1926
“To kill deliberately is very wrong,” said Chen Gong.
“I would rather betray the world than let the world betray me,” was Cao Cao’s reply.
Chen Gong could say nothing.
International
The fallout of the collapse of the Entente Powers continues across the globe. In Ireland the Reds, with ready access to surplus arms and equipment from London, have defeated the opposition. The nationalists have retreated into the countryside to carry on a guerrilla war, viewing the socialist government as just a new disguise for British Imperialism. Atrocities have been widely reported and the bombing campaign by remaining Northern Unionists is unabated. Despite its independence, the Emerald Isle is far from united.
As the Irish Civil War ends, the French Civil War enters full swing. Key figures of the French Government-in-Exile arrived in Marseilles after the city was captured by reactionary militias, armed by Germany and trained in neighboring Piedmont. It seems the Alexandria government has made a deal with the devil with the Germans, their hated foes in the last war, both sides preferring the other to the Sorelians. White forces are contesting much of the south and west of the country, while the Reds are compelled to maintain a large portion of their functioning military along the German border facing the still-mobilized German troops. Terror is a key tactic on both sides: blood runs through the streets of Paris as hundreds are executed, traitors to the revolution, while prominent Communists are lynched when captured by the Whites.
The retirement of key figures within the German government, including the Minister for War and Chief of the General Staff suggest a major shift in the balance of power. While the Chancellor and the emergency powers given to them remain unchanged a new slate of generals have taken power behind the scenes. Despite the end of the war Germany remains highly committed militarily, as Imperial troops put down rebellions and keep order across much of Eurasia.
The Hungarian government, aligned with Germany, has announced the formal annexation of northern Illyria. The South Slavic nation, divided between ethnicities and religions, entered the Great War following a pro-Entente military coup and was quickly occupied by German and Hungarian troops. Southern Illyria will become an independent Serbian nation. Protests gripped the annexed territories in response, swiftly suppressed by prepared Hungarian and German occupation forces.
In Iran, the ruling Qajars have been deposed by a largely bloodless coup. Largely seen as selling out the nation to foreign powers the Qajars had been reinstalled by Russo-German troops following the Great War but were unable to establish a domestic base of support. The new nationalist government has proclaimed a republic and made clear its intention to nationalize the oil industry, drawing condemnation from the Anglo-Indian government.
This Iranian Revolution was only possible because of the diversion of Russian troops to put down a growing rebellion in Central Asia. Extant since the Great War, the Islamic rebels have launched a new offensive out of the Ferghana Valley. Exiled Turkish military figures play prominent roles in the rebellion, along with Anglo-Indian military aid. The rebels’ success is heavily damaging the credibility of the Russian military and government which has refused German support (ironically, out of concern that German support would damage their credibility).
With the proclamation of a monarchy based out of New Spain, the colonial government in Camerun has been seized by radical officers who have proclaimed a republic independent of both Madrid and Mexico City. The long-term viability of the current state is questionable but in a quixotic way decolonization has won another victory, albeit handed to it by European liberals.
Anti-Western riots in China led to the killings of many foreigners and worse reprisals against the native population by German and Qing troops. These riots were believed to have been masterminded by the Tiandihui, an anti-Qing secret society and criminal organization, though popular anger against the government is independent of them. Large parts of the south are now only questionably under Peking’s control and the basis of Qing authority is the German-trained army.
Despite its growing influence over East Asia, particularly in the Entente colonies, Japan faces political instability due to inequality and weak civilian government. A proposal to expand suffrage to all men and women above the age of 25 in Japan collapsed following military threats. The relationship between the military and civil government in Japan is not a clear one: military officials retain a feudal right of direct appeal to the emperor, and the defense minister is selected by the military, giving the army the power to collapse a government if it withdraws support.
In response to the revolution in the former American Free State the nations of New England, Canada, and the American Republic have jointly declared an embargo and blockade against the nation. Unwilling or unable to take military action they are attempting to force the new Communist government into submission via economic means. The blockade has damaged the economies of all involved powers and radicalized the local labor movements against it, to the benefit of the USSA, which has found the imposed autarky a handy excuse to implement Communist policies.
