you are alone against the enemy i must again recommend you withdrawn or commit more troops to the Italian theater.
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The Qing might hope to end this war soon, but the spectre of communism is already haunting Europe. Let's just hope China will keep its working class in order.
Yes! ^^
I feel like I should clarify that I'm a she. ^^
Yeah, I love how overpowered China is. XD I'm glad people like that about this AAR rather than finding it boring like I worried they would.
I can't wait to see the final dismantlement of the United Kingdom ...
You will not be disappointed, except perhaps by the extremely ugly borders. =P
For Empress Dowager Cixi that is a fine example of the Someone Else's Problem phenomenon, i.e. the Guangxu Emperor's problem. ^^ Luckily for him, he's a reformist.
My bad.
On another note, I wonder how Guangxu is going to manage China when Cixi dies.
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Hethran just said he's a reformist, and earlier said he was going to bring a lot of big changes.
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And then warlords divide China with Communists and Republicans fighting each other while the rest of the world divide the whole Sino-centric system
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Don't forget fascists and anarcho-liberals!And then warlords divide China with Communists and Republicans fighting each other while the rest of the world divide the whole Sino-centric system
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Part 19: World War II, Chapter 5: The Abdication
The war in West Africa was not going well for the West - the Empire of Benin had crushed all British opposition, and were fast closing in on the west coast, and with it total control over British West Africa.
In the Maghreb and the Sahara, the French had managed a successful offensive against the Italians, but the Ottoman Empire and Benin (mainly Benin) were counterattacking with the aim of seizing control of French Algeria.
Meanwhile, Austria-Hungary were growing increasingly concerned. While Austro-Hungarian forces remained strong on paper, many brigades were fast becoming heavily depleted, even as hundreds of thousands of Chinese forces arrived from overseas. Emperor Franz Joseph I had appealed constantly for reinforcements from Britain and France and gotten them, but even so the Chinese had now set up rival collaborationist governments in Croatia and Hungary. Many of his own oppressed subjects were starting to view China as potential liberators rather than invaders, and morale in the military was dropping badly.
The Emperor urged his generals to mount another, this time decisive, offensive against the Qing invaders. His generals argued that this was far too risky in light of recent failures. They instead advocated holding the line defensively along the front with China, and putting their focus on an offensive to take Berlin, an operation considered far more likely to succeed in light of Germany's ever-growing weakness. Already Allied armies were closing in, and heavily outnumbered surviving German military forces in the region. But the Emperor insisted, pointing out that Chinese support for ethnic nationalism in the Hapsburg domains threatened to inspire mass nationalist rebellions - already even the Hungarians, co-participants in the dual monarchy, were in many cases beginning to wonder if it might be best to jump off a sinking ship and ally with the Qing's Hungarian government in Budapest. Soon his generals agreed to attempt another offensive, in coordination with French and British forces in Austria.
The first engagements, however, were not a resounding success for the Hapsburgs, and the Chinese commanders began to contemplate moving on the offensive again. Empress Dowager Cixi praised her advisers who had suggested supporting Croatian and Hungarian nationalism as part of the war strategy - the Hapsburgs' newfound weakness on the battlefield seemed to show its success in undermining Hapsburg army morale.
In less pleasant news the British had somehow invaded Portugal, to the embarrassment of the Ever Victorious Navy - either the British had managed to hide a fleet somewhere and sneak past the Ever Victorious Navy, or the Spaniards had secretly granted them military access. Bitter accusations flew about the Spaniards, while the Spanish bluntly pointed out that the Qing navy wasn't blockading Canada's east coast, and the Royal Navy could easily have launched from there. With no proof either way, nothing came of the accusations, as the Qing had no desire to see Spanish forces added to the Western armies. Either way, a Chinese expeditionary force soon resolve the matter, but not without distracting forces that were critically needed elsewhere.
The Canadian front, meanwhile, was still going badly for the Chinese. Not daring to risk another offensive until reinforcements arrived, the Chinese had fortified themselves in New York City, allowing the British to invade upstate New York unopposed.
The British posed themselves as liberators, hoping to whip up a patriotic fervor among the New Yorker Americans that might help persuade America to enter the war - however, the efforts failed. New York had largely gotten used to Chinese rule, especially due to the high degree of autonomy allowed them - and moreover the Brits were hardly the same as Americans, many seeing the British as destructive invaders. Many, of course, did welcome the British as collaborators and joined them, and there were cheers in the streets - but it was not the kind of mass patriotic mobilization that might have pressured the Americans into joining the war.
Meanwhile, even as the war ravaged Europe, the Chinese economy continued to grow, spared the horrors of war. Tractors were the latest invention, helping Chinese agriculture cope with supplying the hugely increased demands for Chinese food exports caused by the war.
The Russians were meanwhile finally beginning to organize the forces for a serious counteroffensive in Ukraine, but for now the Eastern powers remained on the offensive.
