In the heart of europa: a Switzerland AAR

Part 2 - Italy isn't nice..

At the beach of Rimini, the people made great parties for the glory swiss people that liberated them from the evil pope. Now they were free to become reformed or atheists or whatever they want. And so it was in the whole countryside. We decided to build some railroads in our country, since we get the technology from our Austrian friends.

So we were building the first railroad happily in Bern, when suddenly revolts broke out in northern italy, the revolters were sent for sure by Sardinia-Piemont. Because France und Prussia backed up them, we didn’t liked to bring peace to them immediately, and builded our first regular division to counter the rebels.

Unfortunately, the rebels were very strong, and so after first victories our army has to retreat. We decided that it can’t continue with that, and that the evil warlords of northern italy must be brought down and that we have to bring democracy to their people.

And after we invested some money to more railroads, our peace-loving soldiers liberated once again enemy territory.

Lucca get a part of our glory empire on the 1th January 1843. In Ancona the soldiers of the pope just joined our forces when they realized how evil the pope is.



Not soon after Sardinia-Piemont see there defeat and give us most of their country to establish peace in it. Delicious parma ham was soon exported to Bern.

But then, it all went wrong. France and Spain declared war to us! Hoardes of them overrun our frontiers. Our people had to flee in panic. On the 10. February we were able to bring Tuscany into our country. But the pope refused peace even on good terms, and liked to fight more, we supposed because French Armies went visiting Basel and Geneva at the same time.

On the 28. April finally the Pope accepted peace on his terms, making a white peace. The same day, Bern fell into the hands of the French. Our army was fighting bravely, but the French and Spanish armies were to much for our soldiers.

One month later, the Battle of Annecy was fought. On French side, 20.000 elite soldiers, on our site, 60.000 conscripts without training. The French were sent home with only 8.000 soldiers, while our looses were marginal. Soon after, our armies marched on Basel and Bern to liberate them too.

But the French mustered more and more men. So after one year of war, the finally noticed that war can’t be the solution. We, as we wanted peace more than everything else, finally accepted to give up Chambery for peace. And so we begun to pay back our immense loans we had to take to fight that long.



On the 7. October 1844 we finished the loans. Now we planed the great railroadline Basel-Firenze. This gigantic project should be finished in under 2 years, making it possible for every swiss people to have holidays in northern swiss-italy.

The second Juni 1845 was a great day for Switzerland. We signed a pact of defense with the peace-loving people of Bavaria. Soon a great Beer-Chocolate trade was signed afterwards.


Sonderbundskrieg! All Catholics in Switzerland wanted to join the evil pope himself! Of course we couldn’t allow this, and so we decided to fight the Catholics(+7 militant on all catholic pops and a couple of nasty events, the other option is +3 militant and no further events, but that’s not funny)
The mighty Queen gave us full diplomatic support in doing this.

Unfortunately, this didn’t stopped the whole northern-italy part of our country to revolt. We had to organize new armies soon, or we will loose everything.



And it went worser every day. Finally, we had to mobilize to counter this dangerous situation.



After all forces has been mobilized, we had nearly lost all of northern italy to the rebellion. Most recruitcenters were overrun already, so we just had the army of mainland Switzerland to defeat the rebels. Will we be successful? Or will italy went back to chaos?

Thank you very much for your comments.

I will post an update immediately

@MAlexander06: Yes, it's the civil war called "Sonderbundskrieg". Historical, it was the catholic "Kantons"(like States) wantet so leave Switzerland, because it was liberal. But of course they couldn't, because the Swiss Army kicked they around. After a great battle near Lucerne and some more battles there around(mountains, heavy to advance) they finally accepted defeat. It took some month, and if you play Switzerland historical, it's easy to win. But if you conquer most of very catholic Italy before, it's just pain(but funny )

I will expand in any direction I see a good chance too. Because I do not know the events exactly, the other countries get around me, maybe I'm doing some great mistakes, but maybe..

French and Austrians don't like me at all..but at least Britain and Prussia are my friends, and even Prussia is not that strong, they were able to fought of Russia for over one year. And Britain has the Opium war against China since 10 years...China has got 1.1% war wearniss(don't know the word in english) and Britain has 0.2%...the Queen conquered some chuncks of land, but just in the North and South, not mainland china..

