The Eastern Vikings, Part 4 - Baltic Megacampaign

[RedTemplar]

The Eastern Vikings

Baltic Mega-Campaign, Part 4​

Greetings, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! After taking some time off to relax, recover, and play some other video games (new WoW expansions have a way of sucking up writing time, after all), it is finally time to get ready to end 2020 by taking the first steps to kicking off leg number FOUR of this little megacampaign project!

This project began back in May of 2017, when we followed the Karasi family from the island of Saaremaa on their journey to come to rule the great Estonian Empire, which occupied much of Eastern Europe and became one of the great world powers of the medieval era. Then, in October of 2018, we journeyed into the EU4 phase of the journey, where the empire was broken apart by civil war, forced to spend the next several centuries battling back to prominence while enduring the loss of its historical ruling family and undergoing a violent revolutionary transition to democracy. In April of this year, we started the Victoria 2 leg, and saw the Great War reshuffle the entire European world -- at the expense of much of Estonia's stability and influence.

Now, in December of 2020, we are ready to take the campaign into the fourth of its fifth stages and begin the Hearts of Iron 4 portion!

I am still working on making my own personal customizations to the wonderful savefile converted from the marvelous @Idhrendur 's V2-HoI4 converter, including some custom flags and leader graphics, tweaking of starting industrial and military balances, and trying to my hand at clumsily coding a few national foci. But, over the coming weeks, I will start writing entries for the major countries of the world, working on summarizing the history up to the current point of the AAR and fleshing out how the various major nations got to where they are now. I have a long weekend off from work this coming weekend, so I'm hoping to start off by writing up something on our main antagonists in France.

Mechanically, the game is being played on Hearts of Iron IV v. 1.9.3, which was the most recent version supported by the converter at the time my V2 AAR ended. I'll be playing on normal difficulty with everything more or less standard, save for some of the custom foci I'm attempting to code in. I have general ideas for where I want the major countries to go, but I'm also hoping that I can leave a little bit of room for variance so even I won't completely know what to suspect.

There's a lot of writing and world-building to be done, but here's a brief preview of what the world looks like in 1936, with a glimpse at a few of the most significant nations!

 

[Nikolai]

Yeah! It's on!

 

[Cora Giantkiller]

Rock. On.

 

[RedTemplar]

Prologue, Part 1​

The Firstborn of the Great War: France's Restoration
The Kingdom of France broke away from the crumbling Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, and it represented one of the major dominant powers in Europe until its decline some 900 years later. The von Erbach dynasty, whose members controlled both Holland and Germany, successfully convinced Rome to excommunicate several consecutive French monarchs in the 16th century, which led to the French Protestant Reformation and opened the way for two centuries of religiously-justified war that ended with the dissolution of the Kingdom of France in the early 18th century.

For two hundred years after its defeat, France's territory remained under foreign occupation, split between Germany, Andalusia, and the Celtic Empire. The French desire for independence continued to simmer for many years, but it began to burn brightly again in 1900 after two French fencers -- Albert Ayat and Henri Laurent, competing for Andalusia and Germany respectively -- faced one another in the finals of the masters' foil competition at the Second Olympiad. After Ayat won the match and earned a gold medal for Andalusia, Laurent celebrated along with him, embracing his fellow Frenchman while wrapped in a French flag. The move infuriated Andalusia's King Felipe II and Germany's Kaiser Albrecht, and it led to the rapid growth of a vibrant French independence movement. Estonia attempted to conduct negotiations to come to a peaceful agreement on the creation of a new French state, but all such offers were flatly rejected without any consideration or debate.

The breakdown of negotiations in the fall of 1901 led to the outbreak of the Great War. The Democratic Entente helmed by Estonia waged a five-year war against the German-led Monarchist Compact, involving nearly every major world power in Europe and even spilling over into the Americas as the United States and the Incan Empire involved themselves in the conflict. The war was extremely costly for all sides, but the Entente ultimately emerged victorious.

On May 9, 1906, the Treaty of Orleans finalized the creation of a new French state, but this was far from the end of the French's struggle. When the victorious Entente powers returned home, it was left to the newly liberated people of France to build a new government in whatever manner they saw fit. The Council of Paris was convened to bring France's political, social, and military leaders together to forge a new government, but factionalism brought it to a halt almost immediately. Communist party members, upon learning that they were not invited to participate in the council, took up arms and proclaimed the People's Republic of Burgundy, a sovereign communist state separate from France. The Council of Paris was paralyzed with endless debates on how to handle the armed secession, but as the young nation had no proper military, the process stalled and the People's Republic of Burgundy was fortified by its communist founders.