(USSA: -5% National Unity, -15 Banked EP, -5 EP Income) (New England, Canada, American Republic: -3% National Unity, -5 Banked EP)
California rapidly invests in its petroleum production and export capacities, enlarging the existing ports in its Pacific coast cities to meet their new ambitions. Their chief market is the Empire of Japan, the rising power of the Pacific. Japan is happy to cultivate these ties: they are having immense success filling the power vacuum in Entente colonies across the Pacific, appropriating the colonial infrastructure and political order as their own informal empire.
(California: +4 EP Income)
The French Frontier continues to be nominally governed by the Party of Cooperation, a French-Native political organ, but this year saw the establishment of the Native American Congress. While possessed of no legal political power, the Congress wields substantial influence through the near complete control of the Party of Cooperation by native officials. Though its voting membership is composed entirely of tribes within the Frontier province, delegates from the Metis in British Columbia, the Navajo, and Texan Comanche were also present at its inception.
(Frontier: +4% National Unity) (Columbia, Texas: -2% National Unity)
Unrest spreads throughout the American South as a result of Nova Afrika’s entry into the Texan War. From a strategic perspective it is military suicide, setting the Mississippi Republic against the continental behemoths of New France and the American Republic, but this criticism is only offered by the educated African-American elite, who are depressingly few. For most Nova Afrikans, and African-Americans outside the nation, it is the long-promised opportunity for revenge against their oppressors. Accompanying the war along the Mississippi has been an explosion of terrorist attacks and riots as the law enforcement of the affected countries is overwhelmed by a radicalized and suddenly armed population.
(Louisiana, American Republic: -6% National Unity) (Nova Afrika: -2% National Unity)
Not all domestic unrest is rooted in ethnic conflict: the Texan War and USSA-blockade is exacerbating tensions across the continent. The Appalachian coal industry has been placed under increasing pressure to meet the demand of a nation at war, with the loss of supply from Pennsylvania’s coal mines, and subjected to directed propaganda from the Union. Poor working conditions contributed to strikes that had cut production in half by the end of the year, leading to rolling blackouts across the American Republic. The stress on the Appalachian coal industry was also felt west, as Illinois’s own miners took up the slack, though it was also feeling many of the same labor tensions.
(American Republic: -4% National Unity) (Illinois: -2% National Unity, +10 Banked EP)
The French-American nations have banded together in an international coalition, with the American Republic, to repel the New Spanish invasion of the Republic of Texas. However war is almost universally unpopular, particularly a distant war, and anti-war activists have staged demonstrations in regional capitals and organized minor strikes. The exception is Louisiana, facing direct threats from the New Spanish and their Nova Afrikan allies, where the population has rallied behind the war effort. Conservatives across New France have bemoaned the distraction from liberating the homeland.
(Canada, Illinois, Frontier: -3% National Unity) (Louisiana: +4% National Unity)
New English officials extended overtures to the British Carribean this year, seeking to begin negotiations for the Dominion to incorporate those territories. West Indian officials were receptive but, among other things, desired official acceptance by the Anglo-Indian government. For Delhi it was less a policy question, as the proposal was sensible given New England’s proximity, as a financial one: a large number of British exiles now serving in the Anglo-Indian government had been greatly impoverished by the revolution and they were willing to accede to the territorial transfer in return for monetary support. Or, less diplomatically, a bribe.
Domestic
Faced with existential economic, political, and military threats from its neighbors, the government of the United Socialist States of America has launched a major propaganda campaign to rally the people in support of the new government. The existential threat posed by the Anticomintern has made it easy for Hillquit’s government to rally support, from left-wing radicals to non-Communist American nationalists opposed to the American Republic. The collectivization of property and reformation of the capitalist society into a communist one has been expedited by the overhanging threat of invasion: opposition is not only anti-revolutionary, it’s anti-American.
