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Just stumbled upon the AAR today, I enjoyed it very much. Very nice narrative and you obviously build a whole universe on your own.

I am looking forward to the inevitable war against Japan, may it come sooner than later. And I would love to see a map or two!

A couple of questions:
- what exactly happened to New Zealand so you could diplo-annex it outright? I understood that GB had released a few years prior to this event.
- how do you manage to purchase Hong Kong? It that an event or a new feature in 1.4?
- are you altering the course of history in one way or another to suit the storyline (e.g. forcing wars, releasing states...) or is it all random gameplay?
 
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I think California should stay neutral, for a while. See how the war turns out, if the US starts losing, join the Central Powers and attack them and gain some land to the Californian homeland. If the Central Powers start losing, join the Allies and take some Pacific holdings.
 
Interesting development on the world stage and what a monumental composition of the two alliances! Other than that I can only lament the loss of Wilcox. The working people benefiting from the social reforms of the Socialists will sorely miss him.
 
I think California should stay neutral, for a while. See how the war turns out, if the US starts losing, join the Central Powers and attack them and gain some land to the Californian homeland. If the Central Powers start losing, join the Allies and take some Pacific holdings.
This seems like a sensible course of action - I would recommend this.
 
This seems like a sensible course of action - I would recommend this.

On the other hand, allowing the Japanese to take the Dutch East Indies would seriously upset the balance of power in the Pacific. If the Californians would help the Allies win the war, the Japanese expansion would be confined to the Pacific Rim (or just the Japanese homewaters if the Phillipines are taken from them)

I'd wait till there's a stalemate and see how the Allies are faring then. If they're being soundly beaten, don't join. If they're hanging in there, land the Californian marines on the beaches of Manila and Calcutta.
 
I'd love to see the USA given a piece of its own medicine; imperialism. However, California would probably be squashed in a land battle, unless the USA had already been downed by someone else.
 
My advice:

You should join the Allies to take revenge on the Japanese for invading and annexing the Philippine Republic(which we supported)
 
@Seek75: Hey. He was Conservative before he became a Progressive.

@Sakura_F: Possible.

@Mr. Santiago: Pretty much. Wilson is the harbinger for war.

@Veugdenmans: Thanks!

@King50000: The only good Red is a dead Red.

@Anjwalker: Damn. I thought I cought that misspelling.

@Riccardo93: Many thanks.

@CaptRobau: Pretty much correct. However, Canada is a Californian Ally, and is neutral at the moment.

@TKFS: Thanks!

@oberstbrooksy: Gotta love those Irish workers.

@gremlok: I wrote an event that New Zealand or Australia would as for annexation, with a low (around 40%) chance of them taking it, and New Zealand did, while Australia didn't. I went to war for Hong Kong, I just didn't include that in the AAR. Most of it is the real timeline, I only intervene sometimes.

@xHawkeyefan64x: It's all touch and go at the moment, I'll assess what side is doing better.

@Commandante: Well. The working people won't see another Wilcox for a long, long time.

@Anjwalker: My strength is in my Navy. I have the 4th Largest Navy in the World, but I am severely lacking in soldiers. There's no way I could take on the USA in a land battle alone.

@ChinpoUK: Thanks, it's coming soon.

@hoi2geek: Well. They annexed those islands from Spain. But nevertheless, It's a goal of mine to make them independent. Or annex them.

@Persigny: I'd rather not...

@Duke of Britain: That's what I will be taking.
 

Wilson: 1916 - 1921


As President Wilson took the reigns of the Californian Republic, the War in Europe seemed to endlessly drag on. President Wilson made it clear in his inaugural address, the Empire of the Pacific would stay at peace, and watch as the nations of Europe destroyed themselves. The Colossus to the East, made it clearly known that it would not ignore California if they went to war with the Allies, as elements of the United States Army showed up on the border of California. Nevertheless, President Wilson, by executive order, ordered that there shall be a general expansion of the Army and Navy, as a measure to protect the Californian Republic from any type of surprise attacks.

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1. Woodrow Wilson, Twelfth President of the Californian Republic.

Over in Europe, a massive assault into Northern France was undertaken by the German Empire, with the goal being the surrounding and capture of Paris. They surged through the French defenses along the Franco-German border, and were finally stopped at the Marne River, where the Germans took no time to settle into their new position and dig a system of trenches, and set up fortifications. The French, noticing their German adversaries digging in, took the same initiative and dug into the Earth. The summer of 1916 was marked by the general stalemate on the Western Front.