And the Chinese forces crossing finally arrived in Europe, mounting offensives against Russian forces in the Ural mountains, hoping to take Perm before advancing further west. Russian resistance was feeble at best. Now that winter had ended, the Tsar had lost the natural defenses of the season and was increasingly concerned about the feeble state of the Russian army; and the Eastern powers were growing emboldened. Scandinavia, too, hungrily eyed Finland, and Chinese and German ambassadors negotiated incessantly for a Scandinavian entry into the war. For now, though, the Scandinavians remained neutral - likely waiting to make sure they did not join the losing side.
British overseas lands continued to fall one by one.
But ultimately, the Chinese remained focused on the Austro-Hungarian front. Fighting was growing ever fiercer, but each Hapsburg attack only ended in further Qing victories, and casualty ratios were increasingly starting to favor the Chinese.
So bad were the defeats that the French and British abandoned their support for the offensive. The catastrophic defeat of an attempt to retake Budapest provided the final nail in the Haspburg offensive's coffin. The Austrians had attempted to use probing attacks to lure the Qing away from Budapest, then mount a surprise attack on the city - unfortunately for them, the Chinese had been predicting exactly this strategy, and the previously surrounding Western army found themselves surrounded in Budapest's outskirts. Caught between over 110000 Chinese soldiers and the still-surviving Chinese garrison in Budapest, the Austro-Hungarians had to mount a desperate breakout attack - the attempt succeeded despite all the odds in an unprecedented feat of heroism, barely, but only 7508 of them managed to escape through the hole. The rest were completely wiped out or surrendered. The defeated Hapsburg soldiers did manage to enter Budapest, but only its prison cells.
The Hapsburg army was in ruins after the offensive. The elderly Emperor Franz Josef abdicated in disgrace, in part due to threats of a coup by his furious generals, leaving the more reformist Archduke Franz Ferdinand to take the throne. The new Emperor sought to placate the various ethnicities of the Empire by promising drastic reforms to meet their grievances - one of his first acts in office was to end all legal restrictions prohibiting the use of minority languages. He also promised to end the dual monarchy and replace it with a new Confederacy in which all major ethnicities would stand equal and be autonomous. His reforms and planned reforms only further infuriated many of the Hungarians, who feared losing their privileged status in the Dual Monarchy, but the new Emperor cared little - almost the entire remaining Honvedseg (Hungarian portion of the Hapsburg army) had been wiped out in the final struggle for Budapest, and all major Hungarian population centers were already fast coming under Qing control. In terms of pacifying the populations of the surviving Austrian Empire and restoring morale, his reforms and promises of further reforms were a success for now.
But if he could not hold Vienna, it would be all for naught. He sent quiet diplomatic feelers to the Chinese and Italians offering to begin negotiations on the nation's surrender. But the only reply from China was that only unconditional surrender would be accepted. (the Italians were interested, but forced to defer to the Chinese) Intelligence agencies were reporting that the Empress Dowager Cixi had instead approved a plan to advance on Vienna and end the war by force. After the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who had died in brutal battles of attrition against the Austro-Hungarians, the Qing were uninterested in a negotiated peace.
The Hapsburg Emperor thus ordered all surviving Hapsburg forces to begin preparing a plan for the final defense of Vienna.
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Do you think that, if you hadn't already finished the game, it would've been possible for you to make an event where Germany would've been able to annex Austria and Bohemia and release the Balkan countries as independent nations? Greater Germany surely would've been on this German Empire's list.
This reminds me of my zombie apocalypse game as Prussia where the French and Russian zombies overwhelmed all of my provinces except Berlin, in which my entire army was stationed (and would have been wiped out if the rebel AI was competent enough).
What will happen to Hungary? Will it be released from Austria-Hungary?
What will happen to Hungary? Will it be released from Austria-Hungary?
I think there already is such an event in vanilla, at least for Austria. (but not for Czechoslovakia) Spherelings of a cultural union who have a union culture can join the union by event. (Czechoslovakians aren't part of the union culture, so they aren't effected by that event) I handled other major territorial changes (that the Dismantle events didn't handle via console commands), in retrospect it might have indeed been quicker to just code events. XD
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That's willingly. I was talking about annexing their non-Balkan parts as part of the treaty for this World War so no, that isn't the same thing nor even close.
Once again the clash of East and West climaxes at Vienna. Lets hope that no Polish king comes to save the Hapsburgs asses this time!
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Zombies? =O They made a zombie mod for Victoria 2? XD Wow.
And as for Hungary, spoilers. But I can tell you that the current Chinese objective is to release them from Hungary, at least.
Oh, sorry. In that case I will answer again.
I suppose that would make sense. Unfortunately, I didn't start using the console to give Germany lands until well after this war, and the German AI wasn't very aggressive about demanding them, so nothing like that happened. Were I to repeat, I'd probably give them some more land from this war, yes.
Poland is on our side technically (albeit under complete Western occupation), so I guess we've averted that potential problem. =P
The Ottomans weren't very helpful in this war. Their biggest contribution in the war was giving me military access, which helped a lot against the Austrians, especially after the Qing armies were nearly annihilated and forced into retreat. I think they also helped a bit in the North Africa theater, but that was about it from what I remember.
They are very much still the Sick Man of Europe, so to speak.
Indeed. ^^
Do you think that the Chinese dynastic cycle would continue were this AAR to continue into the far future?