(USSA: +25% National Unity)
The Columbian government begins wielding its newfound executive power, soliciting investment and extending its administration along both the coast and interior. The prospect of government services and investment goes some way towards tying the inner two-thirds of the nation to the coast, but the actual geological prospecting just beginning may risk the relatively amicable relations between the interior and the central government.
(Columbia: +2% National Unity, +4 EP)
California’s Federalist government attempts to put limits on immigration this year, concerned about the influx of celestials into the pacific state. Immigrants continue to arrive throughout the year, however: word travels slowly across the Pacific and California is simply too large to block entry once emigrants have arrived. Many of the new arrivals find their questionable legal status preferable to enduring the grueling trip across the Pacific once again. Now that the flood gates are opened it will take time to close them.
(California: -2% National Unity, +3 EP)
The Frontier continues to see further expansion of agriculture. The Great Plains are not comfortable land for large scale farming: extensive irrigation and public works are needed to make it feasible. For many of the native tribes this represents another blow to their traditional identities. But many agree it is ultimately necessary to preserve those identities in a world dominated by European ways and European thought.
(Frontier: +3 EP, -1% National Unity)
The New Spanish Viceroy, Alfonso Luis de Carvajal, worked to cement his authority over New Spain in expectation of a drawn out war with the New French coalition over Texas. Some of this was mundane: an expansion of state propaganda exhorting the population to war. Some of this was historic: the coronation of Amadeo II as King of New Spain, a popular figurehead for Carvajal’s government. Carvajal worked to bind the traditional ruling elite of the Spanish Empire to him, even as he pursued his own nationalistic agenda in the Americas.
But this wasn’t enough to secure his rule. Carvajal was the target of an assassination attempt at his daughter’s wedding to Amadeo’s son: while unsuccessful in taking his life, members of his family were among the casualties. The assassins were ultimately identified as Texan agents but the initial suspicions fell on the conservative nobility who had organized the event. The so-called Winchester Wedding has highlighted Carvajal’s tense relationship with the exiled Spanish elite, who are simultaneously dependent on him yet now perfectly positioned to take over the government if he were to be incapacitated.
(New Spain: -5% National Unity)
Mexico City, secure and distant from the battlefield even as it was a nest of intrigue, continued to be renovated as a capital worthy of an empire. Much of the deconstruction of the past year complete, efforts turned towards public infrastructure and housing, recouping some of the lost residences.
(New Spain: +6 EP, +1% National Unity)
The loss of its two main trade partners, with the embargo on the USSA on top of the revolution in Britain, has badly damaged New England’s economy more than either of its partners in the Anti-Comintern Pact. The nation has slipped into a recession following a collapse in exports: while the Americans have a large internal market (plus other worries right now) and the Canadians easy economic access to the rest of New France, New England’s own commercial ties have left it especially vulnerable to the destabilization of the international order. Limited government intervention can only slow the bleeding; new trade partners need to be found, or created, or seized.
(New England: -1% National Unity)
As the long-dreaded race war reignites into open conflict across the Black Belt, the American Republic suitably rallies its own population. Some of the methods used are tried and tested: heavy-handed police, informants from within the African-American community, and good-old fashioned pogroms. Others are new: the Federal Bureau of Investigation. While possessing a broad mandate as a police and intelligence agency its first task was directed at the African population of the country, supervising the concentration of the largely rural population into camps near major urban centers and military facilities. Moving the largely hostile population out of rural areas where they can be closely monitored has the benefit of also depriving guerrillas and terrorists of the human terrain they can use to conceal themselves. However this is an ambitious project, the forced relocation of millions, and it is very, very far from completion at the end of the year. Within the camps residents are enrolled into a new National Work Authority. With many of their jobs in the countryside taken by machines, or, given the current climate, simply abandoned, they are instead conscripted as factory and construction workers under armed guards. A huge military commitment by the American Republic, and in some ways impeding offensive operations, the forced conscription of unskilled labor failed to provide the expected gains in manufacturing due to rampant sabotage but it made the colored population much easier to manage.
