Vic2 Random nation AAR .

[Owlparrot3]

I am writing it on Paradox forums .My name there is lad .If any moderator wishes to question my identity then he is free to check up with my email id there .

This aar is a random nation vic2 AAR .


It is based on a self made hybrid of vic2 PDM and gsg vicky mod .


I don't really post any in game screenshots because i have certain restrictions .I hope that my writing makes up for it .I know its hard to understand the AAR without any in game screenshots ,but let's hope that words are enough!!!


1836-1840 would be one country .
After that we will have one country per each 8 years .


Note -The game has already been played out .

[Owlparrot3]

The first roll says ......................................................Sikh empire .


In 1836 the Sikh empire was ruled by the great conqueror Maharaja Ranjit Singh .His conquests had given the Punjabi people a lot to marvel about .
They could now enjoy being masters of a previously Afghan region(Peshawar) ,they could marvel at the Fauj-I-Khas(Image given below) ,the great westernized regiment of the empire .But most importantly ,they would now have to be afraid of neither the British ,nor the Russians .


[​IMG]


In March 1836 ,at a meeting with some of his nobles ,Ranjit Singh made some adjustments to the taxes .At the same time ,he made another interesting statement about foreign diplomacy .


The nobles and Dalals(Richest landed merchants) would be given a royal waive for the next two years .The working class shall pay more .We need the nobility to be in prime condition especially considering the plans of action against Sindh .
The Maharaja's exact words as recorded by the imperial scribe .​


And war did come ,it came soon in fact .
Sindh were increasingly being seen as infidel Muslims out to get the loyal followers of the Khalsa .


In May 1836 ,the Khalsa declared war on Sindh .


30000 brave Sikhs quickly marched into Sindh under the Maharaja Ranjit Singh himself. They were followed by 8000 more under Kharak Singh .


The advantage of the Sikh empire lay in its army management .The Amir of Sindh also had an army strong enough to resist the invasion ,but while the Sikhs landed 38000 men into Sukkur in a week ,the Sindhi army struck down by dynastic protocols was nowhere to be seen .By the time they did arrive ,the Sikhs had put themselves into a strongly defensible position in Sukkur .As a result ,in the ensuing battle ,the Sindhis lost decisively .
There was simply bad command structure .
From 'The wild Northwest of the Raj' by Sir Albert York .​


After the Sikh victory at the battle of Sukkur ,the victorious Sikhs marched on striagth to the capital of Sindh ,Karachi!


For Kharak Singh ,Karachi was a chance to prove himself .Having lost 3500 of his 8000 men at Sukkur ,he had lost the favour of the Maharajah who had chosen to march on to Umarkot and take that trade hub instead .


This left Kharak free to attack Karachi on his own and end the war .Inside Karachi was an army of 2400 Sindhis .


Kharak did manage to prove his worth .At Karachi ,his troops won a great victory against the Sindhis who lacked cavalry .


[​IMG]Sikh soldiers besiege Karachi .


But just 8 days later Kharak Singh passed away in sleep due to a sudden bout of malaria .


Two days after that ,on 12th June 1836 ,the Amir of Sindh surrendered unconditionally .
Sindh was formally annexed into the Sikh empire and the Amir fled south to British India .


14th November 1836 ,The tiger of Punjab at last felt contented .From ruling a small misl(principality) in Punjab to building an empire in 35 years ,Ranjit Singh sure had come a long way .The road to this grandeur was filled with great difficulties and challenges ,but with his own foresight ,he had over come them .Now however ,peaceful in mind ,all he wanted was a good rest .


Ranjit Singh's funeral on 21st November was a grand affair .The law of cremating a person in three days from death was ignored and instead the body ,decorated in the orange colour of Punjab was displayed .


Generals and soldiers ,kings and emperors from all over Central Asia had either come in person or had sent their greetings .


But in the midst of all this ,a strange looking Persian requested audience with the soon to be crowned Maharajah Sher Singh .
Inside the audience chamber ,he discussed several important issues and similarities between Persia and the Sikh empire .


By the end of their meeting ,the two countries were allies .
The Persian diplomat even gifted a jeweled dagger ,sword and a shield of pure silver to Sher Singh along with dozens of strong Arabian horses as a present .


He was even present at the crowning ceremony of the new Maharajah .


[​IMG]Maharajah Sher Singh at his crowning ceremony .


The new Maharajah was not particularly keen on warfare ,especially considering the fact that the British East India company had not failed to notice the aggressiveness with which the Sikhs had conquered Sindh .


He however used the impulse gathered from the Sindh conquest to unify the empire by passing the land law which gave a certain kind of equal land to peasants ,atleast on paper .


Sindh itself was fortified .New forts were built .The Sufis and other muslims were pacified with the building and renovation of a number of Mosques ,at the same time ,a number of new Gurudwaras were built in Sindh .


Apart from that was another important thing .


Since his first becoming emperor of the Sikhs ,it had been Ranjit Singh's dream to own a coastal province and to own a port that would trade with traders from all over the seven seas .It was a pity that his second dream could not be fulfilled in his lifetime ,but Sher Singh put the plan of building a sea port into action .


Alliances were made with Bukhara and the British who viewed the Sikhs as a great and most strongest pawn in their great game with the Russians .


Thus the years 1837 and until early 1839 were spent in all these works .But trouble was brewing up .


For nearly 3 decades the Sikhs and Afghans had relentlessly fought each other .
After the fall of Peshawar to Sikh forces ,the Afghans had subsided and peace had been restored for a while ,but now for the last few years ,the Afghans ,under their ruler Dost Mohammed had been on the offensive against any and all whom they thought to be enemies .


The period 1830-1839 was a particularly rare period of centralized power and stability in Afghanistan .It was also during this time that the various hitherto disunited tribes and principalities of the region began to become Jingoistic about the nation's pride as a whole .
Dost Mohammed Khan must have been a great ruler because he managed to do both of it .
Sir Lawrence Burnes in his book 'The great game' .​




Having taken Farrah province from Bukhara in early 1838 ,a year later Dost Mohammed suddenly declared war on the Sikhs to retake Peshawar and thus brought ruin to his nation .


