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Shadow of the Andes - An Interactive Chilean AAR

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"We would not be reliant upon the military as a stable source of jobs, but it would however, be helpful to stimulate the current economy and industry out of its current stagnance. What good would come from keeping a small military in this time? We need a demand for goods, and that demand will come from increasing our military. We do this for the people, can you not see this?" - General Carlos Ramone de Guerro, Patriot and Revolutionary for the People
 
for the government
 
Once again we try to solve our problems through killing each other. We're supposed to be the strongest nation, a good example for all other nations to follow. With this culture of constant coups and civil wars I think the other nations are just severely disappointed in us.
 
Kaisersohaib said:
It fell because changing miltary tactics and cutting it down, Evarado, you are not a war hero, but the hero of the traitors, you have been given a chance of survival.
Miguel del Alvarado, leader of the revolution.
Click to expand...

"The Roman Empire fell because of the dependence on the military. Power drifted to the commanders in the military and constant power struggle prevented them from dealing with external pressures from the tribes of central and eastern Europe.

As is happening right now."

~Admiral Daniel Palomino
Minister of the Navy
 
The 1933 Coup: The Last Hurrah​
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The Depression took its toll on the military. A heavily pacifistic President Farìas proposed to maintain Palomino-era cuts in the military, and congressional efforts to reverse these policies appeared to be failing. In late 1932, a cabal of three relatively young generals, Carlos Ramone de Guerro, Alejandro Ramirez, and Miguel del Alvarado, plotted a coup to force the government to increase military expenditure and recruitment by installing a Prime Minister, who would be advised by a national security council composed of leading generals. In this way, the three conspirators proposed to destroy the power of the civilian government to regulate the military and decreased armed forces spending, thereby establishing military autonomy within Chile in perpetuity. Certainly, the three conspirators were not to be underestimated. Between them, they controlled four of Chile's five mainland armies, and almost two-thirds of the country's total standing military strength. However, the coup's weakness was that these four armies were far-flung - in northern Chile, near the Bolivian border, in Eastern Argentina, near the Brazilian border, and in southern Chile, near the Antarctic. Only the Grand Army of the Republic, traditionally stationed in La Serena, was near the capital. General Estevon Evarado's Army of the Pacific, by contrast, was equivalent in size to the Grand Army of the Republic but stationed at Mainland Pacific Fleet Command in Valparaiso, only a stone's throw from Santiago.

Though Ramirez was the minister of defense, the capital guard did not answer to him, so an outright arrest of the President was impossible. Having failed to recruit Evarado (who was known to be sympathetic to the Republican cause), the conspirators were left with two choices: they could either have Ramirez attempt to seize Santiago from Evarado on his own and later be reinforced by the more distant armies or order him to wait for reinforcements, then take the city with the full force of the coup's armies. Each had its risk. If Ramirez was defeated in his initial attack on the city, the coup's forces might be too crippled by the time De Guerro and Alvarado arrived. On the other hand, if they waited for the other three armies to arrive, the Santiago government might have called up the reserves and militias and reinforced the city beyond the point of seizure. Worse still, the civilian government would be given the chance to escape to Panama or Martinique, transported by Palomino and secured by the loyalist forces of General Thaumen, making them effectively inaccessible to capture.

In the end, Ramirez chose the first option, and on January 13th, 1933, ordered his army to march to Santiago. Evarado, however, had been suspicious of Ramirez from the start, his communications corps having intercepted several coded telegrams between the trio. When he heard that Ramirez's forces were underway, he raced to Santiago, a city still largely decimated from the fighting of the last civil war. Evarado managed to reach Santiago from Valparaiso just a day ahead of Ramirez, but in the end discovered he needn't have bothered. President Farìas called up the militia, and more than 120,000 residents took up arms to defend the city they were unwilling to see destroyed again. All in all, across the nation, roughly a million militiamen and reserves had mobilized in a matter of days against the coup and in favor of the government, as compared to a paltry fifth that number of disgruntled unemployed and ex-military who backed the schemer's agenda. When Ramirez reached Santiago on the 18th, he was greeted by a force almost three times the size of his own, dug in, and unhappy to see him. Despite his possession of advanced armor and air support, he was utterly defeated within two weeks. The other rebel forces never got within two hundred miles of the capital.

Indeed, Farìas expressed more amusement than alarm when he first heard of the coup attempt. "The generals of Chile," he wrote, "who have so long held this country under their thumb are about to discover that this government is no longer within their power to overthrow. The spirit of democracy has finally grown beyond the army's ability to crush, and the peace-loving people of this country have at long-last prevailed." Reconstruction Chief De Santa Rosa expressed the most dismay at the coup announcement. Caught off guard by the news in front of reporters, he exclaimed "We can't have a coup! I haven't finished rebuilding Santiago yet!" His statement would be the headline for several local papers.

