The Gate to the East: Byzantium Rising

Morrell8: Don't be hatin' on them liberals now. At least the future King of Greece (or Byzantine Emperor!) will actually have some Greek blood in him.

Enewald: Eh, I wish. Next update will cover the way, it won't be what you expect.

Artemetis: Thanks for the support man, and all of you for still reading this. I'd like to get back into a more regular update schedule, and with Columbus Day weekend upon us, I might be able to get another update in either today or tomorrow. Honestly, for the Austrians, I have no idea. I have a whopping 8.54 badboy.

4th Dimension: Amen.

PrawnStar: Well honestly, Ethiopia may or may not go one way. Oh, the border situation isn't too bad, next update will cover the war. Oh, I'd just like to mention, I loved your Iroquois AAR.

ALSO, I need all your opinions. I'm considering writing an offshoot of the Dutch Letter event for Japan, only for Ethiopia, basically surmising a huge amount of Greek investment in the country, getting it "civilized", and providing a half-decent permanent ally that's actually capable of doing anything. Is that too gamey for you readAAR's?

Anyway, thanks for reading, hope to get another update up soon.

Well, for anyone who is still interested, this isn't dead. I'm just a bit busy atm. I'd really, really love to get this going, and I've got the next update covering the war planned out. So, you know. Maybe. :3

Anyway, for everyone's viewing pleasure, a political map of the world before the Transylvanian War:



It seems to have been resized, I don't know if I can fix that. Meh. D: If you'd like to see the slightly larger original size, there is a direct link as always in the Table of Contents.

Oh. Crap. Italy hasn't unified yet either. Woopsies.

The Transylvanian War

Excerpt from The Wars that Forged an Empire by Prof. Brian Maddow:

The Transylvanian War, as it is known to history, (according to most historians of the period) has the distinction of being the worst timed conflict in modern European history. At least on the part of Emperor Franz Joseph. If one is to single down the collapse of the extremely short lived Austrian-Hungarian Empire down to one single event (although there were many), it is generally considered to be this insanely one-sided conflict. The final push for Italian unification can also be traced directly to the outcome of this conflict.

The decision of Austria-Hungary and the Two Sicilies to jointly declare war on the Kingdom of Greece on June 23rd, 1879, at first look might appear to be an insane decision. And, as history shows us, it was. However, Franz Joseph engineered the war in a way that he thought would force the other great powers of Europe to intervene on his behalf. For the past four years, the Russian Empire had been constructing a string of fortifications on their border in Galicia, a move which Austria clearly saw as an antagonistic move. His reasoning, was if he attacked smaller Greece on the basis of punishing an "upstart Russian puppet playing a Great Power", he would garner the support of Great Britain. This assumption proved correct. He also assumed (again correctly), that Russia would defend Greece, due to the military treaty between the two nations. He gambled that with a Russian declaration of war against his empire, the diplomatic scales among the other great powers would inevitably be tipped towards his cause, see the ending of the war as yet another victory for the already too-powerful and too-victorious Russians (due to the wall of fortifications the Russians had built, the Austrians had no intention of advancing into Russian territory. The Russians would have to invade the Austrian lands, which would be seen by many as unnecessarily drastic), and intervene on the side of the Austrians and Sicilians. All the Austro-Hungarians had to do was stall and bide for time until the other three Great Powers acted. What he did not gamble on however, was the current political situation in the world.

The United Kingdom, at the time of Franz Joseph's declaration of war were far too occupied to begin even thinking of lending any sizable military force to support the Austrians. Three years previous, the Dominion of Canada had been officially established, and any regulars in British North America were being relied on heavily for a smooth transition of power. Colonial rule in India was also being reorganized finally (as a direct result pf the Indian rebellions of the 1860's) into the British Raj, which also tied up a large number of both regular and colonial Army units. The recent bribe sent to London from Athens in the form of the recent Greek sale of the Sudan also tied up a number of troops establishing Imperial rule. And last, and most important of all, the Austrian Emperor's moment of choice for the starting of a war coincided directly with the messy situation in Mexico, where British soldiers where still fighting a full on war with the Mexican government over unpaid debts, which was not going at all well. All Benjamin Disraeli could do was loudly protest the Russian interference, and send a letter to Franz Joseph describing his full support, but inability to do anything to help. It is recorded that of hearing of the Austrians' actions, he sighed heavily, and said to his aid; "The good Emperor must want to hand Alexander the keys to Vienna...".

