The Apulian Persons Project

Thanks all, guys. I'm really enjoying this sparkling ending. I've never seen so much events in the last years, generally quite boring. i'm going to play the last 20 years tonight and report on 1 or 2 posts the end of the story.

Ok, now I realize that some kind of nostalgia is starting to get me... this AAR will probably be my last EU2-based. I want to enjoy a little bit Victoria and CK before EU3 comes out (perhaps writing other AARs), but when EU3 is on my laptop I think I will rarely play EU2 again.

... And now I realize that I've been playing EU2 for 5 years...

The most dangerous threat against the newly established republics of France, Apulia and Sicily came from abroad, disguised under the clothes of a minor duke, René II of Brittany. As the only independent sovereign of the Francophone area, the reactionary powers – and particularly the Habsburg Emperor Franz II and the Russian Czar Pavel I – saw him as the natural candidate to succeed to Louis XVI, guillotined in Paris in 1793.

Extremely bigoted and traditionalist, he tried to incite again a counter-revolutionary uprising in the neighbouring region of Vendee. After the first signs of rebellions, the French Republican Directorie was quick to respond and dispatched an army to suppress the revolt and subsequently march on René II capitol. Austria and Russia sent an ultimatum to the Directorie, which responded affirming the responsibilities of René's intrusion in the internal affairs of the Republic and declared war to the enemies, asking for the allied republics' support. After some initial vacillations, also the reactionary king Carlos IV of Spain and the Apulian puppet of Hellas joined France. The First Revolutionary War had started…


The main theatre of the conflict was Central Europe, and particularly the Austrian territories in Germany and the Balkans, where France and Apulia organised a concerted invasion from West and South. The effects of the battles were tremendous, due to the large numbers of soldiers recruited for fighting from each side. The Apulian army landed in May '97 near Trieste, marching toward the interior. and occupying during the autumn both Zagreb and Beograd. In the meanwhile, the French armies moved in the Austrian enclaves in Northern Germany and inflicted a series of defeats driving them back to the South.

Early '98 recorded even more disasters on the Austrian side, with Habsburg armies caught off-guard by the swift advances of a young general, Napoleon Bonaparte. While Koln was surrendering to the French army in February and the Apulian were impressively progressing in Krain and Banat, Napoleon began the invasion of core of the Austrian lands.

Napoleon's campaign was astonishing. He surrendered Emperor Franz's army and defeated it in the Battle of Austerlitz, occupying in a row the Sudeten, Erz and Silesia. An offshoot advanced and occupied Tyrol, while the brave Apulian soldiers took in relative calm the unprotected provinces of Ruthenia and Presburg.


At that point, René was defeated on the battlefields of Brittany and gave up his claims, saved his protector Franz II from an embarrassing situation. A peace treaty was signed in Presburg on 10th September 1798 as a consequence of the defeats suffered by Austria and Brittany. The clauses of the truce established an indemnity of 260.000 ducats to France and allies and the cession of Bretagne to the Republic. Even if relatively gentle toward the enemies, the treaty exalted the rising star of Napoleon Bonaparte in the European context. The Second Revolutionary War (1805-07) would represent the climax of its power.

The First Revolutionary War gave born to the legend of Napoleon Bonaparte. He took advantage of his popularity to seize power with a coup carried out in November 1799, and got the appointment to First Consul. In few years he performed several military and administrative reforms and became the most powerful person in France, reviewing law codes, tax system and roads, restoring the state financial wealth and strengthening his beloved divisions of "La Grande Armée". He funded a big part of the military expenses for the preparation of his expeditions with the sale of Louisiana to the emerging United States of America.


The Apulian Republic representatives did not understand soon the imperial legacy of Napoleon takeover of the Consulate and for a while were simply inspired by his modern reforms. After decades of domination (centuries, in case of the Albanians), Balkan citizens got extended civil rights which finally equalled them to the Apulians. Governors directly elected by the local communities were installed in Albania, Bosnia and Kosovo for the first time. Feudal privileges of the upper classes were cancelled in favour of an emerging bourgeois class and peasants rights were enlarged to let them become free to move, buy pieces of land and production means – consistently with their poor funds – without the control of their landlords. Investments were made both in the construction of new manufactories in Sicily and Roanoke and in the educational system (new universities were opened in those years). These reforms stirred a grade of instability in the Republic due to the opposition of the upper classes, but overall the situation remained under control of the Consiglio Repubblicano.

