It will also be a more fun game since it would create new nations and Tommy won't have a super-duper power.
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It will also be a more fun game since it would create new nations and Tommy won't have a super-duper power.
O Lord, Save Thy People!
1809-1812 in Europe
1809-1812 in Europe
After the French victory at Orleans and subsequent liberation of Paris in June 1809, the French monarchists rapidly consolidated their grip over the bulk of the Gallic region – only parts of the Aquitaine holding out by the years’ end. With the European balance of power shifting rapidly against the Germans, the Scotto-French alliance sought to score a decisive blow against their enemy by invading the Netherlands in the final months of 1809. From the South the French marched on Brussels and in the North the largest standing army in British history, approaching 100,000 men, overwhelmed Holland.
Himmel feared that if the French and British could unite their armies they would not only overrun the Low Countries but the Rhineland as well. With this in mind he rushed to defend the Netherlands long before his army was fully prepared. Despite this urgency, Himmel defeated the French army in a number of engagements during the short Wallonian Campaign – forcing a French withdrawal. However, with the British bearing down from the North the Germans were unable to press this victory and pursue the defeated French. Swinging in a forced march Northwards, the Germans and British met at the Battle of Rotterdam in January 1810. A smaller German army was victorious on the field of battle but sustained so many casualties that Himmel was forced to abandon the Netherlands, withdrawing up river to the fortress city of Aachen.
Whilst the British Navy had never been realistically threatened in any theatre, for a decade the bulk of its force had been held down around the shorelines of Western Europe. With the liberation of France, the defection of Spain from the German to the Coalition camp and the invasion of the Netherlands the British were able to substantially increase their presence in the Mediterranean. There they moved to threaten German power with a wave of amphibious invasions. A mixture of Greek and British forces were employed to overpower the Aegean Islands, and launch attacks on the Magna Graecia of Southern Italy, Attica around the ancient city of Athens and on the shoreline of Asia Minor. Although these attacks did not bring about the immediate demise of German power in the old Byzantine Empire, they did mark its first serious reverses in the Southern theatre of war.
In the summer of 1809 the dominance of the mighty Lithuanian Empire over Eastern Europe was threatened by Russian invasion and the outbreak of a widespread revolt in the Russian speaking Eastern third of the Empire. The situation in the East turned from concerning to critical when the Lithuanian army was destroyed at the Battle of Ryazan in April 1810 with Moscow falling in May. Facing collapse the Lithuanians pleaded for assistance from their long term German allies, forcing Himmel to troops he direly needed in the West to shore up his Eastern ally.
As the summer approached in 1810 the French and British were divided over how to proceed. The British were desperate to engage Himmel in decisive battle at Aachen in hopes that a major victory might bring a speedy end to the war. The French on the other hand, listening to the advice of McKarling-Maud, wished to invade Northern Italy in the belief that the Italian Republic would quickly surrender. In the end the French compromised – splitting their forces between supporting the British desire to assault Aachen and giving McKarling-Maud sufficient men to cross the Alps.
The Italians proved to be weaker than even the most optimistic French observers had hoped. Crossing the Alps in May 1810, McKarling-Maud had accepted the Italian surrender by early July. With relative ease he had taken Turin, defeated an Italian army in Lombardy and then moved on Milan. After a brief siege of the Italian capital he had received the Republic’s surrender – establishing a French aristocrat as King of Italy and recruiting the remains of the Italian army into his own force.
To the North, the decisive battle the British had craved came in August 1810. A tremendous army of British, French and Royalist Dutch forces numbering over a quarter of a million faced down a marginally smaller German army encamped around what had once been the capital of Charlemagne’s Empire. The Battle of Aachen, the largest in European history up to that point, would last for over a week as the two large and unwieldy armies collided. During the fighting Consul Himmel was badly injured, eventually losing his arm to the surgeon’s knife, creating confusion and indecision in the German leadership – it was this that allowed the Coalition army to force the Germans into retreat and claim a crucially important victory.
After Aachen it seemed that the war was rapidly approaching its end. In the West the Coalition army made quick work of the cities of the Rhineland, making its way to Frankfurt by the Winter. In the North the Scandinavians threw their lot in with the Coalition and invaded Pomerania and Holstein. Meanwhile, towards the South McKarling-Maud began to cross the Tyrolian Alps – heading directly for Munich itself.
Yet this quick victory did not come. In late 1810 and early 1811 Himmel, having recovered from his injuries sustained at Aachen, organised an impressive defence along the Main River near Frankfurt that held the Coalition armies in the West in their tracks. To the North the Scandinavians made disappointing progress whilst the Franco-Italian army was halted in the Alps. Even in Eastern Europe there was good news as German and Lithuanian forces definitely ended Russian Westward progress near Kiev in June 1811.
However, domestically the position of the Himmel dictatorship had gravely weakened. His radical land reform campaigns and extremely heavy exactions on the populace to sustain the war effort had alienated many whilst the rapid weakening of Germany’s military position in recent years had further strengthened opposition. In order to counter this Himmel’s supporters had become increasingly authoritarian – bringing about an outright return of political terror by 1811.
The intense pressures building up in German society finally broke the nation’s unity on the battlefield in January 1812 when Fritz von Gottenbald, an old Wrangelite conservative and the commander of the German armies along the Northern front with Scandinavia, turned against Himmel and allied himself with the invaders.
With Gottenbald’s defection causing the collapse of Northern Germany, Himmel rushed his remaining forces to counter the threat. At the Battle of Erfurt he would face down a huge army of British, French, Dutch, Scandinavian and German rebel forces and was totally and utterly defeated.
