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Well, if the isolationists are gathering strength you know what to do: pick a weak enemy and gather a few wins, that'll unite the people, it always does.
 
@Kurty: I have a feeling you'll be disappointed with the career path I have in mind for Burt.

@Rommelstein: So how's it going so far?

@Jape: And a thank you to you sir.

@Hmm, maybe, maybe not, but that'll certainly be one possible outcome of beating the Ottomans

Anyway, expect two or more updates this week.
 
@Rommelstein: So how's it going so far?

Well, I ended up playing from 1914 to 1941 but in the end I had about 120 000 in debts due to the "dustbowl" and Great Depression events... Didn't appear to get any of the New Deal events, I either messed it up or just had bad luck because I didn't see anyone else with that problem.

Keep up the great AAR by the way!
 
@Rommelstein: Well I hope that doesn't happen to me! Though with my luck it probably will! :p

@Nathan: Kill the arrogant prick? That's what I want to do, and painfully. But I'm not like Kurty, so I'll have to see where this goes.

Anyway, while I know you guys want to see more of our favorite Cajun adventurer, I have three more updates, one dealing with the war, one with internal affairs and one with Far-Eastern policy before we get another LeRoulle update. It is my (admittedly ambitious) goal to get all four of these updates done this week. I also need to mod the Archangelsk government, Turkestan and the Ufa Directorate to have realistic governments before I go too much further in the actual game.
 
The Yanks are Coming​

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The AEF disembarks in Brest​

Even as domestic opposition to what Wheeler called, rather alliteratively, “Wilson’s wasteful war of unwarranted aggression”, began to crystallize, American forces were already on the move. By the end of the day of February 14th, the U.S. First and Seconds Corps and the newly created AEF were already embarked and sailing towards the Eurasian continent. On the 22nd, the First U.S. Infantry division disembarked in Brest to the cheers of the assembled crowd of Bretons. At its head, in overall command of the one division American Expeditionary Force was Major General Alexander Lindsay*, a relatively mediocre commander of little distinction. Lindsay and his forces were not of course intended to dramatically shift the balance of power on the Western Front, they were a symbolic offering to placate the troop hungry French and British commanders who needed forces to smash the German lines and end the war.

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Turkish soldiers prepare to defend Basrah​

The real strength of America’s military was still at sea, on March 3rd, the U.S. II Corps under Lieutenant General Hugh Scott landed in Karachi. The Corps was made up of two divisions, both of which would eventually achieve semi-legendary status, the First “Big Red One” Division and the Second “Indianhead” Division. Each division was outfitted with an artillery section comprised of 6 inch bore 1908 model Howitzers and an armored car reconnaissance brigade comprised of Davidson-Cadillac model armored cars. After a short period during which the divisions were resupplied, the divisions were re-embarked and sailed through the straits of Hormuz to Kuwait City. On March 7th, the division debarked and set up an encampment a short distance from Kuwait City which was optimistically named Fort Victory. The next day, Scott visited General Percy Zachariah Cox, commander of the Kuwaiti forces. Scott and Cox hit it off immediately and Cox agreed to subordinate his forces to Scott’s command. They then toured the front lines, Scott’s description follows, “The Kuwaiti sentries sat in their trenches, staring across about a mile of sand at the Ottoman sentries, both of the forces actual troops apparently remained in camp, unwilling to spend their days in the hot sun of the desert they had wisely set up their camps very close to their trenches so that they might stay close to their fortifications without actually being inside them. Indeed, more than one enterprising Ottoman soldier or Kuwaiti militia man would cross the no-man’s land to sell some of their rations. The entire situation seemed to be a leisurely, non-violent imitation of the horrors of the Western Front.

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General Hugh L. Scott, Commander of Allied Forces in Kuwait

