The HAARd Way - Friesland AAR

Here it is. It doesn't do that much, it's only really for storyline purposes.

Abolishing it is. Sorry that was a pretty bad poll, but I didn’t have much else to pick what with being stuck in a regency council and no other decisions/NI happening soon (that I’m willing to have a vote on at least). Thanks for voting anyway.

Chapter Forty Two: Cleaning Up

The colonial regime’s request for clarification on the slavery issue from the homeland backfired on them, as the request brought the issue to the forefront of debate amongst the Councils. With increasing support going to the abolitionists and several other nations having already abolished the trade it was decreed that no man could be bought or sold within the Frisian Empire.



Almost immediately the economic effects were felt as major landowners in the Frisian Kongo were forced to cease their trading and find new goods to make money from. In the Americas, the situation wasn’t as bad as the now freed slaves could simply be hired back for minimal wages as they didn’t have the skills to take part in anything but manual labour.

The colonials had been hoping that the impending war with Burgundy would be enough to discourage something with as large an implementation as abolishing slavery, but they did not realise what was happening in Europe.



Burgundy actually refused to come to Genoa’s aid, leaving it and its small allies to fight the Italian and Frisian armies entirely alone. Siena could handle its opponents on its own, so Friesland only sent a few ships to set up blockades and otherwise kept out of the conflict.

The reasons for Burgundy’s refusal became clear as it launched an invasion of the remaining southern French nations and their Basque backers.



The war ended with Auvergne submitting to Burgundian overlordship and Navarra losing some of its isolated territory as well being forced to break its valuable alliance with Britain.

After the annexation of Genoa and with an aggressive war still off the cards, political attention began to turn to some of the Frisian vassals. Almost half a century had passed the conquest of Ruppin and annexation of the Duchy of Cleves, and now the leaders of the Imperial states had accepted those lands as rightfully Frisian. This would give some room for further expansion.



The Duchy of Luneburg was finally absorbed into Greater Friesland creating a solid border with Austria in North Germany and giving Friesland a foothold in the Baltic. There were some diplomatic complaints about the annexation of the Baltic regions but it wasn’t anything the cabinet couldn’t handle.

In the East Indies, the Frisian colonists on the island of Celebes had slowly been encroaching on the land of the remaining independent natives. Their presence was enough to press claim to the rest of the island.



The Noble’s Council refused to give support for an invasion though, so it would have to wait.

Recent large-scale expansions in North America were really straining the ability of the Frisian Navy to keep up with monitoring and protecting trade between the homeland and the colonies. More and more money was being poured in to finance a navy beyond that which the country should have been capable of maintaining.



To remedy these problems, official policy was made to launch a large scale increase of shipbuilding and maintenance capacity in order to ensure that Greater Friesland had the largest and best equipped navy in the world. (Naval maintenance was getting huge from being so far over the limit and really messing my economy up. Taking this NI saves me 700 ducats a year.)

Burgundy’s aggression continued as it enforced its claims to the mountainous lands of Switzerland. However, it appeared that this time they had bitten off more than they could chew.



Austria came to the aid of Switzerland, intending to keep it as a buffer between the two large states so that it did not have to worry about attack from the west.

While it was very nice for the Frisian leadership to see their two biggest land-based rivals in Europe engaged in a war with one another, the Noble’s Council continued to veto any discussions about entering into the war even though it was a golden opportunity to damage them. The war ended fairly quickly, as Austria’s experienced and battle-hardened troops marched through the Alps and into the Lorraine while pushing aside resistance.



Burgundy was made to pay reparations and give up some of its lands in Southern France, but they were able to get out of the conflict with their Swiss conquest still intact. Ultimately it could be considered only a minor defeat for them.

War continued in other parts of Europe as Castille and Portugal got into a major colonial conflict in South America. The battles spread to Iberia, and the former Portuguese capital was seized. The loss of North Africa had probably been a boost to Castille, as they no longer had large, poor and rebellious regions to police.



The people of Brazil also saw this time as the perfect chance to rise to independence. With the rest of their South American land embroiled in battle with their rivals the Portuguese were forced to let the colony go peacefully.

Finally Wiebe I was able to take the throne.