@anonymous4401: Thank you

@Seidita: Danke dir

@Stroph1: The screenis display mostly just an oversight of the actual map, if I'm going to show some special things, I do describ them in the text above.

War continues...

At nearly the same time, Austria-Hungery decided to take a slice of Italy for themselves, and they declared war! But fortunately the Queen hold their alliance with us, and faced with the mighty British Empire the Austrians immediately declared peace. At a massive loos of prestige of course.



After a half year, we finally managed to liberate back northern Italy, even the revolts didn’t stop.

On the 24. July, mighty Prussia backed us up with a guaranty of independence, mainly because France was very aggressive against our both countries in the past.

First ideas of a mighty Swiss-Prussia-Bavaria-Britain alliance to counter France-Spain-Austria are becoming reality.

And then, on 1. October 1846, the great war broke out. Danemark and Russia against the whole alliance of Germania, including Austria-Hungary. We decided to stay neutral, even most of the people favorised the Great-German side. On the 16. November, Montenegro joined the war on the Russian-Danish side.

On the 10. January 1847, Russia mobilized their full war-machine. Could Prussia together with Austria-Hungary stop the armies of the Czar?

On the 1. Mai, nothing really had chanced in the great war, some frontlines had changed a little, but not much. On northern Italy the rebellions went back, it seems that we finally had peace. On the 3. June 1847, the Sonderbundskrieg was finished.

Over 1.200.000 swiss men and woman had lost their life in the battle for peace. Now, when we had peace in our country, we must bring peace to the whole world, which is struggling in chaos and dictatorship.

At the same day, Austria-Hungary went out of the German-Alliance, getting them the whole colonial-empire of Denmark and including Aarhus as “free port” of the Austrian Northern See fleet.

Two month after the Swiss civil was over, we made 35 £ profit per day. Finally, the great railroad network of Greater Switzerland should get reality in just about two years.



In October, we decided that our miliz-army system was, even it was good in battle, wasn’t the solution for long term “stabilizing” a just even liberated country. So we founded a 30.000 men strong elite-army, which should help our 270.000 men strong miliz-army to fight the enemy and afterwards to make peace even in the Hinterland.

On the 25. December, we heard horrible news. The great Prussian counterattack in East-Prussia failed. Over 150.000 Prussian soldiers token as prisoners of war. Russian hordes storming over Prussia. Berlin in great danger! Some of the small German states made peace with Russia, frightened by the Russian bear.

Two months later, and with fresh forces from Bavaria, the front was stabilized again, but the costs were high. And the threat wasn’t gone…

And just two days later, our secret service, which was just founded after the civil war, gave us some documents which made sure that the pope himself helped the Russian Czar. The wanted to share Europe between them too. In the name of “God”. Our people couldn’t first believe this, but when we showed them the documents, they all wanted to liberate the poor population of Rome from their evil overlord. Because we were very democratic, we hold elections, in which 89,17% of the people went with “Yes, we have to liberate Rome”.

So our generals began to plan the liberation attack.
Because the pope had an alliance with the Kingdom of the both sizilies, and both sizilies had one with Spain and France, we had to be very carefully. 12 divisions should defend Switzerland, while 15 divisons go on a full scale liberation attack, and 3 divisions follow them behind. In the morning of the 24. May 1848, massive artillery fire waked up the armies of the pope.

After first victories the armies of the pope and the King of Sizily turned the tide, but just as long as our newly founded Elite-Forces went into battle. In September, the battle for Rome itself begun. Unfortunaltey, during the summer, Prussian forces were losing and losing again. Russian forces took Königsberg early in August. On the 29. October, the long siege of Rome was finished. The pope had to accept peace, even he hated peace at all. Giving us some land and money, we would give back him his freedom. But he even declined it, hoping that the King of Sicily will come and “liberate” him. Stupid pope!

So the war continued in the Alps of the Apenin.

After 4 month, we heard that Denmark made peace with Prussia, just when Russian armies entered Berlin. We’re sure, that this is only because the pope couldn’t help the Czar and so they had to accept peace. Unfortunately, no other country saw this so.

In November 1849, we had conquered nearly all of Southern Italy, but they refused to make peace. Massive rebellions were active behind the front, and we had more and more problems to advance. On the 18. November, we could finally make peace. Only 3 provinced were liberated, however. This war showed us that a lot of people will fight against us, even if they get liberated by us from their evil overloards. We lost over 200.000 men in battle.

