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The Arms Race

The period 1867-1872

The world was now divided into three, near equally powerfull blocs. Each tried to out do the other, while maintaining the balance of power. The most powerful of these blocs (militarily) was the Ottoman-Austrian-British alliance, with each of these countries Russia had very bad relations.

Meanwhile the Franco-Dutch-American alliance maintained lukewarm relations with Russia, the dutch queen was. quite close to the Tsar.

The Germanic-Russo-Swedish was considered by most historians to be the weakest. It was dominated solely by Russia, though later in this time period Prussia's rising star would overtake her

some statistics

Ottoman Armed Forces- 270,000 men
British armed forces-In excess of 4,000,000 men
Austrian army-1,060,000 men

French Army- 1,130,000 men
Dutch Army- 460,000 men
American Army-2,200,000 men

Prussian Army-550,000 men
Swedish army-400,000 men
Russian Army 1,190,000 men (at the end of the period)

Tsar-Enslaver Alexander second's russia with a population of 135,000,000 of which 60% are russian did not have to push itself very hard to maintain arms parity with Austria. But Austria was a rapidly sinking ship, financed only by britain's deep pockets she had rapidly mounting debt, and massive rebellion. Encircled on three sides by Russia and considered to be less prestigous than Morroco, Austria was truely a pathetic country. The Situation in Austria:
AUSTRIA.jpg

RUSSIA.jpg

Meanwhile in Asia, both England and Russia gobbled up small indian minours. General Dobrusky lead his Peshawar Cossack-Lancers on a conquering spree all the way to the Indus river and thus the situation in Asia:
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The Asian Theatre-

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You have a great AAR, here, Alain-Masque.

I'm especially interested since I'm looking for some gaming tips regarding my own Russian AAR, which will hopefully be started soon. :)
 
The new trend in global warfare appeared to be the "Short Victorious War" as Britain would gobble up Burma Siam and parts of China, while Russia took over many indian powers and looked into a second persian war.

The Dutch seeking a short victorious war of their own declared war upon Brasil. Much to the Queen Magarethe's consternation the Brasilians mobilised 42 divisions worth of men to add to their exisiting three. Dutch Surinam and French Guyana were quicky overrun by the Brazilian giant. And a viscous ( or perhaps vigorous) trench war ensued in Brasil's eastern provinces.
 
Note to any of you brave enough to fight Britian.

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever land on the british isles. Even if you have 500,000 troops on transports. YOU WILL LOSE! LOSE HORRIBLY... SO HORRIBLY.
More horribly than i can express in capital letters.
 
In 1876 Tsar-Enslaver Alexander II began constructing a battle fleet, to replace the old black sea fleet which had been trasnsfered to Russia's Arabian Ocean sea-ports.

This fleet was to be exclusively modern consisting of 12 Steamer Transports, 12 Commerce Raiders and the Ironclad warship Peter I Romanov. Upon the completion of his fleet in late 1877 Tsar Alexander loaded 124,000 of his best men under the command of Grand Duke Totleban into the brand new steamer transports. The world was rife with speculation as to what Alexander's new navy was doing. On June 22nd 1877 they got their answer.

The Cretian War

Citing a desire to liberate poor Orthodox greeks from their harsh egyptian masters Tsar Nicholas's battle fleet landed on the west coast of Crete.

Egypt's fleet consisting of the twin man of war Fhazzad and Saladin sallied forth to engage the brand new Russian navy.

The Egyptian fleet managed to catch the Russians at a very awkward time. Having just completed the liberation of Cyprus six transports escorted by two commerce raiders were in the process of sailing fromm Sevastopol to Cyprus. On board these transports were 60,000 Russian troops destined to garrison the Grecian Island.

Thus the first Russian naval battle in nearly fifty years took place off the eastern shores of Crete.

The Egyptian ships had a Clever Admiral while the Russian's were stuck with Revandowsky a rather inefficient womanizer.

The battle at sea was a smashing victory for the Egyptians they heavily damaged one commerce raider and lightly damaged another, while managing to sink two transports. These losses infuriated the Russian High Command and so admiral Revandowsky was exiled to Siberia.

Meanwhile the bulk of the Russian fleet under Totleban engaged in a daring raid. Establishing a beach head at Tanta, Totleban rushed 74,000 men down the nile to capture the Egyptian capital before the Egyptians knew what was happening.

