alliance was a calculated plan by TLK and Nuka to get you to end your relations with Russia, and it worked. Russia was your natural ally, and your fear of it meant that you ended up getting balkanised.

 

[Luckymoose]

Brazil had no colonies for you to take. We only gained Angola after the war.

 

[Grandkhan]

I had a pipe dream that somebody would annex the Amazon basin, though I never voiced it.

A man can dream, can't he?

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

I have to disagree, I think that the odds were actually in favor of the continental powers in the Great War. Yes, Ireland failed, but the facts remain that Russia was able to crush Poland, and with it Hungary. Even after the defeats at sea Spain was still single-handedly able to win a naval victory against Britain and the ships remaining after the battle at Ireland. I think we can safely say that if the others had remained in the war, the Continental Powers were on the verge of turning the tide. It might have taken a few more years, but I do think that the Continentals would have eventually beaten Britain and its allies.

 

[Luckymoose]

I had a pipe dream that somebody would annex the Amazon basin, though I never voiced it.

A man can dream, can't he?

That would have been an impossible dream. The whole of the continent, except for Chile, was allied against your bros. Even if Europe had wanted to invade South America, I doubt very much would have come of it other than thousands of dead on the beaches.

 

[Jehoshua]

Twould of been better if the Great War had never occurred of course for almost everyone in hindsight. At any rate, what was the ultimate cause of the whole conflagration anyway?

 

[Grandkhan]

Nominally? Spain sent 10EP to a Colombian faction during a civil war.

You think I'm joking, but I'm not. That was the nominal casus belli of the entire conflict.

And the Reusachtig but nobody really cared about that anyway.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Here we Go:

http://www.moddb.com/groups/humour-satire-parody/videos/blackadder-how-did-the-war-start

 

[Luckymoose]

Nominally? Spain sent 10EP to a Colombian faction during a civil war.

You think I'm joking, but I'm not. That was the nominal casus belli of the entire conflict.

And the Reusachtig but nobody really cared about that anyway.

Yes. Milarqui should have paid 200 EP to Colombia. His pride got in the way of world peace.

The ship was a false flag casus belli anyway. The conflict expanded and then ended on the arbitrary nature of the Confederation. I doubt very much, either way, that the Continental Powers could have done any harm to the Americas. Britain might have been knocked out, but any transatlantic invasions would never have worked. The French, Dutch, and Scandinavians had almost no naval power remaining by 1908. The catch up war wouldn't have been fast enough for them to beat the united Americas decisively. It would have ended with reparations, maybe, from the American powers. Britain would have gotten the German treatment for sure.

But a war isn't all in combat victories. The Allies won the diplomatic war. We talked Europe into peace while we had the upperhand. And in the end, that's all that matters.

 

[Justo]

Twould of been better if the Great War had never occurred of course for almost everyone in hindsight. At any rate, what was the ultimate cause of the whole conflagration anyway?

The war started because of the Arab-Spanish War. The Arabian Empire successfully sealed the Suez Canal severely hindering the Continentals ability to reinforce their Eastern colonies. This provided a significant cause for Britain, Brazil etc to look for any reason to begin the Great War since it'd give them a big advantage in the East (not to mention the effect it had on the Spanish economy). Had the Suez Canal not been blocked when it was I doubt the Great War would have begun when it did.

As far as the war itself I felt the Continentals were in a solid position when the war came to its end. IMO the longer the war lasted the better for the Allies due to their economic (and thus Technological) advantage but a significant push against Poland, Hungary and Brandenburg could (and would in the first 2 cases) lead to a significant collapse. If those are out of the war any economic and technological(Tanks etc) advantages are negated or made redundant for the Allies. Personally though I think such a scenario would likely only lead to a stalemate with the Allies securing Africa, Asia etc and the Continentals Europe. Even if the Continentals rebuild their fleets the Allies had a significant enough tech and numbers advantage to make it almost impossible to overcome.

It ultimately would have made the war more interesting although in the long run IMO food shortages/exhaustion would likely impact the Continentals more than the Allies leading to political upheaval (France, Germany, Poland and/or Russia could get interesting if this did happen). Regardless in this scenario the Arabian Empire collapses sooner than it did (its military was teetering and unable to replace losses when the peace agreements were signed).

 

[Grandkhan]

I think the military strength of the Continentals by 1907 was greatly overstated, mostly because they looked okay on the map and on paper, but I doubt we could have gone on for much longer.

Again, pulling out in 1907 was a good decision (probably the best decision we made during the war). Taken as a collective, the Triple Alliance+Scandinavia lost nothing compared to what they could have lost - especially given that a lot of Africa and the East Indies were taken. It was probably a good idea, and I can see why it happened - doesn't mean I'm not butthurt about it.

 

[spryllino]

Most of what you say here, Grandkhan, is simply totally erroneous. I mean, I have no personal need to refute it, but it really is entering the realms of complete fantasy at times.

There was never any chance in hell that we would win the naval war.

For starters, we were up against a coalition including Britain, Brazil, the United States, and Japan. Their only land warfare commitments were against colonies, while we had to defend our own mainland territories as well as build a fleet at the same time. There was no way in hell that we could ever match the Allied ship output, their naval quality, or their designs while we were still embroiled in a land war against Brandenburg, Poland, and Occitania. If you recall, I said as much to you during the war - I'm not projecting my annoyance at the betrayal onto this, I told you this when it was happening. The odds were not in our favour, given that I'm fairly sure that we had a inferiority in ship numbers and even if we didn't we would have next turn anyway, because the Allies could do nothing but build ships and still be militarily secure. A naval war was, barring luck, unwinnable.

