At the Dawn of the 20th Century, the United States had seemed primed for greatness. After the destruction and loss of life of the Civil War during the mid 19th century, the United States had come roaring back in a big way. The pace of Industrialization only picked up in the already heavily industrialized North and with the abolition of slavery and subsequent overturning of the economic system it brought about, the South too was finally making progress in catching up to the North's level of Industrialization.
With this increased economic power came a desire to flex their growing, but unrecognized and relatively untested military and diplomatic might. This culminated in 1898 in the Spanish American War, Which saw the United States thrash the rotten corpse of the Spanish Empire and take its remaining possessions for themselves or, in the case of Cuba, give them at least the veneer of independence.
This era of American Imperialism lead to a renewed faith in America and its strength. This splendor, however, was built on the backs of industrialists with dubious morals and few scruples leading to drastic exploitation of the American Workers. This brought about a wave of unionization and reform during what came to be known as the Progressive Era. These reforms greatly improved the confidence of the American people in their government and resulted in the Election in 1912 of Woodrow Wilson, who promised to carry it even further, a promise he would fulfill over the course of the next 8 years.
As the Wilson Administration entered into its Second year, however, other events began to overshadow these efforts. The Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June of 1914 lead to the outbreak of the largest and bloodiest war the world had ever seen. This conflict would eventually come to be known as the Weltkrieg. When the war broke out, Wilson, who was still focused on his agenda of domestic reform, was determined to keep the United States out of these devastating conflict. In this, he had the overwhelming support of the American people, who still clung George Washington's warning of getting the United States involved in "Entangling Alliances", the very thing that had start the war in the first place, as if it was Holy Writ. As the death counts continued to soar, the American people became less and less inclined to join the war. Things nearly came to a head though on May 7 1915 with the Sinking of the RMS Lusitania, which carried 139 American passengers. Of these American passengers, 128 of them had lost their lives.
The Wilson Administration as well as the American people were outraged at this sinking of an unarmed passenger liner by the German Navy. The German Navy's accusations that it had been carrying war contraband in the form of artillery shells, the igniting of which they claimed had been responsible for the rapid sinking, made poor compensation to the families of those dead passengers. In his outrage, Wilson warned the Kaiser and his government that another incident of this kind would mean a declaration of war from him and his government. Not wanting to add the United States to its already formidible and growing list of enemies, the Kaiser backed down and suspended his policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. Wilson trumpeted this victory to high Heaven during the Presidential Election the next year with the slogan "He kept us out of war" and coasted to an easy victory.
As war dragged on and the blockade of Germany continued to worsen however, the Kaiser began to consider reinstating the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. In his desperation, the Kaiser pointed out that something needed to be done to hit the British back and when the possibility of bringing America into the war was brought up, the Kaiser offhandedly rejected it. He claimed that even if the United States did enter the war, The minuscule size of the United States standing army meant that it would be at least a year or two before it could raise the numbers of men needed to make a difference. Into this situation stepped German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg
Hollweg claimed that while it was true that the United States did have a small standing army, the Americans had a massive reserve force in the form of the National Guard and the ability to raise a massive army if it wanted to. The "Great Call up" back in June 1916 also showed that the National Guard could be mobilized very quickly if need be. While the call up itself had been horrifically blundered due to know one having any idea how to organize the massive logistics need to actually feed and equip such a force on short notice, he stated that the Americans had surely learned from this mistake and would be sure to correct these errors in the future. Thus it was argued that American intervention was something to be avoided at all cost, as it would give the Allies access to the vast manpower reserves of the United States. This would be exactly what they would need to either launch a massive offensive of their own or turn back any large scale offensives from the German Armies. Plus, with Russia faltering and the possibility of gaining access to the vast agricultural resources of the Ukraine and the release of all the troops fighting in the East, their was no need to antagonize the United States. The Kaiser heeded this advice and decided not to reinstate Unrestricted Submarine warfare. On March 8, 1917, two months after this decision was made, Russia collapsed into revolution, with the Tsar being overthrown and replaced with Alexander Kerensky
Kerensky, promptly set about trying to democratize Russia, but was opposed in his efforts by the Petrograd Soviet, which established its own shadow government in direct opposition to the Provisional Government in Moscow. His position was harmed still further by his fatal decision to stay in the war. Kerensky, in an attempt to shore up his support launched a massive offensive called the Kerensky offensive, but it failed to repeat the success of the Brusilov offensive the previous year. With Russian forces in retreat or desperately trying to hold on all along the line, all support for the Kerensky government began to evaporate due to the low popularity of the war. This resulted on 8 November in a second revolution led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky which succeeded in overthrowing Kerensky
Lenin immediately made peace with the Germans, signing the treaty of Brest Litovsk and giving all of the Baltic States, the Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland to the Germans. This freed up all the German and Austrian forces on the Eastern Front. the decision was then made to spend 1918 building up these forces in order to launch a massive offensive to break the stalemate on the Western Front.