Frustrated by the council's inability to take action, Henri Laurent forcefully took control of the council. The Olympic hero had forged an alliance with August du Galle, a veteran commander of French volunteer forces during the Great War, and on June 27th of 1906, he entered the council chamber with a group of armed soldiers and anointed du Galle as "Marshal of the National Guard" tasked with subduing the rebellion.

Du Galle's army of volunteers went to work fighting against the communist forces in Burgundy, but they were soon also opposed by the French Liberty Front -- a pro-democratic organization founded by Laurent's former Olympic rival Albert Ayat that opposed the authoritarian posturing of Laurent and du Galle. For five years, brother fought against brother in an extended and exceptionally violent civil war that came to be called "The War for the Heart of France." Finally, in October of 1911, Marshal du Galle declared victory after subduing his communist and democratic rivals. With the backing of the National Guard, Laurent formed a new government headed by a president who would be elected by the people for a lifetime term and who would wield complete government authority supported by a body of elected representatives to serve as advisors.

While he claimed that all future presidents would be chosen by election, Laurent unilaterally named himself the first president and assumed full control over the French government. With an expertly-crafted mix of revanchism, French exceptionalism, and economic revival, President Laurent held his people together in spite of their suspicions of his heavy-handed rule. Under his leadership, France quickly rose to take its place as a dominant world power, and he was soon turning his National Guard loose on his neighbors. In 1914, Laurent forcefully occupied Alsace-Lorraine, which had voted to remain with Germany when given a choice during the formation of the Treaty of Orleans. In the early 1920's, barely a decade after the formation of the Laurent government, France went to war with the Celtic Empire over control of Brittany. Remarkably, the young nation held its own against the allied forces of the Celtic Empire and Andalusia, defeating two major European powers at once to reclaim the Breton Peninsula.

Under Laurent's rule, the young French state seemed to be thriving. France's shift from an occupied state to a primary European power had been swift, and the nation's star was rising. But Laurent's vision was incomplete, and his mission to fully transform the nation had only begun.

The Road to a One-Party State
Although it was led by a president with unlimited executive power, France nevertheless maintained the stance that its government was democratic in nature. After Henri Laurent, presidents were to be elected by the people, and the legislature, while lacking any actual governmental power, was filled with delegates from a variety of political parties chosen in regional elections held every three years. With this, Laurent continued to defend the illusion of France's freedom, but that illusion would be shattered in the late 1920's.

France's borders following the conquests of Alsace-Lorraine and Brittany.

After the French occupation of Brittany in 1921, the Breton people suffered increasing levels of persecution at the hands of the Laurent government. French culture and language were pushed heavily on the Breton population, with French being the only language allowed for all official government business and for education. Breton-language textbooks were purged from classrooms and all students were required to learn to speak French regardless of their age or grade level. For a region that was almost entirely ethnically homogenous, the sudden loss of the language and traditions shared by 98% of its population came as a terrible shock. This was only made worse by a flood of French citizens who moved to the region, disrupting its ethnic and cultural unity. Further adding insult to injury, ethnic Frenchmen were given special preference and consideration in most areas of life, particularly with respect to jobs, economic incentives, and political opportunities. Within a few short years, the Bretons had been made to feel like outsiders in their own ancestral home.

This strict Francocentric policy naturally did not sit well with the people of Brittany, and there was no shortage of resentment toward their new overlords. At first, this tension was manifest through efforts by the Bretons to resist the reforms demanded by the French government. Bretons fed up with being treated like second-class citizens on their own soil began to lash out at the French, beginning with the underground publishing of a Breton-language newspaper: "Hêrezh" ("Heritage"). The paper was quietly printed by a group of academics centered in the coastal city of Brest, and was distributed by hand by volunteer couriers. Hêrezh printed Breton poetry and essays on Brittany's history, but it also gave a forum to Bretons seeking ways to resist the French effort to Gallicize their people.