Persians ,Uzbeks(Bukhara) and Makranis along with uncountable numbers of followers of the Khalsa descended on the Afghan nation .
The Afghans only had a meaningful force of about 20000 men in Kabul .Dost Mohammed was shrewd in that he recogonised the threat to his borders from all sides and decided to fortify Kabul instead of fighting aggressively .


He had not counted on the fact though that his own son Akbar Khan would betray him in Herat and lead his force of 18000 men to stage a massive rebellion (Reactionary rebellion) .


The war was over within just weeks .While the Persians dealt with Akbar khan ,the joint armies of Bukhara and the Khalsa ,numbering about 47000 men destroyed the walls of Kabul ,tore down its buildings ,until Dost Mohammed led a last brave charge and opened the gates .


Of the 20000 Afghans ,only about 1200 men made it .Dost Mohammed was captured alive .He surrendered unconditionally .


According to the terms of the treaty ,Farrah was returned to Bukhara and the emirate of Herat was conquered by the Sikhs as a colony .


The British now openly warned the Sikhs that their infamy was high ,one more territorial conquest and the Sikhs would return back to where they had started out ,in the small mud brick hut of the first guru Nanak Dev .


And thus by 1840 ,the Sikh empire was a major uncivilized power to reckon with .


(And thus here ends our four year tenure as Punjab ,the map is not a map screenshot ,but rather i have painstakingly painted all changes bit by bit ,there might be mistakes while painting in the future ,but as of now i can guarantee that there are none ,thank you for reading ,now on to the next nation ) .

[Owlparrot3]

Next nation is ...................................Austria .


In 1840 Austria was ruled by the emperor Ferdinand I(Painting given below).The nation many said had been in decline after the Napolenic wars ,while others said that the centralization of 'Austria' individually and the non existence of the immense weight of ruling a non functioning Holy Roman Empire presented more opportunities for Austria .


[​IMG]


Since his magnificent coronation ceremony in Prague in 1836 ,Ferdinand had continuously occupied himself and the nation resources in resolving the Italian and German unification questions ,both of which presented dangers to the territorial integrity of the nation .
He had also occupied himself with internal problems like
1)The question of Hungarian Autonomy .
2)The question of the increasing liberal attitudes in his lands .
3)The question of militant German pan nationalist groups .


Additionally he had also managed to broker alliances with countries like Switzerland and the kingdom of the two Sicilies ,both of whom had to accept several treaties of cooperation which put them firmly in the influence of Austria like the many south German states .


However due to the treaty of Paris in the aftermath of Napolean ,a dim silence and a boring peace had descended on Europe .Countries like Great Britian ,France ,Russia ,Spain and even the Portuguese had spent the time to carve up vast empires for themselves in distant lands away from the shores of Europe .


Now Ferdinand's predecessors had failed to take account of this and as a result Austria was the only major European power which did not possess a colonial empire overseas .
This was a constant worry of Ferdinand .


But then in March 1840 he saw a chance .


The Bey Ahmed I had watched how the Turkish grip on his country waned day by day and hence beginning in the late 1830s ,he had started out on a broad movement to improve the quality of his generals and bring it to western standards .
But his lazy and incompetant generals had refused to do so and rebelled .
As a result ,the reactionary rebels won and forced the Bey to abandon all these infidel policies .This weakened his army .


In a distant land ,the Austrian general staff watched this with great interest .


Thus in March 1840 ,Ferdinand now felt free to declare that 'Tunis was a failed state and unless it was brought under imperial command ,it would ruin overall peace in the Maghreb ' .


In August 1840 ,Austria declared war on Tunis with the aim of setting up a protectorate .


The Tunisians had no allies to support themselves .The Austrians had at their expense ,all French troops stationed in Algeria to support them(In fact it was these troops that did most of the fighting) because France was an ally of Austria .


But even before the Austrian second army of 12000 troops could land in Tunis ,the French had overpowered the Bey and it is reported that the French even had a primary draft of the annexation ready for the Austrian generals to sign .




According to the terms of the treaty ,the Tunisian government cedes all the territories of their internationally recognised borders to the imperial government of Austria .This is done in defense of national interest of the monarchy and would be internationally recognised by all nations .
A rough draft of the treaty .
​
The annexation of Tunis brought great prestige to Austria .But following the war with the Tunisians ,there was no peace .


A crisis started over the liberation of Poland in June 1841 .


[​IMG]


At the heart of the crisis were the countries of Russia and Prussia .


The Russian Poles had formed a legislation of independence at the court of Prussia and the King Fredrick Wilhelm IV showed considerable interest .As a result ,the poles felt confident and started bribing several German diplomats to take their offer to the king .


Thus by June ,the king of Prussia had given an official statement to the Russians about the liberation of Poland which the British supported .
In just a few day ,more foreign powers begin to send their approvals or disapprovals on the matter .


France supported Russia while the USA supported Prussia .


Finally the Kaiser of Austria declared his support for Russia knowing well that it would not take long for a localized Polish nationalism in Russia Poland to transcend into pan nationalism .


The whole affair began to take heat when the Russian delegation angrily left Berlin in December 1841 .Europe now prepared for the worst .


Then in February 1842 ,an Austrian diplomat named Ottokar Rappaport insulted the very idea of Poland .


Hah ,when a bunch of uncouth tribals get converted into Christianity and name themselves Piast ,they have no right to call themselves a nation .
Ottokar Rappaport .
​
Thus ,more oil was added to the already blazing fire .By late March the situation had worsened so much ,that armies had already been mobilized .


But a certain Polish shopkeeper saved Europe from war .


"Read all bout it ,read all bout it ,Polish shopkeeper turned terrorist shoots at our diplomat ,read all bout it" they shouted ,the news paper boys in the square the next day .All public sympathies for the Polish cause died in London that day .
Arthur Morgan in his book 'The adventures of Sal the explorer' chapter 6 'Sal goes to Central Europe' .​


Thus with the withdrawal of British support ,the crisis died down and by the first week of April ,the Prussian King dropped the whole affair .


But the Tsar hadn't failed to see the support that Austria had given to his nation .This strengthened the ties between the two nations .