Except that we had a navy that was much larger than theirs. If we had won either of those sea battles and inflicted anything like the damage on their fleet that they actually inflicted on ours, we would have won the sea war. There's no two ways about it. You're right that we couldn't outproduce them, which was why we had to win it while we still had a superiority in our naval strength.

What we could have done, however, was force Berlin and Occitania into a peace, offer the US and Japan basically everything they took (which was basically everything they wanted anyway, how much are they going to take?) to drop out, and then, with our terrestrial borders secure, begin building ships and take out the British.

They would still have been able to outproduce us, and would have done so to a very large degree in the meantime. Therefore such a policy would have been hopeless. (I did consider it, by the way.)

Could we have kept all our colonies? Probably not, because we were never going to be able to secure the seas. Could we have kept most of them and gained the British and the Brazilian ones, split Brandenburg in half, retained Nordhannover, annex Poland and neuter Occitania? Yes.

Well, as I said, we could have secured the seas - and short of securing the seas, we could never have gained the British colonies as you suggest. As for your alternative - what does it achieve except Russian dominance? I can see that from Denmark's perspective it's preferable, but it really isn't in the Confederation's interest at all. So you're wrong to suggest that making peace rather than that was a mistake for us.

But the rest of the Continentals had this pipe-dream of winning the war at sea against four of the largest navies on the planet, thought you could win a war by not advancing ever, and were more scared of their own allies than they were of their enemies (and rightfully so, given you could sell out Denmark and Spain, though it could have been avoided), and the rest is history.

And we were totally right all along in all those aspects which you insist on using negative terminology for.

Incidentally, the Franco-Burgundian fear of Russia was probably your greatest undoing in the long term. Me and Germany harped on it like crazy - believe it or not, Spain cutting off its alliance with the FBC over the Russian alliance was a calculated plan by TLK and Nuka to get you to end your relations with Russia, and it worked. Russia was your natural ally, and your fear of it meant that you ended up getting balkanised.

I can't see how it could have been anything other than a calculated plan of exactly that sort. That's not exactly surprising. It also didn't work; I didn't really give a toss about Spain. It also didn't matter because the Spanish alliance was only really useful for fighting the Germans anyway, and once you'd allied with TLK it was in any case tantamount in effect to cancelling the alliance with us. It was only the unrest in Burgundy that made it necessary to cancel the Russian alliance.

 

[ChineseWarlord]

Here we Go:

http://www.moddb.com/groups/humour-satire-parody/videos/blackadder-how-did-the-war-start

Th-this is genius! Where is this from?!

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

@ChineseWarlord: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackadder

It's currently all up on Netflix Watch Instantly. It's one of the best of British comedy television.

 

[spryllino]

(The first series of Blackadder isn't so good as the other three, though, so don't start at the beginning.)

 

[Lord of Elves]

It was my position that the Great War was always unwinnable

I recall the rationale of agreeing to fight being fear that the 1830's would repeat themselves, and that if Britain defeated Spain it could force itself on the rest of the continent, which couldn't be allowed. The only degree to which the conflict was at all appealing was that at least the chaos and frustration it produced in the international sphere, and the damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don't situation created by the run-up to the war mirrored events leading up to the RL First World War.

 

[Quisani]

With regards to Japans role in the whole thing, it was more pragmatics than anything. Empires gotta build, and if had thought we could blackmail the other countries into giving us the land we earned, we would've gladly done.

@Justo: There's something that always confused me regarding Germany and the UK's later betrayal of the Arabian Empire. We had a defensive pact, which you never envoked (to my personal relief). Why didn't you ever try to get Japan involved to help keep your empire from collapsing?

 

[Luckymoose]

Except that we had a navy that was much larger than theirs. If we had won either of those sea battles and inflicted anything like the damage on their fleet that they actually inflicted on ours, we would have won the sea war. There's no two ways about it. You're right that we couldn't outproduce them, which was why we had to win it while we still had a superiority in our naval strength.

Larger but inferior. You're forgetting that the majority of your ships were relics of the 19th century. In the years leading up to the Great War, and into the war, the Allies consistently developed new destroyers, cruisers, battleships, etc. You guys were hundreds of EP behind in the tech race by the end.

On another point, there was a huge build up of forces heading for Britain by 1907-1908. We were going to plop 500+ brigades in for an invasion of Europe that would have completely knocked the Confederation out of the war while they had no naval strength at all. Zero. You guys got off easy. Britain wanted peace. Brazil wanted to Balkanize Spain and France (Germany ended up doing that for us ).

 

[spryllino]

Larger but inferior. You're forgetting that the majority of your ships were relics of the 19th century. In the years leading up to the Great War, and into the war, the Allies consistently developed new destroyers, cruisers, battleships, etc. You guys were hundreds of EP behind in the tech race by the end.

Nevertheless, I maintain that your double victory in the sea battles was by no means probable.

On another point, there was a huge build up of forces heading for Britain by 1907-1908. We were going to plop 500+ brigades in for an invasion of Europe that would have completely knocked the Confederation out of the war while they had no naval strength at all. Zero. You guys got off easy. Britain wanted peace. Brazil wanted to Balkanize Spain and France (Germany ended up doing that for us ).

Indeed, and I pointed something along these lines out to the Continentals many times. This is a very important reason why victory at sea was the only way we could possibly have won, and why Grandkhan is totally barking up the wrong tree.