Hêrezh was published for two years before local police forces caught wind of it, and the French government acted quickly to suppress it by confiscating it wherever it was found and attaching a criminal penalty for anyone caught distributing it. When this failed to curb its circulation, French police forces raided its publishing house in July of 1929, destroying all of its publications and materials and seizing the publishing equipment used to print it. When new equipment was purchased and Hêrezh resumed circulation out of a new base of operations, this second publishing house was tracked down in the basement of a schoolhouse in Renne in November of that same year. This time, instead of confiscating their equipment, the police arrested everyone connected to the newspaper and closed down the entire schoolhouse for sheltering seditious journalism.

The raid of the schoolhouse in Renne pushed the Bretons from intellectual resistance to physical resistance. Incensed, groups of Bretons lashed out at anything and anyone French within their reach. A government office in Rennes was assaulted in February of 1930, and a month later a series of acts of vandalism defaced the homes of multiple wealthy French families living in Brest. In the spring, roaming bands of Breton men began assaulting and mugging any Frenchman they happened across, and two French citizens were murdered in their home in Nantes in April. Fearing for their safety, many of the French who had moved to Brittany following the conquest began to leave, returning to France proper to avoid further Breton violence.

This wave of anti-French violence had intimidated French residents of Brittany, but it had also given Henri Laurent and August du Galle the justification they needed to escalate the power of their regime to a new level. Laurent accused the upstart Bretons of being in league with communist agitators, using their ethnic grievances as a cover to bring about a revolutionary uprising. He deployed forces from the National Guard directed by General Maxime Weygand to restore order to the peninsula with swift and brutal efficiency. French troops locked down the peninsula for six months of strict martial law, enforcing curfews, checkpoints, and routine suspicionless searches of people and property. In November of 1930, President Laurent addressed the legislature and presented fabricated evidence that he claimed linked the Breton agitators to communist and left-leaning democratic groups within France. The unrest in Brittany was not simply the result of ethnic frustration, but a symptom of a greater seditious sickness that was infecting the nation.

Declaring that the security of the French state was under imminent threat, Laurent declared a state of emergency and implemented sweeping measures to suppress his political opponents. He accused all of his rival political parties of conspiring to bring about a revolution, and on January 14 of 1931 he issued an executive order which he called "Le décret présidentiel d'unité nationale" -- the Presidential Decree of National Unity. The decree officially banned all political parties except Laurent's own own: Le Parti Populaire Français (The French Popular Party).

Flag of the French Popular Party

Playing to the fears of communism born from the violence of the People's Republic of Burgundy and the patriotic pride of a French nation that was still young in its rebirth, Laurent successfully took the frustrations of the oppressed Bretons and spun them into a conspiracy of anti-government agitators attempting to destroy what the French people had fought so hard to build from the ashes of the Great War. With his political opposition stripped away, Henri Laurent could now take the next step toward remaking France according to the fascist visions of his party. Over the course of the next five years, France would undergo a radical and frightening transformation.

 

[Cora Giantkiller]

Grim days in France. Hard not to sympathize with the proud Bretons as well.

 

[RedTemplar]

Grim days in France. Hard not to sympathize with the proud Bretons as well.

Grim indeed.. France took a dark turn after getting their freedom back.

 

[CaptainAlvious]

The situation in Brittany is pretty sad, and to think not too long ago that the French themselves were the oppressed underdogs clamoring for independence from foreign occupiers. At least they're not Germans who lived in Alsace Lorraine when the French took it it over from Germany, something tells me that the French did worse to them.

Nice to see this megacampagin continue into HOI4, let's hope fascist France and India can make for challenging opponents for Estonia during this part.

 

[RedTemplar]

The situation in Brittany is pretty sad, and to think not too long ago that the French themselves were the oppressed underdogs clamoring for independence from foreign occupiers. At least they're not Germans who lived in Alsace Lorraine when the French took it it over from Germany, something tells me that the French did worse to them.

Nice to see this megacampagin continue into HOI4, let's hope fascist France and India can make for challenging opponents for Estonia during this part.

I'm hopeful that they will -- but the biggest, scariest blob on the map is still that beast of a China.

 

[Nikolai]

In our timeline, the treatment of Germany after WW1 was the big mistake. In this timeline, it seems the care for France was the mistake one never should've done.

 

[noobeless]

From the opressed to the opressors. What a terrible regime that have taken rook in France.

 

[HIMDogson]

Will this mod be made available on the Steam workshop?

