Albania Finds its Place in the World

Thanks! My literacy is a result of early research into educational techs (Albanian POPs start out with 10% literacy, as secondary POPs - which is fortunate, since the Turkish POPs, which are the primary culture in the Ottoman Empire, start out with 4% literacy...) and a reluctance to accept colonies as states until they have built up a significant literate population. Albania may well be the most conservative land in Europe and we take that spirit to the people under our protection (it really helps that public meetings are not allowed. This must be my first Vic2 game where consciousness has not been steadily increasing throughout the game, and I passed the 'horror decades' of the late 19th century without a single revolt).

For the next update I promise even more reaction - on multiple levels!

Chapter VII

In July of 1910 the Persian government was overthrown by anarcho-liberals. When its truce expired, Russia made no move against it. That only made Albania more nervous.

Certain that Russia was up to something sneaky, and seeing that Persia was by now a failed state, king Skanderbeg II ordered Albanian troops into Persia again in February 1911. The occupation was uncontested, and in September of that year Albanian Persia stood greatly enlarged.



It was hoped that the mountains of central Persia would offer good defensive positions against Russian attacks and also that if Russia were to annex what remained of Persia around Tehran, a new Persia could be created by Albania in the south, as a satellite.

After that action, the king (who was getting rather old and was easily amused by curiosities) agreed to an expedition to colonize the exotic Cocos and Christmas Islands, in the East Indies. They would serve mostly as a prestige colonization, in balance with the Albanian West Indies.



In 1912 a strange thing happened. The conservative Pasha Faction, which had managed the country for many decades, was dissolved leaving no new conservative political formation in its place. In that vacuum, the Radical Party somehow wound up in office, even though anarcho-liberals are anathema to absolute monarchies.



That was soon rectified, with the establishment of the reactionary League of Pirzen as Albania’s new ruling party. The anarcho-liberal politicians were rewarded for their days of service to the state with free lodging in Tirana Prison at the king’s bequest.

Meanwhile, in the big boys’ club, the great powers had paired off in couples. Albania’s protector, Italy, along with Prussia made the weakest couple in industry and prestige but not in military strength, being more formidable than the USA and Colombia. But the latter were on their own continents, so they needed to spend less on defence.



In Arabia and Persia, the battlefield between Albania and Russia, the King gave his blessing for the creation of indigenous armies, which would form the core of the armed forces of their respective nations upon eventual independence – the Arab Legion and the Persian Legion. Starting at just 2 brigades each in 1912, their ranks were expected to swell in later years.



In July of that same year, Prussia formed the North German Federation. Suddenly, the Italian-Prussian alliance no longer seemed so weak…



The following year was largely uneventful. In April 1914 bolt action rifles were introduced to Albania, and new uniforms were issued to the troops to go along with them. In May 1914 Russia was shaken by a massive communist revolution. St. Petersburg was, at one point, coming under siege, but it was relieved by the army before the rebels could succeed. Still, much of the empire came under communist rebel control, and it would take years for the Russian army (recently 100-brigade strong) to reassert the Tsar’s authority everywhere.

In August 1914 Spain succumbed to its own communist revolution, dropping out of its alliance with Albania in the process. Fortunately, on that same day the Portuguese ambassador, worried at the developments in Iberia, asked for Albania’s alliance.



In September 1914 it was noticed that Russian troops stationed in Nejd were wearing new uniforms. It was correctly reasoned that bolt action rifles had come in the same package.

Finally, in February 1918, the old king decided to take a gamble. Russia’s southern states were still occupied by rebels and the Albanian standing army was more than half as big as the Russian one (down to 95 brigades by then) – good odds for a provincial conflict where Albanians hoped to mostly defend. The only risk was that Russia would call its allies, and in particular France, in which case an appeal to French humanism could secure a quick white peace for a decent drop in prestige. But Albania would not call its own allies and Russia would appear weak if it did so unilaterally. In any case, war was declared on Russia to liberate Nedj on February 28, 1916. The die was cast.