By 1845 ,the whole Polish affair and the affair with the liberals had died down .
But once again ,another issue presented itself .This time it was far more different though at a core it concerned a nation's independence .


Ahmadu Rufai was a West African warlord .His people were nomadic warriors and shepherds in the Ashanti kingdom .However ,he openly showed his support for the Islamic kingdom of Sokoto .
As a result ,the warlord of Ashanti banished him from his lands .
The King of Sokoto ,not wanting to risk war ,banished him as well .
With nowhere to go ,he embarked on a journey to Tunis in early 1844 .


Soon however ,he showed his exceptional diplomatic skills and managed to unite several Muslim emirs of yore to rise up against Austrian rule .


The dissent was largely crushed when several major Islamic clerics who had supported him were hanged ,but nevertheless ,the Austrians blamed the Ashanti kingdom for 'Deliberately trying to stir up trouble' .


The Austrians sent an explorer named Karl Von Scherzer(Sketch below) to the Ashanti coast to broker a deal ,in return for an official pardon from the Kaiser ,the king Opoku Ware of the Ashanti would have to give special trade rights to Austrian merchants ,failing which would result in war .


[​IMG]


The notion was accepted throughout Europe as being a just move against an uncivilized race of peoples .


Now some say that Von Scherzer failed in his mission to make a favourable deal while others said that the deal itself was rigged .
But one thing was certain ,Scherzer still received renown on returning back to Vienna and Austria still went to yet another colonial war .


War was officially declared in early April 1845 ,but it would take the slow ,uncertain ,inexperienced and heavily ceremonial Austrian navy about 4 months more to disembark ,all the while the hapless Ashanti had no clue that they were at war !
The Austrian army comprised of 3500 soldiers and the grand name given to the army was 'Armee der kaiserlichen Kolonien ' .


The Ashanti war was simple .First the Austrian army taunted the warlord Ware to come out of the inlands to the coast .
There ,at the battle of the green coast ,the Ashanti army was defeated decisively .
Then ,the Austrians used their artillery to scare the tribals and stormed their forts .
Within a month and a half ,the Ashanti ruler himself had been found and shot .


The Austrian conquest of Ashanti was over by early November .


Once again a dim dull peace descended on Europe .Austria used the opportunity to strengthen her colonial logistics .
Trade was made easier .
Austria's prestige had increased and now she was considered one of the top four European powers like before(Some 100 years before) .
Alliance with Russia made Austrians more comfortable and militancy was at an all time low .


Another crisis came up in 1848 regarding the Mexican claims to the territory of the Yucatan .


Mexico had lost the Yucatan in 1838 .During a time of turbulent social unrest and civil war in Mexico city ,the leaders of the Yucatan had merged with the USCA .
But now under dictator Mario Rubio ,the jingoistic Mexicans demanded it back .


Austria supported the Mexican claim mainly because Mexico was a devout catholic nation like Austria .
The USA supported the USCA .


But after several months of diplomacy ,the Austrians had to back down and Yucatan remained with the USCA .


And thus by 1850 ,Austria had restored its past glory more or less .


(Once again ,due to the pathetic 'Your post cannot be updated due to spam like content' glitch ,i cant upload the map in this post ,so it below ,see down )

[Owlparrot3]

Next nation is.............................Transvaal .


(Transvaal in 1850 was a Presedential dictatorship ,so i decided to make their most famous soldier the president .)


[​IMG]


At 52 Andries Pretorius was still the handsome and dashing self that he had been in his youth .
His so called ,as yet unrecognised 'nation' of The South African republic or 'Transvaal' was a ragtag band of Boer Voortrekkers elites ruling over a population of mostly Bantu peoples and controlling vast lands and lording over the natives .


But now Andries felt that god's calling was not far .It was ,according to his personal diaries(Opened after his death) ,sometime in January 1851 that he felt that he had to drink that one last cup of glory ,that one last cup of ecstasy before going .As many said ,going out with a bang .


In short ,he wished to increase the territory of his nation .
And do it he would ,using a calculative strategy of playing the game of diplomacy with Britain and Portugal .


On 1st March 1851 ,the British received a letter from Pretorius .


[​IMG]Sir George Cathcart .


To
Sir George Cathcart
the Honourable governor of Cape colony .


Honourable governer ,


Greetings from the republic of South Africa ,
We speak on behalf of all the civilized Boer populations and loyal natives alike .


In recent years ,the issue of the murdering aggression of the Zulus has grown exponentially .
Just last moth ,two British officers and three Boer farmers were killed as a result of their actions .
The Zulus are a common enemy .


Their militaristic actions threaten all civilized peoples in their radius .It has now become apparent ,that the time to eliminate this threat is now .


The Zulu warlord Mpande now faces a rebellion led by his own son Cetshwayo .This represents a major chance for us to attack the Zulus and end this unholy threat to civilization and glory .


Yours respectfully .
President Andries Pretorius .


Official version of the letter ,published in newspapers in 1872.
​
The British had no real intention to lead such a war against an unrelatable threat .But they decided to send their diplomat nevertheless .
The man chosen to do the job was Sir George Gray ,a veteran fighter and leader .


Gray arrived in Pretoria on 23rd March 1851 .


He was due to be received by the president at 10.30 am sharp .As he waited in the office by 10.10 am ,sipping tea and reading an account of Nelson and Waterloo ,he was called in by the secretary .
Ushered inside the luxurious office ,he felt surprised .He wondered how these lowly farmers had managed to own these wonders .


Finally he came in front of the small door leading inside the office .As he was about to enter ,the secretary came out and said "Pardon sir ,i got the time wrong by 3 minutes ,the previous meeting was still going on ,i am sorry ,please pardon me" .
After okaying him away Gray waited for a minute more when to his astonishment ,who would come out of the office in a military uniform ,but a Portuguese diplomat!
Even as he watched the man shaking hands with Pretorius ,Gray's suspicions rose .


[​IMG]Sir George Gray .


On going inside however ,Gray refrained from speaking anything on the matter of the Portuguese man .
After Pretorius had briefed him on the civil war in the Zulu kingdom ,the opportunity and the usual talk of their barbarity ,Gray suddenly interrupted him .


"I know of all this Mr.President ,but you know that given the current political atmosphere elsewhere ,our interest in a new war here is minimal " said Grey .


