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Originally posted by Odysseus
At this rate, the AAR will be finished sometime in the year 2008, I imagine.

Good, it'll give me something to read until I head off for graduate school.:D And I also lend my voice to the chorus calling for another update. We need our AAR fix, even if only once a month or so. It's that good.
 
For the first time, I'm starting to doubt if I'll see this AAR finished in my lifetime.

If I die before that happens, I want weekly seance meetings where you communicate the updates to my soul.
 
The Gonzo said:
For the first time, I'm starting to doubt if I'll see this AAR finished in my lifetime.

If I die before that happens, I want weekly seance meetings where you communicate the updates to my soul.

hey good idea, sign me up
 
Lyon_Man said:
And I also lend my voice to the chorus calling for another update. We need our AAR fix, even if only once a month or so. It's that good.

May I second that
 
Patience is a virtue

Based on the dates of Yogi's first post that corresponds to Jan 1, 1936 and his most recent post on Feb 9, 1936 I conclude that it takes approximately 1 year real time to equal 1 month game time. Therefore we'll ring in 1937 in about 11 more years. :eek:

It definately is worth the wait.
 
The Gonzo said:
For the first time, I'm starting to doubt if I'll see this AAR finished in my lifetime.

If I die before that happens, I want weekly seance meetings where you communicate the updates to my soul.
how do you think i am beginning to feel? ? :rolleyes: :D
 
Sorry, RL issues keep Yogi busy. There are periods when I can do a few updates at work and some times when I need to earn my paycheck. This is one of them.

There are also periods when the nights are quiet and uneventful, and Yogi can restrict his sleeping to a few but blissfully uninterrupted hours (leaving the reminder of the night hours for AARing), and times when kids are sick or otherwise ill disposed towards sleep. This is also such a period.

I hope things will improve soon - and you will doubtlessly be rewarded with reduction of your stint in purgatory in reward for your serene and dignified patience. ;)
 
Good to hear that all is well with you and the little Yogsters. We eagerly (but hopefully understandingly) await.

Vann
 
hehe, I return from a 3.5 month stint in Australia and find I havn't missed much...

Good luck with Xander, hopefully he will become as good a evil emperor as fu manchu and as good a writer as Yogi sr.

more? :D
 
And without any more ado, here goes an update! (I bet you weren't expecting that, eh?) ;)

BTW, I have updated the index links on the first page and reworked the division of the AAR into separate "books". I will get around to doing the same to the AAR only thread soon.
 

The Austro-Hungarian Revolutions

Chapter XIV – I believe in Yesterday
Above the Adriatic, March 15th, 1936

schatten.jpg


Nestor Makhno leaned back in his seat and sighed deeply as the decrepit old Ju-52 left the Adriatic coast behind, taking him out of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for the first time in almost a year. Bitter resentment made his throat ache. Five months earlier, the future had seemed so bright, the success of the revolution so certain. How he longed for the halcyon days of the advance on Prague, when victory had seemed just within grasp! Then it had all gone from bad to worse, and now, in the face of the latest string of Imperialist victories, the anarchist militias had gone over wholesale to the Communist Red Armies. When the militias crumbled after the battle of Kutna Hora, the North Slavic Peoples Army and the Soviet Hungarian Red Army of Bela Kun had joined forces to repel the Imperials from the last bastion of the North Slavic Peoples Republic, Presov. That victory, won mainly thanks to material sent by Trotsky, had finished to convince far too many militians that the Communist forces were the last best hope of the revolution, and despite the subsequent defeats that conviction had stuck. And yet there had been so many defeats! The intervention of the Poles in Galizia, trapping many of the North Slavic and Hungarian divisions there. The fall of Presov and final surrender of the North Slavic Peoples Republic. The dismal failure of Bela Kun’s grand offensive on Budapest. The gradual advance of the allied Austrian and Ustasha forces through Bosnia, Hercegovina and the Adriatic coast of Croatia until they stood at the very border of Serbia proper… and all the while the anarchist popular armies, once exuberant with revolutionary zeal, had congealed into ordered, uniformed communist rank and file until the two armies facing each other were almost carbon copies of each other, mirror images of oppression differentiated mainly by the colours they were flying. At this point, there was no longer any place for an anarchist icon. Only carefully prepared escape plans had allowed Makhno to evade the clutches of the NKVD across the front lines to stay-behind anarchists hiding from the Imperial occupation forces, and out of the country.

For a while Makhno had wondered were to go next – perhaps to China, but Mao and his Red Army were thoroughly Communist through and through, tools of Trotsky which would not hesitate to turn the Ukrainian Zapata over to the Russians. He then briefly considered Abyssinia, where the Italian Fascists, using poison gas and terror bombing had finally managed to capture Addis Ababa and closed in on Gondar, but while the plight of the Abyssinians was certainly a tragedy, inflicted by the most ruthless and naked of imperialist aggression, the regime of the Negus was if anything more reactionary than its Italian foes. Makhno had just about decided to go back to his home near the lower Dnepr and resume the decades old fight against the forces of the Hetmanate, when everything changed and the place of his next battle became clear to him.

