World Conquest Attempt - Part III
This chapter covers the time from February 1765 to January 1815. Let's see how close I can get to a WC!
The Union was busy integrating provinces until mid-June and after overextension was reduced by a bit, King Gaston I gave orders to declare an Overseas Expansion war on Oda. However, the administrators had warned him that integrating more provinces was not an option at the moment and therefore the generals were instructed to subjucate the Japanese daiymo instead. It took the Angevin forces less than 60 days to defeat Oda thanks to an extremely skilled siege-general. Japan controlled a few cores that rightfully belonged to Oda which gave the Union a pretext to declare war on Japan in the future.
Reports reached the capital that the Muscovites kept pushing eastwards which was not acceptable. The King feared that they might grow too large and spies found out that Muscovy was still small enough to get annexed in one go. And so in late July of 1765 several Angevin armies attacked Muscovy and their allies - the Injuids, Kazakh and Zaporozhie.
While the Angevin soldiers were marching on the Muscovite capital, Gaston I agreed to the military's demand to reconquer Kaga for Oda. Japan was ally-less and so the King had no fears fighting two wars simultaneously.
Six months after the declaration of war, Kazakh was annexed and in the March of 1767, the Injuids were forced to cede 16 provinces. In the May of the same year, the full annexation of Muscovy was demanded after having occupied every single Muscovite province and after killing every Muscovite man. Nobody was spared. Zaporzophie were a vassal of Muscovy and since they now lacked an overlord, Gaston I decided to make them his subject by putting a family member on their throne.
Japanese and Angevin diplomats negotiated a favorable peace treaty which Japan ceded 14 provinces to the Union. The administrators were most angered by this because they had told the King that they were not able to integrate all those provinces. Given the fact, that the Union had annexed all of Muscovy and a large part of the Injuids only shortly before signing the peace treaty with the Japanese but King Gaston I knew what he was doing: Sagara was released as a 12-province strong vassal and the remaining Japanese provinces which the Union had conquered were sold to Oda and Sagara.
Georgia didn't like that the House of Normandie now ruled over Zaporzophie and so they foolishly declared a war on Zaporzophie. Some in the realm believed this was a joke but it was not April Fools' Day and so the Union assumed leadership against the foreign aggressors.
This war was Georgia's last mistake because it took the Union not long to occupy their lands and as a consequence the Georgian people were forced into vassalage, too. Another loyal family member of the House of Normandie ruled in Gaston I's name over Georgia.
The small council informed the King that the Angevin People no longer cared for the English culture and that English was no longer accepted within the Union! (
So silly that the Angevin Union can lose English as an accepted culture.) Gaston I was shocked and didn't know what to say. He was angered but there was nothing he could do. Forcing the Angevin population to accept English would surly have caused a civil war which he did not want to risk. Fighting a war against his own people was off the table and instead the Union declared war on Sarbadars. The idea was to conquer much of their territory and to 'sell' it after the war to Zaporzophie.
A peace agreement with Sarbadars was reached in Tunis on August 4th 1771. Sarbadars and their vassals ceded 4 provinces to Zaporzophie and 32 provinces to the Union. The Golden Horde and Beloozersk were no more! It took the Union's administrator many, many months to transfer ownership over most of those provinces to Zaporzophie.
Unfortunately, King Gaston I did not live long enough to start another war and his son Henry IV (
3/2/1) of House Normandie became King of the Union. He chose his young child, Henry (
3/2/4), as his legitimate heir. The new King was among the most incompetent rulers that the Union had ever seen and his son was not much more skilled. Dire times for the realm.
In the February of 1772, diplomats began a four-year-long process of integrating Gelre into the realm.
The next three years were peaceful because the King and his administration were busy with the newly conquered territory. Rebellions popped up everywhere but by March of 1775, the realm was stable again and a new campaign was launched against Hungary. Lots of countries had sided with the Hungarian but they were all rather weak. The plan was to vassalize Transylvania and to feed them Hungarian provinces. A member of the small council had this plan because he noticed that Transylvanian and Hungarian were part of the same culture group.
One and a half years later, Transylvania became indeed a subject of Henry IV. Furthermore, they were forced to convert to the one true faith: Hussitism. The following year, a Hungarian delegation travelled to Paris to accepted unconditional surrender which meant that the defensive collation had to cede 8 Austrian and 5 Hungarian provinces as well as 3 provinces which had belonged to Rus. Hungary also returned Alba to Transylvania. This treaty cost the Union 525 diplomatic power and using the Conquest casus belli turned out to be a major mistake. Instead, the Union should have used the Anti-Coaltion casus belli as a pretext for the war. Rumors said that conquering provinces with the Anti-Coaltion casus belli costs no diplomatic power.