The other two major European powers, France and Germany, were also indisposed at the time. Since 1866, German settlers and soldiers had been moving inland from trading posts and forts along the west African coast, directly south of French Morocco. Paris considered this a direct threat to their continued expansion in Africa, and a blatant intrusion into an area of the world they saw as solidly part of their sphere of influence. The French demanded the Germans leave the area, and surrender their posts to French colonial forces. Bismark, although no enthusiastic fan of African colonialism, took it as a point of German honor. In layman's terms, the response to the French ultimatum was something along the lines of "shove off". The French promptly moved colonial troops southward from Morocco and began to seize German outposts on the coast. By the time of Franz Joseph's declaration of war, the French and Germans where both shipping large detachments of troops to Africa, and dueling on the high seas. Although both Paris and Berlin where rather sympathetic to Vienna's situation, they both remained neutral, decided if one of them moved to join a full blown war in eastern Europe, the other power would take advantage of it, and break the uneasy truce in Alsace-Lorraine. By the middle of August, 1879, it was blatantly clear that Franz Joseph's gamble had failed catastrophically, and Austria-Hungary was basically alone against the might of the entire Russian army.

By New Years Day, 1880, Austrian defenses on the Russian border had buckled, and most of Slovakia was under Russian control. However, the Austrian forces in the south had managed to take advantage of the situation there. Since the recent conflict with Egypt and Ethiopia, most of the regular Greek Army had been in Africa, and because the Suez Canal had not yet been completed, and British forces in the Sudan had been ordered not to let Greek military forces pass, it took months to ship all the troops in Africa around the Cape of Good Hope, back to Greece. Luckily, the Greek military was not stupid. The northern border with both the Ottomans and the Austrians was garrisoned, albeit rather thinly. Garrisons near the Ottoman border where stripped to the bone and shipped via railroad in all haste to reinforce the Greek forces in and around Montenegro. They arrived just in time to see the small force defending the city be routed and sent running by the three Austrian divisions. Three days later, the reorganized Hellenes managed to push the Austrians back across the border, with heavy cost to both sides. Both sides began to dig in, and except for the occasional duel of artillery, the Greek front remained quiet for the remainder of the war.

On February 25th, the Hellenic Navy left port and sailed towards the city of Tunis. On the 28th, they picked up the city's garrison, some 12,000 strong colonial troops under the command of Colonel Michael Giannopoulas, and turned towards Sicily. The Sicilian Navy managed to intercept the Greeks before they reached the island, and engaged the Greeks in a brief naval battle. By the end of the day, the Sicilians retreated back to the far side of the island, managing to sink the Greek frigate Ludivikos, but not before Paparigas repaid them in turn, sending four Italian frigates to the bottom. The first Greek troops landed in Syracuse on the 30th, facing only the light resistance of civilian militia. The city was secured within days, and the entire island by the end of February. Yet again, "inferior" colonial troops had shown their effectiveness and loyalty in combat.

In the north, things were progressing rather badly for the Austrians just as much as it was for the Italians in the south. The Russian 6th Army, numbering some 120,000 strong had begun the siege of Buda-Pest on the 25th of February, outnumbering the badly supplied defenders more then four to one. The Hungarians surrendered on June 13th, only seven days before the Russians reached Prague. As Austrian resistance collapsed on all fronts, the Russian juggernaut's advance was only checked by the slow speed of the supply train behind the armies. The Venetians even smelled blood in the water, and moved their small military to occupy Tyrol and Trieste, ethnic Italian lands right over the border. By the first week of July, about 80,000 Russians had reached the gates of Vienna. On the 14th, Great Britain, France, and Germany (the later two where still technically in a state of war) seeing the Russian tricolor farther west then it had ever flown before, mutually agreed that the situation was no longer acceptable, issued a joint proclamation, declaring that if a ceasefire was not enacted immediately, all three Great Powers would intervene militarily against Russia. Alexander II was not a fool, and saw the writing on the wall. He relented, and ordered his forces to halt their advance. The guns finally fell silent on July 21st, 1880.

