Chapter 13: Relative peace and calm
December 1856: Persia re-allies with us.
January, 1857: The British Army is on an Italian holiday - over 34,000 of them. It takes a few months for the British to take them back home.
April 14: Typhoid Fever is spotted in the Kars region, prompting a strict quarantine. Thousands die, even with the quarantine, leading to widespread anger. Russia is blamed, and a ring of Croatian officers in Karlovac are executed for treason as well. (I love the synchronicity of events...)
April 15: Italy acquires the Sidi Barrani region of Egypt.
July 7: One advantage of Prussia being split in two is that rebels get stuck on one side or the other.
You know there have been some beat downs when the Netherlands has the 6th largest army in the world (and 4th in Europe).
A look at the angriest Ottoman POPs - the two reform desires causing militancy are Landed Voting and Allow Slavery. The majority of them, of course, are Anarcho-Liberal rebels.
Also, we've unlocked a new party...my first with L-F! Unfortunately, I have too many small factories to be able to switch to L-F yet - they'd all be wiped out immediately. I also can't balance my budget under L-F: the max of 50% tax would wipe out my budget and prevent me from keeping taxes on my Rich low so I can get more liberals.
December 28, 1857: We finish researching Positivism and start on Functionalism. More education efficiency = more literacy = faster pop promotion and more RP. I now get 8.19 RP/day, which is probably around 60-70% what other GPs would have at this point.
May 18, 1858: The Confederate States of America secede from the USA. Without anything west of the Mississippi, they're doomed.
July 4, 1857: Some very weird Asian-looking Ethiopians insult our wig-bearing pasty-white ambassadors, giving us a Cut Down to Size CB on Ethiopia (The pictures are extra-hilarious when you play other nations...). Usually, I'd ignore such things, but Ethiopia is close by, and happens to border the two African regions I have the tech to colonize (Werder and Negele).
This, of course, leads to war (why turn down 10 free prestige?)...
January 28, 1859: The concept of Organic Work spreads to a province in our nation, but doesn't spread further.
March 21: The war is expanded to take the Negele region in the south from Ethiopia.
April 20: Ottoman schools, not being discriminatory enough, are made moreso.
May 23: Panjab besieges our diplomatic mission yet again. We eat the 5 prestige and go back to bringing her back into our SoI. Once N&I is researched, she's dead.
August: The war with Ethiopia is finished, with Ethiopia cut down to size and forced to give up the Negele region (leading to us gaining 6 pounds/day in indemnities). Colonization efforts are begun in Negele province.
September: Our Temperance League has resulted in a Viticultural Association springing up in Southern Serbia (lushes!). Rather than allow beer halls and end the Temperance League, we take the +militancy option for local Liberals. They'll get over it.
October 29: The Ethiopians insult us again. Because last time worked so well! However, since they are already paying indemnities, we couldn't use the CB even if there wasn't a truce. Argh!
November 6, 1859: A look at Panjab via our alliance shows that their army is lost somewhere that I can't see it. 7 brigades are probably trapped in Siberia or something. And to make things funnier - the Communists are in charge (but it's still an absolute monarchy).
March 25, 1860: Austria is now #2 in industry with 443 points. This bodes very badly. In Prussia Reactionaries are close to breaking the nation (not a big loss, Prussia has no SoI currently anyway).
June, 1860: Portugal declares war on Egypt to take the Asyut region, right before we can sphere Egypt. However, since we are still allied, we get the call to beat Portugal up.