He was a skilled leader in both administrative and military matters, although his skills at the negotiating table left much to be desired. After being coddled by the Noble’s Council his whole life, he wasn’t eager to continue to bow to them now that he was king.

While the powers installed in the constitution prevented him from doing a lot of things, the ability to go to war was not one of them. There were a number of disputed regions around the world that were ready to be returned to their rightful owners.



The city of Leipzig was steadily falling more and more into the Frisian sphere despite its position as once being a place of compromise between the Catholic and Protestant halves of the Empire. This came to a head when Frisian forces moved in directly and set up a military command there. The Kingdom of Makassar was also conquered to secure Celebes. Makassar’s territory in the Philippines was sold on to Britain who desired to retake their colonies there. Additionally, the Navarran colony in Central America was taken, with the excuse of dealing with rebels looking to creation some kind of union of Central American states.

Wiebe was not all about violence though. He ordered that education become mandatory throughout Friesland to train the next generation of leaders. With tensions continuing to rise in the colonies the country could not afford an unskilled commander or politician making the situation worse.



To that end he also began a major shake-up of the military. At the urging of General Ripperda he established a proper meritocratic system for the promotion of officers so that more skilled leaders like that man could be brought to the highest ranks regardless of their birthright.

The General also urged Wiebe to continue expanding Friesland’s grip on the far reaches of the world. They were already the wealthiest country but there was so much more they could achieve. The world was their oyster, but they had been far too focused on wars with Austria to make any major headway in expanding Frisian interests to new parts of the world.

To be continued...

Expanding Friesland’s overseas empire is now top of the agenda once again, but what region should be focused on? As Friesland does not have any real reason to go to war with nations outside Europe the easiest way to get things started will be to expand its sphere of influence into the region. But which region?

Option A: North Africa and the Middle East. This could help cut down Sweden and Russia’s advances in the region but there is little of value to actually conquer here.
Option B: East Indies. Valuable islands, but it is so far from Friesland itself that only two small nations could actually be added to the SoI.
Option C: India. A whole host of valuable regions to expand the SoI into here, although it would be very costly in prestige.
Option D: East Asia. A slightly different choice, as expanding into this area would first require the conquest of some land from Britain (the only power in the area we actually have a CB on).

World Update 1771:

dinofs: Thank you again for the award! Now I just need to try and work out who I’ll pick next week...
quantum: Indeed. I don’t know if there’s time for major showdown with the British now, but you can be sure it’ll come in post-1821 content.
sjones25: That would be Iceland, funnily enough.

India takes it. An easy choice in hindsight. Thank you all for voting.

Chapter Forty Three: The End of North Austria

General Ripperda’s suggestion to expand the Frisian influence further abroad was the subject of a large debate in the Councils, but the result turned out to be almost unanimous.



India was filled with valuable lands and was within easy reach on top of that. Political pressure was put on the majority of independent nations there to start leaning closer to Friesland diplomatically. The only nations exempt from this were Orissa which was already aligned with Britain, and Vijayanagar which had its own political sphere.

Austria’s mistake in their last war with Burgundy had been letting them hold onto the western lands of Switzerland. Now they intended to remedy that by declaring war with the declared aim of freeing the Germanic people in Switzerland from the Burgundian yoke. However this left Friesland the chance to enter the war thanks to their mutual ally with Burgundy, Denmark.



Even if Russia was promising to support anyone Friesland attacked, this opportunity could not be missed as it had been last time. War was declared, and thankfully Russia backed down.

Suddenly what must have seemed like a tough but winnable war to the Austrians became a lot more dangerous as they were now at war with the three largest powers on the their western border.



Combined, Friesland, Burgundy and Siena and their minor allies fielded an army more than twice as large as the Austrian one. Their troops scrambled in every direction to try and counter the incoming invasions, but they couldn’t cover everywhere.

Frisian soldiers marched into Brandenburg once again while their allies moved in from the south and west. With Austria so divided in its attention, the northern parts of their lands were easy pickings for the hardened Frisians.



The situation in the north was so bad that the Austrians effectively abandoned it completely, focusing most of their armies against Siena and around the Ansbach region. This slowed down advances in the area, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep the Frisians from wheeling around after taking the north and sweeping through their heartland.