Let's go back to the rise of Napoleon. After a period of relative peace, he used a failed assassination plot sponsored by the Bourbon faction together with René of Brittany to justify the creation of the Imperial title. In January 1804 he crowned himself Emperor of the French. In the same period, the Habsburgs issued a further ban against the Apulian merchants in the port of Venice… it was just a pretext for another conflict between republics and authoritarian monarchies.

Second Revolutionary War (1805-07)​

The Consiglio Repubblicano understood the necessity of a final solution to the long-standing problems faced by the Apulian merchants in Venice: the aim of this additional war would be the conquest of the city. Hostilities started officially in February 1805 among France, Apulia, Spain, Sicily and Hellas on one side and Austria, Russia and Brittany on the other.


Forces on the battlefield were completely unbalanced. Napoleon invaded Brittany and rapidly conquered and annexed it, sentencing to death René II. Apulian divisions landed near Venice in June 1805 to start the siege of the city. The Italian artillery was put down on the shores of Mestre and became a light bombardment of the old city to convince the Austrian garrison to surrender. In the meanwhile, the Apulian fleet patrolled the coast to prevent the arrival of supports. The Austrian navy repeatedly tried to break the block but without success, whereas on the Northern front the quick advances of Napoleon rapidly crushed any Austrian opposition. With the Battles of Jena and Ulm, he got a decisive victory against the Habsburgs and the gates of Germany were completely opened to "La Grande Armée". Venice surrendered in November 1805, forcing Austria to sue for peace. With the Peace of Padua, signed on 2nd January 1806, Franz II gave up Venice to the Apulian Republic, losing a essential source of trading revenues.


In the same solemn occurrence, the representatives of the Republic granted a semi-autonomous statute to the State of Louisiana, which served the cause of the conquest of Venice with a battalion sent to Europe and requested higher self-government as a consequence of the spreading of the USA example.


The Treaty of Padua did not represent the end of the war in Europe. Napoleon was intentioned to crush definitively the Habsburg power. He passed from Germany to Austria and from victory to victory forced Franz II to sue for a humiliating peace. With the Treaty of Lunéville (1807), which sanctioned the end of the Second Revolutionary War, Franz II surrendered six German provinces, incorporated in the French Empire, really resembling at that point a duplicate of the Charlemagne's possessions. In fact, the treaty marked also the official end of the Holy Roman Empire. Franz II renounced all claims to the Imperial title and named himself Francis I of Austria. Thus the last relic of Medieval Europe disappeared on the battlefields of Germany…

Thanks for the continuous support, guys. Stnylan, your image is extremely exact... I'm simply benefiting of the huge amounts of soldiers that Uncle Nappy can mobilise.

The gamelog has prepared for me a really peculiar way to dismiss Nappy in 1814: France dow USA, Nappy (the uber-leader, I mean) goes to battle in Delaware with few thousands infantry and dies there just few weeks before the pop-up message appears telling me that Louis XVII has been restored...

If you recall back all the events, it seems a really Alternate History development:

1. France overcomes England in North America during XVIII century
2. USA rebel from France in 1774 (!)
3. After conquering half continental Europe, Nappy dow the rebel USA to get back the North American colonies
4. Nappy dies in battle in 1814 (!), after a counter-revolution Bourbon monarchy is restored.

Really astonishing, isn'it?

On the back of Napoleonic deeds, the Republic of Apulia strengthened its positions in North America and consolidated internally. The prominence in the Arctic region became easily achievable with a coordinated effort of colonisation and plunder against the last remnants of Dutch colonies. On the brink of the change of century, Apulian merchants established new trading posts in Athabaska and Superior, finally connecting the coastal colonies with those on the Great Lakes.