As it turned out, not only did Russia not call the nations in its sphere of influence (i.e. Sweden and Japan) but France broke its alliance, rather than come to Russia’s aid. It was an auspicious start, and without Italy as alliance leader Albania could hope to make real gains in Arabia.

The Persian Legion, strengthened to 7 brigades by the start of the war, led the attack on the north-west.



Many Russian brigades, scattered to besiege rebel strongholds across the land, were destroyed in detail as larger Russian armies began to gradually arrive from the north. At the end of the first year of the war, Albanian armies had achieved total success in the north-west, had occupied territory in the north-east, were in control of most of Russian Nejd and were engaging the Russians in the center, along the Zagros mountain chain.



The operations had been made complicated by a small communist revolution, centered in Karachi, and the arrival of Russian ships from the east, even as Albanian monitors kept their Black Sea squadrons at bay. At that point there were hopes of adding the rest of Nejd to the wargoals, so the whole country would be liberated and the Russans expelled from the Persian Gulf. However, while the Russians appeared prepared to part with the southern, Riyadh region, they were not prepared to give up the fight. They mobilized their reserves, bringing their brigade count up to over 330, and started to swarm Persia. Albania had its own reserves, almost 40 brigades, but the actions of Russian Far East squadrons made the sea lanes dangerous to travel and Albanian fleets were overstretched. There was little chance of getting enough reinforcements to balance out the Russians, who were pushing back the Albanian divisions with sheer numbers.

Faced with this predicament, there was a change of plans. The previous wargoal was dropped, in favour of annexing Riyadh Region. A fully independent Nejd could prove a liability with Russians bordering it, asserting influence. However, an Albanian satellite would be more reliable, and the rest of its territory could be added to it with a liberation in some later war. The Russians agreed to the new terms, and the war ended on March 8, 1917, a year and ten days after its start.



Riyadh region had been turned by the Russians into a state, with about 40,000 craftsmen working in its three factories. The Russians made up 63% of its population but many Bedouins remained, and they could be expected to take over the reins of government, which they did within days.



Disappointingly, even though Nejd inherited a solid industrial base and the know-how to operate it, the Bedouins preferred to return to their tents and their old ways, and saw to it that even the Russians couldn’t find work in the factories. They were all demolished in a quite uncivilized manner.



As for Albania, the failure to attain a wargoal not only added unnecessary infamy but also militancy among the population. It was said that there was enough support even for political reform! Of course, the king would have none of that, even though he was no longer in the best of health and it was said that his mental faculties had been deteriorating recently.

There were bread riots in June 1917, and the government responded with apathy. It would take more than a few protesters to change the system.



The monarchy would stand absolute.

I'll do you one better. Here's North and South America, in 1917:





In the north, we see the USA gradually expanding to its present-day size, while the CSA has dwindled into two tiny disconnected parts. It is a dysfunctional proletarian dictatorship, as is the Manhattan Commune, while the USA remains a democracy.

In the south, we see Colombia has made some territorial gain from Peru, but otherwise its great score is mostly due to prodigious industrialization. Bolivia, after a very shaky start, has taken much land from Argentina, as have Chile and Brazil. Argentina is now similar in size and power to Uruguay, while Paraguay has taken a piece of the Argentinean pie, doubling its territory (after some early losses of its own) in a most unusual configuration. Despite Colombia's great power status, that came too late to prevent the USA from constructing the Panama Canal first, so Balboa is now US territory.

That's rebels, possibly spilled over from Brazil. Nothing Colombia can't easily take care of.

The map is odd. I've seen Chile and Brazil take territory from Argentina before, but never to this extent and never with Bolivia expanding like that. The USA will fight Mexico for those last core territories soon.

Chapter VIII

In 1918 a dried up old traveler returned from the wilderness just outside Tirana and announced that he had found “oil, oil – an ocean of oil!”



Such was the jubilation at the capital, which was discovering new sources of pollution and quality of life diminishment by the day, that king Skanderbeg II proclaimed the statehood of Asmara, a region long since proven loyal and industrious.



Far away, on the other side of the Indian Ocean, the colony on Christmas and Cocos Islands was finally set up.