Pretorius replied "Yes ,but we could offer you a lot of money ,in fact double the money spent as war reparations(Humiliate in game) and thus your interests could be preserved ,your empire will get a lot of stability due to this war ..............................and Mr.Grey ,we know whom to go with if Britain refuses ,in Africa even Britain has a lot of old scores to settle with Port............................"


Gray blinked .


The President continued on "Oh ,i have said it ,but then you yourself have seen the Portuguese diplomat coming out"
Then coming a little closer ,he said "Wouldn't it be better to go in it together " said Pretorius smiling .


About three weeks later on 14th April 1851 ,the 'Transavalli war of Zulu annexation ' started allied with Britian .


The Zulus ,while not of the dimensions of the 1820s or 30s ,still had a significantly big military force .


In reply Transvaal only had some 7500 Voortrekker cavalrymen modelled on European Dragoons .
But then ,the British arrived before the Zulus could cross the border into Transvaal .
The British initially faced great attrition and had to retreat to Pretoria .There ,the two armies united and attacked the marauding Zulu forces on the border ,at the battle of Johansberg ,the allied forces of about 1200 men ,decisively defeated a much larger Zulu force of 25000 men .
Only about 1200 Zulus managed to escape to Lindi .


But it took allied forces about a month more to reach Lindi ,having to face difficulties like diseases ,attrition ,Zulu guerrilla attacks and geography .


But after occupying Lindi ,the king Mpanda and Cetshwayo were both captured ,the latter had been in the process of murdering his own father and had overpowered his father's supporters in Lindi .


Cetshwayo was sent to London a few days later for serving a life sentence(In later years he was used as a political pawn) and Mpande was exiled to Cape town after he signed the treaty of unconditional surrender .
Thus the British got their money and the Boers got their land .


[​IMG]
King Mpande .​


[​IMG]
Cetshwayo in later years ,posing for photographers (His life sentence was reduced to house arrest)​


Finally ,having fulfilled his dream and bathed in all the glory that a fighter like him would deserve ,Andries Pretorius passed away in sleep on 23rd July 1852 .
His funeral was attended by ,among other people ,the prince of Wales who at the same time ,also signed official papers recognising the independent status of Transvaal on the terms that they would not have the right to name the nation as 'South African republic' .Thus even in death ,Pretorius fulfilled yet another dream of his countrymen .


The year immediately after Pretorius's death marked the beginning of a series of Spanish and Austrian embassies to Transvaal .The Spanish ,because of their ambitions of reconquering their lost American empire in Africa ,the Austrians ,because of their recent glories in Africa .


But the Boers were simply happy enough ,having a third European power to back them in case Britain and Portugal decided to unify against them .It was indeed an age of Jingoistic paranoia and fear in Transvaal .In fact ,the relations between Transvaal and Austria became so thick ,that the two countries signed a military alliance pact in 1855 .


Also ,in that same year ,a new temperance league sprang up in Transvaal ,these men were seen as either
1)Foul filthy political pawns by drinkers
2)Holy men by supporters .


Thus by late 1856 Transvaal was the best of friends with Austria .


Then in December 1856 the newly created North German federation went to war with Austria over the question of supremacy over the south German states ,apparently Prussia was immensely interested in unifying a Lesser Germany ,ie -A Germany without Austria under the Prussian flag .


The war called as the Austro -Prussian brothers war lasted for about 2 and a half years from December 1856 to May 1869 .Transvaal supported Austria ,but it was just a token support .


The lines in Europe were set .
NGF(Russia ) vs Austria(France ,Bavaria ,Wurttemburg ,Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ,Transvaal)


Britain kept fully neutral because of its own trouble with the 1857 Sepoy mutiny in India .


During this time ,Transvaal was forced to offer monetary help to Austria .The people of the state ,both Boers and blacks alike now realised the full effects of a European war on their own lands .Rations were cut .Wages were cut .Many soldiers and adventurers deserted the army to travel to Europe to fight for the Austrian cause .Images of the Kaiser Frederick William IV like the one below were burnt in processions simply because the jingoistic population referred to him as the man who was the main cause of their misery .
[​IMG]


All in all ,the war brought great national unity and issues alike to the nation .


The war ended in 1859 with the unconditional surrender of the Prussian led NGF army .
The NGF would remain and the Austrians who had earlier failed to fully conquer Berlin did not press too many harsh treaties .


The South German states would remain under Austrian hegemony and war reparations would be paid by the NGF to all the combatants on the winning sides .Russia was humiliated by the war .


Then in June that same year ,at a meeting in Vienna ,the Kaiser of Austria and the south German princes dropped a bombshell .The men assembled declared the formation of a new state called the South German Federation to unify the true Germany .


The French were happy ,the balance of power in Europe which had been disturbed due to the formation of the NGF had been restored .


Thus by 1860 ,Transvaal was a powerful and well connected state with powerful friends and allies .


But Europe continued to offer its own surprises .In December 28 1860 ,Garibaldi and his band of redshirts occupied Rome ,dethroned the pope and created the Roman republic .


[​IMG]Garibaldi proclaiming the republic .​

[Owlparrot3]

Next nation is................................Greece .


In 1860 Greece was ruled by the King Otto of the house of Wittelsbach who was also considered as the founder of the nation .


[​IMG]Photograph of Otto in 1860 .


Greece was still a fairly Jingoistic nation being ruled by the Russian faction .Now to those unaccustomed with having thus peculiarly named political parties ,this was a party which advocated increasing relations with Russia by strengthening the power of the King .Thus it was primarily a Reactionary faction .
The main reason for this was that there was an ever present idea since the 1830s that Christians under the Ottoman empire were threatened and Russia had declared itself as an unofficial protector of Eastern Christians with the eventual anarchic aim of dismantling the Ottoman empire .


The notable great power to actively oppose this was France .


The Greek political system was an echo of all this with parties named as Russian faction(Reactionary ,supporting Russian policies) and the French faction(Conservative ,supporting French policies) .Until 1851 ,the French faction had held sway over the party .
But after Napolean's(III) coup of 1851 ,relations with France strained and led to Greece shifting towards Russia and turning to the colourful ideas of 'Orthodox unity' and 'Byzantine rebirth' .