The Allies, however, were not idle at this time. Knowing full well that they needed to win this war before Germany could commit its forces from the Eastern Front In the meantime, Germany sent smaller forces to the Balkans where they succeeded in pushing the Allies back to Salonika. With the Austrians and Bulgarians keeping them pinned there, the Germans swept around them and marched straight on Athens, thus forcing Greece out of the war. with Greece out of the war and the Eastern Front closed, the allies saw no further need to maintain the Salonika front and ordered an evacuation of the forces there.
This was countered by an Allied drive in the Middle East that drove the Turks back to Anatolia. Despite that, reinforcements sent by Germany and Austria meant that the Allies were unable to break into the Turkish heartland. At sea the war went even better when the German High Seas fleet finally managed to break the British Blockade with a resounding victory at the Second Battle of Jutland.
With the Blockade broken, Germany's food and supply problems were officially over and they could more effectively prey on British supply lines. That however was far from the worst news as in Spring of 1919, the Germans launched their Great Spring offensive. the massive offensive managed to achieve that mythical thing that all sides had been chasing since 1914: Breakthrough. Due to relentless pounding, the Germans managed to punch through the front at Saint Mihel, just south of Verdun. Allied reinforcements hurriedly rushed to the area managed to stem the tide. This however, created another opportunity and the Germans managed to create another breakthrough around Rheims. Like a damn sprung too many leaks, the trench system quickly began to crumble as the Allies failed to stop this new breakthrough. and the Germans were soon laying siege to Paris
To make matters worse, the Austrians had also managed to break through on Italian Front as well in the Trento. This allowed them to cut off the majority of the Italian Army in the area around Venice. Once this was done, the Austrian Armies swarmed down the peninsula, capturing Rome in a matter of weeks. Soon after, the Italian forces in Venice and Italy in general were forced to surrender. The loss of Italy then made the situation in France untenable, As German and Austrian armies now had a way into Southern France as well.
Seeing the writing on the the wall, France surrendered. This left the British the only nation still fighting Germany. All British forces on the Continent were quickly evacuated and the order was given for British forces in the Middle East to prepare their defenses. Sure enough, the entire strength of the German army soon arrived to push the British out of Mesopotamia and Palestine, pushing the British all the way back to the Suez Canal, which the British entrenched so well that Germans were unable to cross it. Added to this was the revolt in Ireland, which Germany openly supported. With the British losing in Ireland and the Germans unable to break into Africa, the two powers signed the Peace With Honor agreement. In this treaty, Germany was given back all of the colonies it had lost in the war and its claim to French Indochina recognized, in exchange for Germany not demanding anymore of the British, Portuguese, or Japanese possessions. The Weltkrieg, the largest war in human history was now over.
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And that is the first update. I apologize that I spent the entire update talking about backstory. I wanted to explain how the Germans won and why the USA didn't join the war for anyone who was unfamiliar with it so they would be up to speed. It also ties in nicely with the other background information i intend to provide for the Inter War years and the rise of the Combined Syndicalists and the America First Union Party. There will be at least one more background update and possibly two before actual gameplay starts getting posted. I have played all the way up to the start of the Civil War, which I do not intend to avoid for this playthrough, so feel free to speculate on how you think I will go from here and to post advice on what to do during the Civil War. I have won it once before on HoI 4, but am still new to the mod so this should be fun. I do not have it set to historical so we will all have to see what craziness comes from that.