(American Republic: +6% National Unity)
Threatened from both east and west by foreign invasion, Louisianian politicians worked to repair their own troubled social order. With New Orleans briefly threatened by Nova Afrikan troops, a constitutional convention was held in Baton Rouge featuring representatives from across the dominion. Seeking to implement the principles of the Franco-American Concordat domestically, Louisiana’s government approved a progressive constitution providing universal male suffrage, democratic elections, and equality before the law. It represents a break with the elitist governing structure of the past, one that many critics argue is completely impractical for Louisiana, facing serious threats from within and without that requires domestic leadership, while liberals across New France have hailed it as a model for the future of the colonies.
(Louisiana: Change Ideology to Democratic, -2% National Unity)
Half a century ago, political and social radicals fleeing the conservative atmosphere of Metropolitan France established colonies in northern New Spain. Mexico City had long struggled to enforce its control across its northern territories, a role taken by settlers from outside the Spanish Empire. In Texas, this resulted in that region’s independence with backing from the American Republic, and it seems certain to repeat with the Rocky Mountain territories. President Allain’s tight control of the Icarian Communes, now the Icarian Union, allowed him to mobilize them in a bid for sovereignty while New Spain grappled with the Texan Coalition. Dissent was minimal, though the relatively peaceful Icarians were concerned with massing Californian troops on the new border, and the Union as a whole was committed to its task of constructing railroads through the new state and doubling the size of the militia.
(Icaria: -2% National Unity, +3 EP Income)
The war takes its toll on the Texan homefront: while partisan activity is continuing with vigor, the Spanish-speaking segment of the population is least enthusiastic in fighting against the New Spanish. Reprisals by the occupying forces, the economic cost of the war on the civilian population, and the near-complete New Spanish control of the country is causing more and more to collaborate with the government in Mexico City.
(Texas: -6% National Unity)
Military
An international coalition from among the French-American states and the American Republic assembled to defend the Republic of Texas from the New Spanish invasion. French diplomats had supported the independence of Texas to provide security for Louisiana: without it, New Spanish troops would only be a relatively short march from controlling the Mississippi. The conflict new envelopes half the continent, with the only major powers isolated from it being New England and the former Free State.
The Freedmen’s Republic entered the war despite being surrounded by enemies on all sides, conducting a levee en masse to try to hold... (see spotlight)
(Florida: -Existence) (Seminole Republic: +Existence) (American Republic: -5 Divisions, -1 Harrison Brigade, +3 EP Income, +1 Military Quality) (Nova Afrika: -13 EP Income, -10 Divisions, +1 Military Quality) (Louisiana: +1 Military Quality, -2 Divisions) (Canada: -1 Divisions) (Illinois: -2 Divisions, +1 Military Quality)
The New Spanish offensive in Texas continued unabated in the New Year, heightened by the need to secure prime defensive positions before French-American forces could arrive. Coalition planners had hoped to establish a defensive line along the Brazos, but New Spanish forces outpaced their counterparts: New Spanish CC25’s were on the outskirts of Allen [Houston] in February, compromising the initial planned defensive line and threatening their secondary fallback line. At this point the New Spanish ran into difficulties. New Spain’s own air corps had been badly damaged by sabotage the previous year and it was soon outnumbered 5-1 in the sky by the coalition, taking heavy casualties and forced to restrict its operations to secure areas behind their own lines. French-American forces began to trickle in to reinforce the badly outnumbered Texans. And partisan activity behind the lines began to pick up, which combined with allied air power made proper supply of the forward formations a challenge.
The New Spanish advance didn’t fully stop until the summer, and advance units succeeded in crossing the border into Louisiana in some cases. But the logistical strain and opposition by French American units checked them from going any further. Allied counter offensives in the second half of the year pushed the New Spanish back into Texas while keeping a sliver of the country free from occupation. New Spain’s ability to conduct further offensive operations is questionable, as the heavy CA3’s out-weigh the lighter Spanish armor, French-American troops arrive in numbers just slightly less than that of the New Spanish force, and their supply lines from Mexico City are overstretched and vulnerable. But French-American forces were badly bloodied in the autumn offensives and are still outnumbered by the New Spanish: with over a million men in the field in Texas doomsayers are warning of the return of the siege lines and attrition warfare that wrecked Europe.