Luckily for Austria, the leaders of Greater Friesland were not out to completely crush them. They would definitely prefer it if Austria had enough strength to fight Burgundy to a bloody and expensive standstill, and so peace was negotiated despite complaints from both Wiebe I and General Ripperda.



Brescia was handed over to Siena for their support in the war and Switzerland was given some measure of independence to act as a further buffer between Austria and Burgundy and make it less likely that either could win a decisive victory. The Hungarian nations, which had been re-vassalised recently, were also given full independence once again. It didn’t last long for Hungary though, as it was annexed by Transylvania shortly after the two were freed.

The battle between the strongest remaining Muslim power and the Christians that had settled in the Middle East concluded with a major victory for the Christians, led by Sweden. Much of Iraq was seized and Persia’s north-western lands granted freedom.



Despite being a colonial power, Persia still had a lot of work to do to catch up to the Europeans.

The Frisian political expansion in India had naturally caused serious tensions with the locals. The largest Indian power that didn’t have any European influence, Vijayanagar, was involved in a number of minor border conflicts with forces from the Frisian regions. To deal with this nuisance once and for all, the lands were invaded.



Against the same style of troops that had so handily beaten Austria the primitive Indians didn’t stand a chance. The contested lands were annexed into Frisian India.

In Europe, the Noble’s Council were beginning to think that the king might have been right to demand a continuation of the war. Things were getting problematic.



Baden, an elector that had been supporting Friesland, was annexed by Austria. Why they did that wasn’t completely clear considering the diplomatic ramifications but there was nothing that could be done for the moment due to the truce between the two nations. Despite this loss, Burgundy had actually managed to turn the war around and start to seriously beat Austria. Apparently there had been a decisive battle in the Lorraine that saw the majority of the Austrian army crushed unexpectedly and now they were in full retreat. (I saw a 100K Austrian army wandering around before but now it’s nowhere to be seen. I have no idea how Burgundy did it, they must have got lucky with attrition or something.)

With their victory the Burgundians were able to force surprising peace terms onto the Austrians.



North Austria was torn in half as the non-Austrian regions were granted independence. The long-disappeared Duchies of Brandenburg and Pommerania had once again reappeared.

Duke-in-exile Frederick had retired from politics and the military after the failure of his Germany plan to gain any traction, but this sudden development brought him out of his self-imposed solitude to make an impassioned speech to the Frisian leadership.



He put forward that it was in the nation’s best interest to take in the people of Brandenburg to protect them from a counterattack by Austria. His rank as Duke-in-exile of the Duchy would be the only claim they needed to the land. Frisian troops marched into Berlin and took control shortly afterwards, with only ineffectual complaints from the Burgundians that had freed the region.

Other regions of South America were following Brazil’s example and declaring independence.



They weren’t nearly as well established as the Brazilians however, and it was entirely possible that Portugal and Castille would be able to retake these rebellious lands. Friesland’s own colonies were suffering waves of independence demands as well, but the Frisian forces stationed in the Americas were sufficiently loyal to prevent those thoughts from becoming reality.

There was still the problem of Baden, and especially the fact that Austria was now actively working to convert the populations of the Rhineland to Catholicism. It was a tense few years as the Frisian leadership watched the time on the ceasefire tick away, but as luck would have it they were able to make it in time. Austria’s continued espionage actions against Friesland were the reason for war this time.



Austria still had not completely recovered from the war with Burgundy, so it was simple enough to get them to release Baden from their control. This time, Russia actually supported them but with the huge size of their empire the war was already over by the time their troops reached the front.

What followed was a long period of peace almost unheard of in European history. The interlocking ceasefires between the major powers meant that the only conflicts were the constant Castillian-Swedish-Russian battles in the Middle East for dominance of the region. As usual the three great powers simply came to a ceasefire with one another while the smaller nations suffered the loss of land from being caught up in it. During this time, General Ripperda died having spent his later years as chief military adviser to Wiebe I. His last words appeared to express regret that he hadn’t been able to accomplish the great conquests in Europe and abroad that he had envisioned and that perhaps he had been born in the wrong era.