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2. German Soldiers preparing to assault the French lines during the Battle of the Marne.

Luckily for California, demand for military goods had been skyrocketing and some Manufactures realized they could use California's immense industry to produce the war goods needed. As a neutral nation, California created guns, ammunition, and even built ships for all belligerent nations. The Californians even built a ship for the German Empire the same time they were building a ship for Austria-Hungry. Both sides were launched on the same day, and when they had gotten out off the coast of California, they engaged in a battle where the Austrian ship was sunk. The Californians were accused of manufacturing a faulty ship, but they had produced the documents saying both ships were made exactly to specifications and standards.

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3. Schledt and Co. Steel Works manufacturing massive guns for Battleships.

As 1917 hit the world, a shocking piece of information hit the world, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the age old owners of the Dutch East Indies, had relinquished their claim to the islands, practically handing them over to the Japanese. The Dutch Government, when pressured why they did such a thing, admitted that there was no possible way, now and after the war, that they could maintain effective control over the islands. French and American leaders, shocked at this turn of events, reprehended them for their actions, suggesting that they could have sold the islands to the Californian Republic instead of handing them over to the enemy.

At the same moment, the Californians had been withdrawing their diplomats from the Dutch East Indies, recognizing it as Japanese-held now. Unfortunately for them, they were flying the flag of the Netherlands Governor-General as a final salute to the Dutch. The German Imperial Navy, operating out of British Ports in the Pacific and India, mistook these Californian ships as Dutch ships, and promptly set out to sink them. The Californians had no choice but to fire back, striking a few good blows on the German Navy before realizing that they were flying the Dutch Flag. They quickly lowered it, rose the Californian Flag and wired to the Germans that this was a Californian Ship. The Germans didn't believe them, and proceed to sink the small detachment of ships.

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4. The German Battleship SMS Kronprinz firing upon the Californian Navy.

The outrage in California was understandable. Neutral seamen from California's shores had been killed due to the barbaric Germans. President Wilson, with a keen head upon his soldiers, did his best to try and defuse the situation, determined to not be dragged into the war. After weaseling an apology out of the German Government, California would remain neutral for now, but they were decidedly anti-Central Powers. To try and calm the nation, President Wilson announced a new contest that would be held to replace the nation's national anthem with something more fitting. He outlined that it would have to be fitting to the country, and embody the spirit of the nation. The winning submission, named California, was done by a church choir in Northern California.

Well the seasons come and the seasons go,
Nothing ever stays the same......
There's one thing I know that will never change;
That's the love of the land from which I came.

California!, California!
With the waves upon your shoreline,
Will you call me home when my life is done,
To rest in your hills so fine....

From your rocky shore
To your forests green,
To your valleys deep and wide,
There's a light I see on the faces there,
And a spirit you just can't hide.

California!, California!
With the waves upon your shoreline,
Will you call me home when my life is done,
To rest in your hills so fine....

Many years have passed since I roamed the hills
In the golden glow of sunlight,
As the darkness falls around me now,
I love you with all my might!

California!, California!
With the waves upon your shoreline,
Will you call me home when my life is done,
To rest in your hills so fine....

5. The National Anthem of the Californian Republic, commissioned by President Wilson.

While Wilson felt this would calm the nation, all it did was fire them up more. With a national anthem, patriotism surged throughout the nation, as people gathered to put up flagpoles with the Californian Flag flying proudly in the air, while singing the Californian National Anthem. As a result of this, military membership shot up, as more and more people volunteered for service in the Armed Forces. Many went to the Navy, hoping they'd have a chance at destroying those "Damn Germans" on the high seas. The pro-peace Wilson agreed to expand the Army and Navy, but still emphatically stated that they would remain at peace.

Wilson's idealism did not last. The CMS Lusitania[1], a ship recently purchased from the White Star Line by the California Government, was on a scheduled run from San Francisco over to Hawaii and Guam. It was well known that this ship was carrying ammunition and supplies from the mainland to Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, as they naturally needed to be restocked and resupply every so often. The German and Japanese Navies took a preemptive measure to try and make sure that California would be knocked out in the Pacific. A previously secret part of the Japanese Navy, the German-built U-18 Submarine slid through the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean, patrolling and eventually seeking out the Lusitania off the coast of Hawaii. Firing two torpedoes, they exploded against the hull of the ship, ripping her open and causing her to capsize, flounder, and sink all in the span of half an hour.