By the beginning of the next day, Scott had ordered the artillery batteries into place and at 3:14p.m. in the afternoon, the first real artillery bombardment of the Mesopotamian Campaign had started and the assault on Basrah had begun. Private Brian Maloney of the First Infantry Division chronicled the attack in his diary a few days after the first bombardment, “The first day was the only good day; the Turks seemed to have simply fled under our howitzers and it felt as though we might amble all the way to Baghdad with the howitzers at our fore, never stopping. We entered the town of Umm Quasr [sic]at about 5 p.m. and there we encountered our first resistance. We were moving through the city when a rifle shot echoed through the streets and a bullet ricocheted off a wall behind out platoon. We all sought cover, and as I dove behind a wall, another soldier, Carl somebody, went down clutching at his neck. He thrashed horrifically, blood gushing through his fingers, pooling around him. One of the medics rushed to his aid, managing to slightly staunch the bleeding. I checked on what happened to him a few weeks later, as it turned out he died of blood poisoning in the hospital in Fort Victory. Anyway, one of the men in our unit used to do a lot of hunting and he drew a bead on the Turk with a homemade scope; in those days there wasn’t a formal sniper school; he fired a single shot and instantly the Turkish sniper tumbled from his perch and was silenced.” The attack quickly bogged down in the trenches outside the city, although ground was still being gained, morale began to fall. “Every day after that was hell, the flies swarmed around our bodies, stinging and biting, while we moved forward each day, the Turks would fight in their hastily built earthworks and then withdraw, leaving every imaginable sort of trap in our path…” But help was on the way in the form of the U.S. II Corps under Lieutenant General George Barnett; under his command were three divisions of crack infantry, the 3rd, 6th and 23rd Divisions. The Corps arrived in Karachi on the Fourteenth and two days later they set sail for Kuwait City, where they were set to arrive and join the assault on the nineteenth of March.

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The German and Austrian forces enter the Po River Valley​

Meanwhile, big events were brewing in Europe, but not for the eager boys of the AEF who had been assigned to “fortify Paris”. The French realized that Wilson had sent them a token AEF as a booby present. He had hoped that the French would throw the forces into the meatgrinder of the Western Front, thus giving him a better pretext for striking the vulnerable Ottomans by making the French seem like senseless butchers. The French had wisely avoided using the AEF in combat and had instead placed them in a cushy garrison post. The Americans quickly became accustomed to the delights Paris had to offer, indeed, Lindsay’s memos to his subordinants reflects major dismay at the number of American soldiers arrested for “…cavorting drunkenly with prostitutes, gambling, drinking on duty, smoking tobacco and even opium on duty, spending time in the seediest and most scandalous neighborhoods and for various other vices some of which are too foul for the civilized mind to conceive.” Indeed, the horrors of the Western Front must have seemed very far away to the boys of the AEF on the morning of March 1st, when a combined British, Italian and French push to retake Nancy, an offensive which would cost tens of thousands of lives. But this attack would pale in comparison to the news coming from Italy. On February 28th, Brescia had fallen to a combined Austrian-German push from Tyrol. The fall of Brescia created a dangerous salient containing all of the French and Italian forces besieging Trieste as well as the major port city of Venice. But the Germans decided to advance in an even bolder direction, marching into the Po River Valley and attacking Parma. On the eighteenth, it happened. Parma fell and suddenly nothing but land stood between the Austrians and Rome. But even this shocking reversal was to be overshadowed by one of the most daring commando raids in history.
 
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Wilson thought he was so clever. Unfortunately the French are not so easily duped, and will not likely be impressed by the American token force.

A commando raid more daring and impressive than an Austrian breakthrough with Rome in sight? This I have to see.
 
Wilson thought he was so clever. Unfortunately the French are not so easily duped, and will not likely be impressed by the American token force.

A commando raid more daring and impressive than an Austrian breakthrough with Rome in sight? This I have to see.

You will dear Lady, you will.

EDIT: And yes, I'm just glad that they weren't sent to the 42 division doomstack France has sitting in Oran. That would have been hard to explain gamewise.
 
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Well, in a couple of months the AEF will start suffering for enjoying their stay in Paris; an army with cirrhosis can't put up a decent fight, I guess.

Also, someone stop the austrians from reaching Rome. Italy failing in such little time will spoil the fun of it.
 
Now Italy does the best trick in her arsenal: to surrender :D:D
 
...what Wheeler called, rather alliteratively, “Wilson’s wasteful war of unwarranted aggression”...

Try saying that five times fast, Wheeler. :p
 
Do you have any divisions you can spare. If you do, I would suggest landing them somewhere in Italy in order to stop the Austrian advance and buy the Allies time to bring in more men to either permanently hold them at Parma or, preferably, drive them back.
 