 

[RedTemplar]

Prologue, Part 2​

A Fascist France: Laurent's Vision Becomes a Reality
The Presidential Decree of National Unity proclaimed on January 14, 1931 made all political opposition parties in France illegal, giving full control of the government to Henri Laurent's own French Popular Party (Parti Populaire Français, or PPF). With the PPF as the sole legal political party, Laurent and his subordinates were free to mold France into the one-party fascist state to which they had aspired. In the weeks following the passage of the Decree, Laurent's government quickly mobilized to bring nearly every aspect of French life under the party's influence.

Jacques Doriot, Vice Chairman of the Parti Populaire Français and Pierre Laval, Secretary of State

As the second-in-command of the PPF, Jacques Doriot became President of the Senate and assumed full control over the legislature. All members were required to join the party and take an oath of absolute loyalty. Those who agreed were handed their cloth armband bearing the party's flag, and those who refused were declared guilty of sedition and arrested; most of them were never seen again. The party's flag replaced the French tricolor that had been adopted in 1906, and the party anthem became the new national anthem. From that point on, there was no division between the nation of France and the French Popular Party - they were one in the same.

To help combat the unrest that was certain to result from this sudden takeover of the state, Doriot worked with the leaders of the various fascist leagues and paramilitary groups across the country give the party's blessing to their actions. Under Doriot's direction, these groups received government funding to pay for weapons, equipment, and training, and they were promised protection from legal action so long as they assisted in suppressing anti government dissidents. All across France, these paramilitary organizations carried out acts of violence without consequence, burning down businesses and viciously assaulting people by night, all under the pretense of targeting "enemies of the state."

While Doriot was working to expand the Popular Party's reach and authority, Secretary of State Pierre Laval was just as busy creating the new infrastructure of the state to ensure loyalty and compliance for the future. Newspapers were placed under strict government censorship, with all published materials requiring approval by the Committee on Public Media. Anyone who attempted to report on matters damaging to the state saw their careers end in short order. The lucky ones were fired, while the unlucky ones found themselves in prison.

A National Board of Education was formed to develop a standard nationwide curriculum which would focus on French history, patriotic nationalism, and fascist social virtues, while maintaining high physical education standards for students of both sexes. Teachers were rigorously indoctrinated as part of their training, with harsh penalties for anyone found to stray from the state-approved lesson plans. This new school system was supplemented by the establishment of the Jeunesses Patriotes (Young Patriots), a nationwide youth organization intended to "train the next generation of French patriots" though the development of life skills, physical fitness, national loyalty, and rudimentary military training.

By 1933, two years following Laurent's Decree, France had undergone a rapid and dramatic transformation. From top to bottom, every part of society was closely scrutinized by the Popular Party and directed toward its authoritarian goals. The France of 1933 was nearly unrecognizable compared to what it had been only a few years prior.

French society had also grown increasingly militarized under fascist rule, and the National Guard -- France's main military body -- underwent its own rapid expansion and transformation under the leadership of Laurent's hand-picked officers.

Grand Marshal Maxime Weygand; Admiral François Darlan, Chief of the Navy; François de la Rocque, leader of the Croix-de-Feu

When August du Gaulle, the founder of the National Guard and the first Grand Marshal of France, passed away of natural causes and old age on October 26th, 1932, Henri Laurent chose Maxime Weygand, the General responsible for cracking down on Brittany to replace him. Weygand had served in the National Guard since its inception, distinguishing himself under du Galle's command fighting against the People's Republic of Burgundy. Promoted to the rank of General by the end of the war, Weygand was known as a creative and forward-thinking military leader; someone ahead of his time in advancing the art of warfare.

Placed in command of the entirety of France's armed forces, Weygand was the primary driver of the army's modernization efforts in the 1930's. When Hotchkiss presented the army with early prototypes of the H35 light tank, the new Grand Marshal was immediately taken with them. He ordered a number for inspection and testing by the military, and by 1934 he had already begun organizing a dedicated armored force within the army. By 1936, the H35 had been replaced by the more advanced FCM 36, and light tanks had become an integral part of the army's operations, making France the first nation to fully embrace mobile tank warfare.

By 1936, Grand Marshal Weygand had overseen the development of the largest and most modern army in Europe. The army boasted 33 divisions containing 318 battalions, with just over 250,000 men actively on duty, more than any of its European counterparts. It was made of up of 19 infantry divisions, 9 motorized divisions, and 5 armored divisions -- two of which were the National Guard's cutting-edge Mobile Assault Divisions. In addition to the FCM 36 tanks that other armored divisions made use of, these Mobile Assault Divisions also employed older-model H35 tanks that had been converted to serve as self-propelled artillery and anti-aircraft gun platforms, making them the fastest and most mobile divisions in the entire army.