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6. The CMS Lusitania after she was struck by a German torpedo.

President Wilson was furious at this new revelation. He demanded compensation and an apology. When Berlin and Tokyo would give him none, he issued an ultimatum. Any more attacks against the Californian Republic would result in outright warfare between the two nations. When information from Tokyo was released that the Titanic was sunk by the Japanese, in that same submarine, it finally pushed Wilson over the edge. On June 14th, 1917 he asked the Californian Congress permission to declare war upon the Central Powers. By a nearly unanimous vote, the Empire of the Pacific declared war on the Empire of Japan, the German Empire, the Russian Empire, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

The first set of attacks came on the Californian Far Western Territories. The Island of Boreno, which contained the Japanese East Indies and the Californian Republic, soon fell under the swift might of the Japanese Navy, as the small garrison of 3,000 men there were swamped by the surprise assault of Japanese soldiers. Not many people were expecting this to be a quick or easy war, but the Japanese made it seem like California was doomed in the Pacific.

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7. The Californian Garrison in Boreno trying to resist the Japanese Army.

As the nation geared up for war, fortifications were made around the country, the Pacific mostly, to try and stem the tide of the Japanese advance, as the nation go into gear. With the United States and California behind the War Effort, they would deliver a one-two punch in Europe and the Pacific respectively. The United States had just finished shipping a large amount of soldiers to the European front, in a bid to stop the Germans advance on Paris. The California Republic announced a huge draft in the mainland and in the Pacific to raise as many soldiers as they could for the war effort.

The first push by the Japanese was made on the island of Palau, where they wanted to capture the island and begin the conquest of the interior Pacific Islands. The Californians steadfastly resisted the attempts, and the Californian Marine Corps, 1st Division defended their position for three straight days without any relief before the Japanese finally cut their losses and retreated back to the Philippines.

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8. Californian Marines in Palau holding off a Japanese Assault.

Despite a few naval skirmishes, which the Californian Navy was victorious in most of them, the rest of 1917 was relatively quiet in the Pacific, with the Japanese taking total control of Boreno, but the Californian Marines holding their group on the islands and in Californian New Guinea. The real news, however, was in Europe. The German War Machine was beginning to wind down its effectiveness, as it found it increasingly more difficult to replace the lost soldiers in the army. The most surprising thing to happen was the collapse of Austria-Hungry. After years of fighting, and suffering losses from the Germans and Russians, the entire country collapsed into Civil War, with the Monarchists battling various separatist groups. On December 18th, 1917, the Austro-Hungarian Empire signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers, bringing it out of the war, as the country fell into a state of disarray.

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9. An Austo-Hungarian trench blown up by a mine, some of their last deaths in the Great War.

When 1918 started, many felt that the Germans could being to turn the tide, now that the Southern Front was finished. This was not the case, as war weary and tired Germans trudged to the front lines. The United States had just recently been able to throw its full wright behind the Allied War Machine, as the United Kingdom felt the pressure from the loss of American goods, as well as the French Navy destroying some of their fleet. The Surge of American manpower and materials into France drove the German back even more, pushing them out of Northern France and even into Germany in the Spring of 1918. On the Pacific Front, the Japanese did not make any new attempts at an invasion and President Wilson took the time to advocate for "Peace without Victory".

When the summer of 1918 came around, it was clear that the Central Powers could no longer hold up the pressure, and declared that they would be surrendering to the Allied Powers on July 18th, 1918. The formal surrender took place on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, 1918. The German High Command, and Kaiser Wilhelm II signed the Great War Armistice, and agreed to have all the belligerent powers meet in Paris, France to discuss the formal treaty to end the war.

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10. Delegates at the Paris Peace Conference of 1918-1919.

Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire had surrendered a year earlier, the successor states of Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia were invited to determine the final borders between their countries, also invited was the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which was created as a Union between Serbia and Montenegro, which annexed Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia from Austria, and the Kingdom of Romania, which took control of Eastern Hungary. At the meeting, President Wilson's message of "Peace without Victory" was quickly turned into "Victory with Spoils". The leaders of the United States, France, and Italy all conspired with each other to punish the Central Powers in anyway possible. Carving up Europe, they shred land away from Hungary and Austria, adding it to Yugoslavia and Romania permanently. They moved to Eastern Europe, where they broke away Byelorussia away from the Russian Empire. They also carved the independent nation of Poland out of Germany, Russia, and Ukraine. In an effort to make sure Germany did not rise once again, a puppet state along the Western Border of the Rhine River was created and placed under French command. Finland and Georgia were also ripped away from the Russian Empire. The hardest hit in this conference was the British Empire, where they were stripped of all of their overseas possessions, India included, and forced to control just their home islands. India, originally designed to go under joint Italian-French rule, was made an independent nation after a massive revolt hit the sub-continent.