At peace again, Henry IV sent Angevin administrators to Korea and Switzerland to absorb them into the Union. Time was surly running out and so wars had to be fought faster and more efficiently. It was necessary to liberate some countries in Asia which could then be turned into loyal vassals. Shortly after the small council proposed this plan to the King, Angevin forces were attacking Shaun. Dali became war leader and among the allies that honored their call to arms were Ming, Manchu and Hanthawaddy.
The fighting lasted for roughly one year before the defenders accepted defeat and released Dali, Khmer, Lan Xang, Tibet, Dai Viet and Karakhanid as sovereign states. Furthermore, 16 provinces were ceded to the once-again victorious Union.
More small countries increased the Union's chances of conquering the world some day. Unfortunately, the Union had a truce with all of them but the monarch of Karakhanid made a rookie mistake: He allied Sogdiana, which was not part of the anti-Angevin coalition. The rest of the story: War, annexation of both after less than two years.
Golkonda sent an envoy to Paris informing the small council that they were now ready to be integrated into the Union. All of India, but Ceylon which was an Angevin protectorate, was now under direct Angevin control.
On October 1st, 1783, the great naval invasion of the Ryukyu islands began. 9000 primitive islanders were invaded by an army of 48.000 brave and fearless Angevin men.
The most intelligent military advisors came up with a plan to increase the Union's influence in Asia: Subjugate Khmer and feed them all of Lan Na after! Henry IV wondered why he didn't come up with this plan himself, after all he was the King. Maybe it was because he was rather incompetent..? Probably.
The people of Khmer soon began to like the idea of being a vassal of the Union after they were told that the Union was going to help them to reconquer their cores but what they did not like so much was that Henry IV installed one of his relatives on the Khmer throne. After some years, they got used to their new ruler though.
In April of 1785, the Angevin Union declared war on Dai Viet, one of those countries that were previously liberated. In separate peaces Hanthawaddy and Champa were annexed and Dai Viet became another vassal of Henry IV.
To reduce the number of subjects, Henry IV decided it was best to fully integrate Chagatai and Salzburg into his realm.
Mission 'Reconquer Khmer Cores' began was launched in late June of 1788. The target was Lan Xang but first Dali and a couple of months later Ming became war leader (
Cascading alliances... are... annoying). Nevertheless, the Angevins triumphed and Lan Xan was annexed in October. Defeating Ming took two more years but it was all worth it: 28 provinces were given in parts directly to the Union and in parts to Henry IV's subjects. Furthermore, Ming acknowledged the independence of Xi.
July 28th, 1790, was the date on which the King had officially declared war on Perm by invading them and their ally Rus. Rus lost all but two of their provinces and Perm was wiped off the map.
In a small council meeting, the King was informed that there no more provinces which Serbia was willing to core and so the Serbian Empire was slowly integrated into the Union over a period of five years.
After the truce with Xi had expired, the Union declared war on them with the goal to force them into vassalage. The small council was at loss at explaining why Xi had allied with Ming, which had suppressed them for centuries! Anyways, Ming naturally became war leader but Ming's army had no yet recovered from their previous loss and so Henry IV anticipated an easy victory. However, the King did not survive the war and his hire-less son Henry V (
3/2/4) rose to the Angevin throne.
Henry V and his wife Charlotte became parents on February 20th, 1795, after Charles (2/4/6) was born. Meanwhile the war with Ming was in full place and victory was in reach. In fact, Xi became a a vassal of Henry V on July 25 and one day later, Ming accepted unconditional surrender, too. To break the power of Ming, the Union demanded a good chunk of their territory which was then slowly fed to Xi over a period of two years. The Union had to deal with lots of nationalist and patriot uprisings during those years because the realm suffered from overextension.
Even though Henry V was considered as incompetent as his predecessor, he proved to be braver by declaring a massive anti-coalition war on Austria. Little did he know that future historians were going to call to this war
The Great War and later on World War I. This was one of the most important wars that the Union had ever fought. Every country that was not a subject of the Union honored the Austrian's call to arm, except for Yuan which decided to stay neutral.