The peace could not last forever, and war once again returned to Europe when Austria made a move against the Bishopric of Salzburg. The tiny state had somehow managed to exist in the heart of Austria despite Austrian claims to the land and being almost suicidally hostile to their far larger neighbour. Burgundy and its allies leapt to the defence of the bishopric and Greater Friesland once again joined in the conflict, drawn in by its alliance with Denmark.



As before, the Austrian forces were divided and it was fairly simple to gain the upper hand over them. The Frisian commanders were most interested in dealing a fatal blow to the idea of ‘North Austria’, and to that end they demanded the lands of Hinterpommern to cut off all Austrian access to the Baltic Sea. Danzig had rightful claims to the area, so it was then sold onto them for a modest sum. It wasn’t important who held it, what was important was that the reason for North Austria’s existence, a window on the Baltic, was no longer there. (I had been planning to make North Austria a major fixture in their empire, sort of like East Prussia was in reality. Burgundy messed that up though, so I just went with dismantling it.)

The lessons of the previous major conflict had not been learned as it turned out.



Once again Friesland’s early exit from the war had doomed Baden and Salzburg, and this time it appeared Burgundy was not able to repel the Austrian invasion of their lands. The Austrians were hungry for some kind of victory after their repeated humiliations and with Friesland stuck in a ceasefire it seemed like they might actually get it.

Meanwhile, after fourteen years the expansion of the Frisian sphere into India finally paid off.



Unfortunately it didn’t pay off in the expected way. Navarra and its allies weren’t exactly the one they were hoping to go to war in India, after all they weren’t the ones with the valuable land..

To be continued...

NI time! These might determine Greater Friesland’s military doctrine or their domestic policy so there is importance beyond their basic effects.

Option A: Espirit D’Corps (+25% discipline). Military strategy will be based on decisive battles against the enemy to crush their military strength before advancing.
Option B: Improved Foraging (-50% attrition). Military strategy will be based on taking the fight into the enemy lands from the very beginning and taking the land while engaging their armies. Note that it requires quite a bit of Trade tech research that we don’t have yet, but since we still have a while until the slot opens it might be available by then.
Option C: Liberty, Egalite, Fraternity (+3 tolerance for all other religions). Would be useful in colonies where some areas haven’t been converted (due to lack of missionaries). Avoid war except in defence. Domestic policy to work on semi-independence for minorities. (I know this may seem like a bad choice, but there might be interesting effects come 1821 and beyond).

History_Buff: Annoyingly most of the lands north of Bohemia already have their owners released, so I’d have to conquer it and then sell it on to whoever I want. That would be expensive in infamy. Or rather...it would be as things are right now...
Tjena Med Laxen: I wouldn’t underestimate Austria if I were you. The BWB has a surprise up its sleeve for us today.
morningSIDEr: Thanks!

Thanks for voting. A takes it, barely, but as it turns out I wasn’t quite able to get enough tech this update for the next NI slot. o I’ll take it next time (unless a particular choice is made coming up...)

Chapter Forty Four: Ehre zu die Revolution!

The war with Navarra was a relatively minor affair, only involving some skirmishes in the colonies but there was one unexpected event that took place.



A successful invasion of the Frisian homeland for the first time in a long while occurred as Brittany moved its armies through Normandy to attack from the south. The nearest Frisian armies were already marching towards Navarra itself to force a peace deal, so the Bretons were left to rampage for a while.

Despite their allies efforts the Navarrans were unable to resist a direct attack on their homeland and soon a peace deal was secured.



Navarra would give up its claims on Frisian colonies and pay reparations, to Friesland of course, for the unprovoked attack on Gujarat.

The war between Austria and Burgundy came to a surprising conclusion, as Austria eked out its revenge for Burgundy’s earlier victory.



France was resurrected, although it had none of its former glory and was little more than an Austrian puppet that would almost certainly be reabsorbed by Burgundy as soon as the Austrian support was cut off.

In the confusion of the last few wars with Austria and Navarra, little attention had been paid to a minor Mediterranean conflict that saw Aragon attempting to reassert itself as a player in the region by conquering the Kingdom of Sicily. A side effect of this war was the invasion and annexation of the city of Venice despite them being allies that Aragon had no real claim to.



As Emperor, Wiebe I could not just sit by while this was happening and declared war on Aragon to liberate Venice once again.