(New Spain: -12 Divisions, -1 Nieuport Squadron, -2 CC25 Brigades, +1 Military Quality) (Texas: -5 Divisons, -1 Harrison Brigade, -7 EP Income, -2 IP Income) (Illinois: -2 Divisions) (Louisiana: -1 Divison) (Canada: -3 Divisions, -1 Nieuport Squadron)
The high drama continued in the war at sea, where the outcome of events in the Gulf of Mexico depended as much on personality as on military strategy. Admiral Salaun, the head of the French fleet in the region, received conflicting directives from the Royalist government now in Marseille and from the French-American states, who directed a vigorous and oppressive diplomatic campaign to keep his fleet in the Carribean. In the end it was the French-Americans who won out, to the misfortune of the New Spanish fleet when they attacked New Orleans and encountered the superior Louisianian and French fleet. The Spanish battleships received the worst of it in an engagement with the heavier French ships, though their superior speed allowed them to disengage and limited their losses to just one of their number before they limped back to port. Faced with French naval superiority the New Spanish adopted a new strategy, laying mines along the Gulf coast whose first victim was the battleship Brennus. Fear of mines restricted French-American operations, though mine-sweeping continued to be underway.
(New Spain: -1 Reino Carlos-class battleship, -2 Escort Squadron) (Louisiana: -1 Escort Squadron) (French Carribean Fleet: -1 Vaudreuil-Cavagnial-class battleship)
Fighting in West Texas was less dramatic: the New Spanish army that captured Odessa the previous year continued north and west, encountering scattered Texan militia as the bulk of the Republic of Texas’s army tried to hold onto its eastern territory. The Texans were joined by volunteers from Icaria and regulars from the French Frontier, but this was insufficient to hold onto the region: the Frontiersmen continually disengaged when facing the more than 2-1 advantage in New Spanish numbers while the Icarians were savagely mauled and the Texans overwhelmed. By the end of the year New Spain had captured the entirety of the region, pushing up to the Republic’s former borders. Unfortunately for them the Texans continued their policy of lighting the oil wells, putting the substantial petroleum infrastructure of West Texas to the torch.
(Icaria: -1 Division) (Texas: -1 Division, -4 EP Income) (New Spain: -1 Division)
Both New France and New England developed indigenous bomber designs this year, seeking to fulfill a niche in their current air fleets for a dedicated ground attack plane. Both the Bulldog and Roche Voisine carry similar bomb complements and engines: the Roche Voisine is noticeably more maneuverable, while the Bulldog sacrifices maneuverability for air-to-air defence capabilities. The Roche Voisine would see limited service in Texas and along the Mississippi this year, giving its Canadian designers valuable feedback on its performance. Air power enthusiasts have hailed the new bombers deployment as a seminal achievement: with proper investment and development, they promise that wars could be won without a single engagement on the ground, as overwhelming air power would be able to threaten the heartlands of any opposition.
(Canada: +1 Air Design Bonus) (New England: +1 Air Design Bonus)
Tensions are running hot along the USSA Border, as its neighbors line up their militaries. Canadian, American, and New English forces stare across at their Union counterparts. For the moment a tense peace reigns as every side has been scrupulously avoiding antagonizing the other. Despite that war seems imminent as New England has begun constructing formidable artillery positions overlooking New York City and the USSA fleet there, which was prevented from relocating further south by the blockade. One small consequence is that the blockade at sea has damaged the livelihoods of Long Island fishermen, pushing that relatively conservative part of the USSA into support for the government.
(USSA: +1% National Unity)
Californian troops arrived in the Viceroyalty of Peru to prop up the threatened government there. The viceroyalty largely only controlled the north of the country, with much of Alto Peru in the hands of a populist Andean Republic that had revolted from Spanish rule. The Californians found conditions in Lima appalling: the Peruvian army was corrupt and incompetent, Andean sympathizers and informants were ubiquitous, and the border defences had fallen into disrepair. Already understrength, as a significant fraction of the planned expedition had been diverted following Icaria’s declaration of independence, the expedition drew on the Californian budget to revitalize many of the fortifications around Lima, though more work needs to be done to shore up the southern outpost of the Spanish Empire.