With this increased economic power came a desire to flex their growing, but unrecognized and relatively untested military and diplomatic might. This culminated in 1898 in the Spanish American War, Which saw the United States thrash the rotten corpse of the Spanish Empire and take its remaining possessions for themselves or, in the case of Cuba, give them at least the veneer of independence.
This era of American Imperialism lead to a renewed faith in America and its strength. This splendor, however, was built on the backs of industrialists with dubious morals and few scruples leading to drastic exploitation of the American Workers. This brought about a wave of unionization and reform during what came to be known as the Progressive Era. These reforms greatly improved the confidence of the American people in their government and resulted in the Election in 1912 of Woodrow Wilson, who promised to carry it even further, a promise he would fulfill over the course of the next 8 years.
As the Wilson Administration entered into its Second year, however, other events began to overshadow these efforts. The Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June of 1914 lead to the outbreak of the largest and bloodiest war the world had ever seen. This conflict would eventually come to be known as the Weltkrieg. When the war broke out, Wilson, who was still focused on his agenda of domestic reform, was determined to keep the United States out of these devastating conflict. In this, he had the overwhelming support of the American people, who still clung George Washington's warning of getting the United States involved in "Entangling Alliances", the very thing that had start the war in the first place, as if it was Holy Writ. As the death counts continued to soar, the American people became less and less inclined to join the war. Things nearly came to a head though on May 7 1915 with the Sinking of the RMS Lusitania, which carried 139 American passengers. Of these American passengers, 128 of them had lost their lives.
The Wilson Administration as well as the American people were outraged at this sinking of an unarmed passenger liner by the German Navy. The German Navy's accusations that it had been carrying war contraband in the form of artillery shells, the igniting of which they claimed had been responsible for the rapid sinking, made poor compensation to the families of those dead passengers. In his outrage, Wilson warned the Kaiser and his government that another incident of this kind would mean a declaration of war from him and his government. Not wanting to add the United States to its already formidible and growing list of enemies, the Kaiser backed down and suspended his policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. Wilson trumpeted this victory to high Heaven during the Presidential Election the next year with the slogan "He kept us out of war" and coasted to an easy victory.
As war dragged on and the blockade of Germany continued to worsen however, the Kaiser began to consider reinstating the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. In his desperation, the Kaiser pointed out that something needed to be done to hit the British back and when the possibility of bringing America into the war was brought up, the Kaiser offhandedly rejected it. He claimed that even if the United States did enter the war, The minuscule size of the United States standing army meant that it would be at least a year or two before it could raise the numbers of men needed to make a difference. Into this situation stepped German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg
Hollweg claimed that while it was true that the United States did have a small standing army, the Americans had a massive reserve force in the form of the National Guard and the ability to raise a massive army if it wanted to. The "Great Call up" back in June 1916 also showed that the National Guard could be mobilized very quickly if need be. While the call up itself had been horrifically blundered due to know one having any idea how to organize the massive logistics need to actually feed and equip such a force on short notice, he stated that the Americans had surely learned from this mistake and would be sure to correct these errors in the future. Thus it was argued that American intervention was something to be avoided at all cost, as it would give the Allies access to the vast manpower reserves of the United States. This would be exactly what they would need to either launch a massive offensive of their own or turn back any large scale offensives from the German Armies. Plus, with Russia faltering and the possibility of gaining access to the vast agricultural resources of the Ukraine and the release of all the troops fighting in the East, their was no need to antagonize the United States. The Kaiser heeded this advice and decided not to reinstate Unrestricted Submarine warfare. On March 8, 1917, two months after this decision was made, Russia collapsed into revolution, with the Tsar being overthrown and replaced with Alexander Kerensky
Kerensky, promptly set about trying to democratize Russia, but was opposed in his efforts by the Petrograd Soviet, which established its own shadow government in direct opposition to the Provisional Government in Moscow. His position was harmed still further by his fatal decision to stay in the war. Kerensky, in an attempt to shore up his support launched a massive offensive called the Kerensky offensive, but it failed to repeat the success of the Brusilov offensive the previous year. With Russian forces in retreat or desperately trying to hold on all along the line, all support for the Kerensky government began to evaporate due to the low popularity of the war. This resulted on 8 November in a second revolution led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky which succeeded in overthrowing Kerensky
Lenin immediately made peace with the Germans, signing the treaty of Brest Litovsk and giving all of the Baltic States, the Ukraine, Belarus, and Poland to the Germans. This freed up all the German and Austrian forces on the Eastern Front. the decision was then made to spend 1918 building up these forces in order to launch a massive offensive to break the stalemate on the Western Front.