Aragon itself was a pushover, with Frisians marching into Iberia and Sienese forces invading their Italian lands they weren’t really able to put up any kind of fight. Venice was once again given independence and monetary aid that was extracted from the Aragonese coffers.



Portugal, Aragon’s ally, was more of a problem due to the long border they shared with Friesland in North America. A number of skirmishes between Frisian and Portuguese forces and the Army of Texas marching directly towards their Mexican capital were enough to convince them to sign a ceasefire.

As the years ticked down on the ceasefire between Friesland and Austria, the Noble’s Council came to a realisation. They had no reason to go to war with Austria now that they had ceased their espionage activity and the Imperial bureaucrats were pacified over the annexation of Baden. IF they wanted to save Baden, they would have to find a way to get a casus belli. It took some years of waiting, but eventually it came.



The confidence of the French was boosted by their Austrian backers and so they were more than happy to provoke Frisian border guards without fear of retaliation. The conflict escalated to tensions along the whole border, which would be more than enough reason for Frisian forces to move in.

Austria wasn’t the only nation with interests in protecting France however. Burgundy was in no mood to hand over more French-speaking lands to the Frisians and were willing to join Austria to do so.



With Friesland and Siena on one side and Austria and Burgundy on the other, the Empire was divided in half completely as it had been in centuries past. It was a sign of the times that it was not along religious lines as it had once been, but geopolitical lines as alliances were made in spite of conflicts of faith.

The natives of India took this as a chance to reclaim some of their lands.



As usual, they didn’t realise the fact that Frisian colonial armies were operated separately from those in the homeland so they remained at full strength. Further territorial concessions were secured in short order.

The new Frisian doctrine was plainly simple. The bulk of the enemy army was to be engaged and destroyed before a full invasion of their territory could take place. However, Burgundy’s focus was in the south against Siena so that couldn’t really apply to the western front. Frisian forces effectively ploughed straight through France and marched on Dijon.



After Friesland made peace with France without taking any territory, and in fact making them annul the ties with Austria that kept them safe, Burgundy was more than willing to sign a ceasefire as the main reason for them joining the war had turned out to not matter.

The diversion of forces to deal with France and Burgundy had put a major crimp in plans to engage and destroy the Austrian armies advancing on Friesland. To smoothen things out, Frisian forces withdrew to behind the lands of Wurzburg and seized parts of North Austria to give a more continuous frontline.



Without having to worry about being outflanked the Frisians began to engage the main Austrian forces wherever they could. Initial battles turned out surprisingly poorly, as large numbers of Austrian cavalry lead by skilled cavalry commanders were able to tear apart Frisian battle lines with shocking ease. It cost them significantly in casualties to do so though, and it quickly became clear that Friesland as Holy Roman Emperor could outlast the Austrians.

The main Austrian force invading Wurzburg retreated shortly after beating off a Frisian attack but taking heavy losses in the process. This was the perfect chance, and reserves moved up from inside Friesland to pursue the enemy into the heart of their territory. Doctrine or not, this chance could not be missed.



The Austrian army was destroyed, leaving the only major concentration of Austrian forces all the way north in Poland trying to catch the much more swiftly moving, due to it lacking cannon, Army of Oldenburg.

That victory was the end of all Austrian resistance south of Bohemia. With nothing to stop them, Frisian forces freely roamed the Austrian heartland conquering whatever they pleased whenever they pleased.



Vienna fell before the Austrian army in Poland had any chance to react and in an effort to save their own skins the Regency Council in charge their agreed to a humiliating peace treaty.



Baden was freed yet again, as was Hungary. Worst of all for the Austrians, the city of Potsdam was annexed into Greater Friesland. This had been the jewel of their northern territory, a grand design to see Austrian culture spread into the lands of northern Germany. Now it was nothing more than another piece of land lost to their arch-rival.

There was one man in particular who felt that the leaders of the country had gone too far this time. Giving up the last bit of dignity his country had in the whole North Austria debacle was the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused him to rise up in open revolt.