Not far below, the surface of the Adriatic glistened grey in the gloom of an afternoon with heavy overcast. Comrades in Italy had prepared staging posts in outback airfields in the Apennines, on Corsica and then on Menorca in Spain. The final objective was Barcelona.

Makhno was weary, and deep in the blackest despair over this last, most unexpected defeat at the hands of Trotsky, but he didn’t give in to the luxury of apathy. Another battle was brewing; only the previous day, the Popular Front had won the general elections in Spain, signalling the commencement of the final stage of the revolutionary transition of the liberal bourgeoisie Republic of Spain to a Socialist society. The reactionary forces, so strong in Spain, were sure to react with violence, and Makhno had to get there, had to warn his anarchist friends before it was too late – there could be no cohabitation with the Communists. They had to be destroyed as soon as possible, or the libertarian revolution wouldn’t stand a chance. This was their last chance, their very last chance at a libertarian revolution. Makhno intended to make sure it wasn’t squandered.​
 
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Wuhu an exellent update Yogi!!! :D Nice to see the situation in Austro-Hungary stabilised! But with communist Romenia, Serbia and Russia on their doorsteep, it would seem that there will be no end to insurrgents and guerllia fighters! Maybe it is time to disolve the Empire? :D
Anyway excellent update! And can't wait for the next!!
 
Hopefully the Anarchists in Spain will be able to defeat the Communists and the Fascists. Onward to Barcelona!!! Viva la Revolución!!!
 
Ah, sweet bliss, a Yogi update! :D

And our friend Makhno leaves the Balkans for Spain. I foresee some interesting times ahead! Hot diggity!
 
An update!! Praise be to the Yogi!! His name shall be coined on specie and his picture shall adorn the walls of every town. :) Sing hymns in his praise and name all newborn chidlren after him! Let a hundred little Yogis and Yogines speak praise and lay flowers at his feet, for he hath delivered us an update!

I have to say I'm a bit depressed over the fate of the revolution, though. Fascist Ustashe on the advance, crackpots like Pavelic on the rise, the German Kaiser's iron fist landing squarely on the jaw of the revolution? The forces of reaction show surprising determination, it's going to be a long fight before communism will triumph and free the central European masses from their thousand year old chains. But first blood has been drawn, and rivers of blood will follow, crimson as the flag of the revolution.

Zauberfloete said:
Wuhu an exellent update Yogi!!! :D Nice to see the situation in Austro-Hungary stabilised! But with communist Romenia, Serbia and Russia on their doorsteep, it would seem that there will be no end to insurrgents and guerllia fighters! Maybe it is time to disolve the Empire? :D
Anyway excellent update! And can't wait for the next!!
More likely, given the speed and resolve that the Imperial Germans have shown lately, their Habsburg lackeys will see the shards of their quaint old empire reassembled in the shape of a vicious military dictatorship. the Habsburg empire will only stand as long as there are German troops keeping its enemies down, not a second longer. The empire is dead, yes, but its bones and its colors are still of use.

Once the Germans find that they don't need to use the old "we're just helping the Habsburgs" excuse any more to justify their troop deployments, they'll probably install a more practical solution in the Danubian realms. The WW1 pattern of convening local assemblies, and having them ask the Kaiser to turn their new statelets into protectorates, might be applied here, too. How does "Reich Protectorate Siebenbuergen" sound?

Which means that it's going to fall like a house of cards once Thorez and Trotsky get this war going for real. Might be a while though. Trotsky probably has a few more maneuvers in his game book before he's going to unleash the Red Army on a full scale assault. And Thorez would probably want to focus on the developing struggle in Spain for the time being, hoping to catch the forces of reaction unaware. It's going to be exciting!

Their plan is (was) probably to topple the Central Powers' perpheral states one after another like dominos and only then crush encircled Germany, but with the reverses in Austria it's possible that this plan might not work as intended. Rather than risk that Germany uses the time to arm itself and drag Britain into guarantees of alliance, Trotsky and Thorez might be well advised to prepare to strike quickly. Thorez needs to rearm quickly, and stall the Nationalists in Spain, and Trotsky needs a plan to get the Ukraine and the Baltic out of the way before the Germans deploy their armies there. It's a long way from the Dniepr to the Oder... would be much nicer if the Ukraine could be taken from the inside, no?
 
The Yogi said:
...and Makhno had to get there, had to warn his anarchist friends before it was too late – there could be no cohabitation with the Communists. They had to be destroyed as soon as possible, or the libertarian revolution wouldn’t stand a chance..
perhaps Makhno will figure out how to win one! ! :cool:
 
elbasto said:
So, you've cleared Austria-Hungary from enemy troops?

No, no, only one of the three revolutionary states, the North Slavic Peoples Republic, has been defeated and (re-)annexed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Soviet Hungarian Peoples Republic and South Slavic Peoples Republic (Serbia) are still strong(er than Austria-Hungary) and fightning hard. The front currently runs along the present Slovkian-Hungarian border, then along the Danube down to Croatia and then into Bosnia-Hercegovina to the Adriatic east of Split.