In 1861 ,the world was already changing ,the American civil war across the ocean had rocked up the unity of that nation of free and openly challenged slavery ,the shocking failure of the British to annex Burma ,the civil war in Japan and the successful Carlist war in Spain which put Carlos VI on the throne .


But nobody in Greece expected their own country to also turn into a powder keg .


As Otto's health began to fail ,his court started to be increasingly being dominated by the Russian and French factions .
Then in 1862 a major scandal regarding the Greek prime minister Constantine Kanaris himself exploded the powder keg and set into motion a series of events that would make the 1860's the 'Unfortunate decade' in Greece .


[​IMG]Constantine Kanaris -Prime minster of Greece(Russian faction) .


Now Kanaris had had a long standing secret affair with a young lady called Miss Alexandra from Russia .


[​IMG]
The fabled Miss Alexandra .​


The two met frequently at Kanaris's home in Cornith .
But on 2 June 1862 a band of robbers looking for money and jewels found something else .They found shocking evidence about Alexandra in her personal safe ,the evidence made it clear that she was a Russian spy and even more shocking was a letter from an unknown Mr.P in which the Mr.P hinted about Russian plans to include Greece in a war to dismantle the Ottoman empire .


The robbers sold the evidence to the French faction who in turn published it first in the newspapers and then in a letter to the king .


All of a sudden the king was forced to take action .First of all ,he removed Kanaris from his post and replaced him with Dimitrios Voulgaris of the French faction .


[​IMG]Dimitrios Voulgaris .


Even more suddenly ,in March 1863 he signed the new constitution which converted Greece into a semi Constitutional Prussian style monarchy and gave more rights to the French faction from whom a president was selected and for some time all was well .


Then it all fell apart in November 1863 .


On 8th November 1863 ,while overseeing the construction of a new State financed coal mine(Using special new technology which made the coal 'clean') the king Otto I was shot dead .


[​IMG]The site of the assasination .


All hell broke loose .The Greek people had already tried and disliked the idea of a semi parliamentry monarchy .
Centuries of Ottoman rule meant that their mindsets favoured a strong absolute royal monarch who could bring order ,peace and stability to the region and also take back Greece's rightful territories .


The killer was found about 18 hours later hiding a motel in Athens .He was found to be a reactionary who wanted to remove the corrupt French faction surrounding the king.
But before he could be hanged ,massive reactionary riots took place in Athens against the French faction who were anxiously waiting for the next ruler of Greece ,Luitpold of Bavaria to arrive by boat .


The people and the Russian faction however favored Prince William of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg ,a staunch reactionary as their new king(Their initial choice had been a British prince Alfred of Edinburgh but that was forbidden because of certain laws which did not allow great powers to install their princes on such thrones) .


About 4 days later ,as if adding fuel to the massive riots all over Greece ,the army collapsed and regional officers freely became either loyalist or rebelled .Thus ,a full scale revolution was at hands .


Complex international politics now came into play .


On one side was the French faction(Conservative favoring Prussian constitution) favoring Luitpold of Bavaria .They were supported by the SGF and France .


[​IMG]Prince Luitpold of Bavaria .


On the other side were the Russian faction(Reactionaries ,favoring an absolute monarchy) favoring Prince William of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg supported by Russia ,NGF and most importantly Britain .


[​IMG]Prince William of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg .


The general trend was the that ,the urban territories near Athens favored Luitpold and were under the control of the French faction loyalists while much of the rest of the nation supported the other side .


Things became hotter when a battle took place between the two sides at Cornith on 25th November 1863 .The battle was a stalemate ,but about 8900 men lost their lives!
Now by this time Prince Luitpold had already arrived in Greece .


He urged both sides to declare a stalemate and a plebiscite .


I henceforth urge both sides to lay down the arms and let the people decide their rulers ,we are civilized people ,why behave otherwise .
Prince Luitpold of Bavaria in a public speech in Athens.​




Luitpold's proposal was agreeable to mostly everyone involved .


The candidates were thus .


1)Luitpold ,prince of Bavaria .
2)Prince William of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg .
3)Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia .
4)Prince Amadeo of Italy .
5)General Garibaldi (Favoured by the almost non existant liberals)
6) Prince Joinville
7)General M'Mahon
8)Eynard the Philhellene


The results were announced to the Greek National Assembly in April 1864 . The number of votes differs slightly between reports, and the total votes reported sometimes exceeds the total in the official list. Differences arise through inaccuracies, misprints, and delays in the collection and count of votes. Votes were rarely if ever secret, and there were no uniformly printed ballot papers. Voters could write the name of their preference for king, and votes generally took the form of signed petitions.


But one thing was clear ,the Prince William of Denmark(Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg) had won by an overwhelming majority though Luitpold had also secured quite a few votes .


Luitpold himself had accepted defeat and with William on the way to Athens ,he was planning to leave Greece .
But then the explosion happened .


Austrian navy(Supported fully by Turkey) invaded and blockaded Athens .


The SGF gave an ultimatum to William to relinquish his rights over the Greek throne and prohibited him from landing in Athens .France supported this decision .


Russia and Britain now issued an ultimatum to Luitpold to leave the country .


Luitpold ,by now a puppet of the SGF(His own country of Bavaria happened to be a part of it now) refused out of loyalty for the same .
Diplomatic negotiations were pursued till the last moment .


Then in the last week of June ,the British navy stationed itself just off the Ionian islands and gave a final ultimatum of 3 and a half days to the Austrian forces .
Their staunch refusal finally burst open the web of European rivalries and launched a war that would change European politics forever .


The war was technically called as 'The British intervention in Greece' ,but the most common term used is 'The European war ' .


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[Owlparrot3]

Greece 2 .


The war was initially a naval one where in the world expected an easy British victory .The British proved them right when they defeated the Austrian navy at the battle of Athens on 12th June 1864 .


But the Austrian navy surprised everyone by defeating the British in the battle outside Athens and forcing the British to retreat to the secured port of Athens .Then the Austrian navy retreated to SGF lands .


