Kaiser Einfalt deals with Bavaria
Kaiser Besonnenheits was now convinced that it didn't require a lot of skills to be a Kaiser. After all, an incompetent Kaiser like Kaiser Einfalt was able to get Elsaß-Lothringen from France without much of an effort. So he retired and bought an hacienda in Bolivia, a country which was about to be integrated into NGF's sphere of influence.
Kaiser Einfalt was now ruling over the Federation. He declared war on Bavaria, who had no allies, and by May 1863 it had utterly defeated it.
But defeating and occupying it wasn't enough to make Bavaria become a secondary power. As Kaiser Einfalt was impatient, he added another wargoal, "Humiliate", to decrease their prestige, and peaced them.
But after that, they were still a Great Power.
As Kaiser Einfalt didn't care about economics, and was a strong believer in the free market, he let the Liberals govern. So he didn't have to care about the economy. He just made sure the national focuses helped create capitalists.
He also kept developing industry technologies. During that time, the NGF was involved in a war against Brazil to protect the ally Bolivia, which ended in Status Quo.
In 1869, the NGF started another war against Bavaria, that this time was allied to Russia. Unexpectedly, or maybe not, France used the opportunity to declare war on the Federation, to recover Elsaß-Lothringen. The NGF was at war with Russia, France, Spain, Switzerland, Sardinia and the Papal State. Luckily, the allies (including Great Britain and USA) were helping at least against France. But on the continent they would not be of much help.
The situation was pretty confusing. Obviously the NGF had to mobilize. This was the situation in July 1869.
France's main push was into Belgium. It was good that Belgium was on our side in this war.
Luckily, in the war against Russia/Bavaria, our war score was high since we had managed to fully occupy Bavaria. Therefore it was possible to end the war honorably. But not more than that.
After that, the NGF could concentrate on the French and soon went on the offensive. By December 1869, the French had been pushed out of Belgium and were now retreating on all fronts.
Still, it wasn't easy to make them accept a white peace. But we managed that at last.
By 1875, Bavaria had been relegated from the Great Power Status. But regrettably we could not influence them, since we had a truce with them.
As we feared, Bavaria soon ended up in Austria's sphere of influence, and it would have been virtually impossible to get it diplomatically now.
In the same year, we got involved in an inconclusive war against the Netherlands, since our ally Belgium had called us to arms.
We didn't dare declare war on Austria, since it was allied to Great Britain, Scandinavia and the Ottoman Empire.
But it was Austria, in 1877, that unexpectedly declared war on the NGF, to acquire Moravia back. The war became the Great war, since Austria and Scandinavia were fighting the NGF and the USA.
Soon, France exploited this circumstance to start their own second French Liberation of Elsaß-Lothringen. So the NGF was at war with Austria, Scandinavia, France, Spain, Switzerland, Sardinia and some Italian Minors. Being the defender in both wars meant many of the neutral parties were on the NGF's side, including Bavaria.
The Federation was forced to mobilize.
Talking of Bavaria, it had reverted to GP status.
The situation on the front wasn't that horrible. Actually, the war with Austria turned to be pretty phony, since very few Austrian troops were sighted at the border. The NGF concentrated on the French Front then. France had brought more than 500k to the front, who were defeated in a single battle at Nancy.
The war score, because of the battles we had managed to win, was in our favour. The French would always fall into the trap of attacking smaller armies, that we would reinforce. But still it wasn't enough to white peace.
While the NGF's budgetary situation was tight, we would be fully able to keep on fighting the war for several months. The Conservatives were back into power, which meant higher taxes could be levied.
As we now have access to France war archives, we know that France at that time had achieved local superiority. Even defeated, those 500k soldiers would reorganize and probably force the German troops into retreat. Not to mention the other French stacks around.
It was obvious that the Federation was lagging behind technologically. The NGF's army technology was at 15, while the French were about to get to 18.
But France's monetary situation was much worse and they were on the verge of bankruptcy.
We have also access to Austrian archives. Austria's strategic leadership was very incompetent at that time, in fact it was wasting troops on secondary theatres like Serbia and Montenegro, while ignoring the much more important German front. Austria hadn't mobilized yet, though, and had a good balance sheet.
Even the Austrians had better army technologies than the NGF, at 17.
While the NGF would survive, the worst case scenario being having to capitulate and give up Moravia and Elsaß-Lothringen, it was on the defensive, and it was unlikely to be able to form the Germany Empire anytime soon. It was a very bad performance, since it was already the year 1877 and in another universe, which many consider to be the real universe, the Empire had been formed in 1871. Not to mention places in the sun...
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Meanwhile Kaiser Besonnenheit had returned to Berlin. He was very unhappy with the way things were running in Germany. He wished he had never left and that he had kept running the country. He was pretty sure that there was a critical moment, in the year 1863, when a very wrong decision was taken. Bavaria had been occupied by the Federation's forces, and it was a matter of time until it dropped from the GP status and could be eligible for being sphered through a wargoal - so why peace it? How long could that have taken ? Anything less than 15 years would have been a better result than Kaiser Einfalt's.
There are other things Kaiser Einfalt did wrong. Forgetting about army technologies was criminal. Kaiser Besonnenheit wished he had the opportunity to go back in time and take another path for Germany. And that opportunity was given to him. He was brought into a parallel universe, where the year was 1862 and the NGF was about to declare war to Bavaria.
Next update in a week.