Taking advantage of the weakening Dutch interest in America during a period in which it was mainly focused in the confrontation of Napoleonic aims against Brabant and Zeeland, two quick skirmishes (the so-called Arctic Wars, actually simple "collateral effects" of the Napoleonic campaigns) were conducted in 1799 and 1811-12 in the region. The overall gain was the conquest of three provinces (Chisasibi, Attawapiskat and Nueltin, but the payback grew considerably in 1815, when Chisasibi was elected as seat of the biggest world Fur Trade Exchange, as shown in the picture below.


Really few events happened in the last decade. In 1813 Napoleon embarked himself in the foolish dream of taking back under the protection of the French Empire the lands of America (both the rebel USA and the Louisiana lands sold to USA in 1803). Having guaranteed the independence of the Iroquois tribes, he declared war against the USA as soon as they attacked the natives. Instead of the ultimate glory, Napoleon found the death on the battlefields of Delaware in February 1814. The Napoleonids did not survive their leader: after two months of conspiracies and disorders, the Bourbon monarchy was restored with Louis XVII.

A trade ban issued by the decaying Ottoman Empire gave the pretext for a final consolidation of the Apulian position in the Balkans: a twelve months conflict in 1815-16 gave the clear impression of the so-distant forces on the field (Apulia, France, Spain, Sicily and Hellas versus a front made by Ottoman Empire, Mameluks, Tunis, Tripoli, Mali and Zimbabwe). The coordinated European forces occupied in few months the Ottoman posts in NW Africa (Dakar, Antiatlas, Mdennah… and such exotic places) and in November 1815 the Apulian troops entered Ragusa. After months of humiliating defeats, the Sultan had no other choice but to sue for peace, which was concluded in Zara, with Turkey recognising Apulian sovereignty over Ragusa. With this last addition, the Apulian borders wouldn't change anymore…

Stnylan, Van Engel:
I really enjoyed my game, i'm planning a great final for the AAR...

Fulcrumvale:
My original plan was a trilogy with EU2, Vic, CK in order. But the next release of EU3 can change my intentions...

Ok. A sizeable bunch of pics and figures will come hereunder in the next few days, keep following...

Let's start from the basics: geopolitic and diplomatic status of the Republic of Apulia.

• Strong presence in the Italian peninsula - in codominium with France - and a sizeable foothold in the Balkans, as protector of the few remaining Orthodox peoples against the declining Ottoman Empire, the only real enemy indeed.
• Consolidated position in the centre of the Mediterranean, with a complete control on the mouth of the Adriatic Sea plus the Venetian pearl, having the possibility to lock at request the Austrian fleet in its only port, Triest.
• A long-lived alliance with the Kingdom of Spain (dating back since 1529! ) recently revived with the accession of the French constitutional monarchy, the free republic of Sicily and the protectorate of Hellas.
• England has a temporary casus belli against Apulia, nothing to be worried about! The Pope would like to get Marche back, but all we think he would be better renouncing his claims.

• Let's move to North America. The ancient fur trade launched in the mid '500s has evolved in the most well-organised overseas European settlement. Over the centuries, English and Dutch competition in the area has been defeated and apart few underpopulated Anglosaxon colonies in Canada and Pacific coast, the continent is completely Catholic.
• Somewhat puzzled between Nouvelle-France (light green in the Great Lakes and Quebec) and its offspring, the United States of America (red, but not in Quebec - that's England), Nova Apulia and the semi-autonomous State of Louisiana have grown to the status of first-ranking economies thanks to extensive capital investments and huge immigration from Europe.
• Some concerns come out from the increasing aggressiveness of the USA, which has well counter-fought the French attempts to recover their former colonies and now represent an important player in the area. And USA seem to want some more lands from Nova Apulia!

Plus, a self-explanatory map of religious confessions in Europe (even if religion is not so important as in the past). See anyway a high homogeneity in each State and the increasing dissatisfaction in Germany and Northern Italy against the French domination - perhaps a prelude to the Romantic Age of nationalisms?