Then the SGF first army was deployed to Greece itself to defeat the Russian faction while Army group 2 would defend against the NGF ,Russian troops with French help .
The French were particularly successful in the Rhine front where they defeated the NGF armies in various battles between late June and late August .
On the Russian front ,early Russian victories were negated by the massive bloody battle of Galicia where 45000 SGF and 67000 Russian casualties forced the war on that front into a temporary stalemate .


On the Greek front itself ,the British had no answer to the superior land armies of the SGF ,who ,supported by the French faction defeated the Russian faction in several short and bloody battles and by 2nd September occupied Athens while the Russian faction(Which at that point was considered to be the legitimate government by neutral powers) was exiled to London .


After their losses in Greece ,the British mindset changed .The new British plan was that ,instead of a long struggling urban war in Greece ,the army would ,with the help of the so called powerful armies of the NGF and Russia attack the Austrians on the NGF-SGF front and after a quick war ,occupy Vienna itself .
From the start ,this looked like a poor idea ,as the weakened and spent armies of Russia could contribute little and the NGF was outnumbered by the vast and powerful militaries of France and the SGF .British armies would be a very small addition to this .


On 10th September 1864 ,the diplomatic negotiations on the other side of the world failed and the war known as 'Russian annexation of outer Manchuria' started .


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Russo Chinese war .​


The British managed to land successfully at Oldenburg on 20th of September 1863 after a short battle with the French(Who had occupied most of Western North Germany earlier) .The French tactically retreated .


The British army then pushed through along with North German armies and managed to get some victories in the southern Rhineland .The initial impulse meant that by late November ,the British had managed to reach the SGF-NGF front .


But there were many issues ,the London armchair generals had failed to take into account many factors about the future .


1)The SGF forces mobilized very fast on the front .
2)The almost non existant Russian presence .
3)Their stretched supply lines .
4)Most of the French retreats had been tactical rather than routs .


By the time the war would be over in late March 1864,the British had suffered a humiliating defeat on the NGF-SGF front ,Russia (Unable to fight on the front) had surrendered ,the NGF had catipulated .
This was due to a series of battles known as the NGF-SGF frontier battles .


About 140000 men lost their lives on this frontier .


On 19th April 1864 the treaty of Athens was signed .
According to this treaty ,Britain would pay war reparations to all the combatants on the winning side .
The occupying SGF army would place Luitpold on the throne of Greece as King Luitpold I .
The Prince William and his descendants would forever relinquish all claims to the Greek throne .


The resulting treaties eliminated the NGF as a power in European affairs and it was transferred to the SGF sphere of influence .Though German unification was still a few years away ,it had been initiated in 1864 itself .


For about a year ,Luitpold reigned with absolute authority ,but by May 1865 ,the SGF armies had left and the demands of the corrupt French faction had made his position untenable .Finally in July 1865 a major uprising took place against the government in Northern Greece led by the Russian faction(Which had previously been declared illegal but pardoned in January 1865 and allowed to take a role in politics) and the reactionary rebels .


With the SGF stuck in diplomatic negotiations about German unification ,the work of crushing the rebels had to be achieved by Greek steel itself .


The main issue was that ,Luitpold I had only about 7500 loyal men under his command and an additional 400-500 Bavarians who had remained there as mercenaries .But the rebels numbered between 20000 to 25000 .He know that the only way to defend against such odds was to make maximum use of the terrain and of the superior skills of his own armies .


But he needn't had worried .The rebels themselves were low on morale and they did not possess the muzzle loading rifles that the state army had .They were still using old flintlocks .


Luitpold and his war cabinet choose the plains of Palaia Fokaia to give battle .Trenches were dug in ,artillery positions were made up and then ,using decoys ,the rebel army was forced to enter into the saw mill .


Even before they got to the trenches ,half of the enemy army was either crushed or fled .The rebels then decided to make one last brave cavalry charge hoping to conquer against all odds like the knights of old .


The charge went just as expected and ended in the slaughter of some 5100 cavalrymen before the rebels army came to its senses and fled .
Safe to say ,that the dreams of an absolute monarchy in Greece were at last crushed .


In February 1866 ,the SGF declared war on France over the question of Alsace Lorraine .


Luitpold was now in a dilemma about whom to support .


His prime ministers and cabinet of the French party urged him to support France ,but he was bound to support the SGF .Hence on 18th February 1866 he scrapped the power of the French party and exiled them to Paris ,he instead appointed as president Alexandros Koumoundouros of the new nationalist party .


Thus ,within all the confusion he also dared to declare complete neutrality .The SGF declared its contempt ,but wasn't interested in taking back the alliance by force .
This move however also broke Luitpold's relation with his own family ,who as rulers of Bavaria ,where members of the SGF .


[​IMG]Alexandros Koumoundouros


The nationalist party and Koumoundouros at last brought lasting peace to Greece .


New roads were built ,shipyards were constructed ,the military was strengthened ,social order was stabilized ,reactionary sentiments were gently rubbed out and jingoism was given a new nationalist meaning .


By 1888 ,Greece ,which had once ranked as 58th in the list of countries(In 1863) was now ranked as 22nd .


The president was seen as the father of the nation .In 1889 ,the war ended with an SGF victory and Napolean III surrendered unconditionally .The vast German lands were at last united as one political entity since 1803 and one absolute political entity for the first time since the Franks .


That same year ,a new bill was passed in Greece according to which Luitpold I now declared the nation ,a fully constitutional monarchy .
A month later ,a new revolution sprung up demanding a return to Prussian constitutionalism .


Thus by 1870 ,Greece was a wonderfully peaceful nation !

[Owlparrot3]

Next nation is.................................uh.....................oh......................Kashgaria !!!!!!!!!!!!!


On 31st December 1859 Kashgaria got its independence from tyrannical Manchu rule .But the revolt went largely unnoticed even in China .The main reason being that at the same time ,an internal struggle was going on back in Beijing .
The revolt was led by Yaqub Beg who using an army of Andijani tribals and Hui muslims carved out the new nations .
By the time ,the power struggle was over and the emperor of China could crush the rebellion ,Russia issued an ultimatum to let the nation remain independent .


After that Beg ,worked hard to reorganize agriculture and land ownership .