The Russian Civil War: The Maelstrom​

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The Situation in Western Russia, March 18th, 1917
As Charles LeRoulle’s tiny troop of mercenaries made their way through the harsh Russian winter towards the fortress city of Tobolsk, the White Movement continued to grow in size and strength. By the time they reached the outskirts of the city of Tsaritsyn on the 19th of February, the Bukharan and Khivan Sultanates of Turkestan declared themselves independent and went to war with the Soviets. The revolters were popularly known as the Basmachi, and their revolt was characterized by a split between the Islamists, many of whom were motivated by the calls for jihad against the irreligious Bolsheviks emanating from the mosques of Turkestan and the Pan-Turkists, who desired a union of all of the Turkic peoples of the Middle East and Central Asia. The Basmachi were also virulently anti-Russian, seeing the Russians who had settled the major cities of the region as interlopers and desiring to throw them out of the region entirely. This was bad news for the local Russians and for the LeRoulle expedition, but it was great news for the White Movement. Even more good news arrived in the form of Ismail Enver, better known as Enver Pasha, formerly one of the highest officials in the Ottoman Empire. Enver had arrived to fight for the cause of Panturkism, and he desired to unite Turkestan with the Ottoman Empire to create a union of the Turkish people, but more importantly he brought volunteers and supplies to the outnumbered rebels.


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Admiral Alexsander Kolchak, now leader of the White Movement in Eastern Russia​

And soon two more groups joined the battle against the Red Beast. On the Twenty Fourth, the exiled Admiral Alexsander Kolchak made his triumphant return to Russia, declaring a new government in Vladivostok, colloquially termed the “Ufa Directory”, he was an incredibly popular figure in Russia and indeed, Kerensky had sent him into what was virtual exile in the United States for this reason. But Kolchak had been useful, giving the United States significant expertise in the lay of the land in the Dardanelles, experience which would soon pay off. This relationship with the United States would also be useful for Kolchak. Immediately after his declaration, Secretary of State Lodge sent him a telegram informing him that “…all possible aid will be given to you and your forces until the Bolshevik government of Russia is destroyed.” And Lodge intended to make good on that promise, since Wilson had fully committed himself to destroying the Bolsheviks, a full two divisions of Russian exiles had been trained and equipped with modern artillery units. As Kolchak set about forming a Provisional Council, the gears were already in motion to dispatch these forces as well as copious amounts of cash, ammunition, uniforms, weapons and provisions to Vladivostok. Only four days later Lodge dispatched an emissary and a team of Western Union Telegraph men, their objective was to land in the friendly port of Dalian in Manchuria, cross the border to the capital of Mongolia in Urga and establish an American Embassy there and to link the embassy to the greater world via telegraph cable. But the emissary had a secret objective. At that point, Republican Chinese forces were stationed throughout Mongolia and they fully intended to integrate Mongolia into China. But Lodge, Wilson and House were in agreement that the new strongman in China, Yuan Shikai, was likely to be hostile to American business interests. An independent Mongolia would be an asset in dealing with both the troublesome strongman in Peking and in defeating the Bolsheviks in Siberia. The ambassador carried a secret letter to the Bogd Khan stating in effect that the United States would support any effort to reassert her independence. On the Fifteenth of March, the emissary arrived and only two days later he had an audience with the Bogd Khan, but he was bluntly informed that the Mongols possessed no forces with which to expel the Chinese or to fight the Bolsheviks, but this was soon to change.

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General Evgeny Miller, leader of the Arkhangelsk Government
But the Volunteers Movement’s fortunes had begun to slip and by March 10th Yudenich and his forces had been evacuated from the Gdov pocket to the Baltic Cost, from which they departed for Rostov, and Wrangel’s forces in Odessa had made a daring nighttime escape, arriving in Rostov a mere two days later. The Volunteers Army now huddled in Rostov, but their situation was not what it seemed, they vastly outnumbered the paltry Soviet forces near them, they were commanded by some of the best generals in the Russian army and they were supplied with massive amounts of American-made supplies and weapons. In many ways, the collapse of the Odessa and Gdov pockets was a blessing as it allowed the concentration of the Volunteers Army’s forces in a single base of operations and clarified the chain of command, with Denikin firmly at the top. And on the Thirteenth of March, General Evgeny Miller and his loyalist White forces in the North revolted, forming what would come to be known as the Archangelsk Government. Miller was supported by British and French forces that had intervened in the North in order to keep vital military supplies from falling into Soviet hands. The Soviets now faced four distinct enemies, and the civil war would only continue to get messier.



@Jape: Allied? Hmm, maybe/maybe not.
@Mr. Santiago: I don't want to interfere with the natural cycle of Italy getting destroyed. And yeah, the greatest enemies of the AEF are cirrhosis, the clap and jilted husbands.
@Agent Larkin: Am I it?
@Kurty and Undead-Hippie: Yup, basically.
@Hyo: PASTA!
@Nathan: Wilson Wah of Wahgle blubbuh
@History Buff: I would do that if I cared about Italy, but I don't so I won't.
 
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