Barely escaping the battle with his own life the Consul witnessed as the German military began to evaporate on all fronts and Coalition armies marched on Munich from North, South and West. Returning to the capital, he was desperate to continue the fight but was overruled by his old allies who arrested him and promptly surrendered to the Coalition.
After a quarter century of gruesome conflict the Germanic Wars were at an end.
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Silly Cherokees, as if the Patriots would simply give them territory
I can see the Scottish Empire survive in New-Yorkshire, California, Missisipi and Nova Scotia but the Southern provinces seem to be lost forever. It's either the Scottish accept to lose one part or they will lose everything ...
So much suspicion of the Patriot's intentions! I'm sure they will be as honest as can be
.We'll have to wait and see which, if any, parts of the Scottish Americas break free. With the wars in Europe over the Brits will surely be able to invest more attention across the Atlantic.
Its not dead yet!
Bad move by the Cherokee
It doesn't seem like Andrew has any kids about to inherit European thrones
No one believes the American settlers!
Andrew doesn't have any direct ambitions in Europe - very much centred in the Americas.
New Yorkshire will go with the name USA and OTL American flag. Decided not the mess with that, its much harder to mod the ''The USA'' name in Vicky2 than other countries and if I used a different flag I'd cut myself off from so many historical pics that I decided to play it safe.
Other colonies - Peru, Mexico, Darien etc etc would just keep their colonial names but add Kingdom or Republic onto them. That is so long as they remain unified entities.
Will have to see if I can learn more about it
.Trail of Tears incoming in 3...2...1...
This is some serious bullshit here tommy, you just cannot lose to AI like that in Paradox games.
And these southern plantation owners, now that they are in rebellion, who is going to buy their products with the Royal Navy still the largest force in the world? They are committing economic suicide.
Just as well I wasn't playing against the AI
.Cotton and other agricultural exports aren't as important as they will come to be later in the century just yet, and the threatened emancipation of the slaves would be regarded as a far bigger threat than temporary disruption to trade (which would occur anyway with the whole civil war/war of independence going on) !
The situation in the Americas does appear grim indeed for the old Empire. And I spent so long painting the map yellow in EUIV! :'(
Völkerschlacht bei Aachen
Early 19th century Dolchstoßlegende?
Time for Congress of Wien, or maybe Milan, or München, or Aachen? Aachen would probably be most fitting.
Wondering what Göthe and Schiller might be writing about in this timeline, or Nietzsche.
Early 19th century Dolchstoßlegende?
Time for Congress of Wien, or maybe Milan, or München, or Aachen? Aachen would probably be most fitting.
Wondering what Göthe and Schiller might be writing about in this timeline, or Nietzsche.
"The British are crossing the Rhine at Main. They are supported by a large French force, and we are not sure our force can hold."
"Gottenbalds attack should clear it up."
"My Consul... Gottenbald... Gottenbald has defected to the side of the coalition."
"..."
From the German film "Downfall", about the last days of the German Republic.
"Gottenbalds attack should clear it up."
"My Consul... Gottenbald... Gottenbald has defected to the side of the coalition."
"..."
From the German film "Downfall", about the last days of the German Republic.
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Well, any timeline that has Tchaikovsky in it is good for me. I'm glad he was still feeling suitably inspired.
The German Wars concluded pretty cleanly, in the end. Is it too early to talk about a concert of Europe, or will Himmel be exiled to the South Sea or some such place the first time around?
The German Wars concluded pretty cleanly, in the end. Is it too early to talk about a concert of Europe, or will Himmel be exiled to the South Sea or some such place the first time around?
Wait, would one of the Motifs in the 1812 overture TTL be Deutschlandlied instead of La marseillaise? 0.o If it had been written at this point ofc.
Well it was written in the 1890s in our timeline, but you are right. Perhaps something like this musical reference to a popular German opera written around the time of the events.
I wonder what role will take McKarling-Maud in the years to come.
He seems too powerful now to just leave the political arena and not taking advantage of his success
He seems too powerful now to just leave the political arena and not taking advantage of his success
If he's smart though he can see the long-game will probably be democracy. He can try to play his cards right and make sure France is a constitutional democratic monarchy.
Quite interesting, and sad to see the German experiment fail.
Does our friend Consul Himmel have an ambitious nephew or other younger relative, by any chance?
Does our friend Consul Himmel have an ambitious nephew or other younger relative, by any chance?
Evidently the song known in OTL as the Marseillaise is in this timeline the anthem of the German revolutionaries.
Hamburger Lied?Evidently the song known in OTL as the Marseillaise is in this timeline the anthem of the German revolutionaries.
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I'm finally caught up! And before the point of conversion, even! Drama! War! Excitement!
Also, in regards to conversion, you may wish to double-check the navy sizes. Apparently the AI isn't smart enough to disband navies if over their force limits, and the converter (I'm assuming you used the converter) will frequently give enough ships to be over the limits. This is crippling to many AI nations.
Also, in regards to conversion, you may wish to double-check the navy sizes. Apparently the AI isn't smart enough to disband navies if over their force limits, and the converter (I'm assuming you used the converter) will frequently give enough ships to be over the limits. This is crippling to many AI nations.
Oh dear...and so it falls. Seems the empire is to be no more. Maybe no bad thing but will it be a fatal blow economically?
rip Himmel
You were a bastard, but you were our bastard.
Republican Europe shall rise again! At least democracy lives on in the New World...
So the absolute monarchy is back in France? And the revolutionary forces lost? Time for a congress that can re-establish all kings and smash all hopes of democracy for some years!
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