Another update

Now, with the pope not more declaring war to the civilized world, we continued to build railroads and even fabrics, thanks to our friends, to British Empire, which sold us some machine parts. Early in February 1850, we had a daily surplus of 40 £, and getting around 1800 £ per month from the pope and the King of the both Sizilies.

So it should be the first phase in were we see peace for a long time, and developing our country into a high-tech powerful peace-bringing nation at the top of the world.

To better developing our industry, and getting more taxes, the government was split into seven parts.



From left to right: Jonas Furrer, Ulrich Ochsenbein, Daniel-Henri Druey, Martin J. Munzinger, Stefano Franscini, Friedrich Frey-Herosé, Wilhelm Matthias Naeff

They were leaders of the following departments:

Political Department Furrer Jonas
Department of the State Franscini Stefano
Law&Police Department Druey Daniel-Henri
Army Department Ochsenbein Ulrich
Finance Department Munzinger Martin J.
Trade&Tariff Department Frey-Herosé Friedrich
Post&Building Department Naeff Wilhelm Matthias

Immediately, the new ministers went to work, having great ideas to improving Switzerland.

Look at the painting of a newly formed railroad between Zurich and Lucerne: (It is called “Spanish Bread Railroad”



In June, our alliance with Bavaria ended, and unfortunately they didn’t want to renew it.

On the 16. September, some leading scientists from France fleed to our country, giving us some important plans to further improve our economy. France, however, wasn’t really happy about this. Dark clouds began to show themselves in the sky.

But ignoring this, we continued in building factories and railroad connections.



We’re number 2 world-wide, and just the mighty Queen was before us.



Our economy does work very nice, and with the new industrialisation the income will grow from day to day.



Yes, 1850 was really one of the best years in Swiss history.

And when 1851 begun, it even get better. On the 6. January, the first direct train Basel-L’Aquila moved trough Switzerland. In only 36 hours, an unmatched speed worldwide!

Along the tracks, the people of Switzerland jubilee for the new power of Switzerland.

Three days later, France and Spain declared war upon us! Even we had a lot of more prestige this two countries had, they had the larger armies. Our peaceful people was frightened, will the evil warlords win this time? With only 20.000 men ready in 3 divisions, we look doomed.
The only positive thing was that Prussia immediately declared war on France and Spain to help us. The war should get be known as “The great war of central europe”



(for a great version of this picture(1280*1024), click here: http://free.pages.at/fabiusmaximus/12.JPG)

So what to do? Of course immediately every Swiss man took his gun, and went to the next recruit centre. We all had now to defend peace and democracy.

Three month later, on the 2. April, we had our divisions ready, or to better say, the part of which weren’t already overrun by French forces..



Two month later, Prussia launched a counter attack in the Ruhr, and the brave army of Switzerland fought in the Alps against French forces which outnumbered them 3:1.

Here a Swiss alp fortress is shown:


The opium war between Great Britain and China ended with China seceding one province to the Queen. Surely, in the war for every square meter of terrain at least one soldier lost his life.

On 29. July, Russia declared war on Persia. Another bloodbath seems to start.

On first August 1851, Switzerland went 560 years old. With enemy forces in Bern, it was no party. Soon they will pay! Prussian forces annihilated 2 French division in the Ruhr.

On the 7. September, the first counter attack reached French territory.

When Spanish Troops arrive at the front, our forces have to go make a retreat, but just for a short period. At this time, we won the initiative on the front, and French and Spanish looses were five times as high as ours.

In May 1852, the war continues with the same result. French attacking our high defended forces in the Alps, taking heavy casualties. Prussia also gets a stalemate with France in the Ruhr. In Italy, Spanish forces lands and get some of it. Hopefully, our counterattack there might put back them a little.

On the 15. July, we asked France for a status quo peace. The accepted! Our diplomatic corps was a little surprised, because we held only the Alps and the Apennines at this moment, but we lost 112 prestige doing this. But we had to improve our army now, because Austria-Hungary’s soldiers were also ready at the frontier. And we saw, that we can’t fight a war even against France und Spain with the help of Prussia. With luck we survived, but luck isn’t always here.

First we finished our railroad network. After this, we builded even more factories. And then, when the year 1853 began, we were back at number two in the worlds most famous nations.