The population of the islands was small, a mere 354 souls in June 1918, counting colonists, but a national focus was placed on attracting immigrants there; not that Albanians living in smoggy Tirana would need much incentive to move to a tropical island.

Finally, in November of that year Albanian Africa enlarged its possessions, by taking in Kenya. A further, gradual expansion towards the Rift Valley was planned, but it wouldn’t change the border much. Albanian Africa was reaching its full extent.



As the years of peace went on, news came from Japan that it restored its imperial rule, after centuries of the shogunate. The country would now fully embrace western ways and, with its large military and potential for industrialization, could be a formidable presence in the world. Fortunately, although it was allied with Russia it was far enough from Albania and the Middle East to warrant little worry.

China was less successful in its progress, going through the Boxer Rebellion in 1920. But on that same year, another Albanian colony was granted statehood, Matamma Region.



1921 saw the commencement of a great war in America, which pitted the USA against Colombia, Mexico and the CSA. Despite Mexico’s alliance with a great power, the USA got the upper hand after the first months of action, and it appeared that it would take Oklahoma from Mexico, if not Texas as well. But Albanian interest in that direction was faint, since bigger events were brewing closer at home.

Russia, after her defeat in the last war, had lost the initiative in the Middle East. Its standing army was down to 75 brigades, compared to 63 for Albania. It had no greater power allied to it, and all the nations in its sphere of influence were distant and unlikely to be called, if the last war was any indication. For years, plans were drawn up and supplies were gathered for the war that would see Russia permanently expunged from the Persian Gulf. The start of the war was planned for March 1922, with the enthusiastic, if not quite lucid, approval of the king. Age had taken its toll on the old monarch, and Albanian generals had already taken to briefing his son and heir directly. The younger Skanderbeg lacked his father’s strict moral conviction, but he could still see the way the wind was blowing and that the war was inevitable, so elected to make a show of leading it.

In March, the armies of Albania gathered into position. As the Duress Monitors and the Adriatic Fleet sailed to the Aegean Sea to block off the Russian navy, the transport fleets ferried the remaining armies to the front, where the first wave awaited the order to attack.




(Addendum: In late 1910, a new infantry division was formed, the 6th Division ‘Ali Pasha’. Although it fought with valour in the previous war it somehow escaped mention then.)

Ah yes, the G8 have built up a seemingly unbridgeable gap in industrial score between them and the secondary powers, it's about an order of magnitude in difference. But Russia is about to face its biggest military challenge with the Albanian invasion.

I'm very happy with the way 'Albanian Africa' came out on the map, although the only reason I colonized Waw was for the timber (my only source of it), so it was a serendipitous result.

Chapter IX

The first battles of the war were in the Sea of Marmara and later in the Aegean Sea, where the Albanian Navy struggled to contain an immense Russian commerce raider fleet. The four Albanian monitors were at some point joined by two ironclads and eight commerce raiders, but it was a losing battle, that served mainly as a delay tactic.



Meanwhile, in Persia, lack of any Russian border troops meant that the invading Albanians could choose their ground unhindered, to await the enemy counterattack. When that happened, it was in mountainous Arak, and as the Russians brought in reinforcements in desperate attempts to overcome the Albanian rotating defence forces, the latter maneuvered to cut off the former from retreat.



When the battle ended, in September 1922, the Russians had over 42,000 killed and 125,000 taken prisoner. Albanian casualties were just over 26,000.



It was a crushing defeat for the Russian army, since its brigade count dropped from 82 to 12. Within a month, all Russian military resistance was eradicated from south-west Asia. But then Russia mobilized its reserves, bringing its brigade count up to 356 for the next stage of the war. The Albanian government was slow to respond to that, partially because the Russian fleet had broken its containment, making the movement of troops east problematic and partially because Skandergeb II didn’t want to turn this into some kind of ‘people’s war’. However, the latter died of old age at the end of the year, and his successor, Skanderbeg III, ordered a full mobilization in January, just as the Russian hordes were pushing back the Albanian gains by sheer numbers.