Thus eygpt signed a peace agreement with Russia which stated the following,

1. Transfer of Cyprus to Russia
2. Transfer of Crete to Russia
3. War indemnities shall be paid to Russia for three years.

A map of Totleban's offensive, with Russian held Crete and Cyprus viewable near the top...



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The WARS of Germanic Aggresion

Russia's real goal in taking Cyprus and Crete soon became apparent. She was drawing a circle of Russian controlled lands, like a noose about Istanbul. Russia allready had a mediteranean base not dependant on the black sea and could regularly shuttle troops about with ease, the Ottomans were helpless as their army was outnumbered 5:1 by the russians and their navy 20:1.

Following the Russian navy's poor showing against the egyptians and also a hostile anglo-french bloc, Russia was left with no choice but to commission seven new ironclads and ten new monitors, construction began immediatly in the shipyards near St. Petersburg.

Unfortunately before the battle fleet's construction could be finished Prussia declared war upon France.

The Journals of Jean D'artois, cavalry soldier.

January 22nd 1879- The Prussians have declared war, we will whip those filthy curs right back across the rhine!

January 30th 1879- Terrible news, Cmdr. Delagaul has just informed us that the mighty city of Metz has fallen and the Prussian dogs slaughtered her valiantly out numbered defenders to a man*

February 19th 1879- The Prussian's are unstoppable. We have sortied with them ever since the debacle at Metz and yet have been unable to break their lines anywhere. We shall stop them at Nancy.

(the writing becomes erratic and undated at this point)

Mon dieu! It was a slaughter.... we charged... up a hill into the Prussian defenders, at least 50,000. But there were 120,000 of us and we were French. The legacy of Napoleon has been bequethed to us. We have failed him. The Prussian's have stranged steel artillery that destroyed our formations at long ranges, we had seen this before and knew what to expect, but still one in every ten horsemen fell to the terrible Prussian barrages. We still would have won had not Prussia unleashed the weapon of the devil himself upon us, they call them "maxim guns". The field of battle was littered with screaming men and horses after just several minutes of fire from these "guns". They fire many rounds a second and are capable of annhilating whole divisions in mere minutes [an exxageration though france did suffer over 80,000 casualties in the batlte and subsequent rout of nancy]. We are withdrawing but not far, we must hold them away from Paris.
___

I can see the light through the clouds. Hope fills my breast once more with the sight of Napoleon III at the head of 250,000 fresh troops riding through the avenues of paris. Thousands of peasants cheering and clapping laying flowers before my horse. It was a grand day.

In other news it appears the English have finally contributed something to our cause scoring a tremendous naval victory over Russia. Apparently Russia was caught unaware by England's fourteen Monitors and thirty ironclads she commited to this battle. The Pitiful Russian navy was shattered. Though things are looking quite bleak for the English in India, a Million man russian army is rumoured to have just burnt Calcutta to the ground.

I have heard about camp that Russia has sent 140,000 men to assist the Prussians in taking Paris, pfagh! We shall pay them back for their victory at moscow with an even grander french victory outside of paris.
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I can hear the screams. They echo loudly in my head. Paris fair paris, city of love, upon the Seine, she now lies desolate. My face is covered with soot and my eyes clogged with ashes, but i can still see the destroyed buildings of paris and the raging bon fire that was Versailles in my mind. The french... nothing remains of our army, we must surrender.
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The german empire has formed, Prussia has unified all Germany under their banner, this is a truely dark day for france. Though we only lost Alsace-Loirrane, when they could have taken so much more. Russia must be quite peeved with their ally, making peace like this and leaving Russia out of it. Oh well, who cares of Russians, they are little better than Japaners.
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Vile trecherous dogs! Must every nation on this cruel earth participate in the rape of france? The Austrians have declared war and completely conquered Sardinia-Piedmonte in a matter of months. We are mobilising to defend against their aggresion.

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The french army no longer exists... I no longer exist....This must be some queer fantasy....yes....that is it.

Austria, has overwhelmed us on all fronts. Nearly half of France is in her hands, she using that insufferable strategy of that american general...what was his name? Sherman. She is waging total war upon us. Whole villagse....burned and plundered to the ground. The ruins of paris now fly an Austrian flag, i am completely exhausted of this war.

Complete Prussian Victory

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Europe 1881
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Damn i've exceeded my daily upload limit you should be able to see the pictures tomorrow.