In the end, all three rebel generals were captured (alive, unusually enough), and their forces defeated. As Farìas had predicted, nearly all the mainland generals of Chile aligned against the government and were defeated. Indeed, some began to call it Chile's last coup, a prediction that would hold true for decades.
 
Senor Silva, who was in Northern Chile when he got the news of the defeat of the Generals, has travelled to Santiago to surrender himself to the authorities.
 
Farìas, 1933-1935: All Good Things​
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The 1933 Coup marked the highpoint of events in the Farìas administration. Congressional efforts to effect a military expansion rapidly lost support following the coup and failed. Chile's military would remain at 300,000 men for another five years. With the anti-Republican conspirators defeated, the administration returned its attention to the rising unemployment and faltering economic growth, focusing on expansion of the industrial base and an increase in the number of jobs in problem areas. The socialist policies of the Presidency and the administration were nominally successful in this regard; unemployment in Rio Negro fell to just 18% by the end of 1935, down from its dizzying heights of 27% just five years prior. Santiago's unemployed dropped to only 6% by the end of the same timeframe under the careful watch of Reconstruction Chief De Santa Rosa, an feat widely regarded as the most remarkable achievement of the post-civil war era.

While the world remained at an uneasy peace throughout the Farìas administration, domestic strife was common in South America. In January, 1934, fascist rebellions broke out in Paraguay and Bolivia. Though Paraguay's was easily suppressed, periodic fascist uprisings broke out in Bolivia through the end of the following year. Later in 1934, Germanist uprisings spread through Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. Colombian and Chilean troops heavily suppressed the rebel movements, and Farìas was forced (at the recommendation of De Cordova's state department) to station a permanent garrison in Bolivia for the first time in decades.

The treasury under Bevan recovered considerably from the corrupt Dickhard era (whose criminal associates remained at large throughout the 30s), and tax revenue increased substantially. Palomino, continuing in his naval expansion and modernization initiative, was able to convince the Congreso to use some of this surplus to modernize the navy. Chile's fleet exploded to nearly 500 large vessels by the end of the Farìas administration, and under Palomino's direction the navy laid down the keels for twelve new aircraft carriers (scheduled to be completed in 1939). A modernization of naval facilities throughout the country left Chile with the most substantial naval industrial complex in the world, as well as the largest navy, by 1936.

With unemployment at least somewhat mitigated moving into the 1935 election, Farìas enjoyed broad popularity and was widely seen as likely to be re-elected. His administration ended with Chile as the most powerful nation in the world.

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And so we've come to the end. Before I close the doors on this thread, I'm going to ask you for one final ballot - this is a special vote, and everyone can vote even if you would normally be disenfranchised. It will determine the fate of Chile. Please cast your vote for Axis, Allies, Comintern, or Neutral.

Sample Ballot:
The Fate of Chile: Axis/Allies/Comintern/Neutral

Note that I will NOT be converting to Hearts of Iron, but will be writing an epilogue on the basis of the results of this election. Every vote will count and not just the winner - the relative numbers will represent relative support for the various factions. This is THE VERY LAST THING you will be voting on. I will keep this poll open for one week, so we'll close at 10 AM PST, June 1st.
 
I give my congratulations to the President! Viva Chile!

But now to the treaty question: I believe the western allies have played fouly to us: France is our archnemesis and has attacked us with the US without provokation. The comintern represents communism, the greatest threat we have had as a nation in the last century and therefore I cannot side with the Comintern. I can only side with the Axis, true defenders of nationalism.

-Antonia Zepeda, vicepresident.

((What happened to the UK? Why are they so low on the rankings?))
 
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"I will not beg for mercy. Do whatever you will. It is not surprising that the Capitalist Dickhard offered me monetary support, and also supported the government, being a prime example of a greedy Capitalist trying to get in on whatever side won."- Carlos Ramone de Guerro

EDIT: ((Quite an intriguing end to this AAR))
Neutral. We should not get involved with European affairs.
 
As a note, it's not clear who the Axis will be yet - I'm not totally attached to the idea of Germany. Comintern probably will be Russia, and the US and the UK will likely join the Allies, but the other countries aren't clear to me right now.
 
"I, Daniel Palomino, Admiral, Minister of the Navy, and former Senator in and President of the Republic of Chile, put forth my vote for Chile to join the Allies. If Chile purports to be a nation of democracy, we must uphold this with the other great democracies of the world against the evils of fascism, monarchism, communism, and evil."

~Daniel Palomino
Admiral & Minister of the Navy
 
The Republic has triumphed yet again over the forces of power hungry generals. Let us hope this peace between the military and the people can last for a long time, and we can focus our attentions not on revolutions and coups but on industry and science.

There are of course rumors of war on the horizon. While Chile prides herself in her great neutrality, I fear we must be prepared for war on the side of democratic Allies (having little taste for the radical politics that have gripped some nations) - with our internal troubles ended, we can no longer ignore and be ignored by the great struggles of the world.
 
Allies
 
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