The Allies, however, were not idle at this time. Knowing full well that they needed to win this war before Germany could commit its forces from the Eastern Front In the meantime, Germany sent smaller forces to the Balkans where they succeeded in pushing the Allies back to Salonika. With the Austrians and Bulgarians keeping them pinned there, the Germans swept around them and marched straight on Athens, thus forcing Greece out of the war. with Greece out of the war and the Eastern Front closed, the allies saw no further need to maintain the Salonika front and ordered an evacuation of the forces there.
This was countered by an Allied drive in the Middle East that drove the Turks back to Anatolia. Despite that, reinforcements sent by Germany and Austria meant that the Allies were unable to break into the Turkish heartland. At sea the war went even better when the German High Seas fleet finally managed to break the British Blockade with a resounding victory at the Second Battle of Jutland.
With the Blockade broken, Germany's food and supply problems were officially over and they could more effectively prey on British supply lines. That however was far from the worst news as in Spring of 1919, the Germans launched their Great Spring offensive. the massive offensive managed to achieve that mythical thing that all sides had been chasing since 1914: Breakthrough. Due to relentless pounding, the Germans managed to punch through the front at Saint Mihel, just south of Verdun. Allied reinforcements hurriedly rushed to the area managed to stem the tide. This however, created another opportunity and the Germans managed to create another breakthrough around Rheims. Like a damn sprung too many leaks, the trench system quickly began to crumble as the Allies failed to stop this new breakthrough. and the Germans were soon laying siege to Paris
To make matters worse, the Austrians had also managed to break through on Italian Front as well in the Trento. This allowed them to cut off the majority of the Italian Army in the area around Venice. Once this was done, the Austrian Armies swarmed down the peninsula, capturing Rome in a matter of weeks. Soon after, the Italian forces in Venice and Italy in general were forced to surrender. The loss of Italy then made the situation in France untenable, As German and Austrian armies now had a way into Southern France as well.
Seeing the writing on the the wall, France surrendered. This left the British the only nation still fighting Germany. All British forces on the Continent were quickly evacuated and the order was given for British forces in the Middle East to prepare their defenses. Sure enough, the entire strength of the German army soon arrived to push the British out of Mesopotamia and Palestine, pushing the British all the way back to the Suez Canal, which the British entrenched so well that Germans were unable to cross it. Added to this was the revolt in Ireland, which Germany openly supported. With the British losing in Ireland and the Germans unable to break into Africa, the two powers signed the Peace With Honor agreement. In this treaty, Germany was given back all of the colonies it had lost in the war and its claim to French Indochina recognized, in exchange for Germany not demanding anymore of the British, Portuguese, or Japanese possessions. The Weltkrieg, the largest war in human history was now over.
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And that is the first update. I apologize that I spent the entire update talking about backstory. I wanted to explain how the Germans won and why the USA didn't join the war for anyone who was unfamiliar with it so they would be up to speed. It also ties in nicely with the other background information i intend to provide for the Inter War years and the rise of the Combined Syndicalists and the America First Union Party. There will be at least one more background update and possibly two before actual gameplay starts getting posted. I have played all the way up to the start of the Civil War, which I do not intend to avoid for this playthrough, so feel free to speculate on how you think I will go from here and to post advice on what to do during the Civil War. I have won it once before on HoI 4, but am still new to the mod so this should be fun. I do not have it set to historical so we will all have to see what craziness comes from that.