Rainer Hagedorn from Styria was a commander in the Austrian army with a whole legion of loyal soldiers at his back. He marched from his homeland towards Vienna with the intent of annihilating the council of nobility that was sitting in place of the young Princess Maria. However, before he could complete his quest he was met by a large force of loyalist Austrians, defeated in battle, and captured. With revolutionist sentiment spreading through the country, the council decided to throw him in the deepest dungeon of the capital and throw away the key rather than executing and making a martyr of him.

That did nothing to stop what was coming, for the revolutionaries were receiving funding from an unlikely source. The Common’s Council of Greater Friesland was eager to see Austria weakened by civil war, and was also interested in seeing if it was possible for such an entrenched monarchy as Austria’s to be replaced by a stable republican system. Without permission from the higher authorities they were covertly shifting funds from the military into Austria. With the wealth of Friesland at their backs the revolutionaries got bolder despite the confinement of their leader.



The constant upsurge of feelings from their population panicked the council, causing them to bypass all the laws they could to put Maria on the throne as quickly as possible to try and placate the rebels.

Of course, putting a teenage girl in charge of one of the greatest crises her country had faced was not exactly the best way to solve the problems. Queen Maria I had been raised from a very young age to deal with diplomatic and military matters, especially those relating the Friesland, and she was not nearly as skilled in dealing with the running of a country.



More than that, Maria was the latest in a long line of sovereigns descended directly from Koenraad the Reformer of Friesland. While this had not been a big issue in the past, as the Frisian branch of the Hesse-Kassels had died out long ago, in the upsurge of public anger there were open questions about whether the Queen and her regency council were actually secretly Frisian supporters.

The chaos in Austria continued for two years before it came to an inevitably bloody conclusion. A massive army of civilians stormed into Vienna and tore down the gates of the central prison, freeing Rainer Hagedorn from captivity. With this ragtag army at his back, Hagedorn marched on the royal palace and demanded to see the Queen.



Maria, being the naive young girl that she was, met with Hagedorn face to face to try and settle things. Naturally as soon as she made her appearance the revolutionaries moved in and arrested her. After a brief show trial she was executed along with the council of nobles that had raised her. With her death, the revolutionary army declared its victory and that from then on their nation would be the Free Republic of Austria.

The abrupt end of one of Europe’s oldest monarchies sent shockwaves throughout the continent. Wiebe I called an emergency meeting of the leaders of the Noble’s and Common’s Councils to discuss the situation, but his cabinet made no appearance at all. In a message to the meeting they made their position clear at last. For too long Greater Friesland had been dominated by the aristocracy and now it was time for the common people to rise up and take the nation for themselves, as the Austrians had done. Such an idea was abhorrent to Wiebe, and he declared he would stop at nothing until the revolutionary movement was crushed both at home and abroad. The Noble’s Council was not willing to dive into civil war so quickly and suggested taking things more slowly and seeing how the Austrian situation panned out before making such rash statements. Whoever came out on top in this struggle could determine the fate of all of Europe.

To be continued...

The fate of Friesland ultimately rests with the commander of the military. Whoever he backs will have the upper hand in any resulting conflict. Who does he side with?

Option A: The King: Massive revolutionary rebel uprising, take Revolution/Counter-Revolution idea (I didn’t quite get enough tech for the penultimate slot this update, so Espirit D’corps will wait for the final slot if this is chosen), stop at nothing to restore monarchy to Austria.
Option B: The Noble’s Council: Medium-sized revolutionary rebel uprising, only fight defensively against Austria, no other real effects. Safe but boring choice.
Option C: The Common’s Council: Massive loyalist rebel uprising, switch to Revolutionary Republic, ally with Austria against other monarchies.

Edit- I should probably add a bit of clarification to things. If A or C is picked then approximately half of European Greater Friesland will come under rebel control and I'll have to fight to secure that choice. If the headquarters of the loyalists/revolutionaries is occupied by the opposite then that side wins even if even you voted for the opposite (of course, since I'll be controlling the one you vote for then that isn't likely). Also I should mention that taking option C will effectively be the end of the Holy Roman Empire as its two largest powers will have abandoned it.

I have my last exams on Thursday, so I'll do all the event coding on Friday and I should have the next update up on Saturday.

World Update 1796:



Wierdness: Castille is in China and Bali of all countries has managed to conquer parts of New Guinea.