Thus by 1870 ,the nation had recovered economically if not socially .
Beg's rule was very harsh but also effective ,most of the population hated him but even they had to accept that ,economically ,they were better off under his rule than under the corrupt rule of Beijing .


[​IMG]Yaqub Beg .


Kashgaria opened a box of new opportunities for Russia .It opened a new pawn in the great game ,a place from where negotiations with Britain could be easier .
By 1870 ,Kashgaria was not only an ally ,but was also under the sphere of influence of Russia .


By 1871 ,Kashgaria comprised of Kumul and Fulta to the extreme north ,Dihua ,Aksu and Ili to the north ,Khotan and Lop Noor in the same line as the capital at Kashgar and an army whose present location was on a white sheet of imported Russian paper .


But despite all this ,the Kashgar nobility knew that they had no need for an army of their own since they had Russia .
One tribesman even asked ''Are we a pawn of Russia or are they a pawn of ours ?"
But Russian help would be taken sooner than expected ,for in March 1872 ,the Khan Yaqub Beg declared something revolutionary about one of his neighbours .


For long our Tibetean brother to the south have suffered under Manchu oppression ,to relieve them of this hell on earth ,i will ,in the name of Allah ,become a second Genghis Khan and crush the greedy Chinese .
Khan Yaqub Beg in a public speech .
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The same speech was later also published first in a Russian newspaper and later spread all over Europe and through it ,the world .
The tagline was 'Second Genghis khan' .
Thus ,Yaqub Beg became famous as the second Genghis Khan .
However ,the Qing nobility did not take his threats seriously calling him a mad man .
But there was one important person who did take his threat seriously .


That man reasoned that helping the Khan to achieve his goals would be a good thing to do .It would further his own ambitions .


That man was the Tsar .


[​IMG]Tsar Alexander II .


Thus ,peace in the region was again pushed down the drain .


But it would take about 7 and a half months more for a real declaration of war .The main reason for this was a near fatal attack on the Tsar by a Polish revolutionary which made him and by default his foreign policy incapable of any real action .


During this time ,Beg himself decided to assemble an army of his own by travelling through his lands .


First he went to Khotan ,a mostly Uighur dominated region ,sparsely populated by just 24000 people but well known for its hard men .
From here he was able to scrape together about 200 men ,mostly irregulars on foot armed with a poor assortment of Bows and arrows ,swords ,spears and the occasional musket or two .Nevertheless ,these men could make up for it by their legendary bravery .


From there he traveled to Lop Nur which was an even more sparse ,arid and 'Unfit for living'(As Beg himself described) region with just 8000 people living in an area around the size of Ireland .


[​IMG]Lop Nur .


"From the dry arid salty lake whose water forces anyone who drinks it to quench his mouth in disgust to the 50 Degree hot and freezing cold Desert with its wild camels ,this place is ,is just wrong .Humans being created by benevolent Allah should not live here .This is indeed hell "
The Khan in his dairy ,the 50 degree part was added later in an English newspaper .
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Thus ,the Khan was unsuccessful in finding any army there .


[​IMG]Wild Bactrian camels .


Next he travelled ,after an ardous trek lasting weeks ,to the hill fortress of Ili which had a generous population of 42000 mostly Uighur people .Here ,the local chief ,in a bid to gain the Khan's friendship even prepared a special prayer room with gold assortments for the Khan to pray .


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The Prayer room .
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Thus the Khan ,overjoyed with the people ,recruited an army of 750 able men and gave special tax benefits .


At Tulta ,the people gave him beautiful embroidery for his robes and he recruited 600 men .Pictures are given below .


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But by this time ,rumors reached the Khan that at Kashgar ,his half brother Arfat had seized the throne .
In reality ,Arfat had simply protested against the new land reforms and a few of his fellow rioters had broken a few windows and wrecked a few village huts .But when he returned to Kashgar ,the Khan beheaded Arfat anyway .


Against this ,his half brothers family which were the chieftians of Aksu , rebelled and raised their own flag which the Russians and British described as a 'Reactionary rebellion ' .
This was happening when the Tsar's recovery was about 3 months away .


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Aksu fotress .
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The time to test out the new army was now .


The grand army was by now numbering 2000 men ,the chief of Ili sent another 350 men from the north to help .
Against this ,the chief of Aksu could only assemble a rabble of 180 men on foot .


Now in an open field ,the battle would have been just a formality ,but Aksu itself was a tough fortress to take .


Tough are its walls ,cruel is the terrain and hard are the men .Such is the grand fortress of Aksu ,sheltering all men ,good or evil .And its this comfort that my traitorous chieftains take refuge in .
Yaqub Beg to Sir William Moose ,war correspondant and first British traveller to Northern Kashgar.
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Now add to it the tough conditions of winter and it is no surprise when the traitors inside its walls did not fear an army 10 times bigger than them .To add to the injury ,by early November 1872 ,the number of men pledging their loyalty to the traitor increased from 180 to 300!


With the Russians unable to help and with his own army half filled with reactionaries ,the Khan now pondered his next move .


One day on 12th November 1872 ,while still overlooking Aksu from a distance(From another smaller hill) the Khan saw something spectacular .Rows after rows of strange cavalry adorned with saffron colours marching on the dusty route down.The men were wearing turbans and after watching through the strange lens that the Russians had given him ,he saw strange symbols on their flags .
Even as he instructed his men to remain hidden and at the ready he suddenly saw as the men took out a white flag .


Now in another situation it would have meant surrender ,but in this case ,with about more than 6000 cavalrymen ,the leader of those band could only mean one thing .
Friendship .


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The Wakhan corridor is a narrow strip of land which connects Afghanistan to China(Kashgaria) .It had been used as a route by traders for centuries and it is China's main connection with Iran and the middle east .


After the conquest of Afghanistan ,the Sikhs realised the importance of the corridor and built strong roads on it with British help .With Russia's growing influence in Kashgaria ,the British had already felt threatened ,now with Russia unable to help ,the British saw a golden chance .Their main ally ,the Sikhs were thus sent via the Gobind corridor(New name of the corridor) to relieve the Khan and thus cement good relations with Kashgaria .


Thus , that is why the Khan saw 6500(And not 6000 as he had imagined) men marching towards him on that cold winter day in Aksu .