Although the Transylvanian War lasted only eleven months, and was completely one-sided from the beginning, it was still bloody. Although heavily outnumbered and outgunned, the Austrians put up a tough fight, at least in the beginning. Russian casualties numbered about 65,000 killed, wounded, or missing, compared to 34,878 on the Austrian side. Sicilian and Greek casualties were almost negligible, amounting to barely over 1,000 on each side. The war also proved the compromise of 1866, which formed the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, was badly designed, and although barely a decade old, was already defunct. Something new had to be designed, to keep the fractured Empire together. However, many of the men sent to Munich in August of 1880 thought it best if the Austrian Empire ceased to exist completely.

When the Munich Conference opened August 21st, representatives from Great Britain, France, Germany, Venice, the Two Sicilies, Greece, Russia, and Austria-Hungary were present. The initial discussion focused around whether the Empire would continue to exist at all, or be broken up into many smaller countries revolving around the many ethnicity in the area. Germany and Russia were the main proponents of carving up the Empire, were Britain and France were opposed. Splitting the country up into a number of small states would undoubtedly land them in Germany or Russia's direct sphere of influence, which neither France nor the United Kingdom wanted. Of course, this was the main reason why the other two Great Powers argued for the dismemberment. The Venetians maintained they had the right to remain in control of the lands they had seized, due to them being majority Italian. The Sicilians just wanted to put the war behind them, and were not very active for most of the conference. Within the first month of talks, the bickering amongst the four Great Powers almost sparked a full blown war between Russia and Germany, and France and Britain, all the while a broken Franz Joseph sat watching his Empire crumble around him.

However, on the first of September, Geórgios Karamanlís, the Prime Minister of Greece, came forward with a compromise proposal. Austria would be reformed into a federal kingdom, with it's internal states broken down along ethnic lines, which should help to eliminate the sever internal unrest among the non German or Hungarian peoples of the Empire. Each state would have enough autonomy to run it's own internal affairs, while the overall running of the country (especially foreign and military matters) be left to a central government centered in Vienna. Each internal state would be left to it's own devices on how to organize itself politically, but would have to have some sort of elected representative government, preferably by universal male suffrage. Each state would also send representatives to a federal parliament in Vienna, organized along the Westminster model. An upper house, directly appointed by the state governments, and a lower house, directly elected based on population.

The proposal, dubbed the "Athens Plan" received mixed reactions. It was instantly supported by the Venetians and the French, both of whom practiced at least some form of universal suffrage. The British received it more coolly, by still thought it acceptable, due to their long history of representative government. However, the Tory government in London was put off by the suggestion of universal suffrage. However, in the 1881 general elections, the Conservative Disraeli was replaced by the Liberal William Gladstone, who himself began a movement to widen suffrage at home. Once the British threw their weight behind the proposal, it became harder and harder for the Germans and Russians to protest against it. Both still supported carving up the Empire, but were beginning to falter. The Russian diplomats put forth that they would give up their claim to directly annexing Slovakia if the ethnic Romanian lands at the edge of the Hapsburg lands would be ceded to the Kingdom of Romania. Although hesitant at first, most of the parties found this an acceptable compromise, and even a blessing, as it would eliminate one of the many minorities that would have to be incorporated into the newly reorganized country. Finding themselves outnumbered and isolated, the Germans relented, and the treaty was signed on October 12, 1880.

The provisions of the Treaty of Munich were as follows:

• The Austrian-Hungarian Empire would cease to exist as a political entity.
• The former Empire would be reorganized into a federal constitutional monarchy, split up into eight constituent States along ethnic lines.
• Each State would have internal autonomy in most cases, but have no control over the Kingdom's overall foreign agenda or military affairs.
• Each State is required to send three representatives to the upper house of parliament. These representatives would be nominated by the State governments.
• Representatives from each State will be sent to the lower house of parliament, based on population. Each state is at liberty on how to elect these representatives.
• The seat of the national government will be at Vienna, with German and Hungarian being the only two official national languages used for administration.
• Franz Joseph would abdicate the throne of the Empire, and renounce all claims to it. His brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig would succeed him, as King of Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and Moravia, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Vojvodina.
• The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies will pay war indemnities to the Kingdom of Greece, and will retain complete territorial integrity.