In March, Persia capitulated before Russia, giving them a large chunk of land.

By July, our armed forces had now a strength of 50.000 men. Hopefully, this, and the 320.000 men strong militia should be enough to fight back every attack on our peaceful country.

But before August begun, our diplomat in St. Petersburg telegraphed us horrible news!
Russia declared war on the Ottomans! They were backed up by the Queen herself and the war-loving French. In fact, it was a short war. In January 1854, the Ottomans gave away some provinces (loosing a land connection to the Iraq!) to Russia. Montenegro was annexed some month earlier.

This was the last part I wrote before my system crashed two days ago. Fortunately, I backed up my data including save-games, but it seems that my Victoria-CD isn't working now...it always brings CRC-faults at he installing, at 37% by a "tile"-File. So I don't know what to do now...

I asked now in the Victoria-Main-Forum, hopefully somebody may help me.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=150711

and to the comments:
thank you Elias Tarfarius, and yes, London is nice to me, so I'm nice to her

anonymous4401: No, I'm not going on Europe/World conquest, just liberating some poor people from their evil war-loving overlords...hmmm...perhaps some chuncks of europe, though...

edit: It worked now, finally(get the CD from a friend with the defect file on it, now it works...next chapter is in work, but because I will spend whole Sunday with girlfriend, probably not finished until sunday evening or monday...

Hope you enjoy my AAR at all...if not or you don't like anything about I write, screenshots etc., please say it, I need our feedback to improve it, thank you.

What to do next? Our leading politicians had no same ideas, and so, we just continued the way we always do. Spreading peace all over the world.
We planed to further improve our small elite army, to a force that can stop a enemy long enough to recruit our militia for a full-scale-counter-attack.

On the 1st May 1854, we proudly saw the watering of the first Swiss Navy.
It was called “Wilhelm Tell”, like the man how killed the Austrian Ruller and helped to found Switzerland in 1291. A second ship was in the building harbour also. The next day, the news of Princess Sissi came to Switzerland. With Austria celebrating, peace seemed to be saved for the next time. We decided to not improve the army or navy this year.

First June, a very sad day for Switzerland. A politician was killed by extremists in Parma. The police found immediately the murderer, and in fact, he was a popeist, a supporter of the pope. This can no longer be tolerated! But as we like peace, we just sent the pope a warning, to not support crime in the future! His answer was, the be kindly, not really nice. He declared the crusade of all Catholics against Switzerland. Maybe he was just a little bit ill? We will give him some month to get back his mind..

So peace was given for some more month, when suddenly a letter arrived in Bern.
The sender was the free people of Rome. They wrote that the pope went totally insane, he wants to recruit every man from 16 to 60 for his “holy inquision army”. Surely, he wanted to take revenge on our peace-loving people. The people of Rome asked us for help, and of course we helped! Just on the move, we heard that Danmark-Russia declared war on the Empires of Germany. Maybe the pope sent a mail to the Czar, to spread war over Europe before we could stop him.

After over a half year of fighting, Rome was liberated on the 30th July 1855. Our diplomatic corps sent us messages from Berlin and Wien, the combined power of Prussia and Austria marched deeper and deeper into Russia.




On the same day Rome was liberated and the world free from the evil pope, the plan for the massive improvement of the swiss industry was realised. Two new factories, new railroad-connections, a new army, everything has to advance now, we had peace.

By the end of October, we were the second importance country in the world. But we had no colonies, and so our resources were very little. We need to have resources to give the world peace! We needed some colonies. Marokko was chosen to be so happy and join our glorious country.

Our men sailed to Africa, bringing peace and civilisation. We all hoped to hear from them soon. In the meantime, Austria went out of the german alliance, making white peace with the Russian horde.

In April we get first news. They had won the first battles and were advancing, but also had some looses, mostly to the hot terrain. And it was not until November, that a Victory was certain. But then, we had our first colony at least.





We realized also that we had another war with Tripolis, but this we will handle later, maybe.

Sultan Of Swing, anonymous4401 thank you for your comments

This update is rather short, I'm sorry, but I'm usually doing updates in the weekend, but had no time on this, so I did it today...hope it's not too bad at all...can't say when I do next update, I hope it will be tomorrow or wednesday, because after it I go abroad for over a week.(holidays)