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11. The Map of Europe, as redrawn by the Paris Peace Conference.

With the treaty finalized, the Central Powers had no choice but to agree as if they didn't, they had to willpower to fight on. Germany was torn apart, the British Empire was ended, and the Balkans became slightly united. The Treaty of Versailles was a resounding kick in the face to President Wilson and California, who saw no provisions at all for the return of land occupied by the Japanese, or even for the independence of Manchuria, Formosa, the Philippines, or the East Indies. Unable to carry on a fight alone against the Central Powers, the Californian Republic signed away its rights to the island of Borneo. Many people were upset by this turn of events, and still they grew even more fearful of the powerful Greater Japanese Empire, which had just annexed all of the Dutch East Indies, and could only now grow in power.

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12. The area that the Japanese Empire and the Californian Republic occupy in the Pacific.

With the war over, a silent calm fell over Europe and the world. All of the former Central Powers' economies collapsed under the burden of a loss, and it sent the world economy into a downturn. Even effected from this was France, the nation best expected to weather the financial storm. The balance of monetary power soon shifted to the United States, Canada, and the Californian Republic, the three most stable nations in the Americas. Yielding this new power, California soon let loose a massive amount of money towards Anti-Japanese guerrillas in the land they were occupying, while the United States threw its weight behind the United Kingdom and the Weimar Republic to try and make sure they did not collapse any further.

Despite the general economic downturn across the globe, the Californian Republic entered into a period of general stability, and economic growth. As the Japanese Empire slowly allowed Californian refugees from Borneo settle back on the mainland, the whole fiasco involving that island seemed to die down, as not many people seemed to care about holding on to a worthless piece of land anyway.

When 1920 rounded the corner, the Californian Census Department released its results. A modest growth of 800,000 citizens, below the average, but they also had to take into account the loss of Borneo, which skewered the overall growth rate. A surprising trend was the deadlock between the Conservatives and the Socialists, both of whom commanded a very hefty share of the polls. An election could go either way should a competitive race come along.

cali5.png

13. Population Statistics of the Californian Republic, 1920.

With knowledge of the bitter divide, the Californian Conservative Party did not renominate President Wilson for a second term, knowing that they would crash and burn at the polls if they brought up an Anti-War President who led the nation into war. Instead they settled on little known Northern Californian Senator Richard Dawes, a stalwart Conservative who was looking to bring much needed reform to the Government, and even the very structure of the nation. The Socialists, thinking this was their best chance to get one of their own into the White House again, nominated the moderate Harold Taylor, a well known and respected Californian statesman who wasn't even a registered Socialist. He campaigned to the right of the official party line, hoping to attract both Conservatives and Moderates to his socialist camp.

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14. Harold Taylor, the well known and respected Socialist Candidate for President of the Californian Republic.

Mr. Taylor's plot did not work, as on election day it became clear that Senator Dawes walked away with the victory, where the Socialist vote was split three ways, one for Dawes, one for Taylor, and one for the Communist candidate Congressmen Daniel Hanna. Although he did not give an acceptance speech, President-elect Dawes went on national radio to deliver a short address to the nation, where he made the case for his new "California Plan" which was supposed to make the government more efficient in what it does. From this point on, Dawes would work tirelessly towards getting the Constitutional Convention he thought California deserved.

Previous Update: Wilcox: 1911-1916
Next Update: Dawes: 1921 - 1926

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Author's Note(s)
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[1] - CMS stands for Californian Mail Steamer

[*] - World War I simply sucked. Everyone kept WPing out so as soon as I joined against Japan, it was only about two months before the entire War was over. I kept it going for as long as I could.

 
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Revenge. Now.
 
Now, the Central Powers were really clumsy with their operation, I mean, they practically draged California into war.

That's an awesome map of post-war Europe, there's even Danzing there!.... *keep staring at Poland*

Anyhow, the Japanese menace in the Pacific has to be dealt with