Central Asian politics would never be the same .


Aksu was swiftly taken after the arrival of the Sikhs .
Their leader Man Singh Sialkot made short work of the rebels and himself fought bravely in the front ranks ,earning the admiration of the Khan .The Sikhs lost only 4 men ,all four to the terrain rather than to the enemy guns and arrows .The Kashgar army on the other hand lost 13 men to the rebel sharpshooters .


Retribution was swift .The leaders were impaled on sharp stakes .The remaining soldiers were either shot or exiled .The woman folk of the rebels were either taken and killed or sold as slaves .Yaqub even offered the wife of the rebel chieftain to Man Singh ,but he politely declined because Punjab had banned slavery to be in the good looks of the British .


The local populace were rewarded with burnt homes and dead livestock for their mistake of supporting the rebellion .


But it was after the victory at Aksu that the real play of the great game started .A British expedition finally arrived at Kashgar on 15th January 1873 .The historic expedition would be the first Western European mass travel to this wild corner of the world .
The Khan welcomed them .They were led by Sir Neville Bowles Chamberlain ,a well known adventurer of the Raj .


[​IMG]Chamberlain at a younger age .


His initial gifts were unfathomable and miraculous for the Khan .They included:
1)A Dreyse needle gun made in gold .
2)An American civil war era Balloon .
3)A professional telescope made in gold .
4)Several kilos of Ivory .


After about 13 days later ,the balloon was finally considered safe to fly for their master by the Khan's men .
For the khan ,it was miraculous that man could fly .He flew just a few feet above ground ,but fly he did for 11 minutes .But all the while ,the British men bit their tongues knowing well that a single malfunction would lead to his death and thus to their own doom .


Fortunately ,the flight was successful .


That night ,at a banquet the English envoy ,by now having established a personal friendship with the khan finally opened his mouth .


"My lord i have a wish" said he .


"Speak" said the Khan with a mouthful of melon in his mouth .


"I would like to get to the topic directly ,we suggest that you do not attack China"


"What ,that is out of question friend ,we need independence for our Tibetan brothers and................"


"What i mean to say is that ,you shouldn't attack China with the Russians "


"Then whom should i attack it with"


"With us ,for we will not only give Tiber its independence ,but you will also get something you have always dreamed of having"


"What is it?"


"Tibetan Changatang"


"But why................."


"Wait sir ,let me tell you about our plans for Chinese opium" said Chamberlain and then he started speaking .


In short the British were planning something big .The first Opium war happened in 1856 and it allowed Europeans to sell Opium in China via a set of lucrative treaties ,but even after that the Chinese remained somewhat uncooperative about actually imposing those treaties ,recently a head and associates of a major British trading company had disappeared in Beijing and after heavy diplomatic blackmail the Chinese had confessed that they were holding them prisoner and that it was because of their excessive opium selling .Thus in short the Chinese strictly refused to release them .


Knowing well that the fate of those prisoners was sealed .The British prepared for war in utmost secrecy knowing fully well that the Russians also wanted to have a piece of China for their own semi vassal of Kashgaria .


A day of thinking later and with the Tsar still unwell ,the Khan accepted to wait till June 1873 .


The Russians were taken aback with this betrayal ,they threatened Kashgaria ,but at the same time ,the Polish second revolution and the crisis of Venice(Between Germany and France) meant that their was little that they could do practically .Thus when the second Opium war started in June ,there was little that Russia could do but twiddle their thumbs and wonder where they lost the game .


The opium war begin in June 1873 and ended in June 1875 after exactly 2 years .
The author however is too tired to explain it in detail and thus will probably do it later .


Kashgaria hardly ever fought with the Chinese directly except for the battle of Lhasa on 12th February 1874 in which they defeated a Tibetan army of 12000 with just 5200 men mainly because of the new European Flintlock rifles being mass used by this time .


According to the terms of the treaty of Hong Kong .
1)Opium trading was further strengthened in China .
2)British and other Christian missionaries including Catholics(Due to Portugal's participation in the war) were allowed to preach freely in China .
3)Britain and Germany(It wasn't possible to take a piece of the China pie without offering a piece to the NO .1 power too) received special trade rights and formed cantons on the Chinese coast .Russia was compensated with full Mongolian independence .


Now to the interesting part ,article 4 .The second Genghis khan thus received .


4)Tibet was given independence but it had to cede the territories around Changatang to Kashgaria .


Thus Kashgaria now had land ,fertile land which it could use to pass new reforms .


In 1877 ,for the first time since the Quing conquest of Xinjiang ,the peasants in the land were taxed less than the growing middle class .
The British were allowed to build roads to better connect Kashgaria to Afghanistan .


In early 1876 the Khan made a state visit to Tibet where he met with the 12th Dalai Lama Trinley Gyatso who was on his death bed .Despite not liking the idea of Buddhism ,the Khan did give a generous sum to build a monument of Tibetan-Kashgar relations featuring a huge brass idol of Buddha whilst a poor fakir holds a Koran at the side .


The new area of Changtang was cleaned ,power was taken away from the corrupt Tibetan warlords and their huge estates and their slaves were distributed to various Muslim nobles .One of the receivers was Wahab Anliang ,a local Hui muslim whose family would go on to play a big role in the politics of the region much later .


The British also tried in 1878 to enforce a ban on slavery in Kashgar ,they were ready to pay an enormous sum but the Khan still stubbornly declined .Christian influences began to increase in Kashgar by the final years of the decade .


In 1879 ,a huge rebellion took place in Changtang known as the 'Buddhist reaction' .At the battle of Changtang ,a rebel army of 21000 men was slaughtered by the Khan's army of just 4100 .
Having crushed the rebellion ,the Khan returned to Kashgar on 7th December 1879 .He passed away in sleep on 9th December 1879 .The last man to claim the title of Khan of khans .

[Alwyn]

Focusing on random factions is an interesting idea for an AAR, you are certainly covering the perspectives of a lot of different nations.

You might want to work on the structure of your paragraphs, and there are some [IMG] tags which are a bit distracting. A lot of chapters were released on the same day; readers might find it difficult to keep up with a story which is released so quickly.