(California: -2 Banked EP)
While Peru was fortunate enough to receive an intervention from the larger empire, Cuba wasn’t so lucky. An on-and-off insurgency of Cuban nationalists had firmly switched into on mode in 1926. Large parts of the Cuban army defected to the rebels, who were threatening Camaguey and controlled portions of the interior.
(Cuba: -1 Division)
Spotlight
At the end of 1925 the American Republic had begun mobilizing troops for an invasion of Spanish Florida. The annexation of the territory had long been an ambition for the southern leadership: not only would it provide access to the Carribean, it had become a haven for freed slaves over the decades, fomenting agitation across the border. While the latter concern had been made irrelevant with the creation of the Republic of Nova Afrika, the Americans wasted no time in taking advantage of the Texan War to make good their claims to the peninsula.
This would bring it into conflict with that same Freedmen’s Republic that also bordered Florida. An American invasion would bring the forceful imposition of the same social order that Nova Afrika was a rebellion against, at the cost of some of the oldest black communities in North America. Despite facing the entire French-American coalition, the Nova Afrikan leadership had resolved to oppose the American invasion and trust in the formidable New Spanish military to eventually prevail against half the continent.
In return for supporting Nova Afrika, New Spain got major dividends: Nova Afrika’s presence along the Mississippi was crippling for logistical efforts in Texas: the bulk of transport capacity in New France was riverine, and the Mississippi Republic controlled the eastern shore of the river. Indeed, one of the first moves the Afrikans took was to blow the bridges along the river: the accumulated debris was difficult to clear and impeded coalition transport and relief to Texas throughout the year. Nova Afrika’s other early move was an offensive south, into both Florida and Louisiana.
In Florida their occupation was simultaneous with an American invasion from the North: both powers were more focused on securing as much of the peninsula as possible rather than engaging each other, limiting the fighting. The Floridian army was overwhelmed, of course: what didn’t desert was torn to pieces. The main resistance to foreign invasion came from the Seminole tribe, who, making cause with remnants of the colonial administration and some non-native population in South Florida, declared their independence.
Their offensive against New Orleans, the capital of Louisiana, was treated as a serious threat by French-American planners, who diverted Louisianian forces that had been slated for East Texas to oppose them. Nova Afrikan troops were held in house-to-house fighting by the Louisianians, long enough for Illinois and Canadian troops to launch their own offensive across the Mississippi near Vicksburg, flanking the city from the north and south. Nova Afrikan resistance was bitter, particularly in urban areas where the French-American advantage in air power couldn’t be brought to bear, and casualties exceeded the estimates of the French strategic planners.
The New French were still able to do so with relative ease because American Republic troops were also invading from the east, where the Nova Afrikans lacked the benefit of the defensive positions along the Mississippi and were forced to rely on improvised tactics and determination. The savagery of the combatants was enhanced by their inexperience: whereas the French and New Spanish forces in Texas were able to draw on their respective experience fighting in Europe, and had no personal animosity, here neither nation had comparable modern war experience but lifetimes of racial antagonism. Both sides received rude shocks from the effectiveness of artillery, machine guns, and defensive positions inflicting atrocious casualties on massed infantry. American troops had the benefit of a corps of armored cars to use against the Afrikans, who, lacking comparable firepower, were forced to rely on petrol bombs and suicide attacks with dynamite to disable the vehicles. Combined with control of the air and numerical superiority this was enough. By the end of the year American troops captured much of the north and east of the Mississippi Republic, slowing in the south where heavy forest made Afrikan resistance more effective and in Jackson itself, where the Nova Afrikan government made a stand but were ultimately forced to evacuate before its fall.
Vicksburg would surrender to the French-American forces when it was threatened from the east by advancing Anglo troops, preferring the French to their longtime oppressors. By the end of the year only the south, including territories seized from Florida, remained under Nova Afrikan control and the skeleton of an exile government had been established in Mexico City.
Moderator Notes
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