The defenders fielded an army of over 600.000 men but the attackers outnumbered the greatly: 2.882.429 soldiers were ready to burn their cities to the ground! Mantua, Holy Roman Emperor, became the leader of the defensive coalition.
Since every prince-elector was embroiled in The Great War, the small council advised Henry V to dismantle the Holy Roman Empire. The King liked this idea and instructed his generals to prioritize on occupying the hostile prince-electors as well as Mantua. Sacking Chur, located in the heart of the Alps, took extremely long but after winning the siege on February 5th, 1799, the Holy Roman Empire was no more!
(
At last, I managed to complete my last goal that I set before starting this AAR: Dismantling the HRE
In the peace treaty, which was signed in Mantua, more than 50 provinces were given to the Union and her vassals. Furthermore, Ulm, Lithuania and Khorsan were released from foreign oppression. Slowly, all those province were either cored by the Union or given to subject nations.
Diplomats and administrates were instructed to finalize the integration of Oda, Sagara and Zaporozphie.
Ulm had been singled out as the Union's next target and the war was declared in the January of 1805. In that war not only Ulm was annexed but also Pomerania, Poland and Volhynia. Two-province-minor, Khorasan, was also annexed in a separate war.
Yuan's policy of remaining neutral turned out to be a mistake because Henry V did not feel like staying neutral. Instead, he declared war on them but knowing that the ruler of Yuan for some mysterious reasons refused to enter into a military coalition against his realm, he decided not to annex them in that war. Instead, the war was used as a pretext to conquer provinces belonging to Ming, Shu Han and Tibet.
One of the consequences of that war was that the Union was so heavily overextended that for almost four years it could not declare any wars but Henry V and the small council believed that this way the only way to eventually conquer the world.
On a warm summer's evening in the June of 1809, the brave yet incompetent King died after drinking a cup of wine. Some said he was poisoned by Mecklenburgian assassins to prevent the Angevin Union from declaring more wars. Unfortunately, his son Charles was too young to rule over the Union and so an old friend of the dead King acted as a regent in Charles's name. At that time, Charles was already 14 years old and soon he was going to claim his throne.
Charles VIII turned 15 on February 21st 1810 and on this day the regency council was disbanded. His young brother Henry (5
/3/4) became his heir. The new King was eager to revenge his father's death and so he declared an anti-coaltion war on Mecklenburg. World War II was in place.
It was easier to win than the Great War but this was mainly because the defending army was smaller. It had failed to fully recover from its devastating defeat more than 10 years ago.
Würzburgian and Mecklenburgian forces attacked an Angevin army that had laid siege on Neumark. They greatly outnumbered the Angevins but higher discipline and moral turned the tide even though the Mecklenburgian general was far superior to the Angevin one.
On March 19th, 1812, Mecklenburg accepted the Union's terms: Full annexation of Austria, Prussia, Chur, Manchu and Mainz. Hungary was reduced to an one-province-minor, Fürstenberg ceded Voralberg to the Union, Majapahit ceded all her Malayan provinces and Ming, Shun and Injuids also lost territory.
The Malayan provinces were all given to Malacca and the Han provinces to Xi. Chur, Voralberg, Regensburg were given to the Duke of Bavaria. All the Hungarian provinces were given to Transylvania, which the Union also began integrating next to Khmer.
The World on January 1st, 1815
Map highlighting the Union and her subjects
Anti-Angevin Coalition: Consists of every independent country but Yuan
Vassals: Cologne, Georgia, Transylvania (currently being integrated), Bavaria, Dai Viet, Khmer (currently being integrated), Malacca, Xi
Independent countries:
Name/Number of provinces
Ming/8
Shun/2
Shun Han/2
Dali/16
Yuan/1
Majapahit/9
Injudis/21
Rus/2
Parma/1
Mantua/1
Fürstenberg/4
Nürnberg/1
Fryslan/2
Mecklenburg/10
Brandenburg/1
Würzburg/5
Hungary/1
Total:87
To be continued...
There are exactly 50 more years to go before the end-date is reached and I have to conquer 87 provinces in those 50 years. It looks doable, or not? I hope to able to present you a successful Angevin World Conquest in the next chapter!
I will have to either core Mantua, Parma, Rus, Hungary, Injuids, Dali, Fryslan, Mecklenburg myself or to force them into vassalage. I can feed Würzburg, Nürnberg & Fürstenberg to Bavaria, Majapahit to Malacca, and Yuan & parts of Ming/Shun Han/Shun to Xi.
Cheers! 