The war in Persia evolved into two mega-battles, where the Albanians defended in much the same way as they had in Arak, this time in Kermanshah and Hamadan. The conscripts from India and Africa arrived by sea and managed to stem defeat, which seemed imminent in both cases, but could not achieve victory. Then, after a chance conversation with the Ottoman ambassador, the king discovered that the Ottomans had not cancelled Albania’s military access, as they had without warning in the middle of the previous war. That came as a pleasant surprise, and the Albanian conscripts, over 70,000 men, marched across the Ottoman lands in three groups, reaching the battlefield in April.



During the course of their march, the third group was redirected to the Ukraine, to create a second front with the Russian Empire. They soon drew in a large number of Russian brigades, brigades that would be missed on the Persian front.



On May 29, 1923, the Battle of Kermanshah was won, crushingly. The Russians had over 28,000 dead and over 98,000 prisoners, with their brigade count dropping from 356 to 291.



In Odessa, the 27,000 Albanian conscripts, well led by a good general, had pinned down over 100,000 Russians, whose badly coordinated attacks left them in retreat, after many casualties.



They would attack again, without any luck as Odessa fell to the Albanian troops, but meanwhile, in Persia, the Battle of Hamadan still raged, until the Russians were forced to surrender in late August. That was the biggest battle of the war, and saw over 320,000 Russians killed or captured, bringing their brigade count further down to 151. Albanian casualties were also high, at over 48,000 dead, but compared to the crippling blow Russia had been dealt, they were light.



During the following months, the remainder of the Russian army in Persia was engaged in similar battles, with the Albanians often being on the offensive. After the Battle of Dezful, the Russians were left with 60 brigades. After Sahandaj they had 49. In Odessa, they had lost almost 100,000 men trying to dislodge the Albanians from their defensive positions.



Finally, on January 9, 1924, the Tsar agreed to the Albanian terms: the liberation of Kaf Region (the northern part of the lands of Nejd) and the ceding of Isfahan Region to Albania. It was done. The blood toll had been high but the Russians had been completely expelled from the Persian Gulf. After mutual demobilization, the Russian standing army was a mere 7 brigades…



In March, the Arab Legion returned to Mecca in triumph, and Skanderbeg III rewarded its loyalty and that of the people of Hedjaz for the past 30 years by proclaiming their independence, as an Albanian dominion.



On that same day, Werder Region was granted statehood. It had contributed many brave soldiers to Albania’s wars, and had become integrated enough to deserve that privilege.

In our first battles I had noticed that I was about 10 points ahead in organization, but I haven't checked it recently. I know we both got bolt action rifles at around the same time, but I'm unsure what other technologies they have. But they seem to have neglected their naval techs (commerce raiders and level 1 ports in the 1920s), so they must be spending their RPs elsewhere. That said, the outcome of the battles was largely due to terrain, rotating armies, good generals (whom I sometimes left in the battle even though their army was without organization, purely for the defense rating) and, of course, envelopment, the mass killer of brigades (though in Odessa the Russians managed to lose 100,000 men purely through repeated attacks - and they only got a general there when it was too late to save the situation).

Thanks! I'll post pictures of Africa in the next update. Suffice it to say it's a close race between the UK and France, with each trying to cut the other off, resulting in some strange borders at times. I won't be going for Panjab, but expect some more expansion in that area. Linking my regions would necessitate war with the Ottoman Empire,which not only goes against my RP but also against my sense of self-preservation, since they're in France's SOI (and France has dreadnoughts), so I don't see Albania doing it. I didn't check up on the damage done to Russian industry, but it must have hurt them at least a bit. They lost a lot of conscripts. The Persian Question will be the focus of the next years, since I now border fascist Tehran and the Persian Legion has fought just as hard (and in much greater numbers) as the Arab Legion, so they'll be wanting unification and self-rule.

By the way, I noticed in Wikipedia that today is Albania's 'Liberation Day', the anniversary of the day when the Germans pulled out of the country in 29-11-1944. Yesterday was its Independence Day, the anniversary of the day it declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 28-11-1912. Let's hear it for the little country that in this AAR proved that it could (although in real life ended up a secluded Maoist regime)!