In addition to these special mobile units, the army's other claim to fame was its hardened units deployed by the Croix-de-Feu. Led by former French resistance fighter and Great War veteran François de la Rocque, the Croix-de-Feu formed as a Free Corps in the aftermath of the war, helping to suppress crime and violence as the fledging nation found its footing. The Croix-de-Feux was one of the many groups sanctioned by Jacques Doriot to act on behalf of the government, but as the Croix-de-Feu contained a number of army veterans as well as hardened young fighters trained by those veterans, it quickly caught the eye of Henri Laurent and Maxime Weygand. De la Rocque, a sharp commander and an extremely stern leader, organized his men into two elite stormtrooper units, equipped with motorized support artillery and tasked with serving as the precursor to special forces units within the army.

The army was the pride of France and the envy of many nations, but the navy, under the direction of Admiral François Darlan, was somewhat less impressive. With 63 ships at sea, it was one of the smallest in Europe, and just over half the size of the fleet fielded across the channel by the Celtic Empire. Furthermore, the ships of the French navy were rather aged and outdated, lagging technologically behind their neighbors. It focused on heavy surface ships supported by a modest destroyer screen, and lacked any usage of modern submarines. With the heavy emphasis placed on armor production by Grand Marshal Weygand, the navy had been forced for many years to make do with far less production capacity at its disposal, and it showed. It was an unimpressive force, save for its one crowning glory: the FS August du Galle. The first ship of its class named for the nation's first Grand Marshal, the August du Galle was commissioned in late 1932 and took almost three and a half years to complete. Massive in size and brimming with heavy cannon turrets, light defense cannons, and anti-aircraft emplacements, Darlan envisioned the ship as an impregnable floating sea fortress, a projection of French power that could stand against anything. It was staffed by the most senior officers of the navy, given pride of place in the dockyard, and a familiar sight to every Frenchman thanks to its constant prominence in propaganda posters.

The French air force was also smaller in size than most of France's neighbors, fielding 610 M.S.406 fighter craft and 370 Amiot 143 tactical bombers. The air force was seen by both the army and navy as more of a supporting force than as its own proper branch, and as such it was given substantially less priority for production and research.

France's military was large, well-trained, and modern; its economy was strong, with a superabundance of aluminum and steel to trade for any of its needs; and its government had established an iron grip on its people. Twenty years years after he took control of the Council of Paris to win a civil war and fifteen years after he became the first President of France, Henri Laurent had finally succeeded into molding France into the proper Great Power he had envisioned. France was strong, sturdy, and ready to embrace its destiny.

And Henri Laurent had very grand ambitions for France's destiny.

 

[RedTemplar]

Will this mod be made available on the Steam workshop?

No, I have no plans to share it anywhere -- the basis of the mod is just formed from using the V2-HoI4 converted on a Victoria 2 savegame, and I'm doing some very ghetto-level modding of some national focuses to help push the game in the direction I want the story to go without having to constantly tag-swap and push everything along manually... It's definitely not near the level of completion or refinement of an actual mod.

 

[HistoryDude]

Well, I missed the last updates on the V2 portion, but I think that the overview will catch me up.

Subbed!

 

[generalis Julius Caesar]

I love this so far! Could someone send me links to parts 1, 2, and 3?

 

[InvisibleBison]

I love this so far! Could someone send me links to parts 1, 2, and 3?

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

 

[generalis Julius Caesar]

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

This will keep me occupied for many a week. Thanks!

 

[RedTemplar]

This will keep me occupied for many a week. Thanks!

Find a comfy chair and a warm drink, you've got 2.5 years worth of AAR in there!

Glad to have you and everyone else along, though! I'm making more progress through cleaning up my modded focuses, and hoping to get a second prologue entry up on Monday.

 

[Nikolai]

Hitler, I mean Laurent, is ready to rival Napoleon.

 

[Gamov_Andrew]

I've read your previous ARR ... and I admire you. I also start megacampaign for Suomenko tribe and plan follow you path. What about current ARR... France is obviously dangerous enemy. Estonia should ally with Germany. What's type of government in Germany now? Is alliance possible?