The war, and the treaty had some interesting effects, both in the short term and long term. First of all, the war humiliated the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the eyes of the other Italian states. Their navy was gutted from combat with the Greeks, and they where unable to defend Sicily itself from invasion and occupation. Naples' humiliation furthered Italian nationalism among the general populace of the peninsula. Barely four months after the signing of the Munich Treaty, Sardinia-Piedmont yet again launched another attempted war of unification against the south, unmolested by outside interference.

Although not mandated by the Munich council (much to the dismay of the Greeks), universal male suffrage was not instituted throughout the new Greater Austria, at least not at first. The constitution of the new kingdom left complete control over suffrage to the individual State governments. It was not until March 1882 that documents from the discussions at Munich were leaked to major newspapers throughout Austria that universal male suffrage had been on the table, but the local elites had neglected to institute it. The articles spread fast enough that it became impossible for the various state governments to censor it before popular upheaval grew to such a point that it became almost suicide for government officials not to institute new voting laws. Over the course of the next two years, each State expanded the suffrage laws one by one to all adult males twenty-one years of age or older. The Hungarians were the last to cede to their people's demands, and changed the laws on November 8, 1884. In 1978, documents were finally released to the public that proved that the information leak of 1882 to the Austrian press was under the direct orders of the Greek government in Athens.

In the long term, the hastily organized change from an autocratic absolute monarchy to a largely democratic constitutional monarchy in Austria changed the political tune of central and eastern Europe. Germany and Russia were still largely autocratic regimes. Alexander II had begun the gradual process of reform, and encouraged by the relative success of the new Austria, continued his reforms into the 1890's [1]. Bismark, who was naturally distrustful of "mob rule" continued to resist any forms of liberalization of the German Empire, but the trend continued anyway. With two republics on it's border, the Kingdom of Sardinia gradually laxed it's heavily conservative stance on government also, and when Italy was eventually unified, it was under a constitution that guaranteed universal male suffrage. The British under Gladstone and the Liberal Party also continued their push for enfranchisement. The winds of social change were blowing across Europe, and all because of one mistake an absolute monarch made to save his autocratic empire.

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[1] Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 IOTL, which stopped any sort of political reform in the Empire. ITTL, because Alexander lives longer and continues his reforms, and his son's opinion on reform is not tainted by his father's assassination, Russia could end up liberalizing somewhat and becoming less autocratic ITTL.

Thanks again for reading, and sorry it took so long to get another update in. Sorry for the lack of pictures too.

Viden: Honestly, I could have easily taken Constantinople as early as the 1860's, but I'm trying to craft a unique nation, with a creative and detailed back story, rather then "gogogo rush the city!". Although I don't plan to go past 1936 (I would really like to get started on an EUIII - V2 AAR) I want to leave this with the impression that the new Byzantium will be able to withstand the age of nationalism and fracturing. There's just under half the game left still, so we have some time.

Enewald & enf91: Actually, no. In game terms, "Austria" still exists. I'm not going to mess with it's flag or anything like that though, due to my preference of hand-made graphics over screenshots. All of that garble is just details and stuff added by me, to make the war, treaty, and the very early development of the UKGA fairly believable. Most of it has no part in actual gameplay, but I felt (especially in this situation) that the game engine doesn't really do well in this area. After all, Austria had been slapped by all of their neighbors multiple times in three decades, AND looking at historical geopolitics of the time, there is no way the other great powers would not have been utterly fed up with Russia's constant aggression. I've actually made it a point to engineer my conflicts so that Russia takes the heat, IE badboy increase, thus keeping France and Britain off my backs.

Nikolai: It's coming yeah, and you are correct. I mentioned it earlier. Again, one of the major reasons for not rushing Constantinople and forming the empire was again, for realism (again, which I feel Vicky lacks in this department sometimes). There is no way that France and Britain would just let me (being a rather pro-Russian state) just bowl over the Ottomans, and leave the entire Eastern Med solidly in the Russian sphere on influence.

Anyway, as always, thanks for reading! I'm working tomorrow, so I'll try and get another update up wednesday evening.

enf91 said:

Ukga?

Click to expand...

United Kingdom of Greater Austria, or Vereinigtes Königreich von Groß-Österreich. Whichever ye prefer.

Final report from the fifth decennial census that took place in 1880 on Otto II's orders: