Empire: Legacy of the Guerre Mondiale
It has been 15 years since the French Empire and United Kingdom have signed the “Peace with Honour” that officially ended the Guerre Mondiale, though victory was actually achieved in 1919 as the armies of the North German Federation and Kingdom of Italy finally succumbed to the French offensive breaking through the Alps and Rhineland. Finally, French troops were able to start pushing back the Russian Empire from the lands of her Austro-Hungarian ally. And as she succumbed to revolution later that year, Britain stood alone. In the years proceding up to the Treaty of Westminster, Germany, Italy and Russia descended into civil wars, with France and Austria looking on in horror as their former enemies in the heart of Europe turned to Syndicalism. Russia narrowly avoided such a fate by a alliance of the more moderate socialist elements with the reactionary officer corps and a stream of foreign men and material, many of who were German veterans fleeing from their lost cause in Germany. Russo-German victory would mean a repudiation of a large part of the Treaty of Lvov with the Baltics organized into the Kingdom of Livonia under the exiled Wilhelm III. 1926 would see the final issues of the civil war resolved as a attempted coup by the democratic elements was suppressed and they fled to the far east under the protection of the Empire of Japan.
France, Austria and the Ottomans would begin reorganizing their conquests. France would end the Kingdom of Belgium, annexing Wallonia and Brabant, combining the rump Flanders with the Netherlands into a new Kingdom of Holland. Austria, facing much internal strife and opposition from the Hungarian part of the realm, would offer the Polish regency council Galicia-Lodomeria in exchange for entering into the union. Acceptance proved a break in Franco-Austrian relations.
When in 1925 revolution took a hold of Britain, it was France who found herself the undisputed world hegemon. French forces would begin to swoop up the unsupported British colonies as her dominions scrambled to organize a response. They would in the end subjugate their authority to the new Imperial Parliament housed in Ottawa, although many colonies were lost to French or other actors. In the far east, France would see herself intervening on the side of the Empire of China when the Hongxian emperor died and the remaining republican forces struck. The KMT-Federalist-Guominjun alliance was defeated and forced to accept the nominal authority of the new Yuntai Emperor in Peking, who would bestow the tile of Viceroy of Lianguang upon General d’Espèrey.
As French hegemony continued, the USA would find herself moving on the path to civil war. A unity coalition was barely able to keep Hoover in the White House against the challenging Socialist Party of America. In the end, whatever measures were attempted did not succeed, and a strike in Detroit turned into a riot as the police moved to break it up. Once socialist paramilitaries mobilized, most of the country understood what direction this was taking. Californian and Mormons arose in the west, a general coalition of the Midwest would arise under the Second Continental Congress, the Imperial Federation moved to secure the borders and the supply lines for her Federal allies as they were afraid that they would soon fall out of their hands, dooming the Feds. The Confederates would also move on the border states, proclaiming them intergrated.
The world 15 years after the peace is rapidly shifting. France is dealing with continuous unrest from Dutch, German and Italian dissidents. The syndicalist powers of Europe are rapidly rearming. The 1937 Ausgleich is set to be a massive event for the enlarged but still troubled Habsburg monarchy. On the periphery there are many exiles who wish to return home.
Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.
