The Silver Knight, a Lithuania Timeline

What's your opinion on The Silver Knight so far?


  • Total voters
    446
Depends on how the War of the Danube ends. Many Persian political movements have escaped to or formed in exile, but they're all pretty aware that their fate is largely outside their own control and hinges on the war's outcome.
Is China a major centre of emigre groups? I could totally see the Jinyiwei sending covert support to anti-Unitarian rebel groups.
 
Is China a major centre of emigre groups?

I don't imagine them being so at the moment. The Persian exiles and refugees have largely been driven north into Central Asia, since the Unitarians maintain naval superiority in the Persian Gulf. While it's possible to travel to China overland, it's very difficult. If any country can be described as a center for Persian emigres, it's Volga Russia. Rashti is there, the Shah is on the way, and Russian-Persian economic links extend back for centuries, well before the Ottomans. Persians aren't exactly unfamiliar there, even if the numbers and circumstances of the immigrants are unprecedented.

Along with Hui "volunteers" (along with those from China's vassal Khanate of Yarkand) being with the Fatahists.

Ah, this reminds me-- I really should get around to explaining Fatahism in more detail. At the moment, though, Fatahism doesn't extend that far out. It's got a strong presence in North Africa and growing strength in West Africa, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula, but until the war cools down and intercontinental exchange of ideas becomes a thing again I wouldn't expect it to cover geographic distances very swiftly.
 
The Jund is a mix of the Taliban and the Hashashin— a movement of the disillusioned and disappointed, it recruits heavily from displaced people ready to “take their country back” through assassinations and asymmetrical warfare in the service of an extremist ideology.
So.. Something like OTL's 9/11 still happens ITTL..
 
Does anyone remember the point at which Aras replaced Kubilay as leader of the Union? I can't remember when it was, or if there were any policy/philosophical differences between the two.
 
Chapter 94: Götterdämmerung
PfCfkdR.png


Part 94: Götterdämmerung (Dec 1941-May 1942)
A symbolic end to Unitarianism in Europe after the War of the Danube was the meeting of German troops and Greek rebels in the city of Salonica, jointly liberated by both forces in the last week of 1941. The two forces shook hands, exchanged gifts - it was Christmas season to Reformist and Catholic Germans, after all - and accepted a visit from the German General Staff and it's supreme commander Bertolt Brecht, now rightfully titled "the liberator of the Balkans". Salonica was the last major city in occupied Balkan states to be liberated during the mass rout of Turkish troops during the fall and winter of 1941, and it's occupation marked the final stretch the Baltic-Adriatic Coalition had to make towards the city of Kubilay, more commonly known across Europe as Constantinople - the capital of the Union.

Although routed, bled out and disorganized, the Turkish Army was preparing for one last stand in Kubilay. In many ways, this Unitarian successor of the "City of the World's Desire" was built to be impregnable and serve as a chokepoint for any potential invasions from the north. The redesigned city hosted many impressive surface and underground installations, powerful anti-aircraft guns and stationary artillery positions protected the capital's skies and borders, and in case that any enemy did manage to break through, the Turks had one last trump card, both as a last middle finger to the opponent and as a sick "motivator" to the defenders - destroying the bridges across the narrow Strait of Bosphorus. Charges were already prepared under the sea and on the bridges themselves for that specific moment. Just in case, the government of the union, including Tevfik Rustu Aras, were evacuated inland, to the industrial city of Gaziantep. Little of all that mattered in the end, however, as, well aware of the invincibility of Kubilay, the German troops simply stopped upon reaching a short perimeter around the enemy capital, far enough to avoid any unexpected enemy attacks, but close enough the attack on a short notice, if needed.

While this action was only mildly surprising to the Turks, what happened next was a lot more shocking. The tired, bitter Turkish high command was soon informed of the reason why the Germans were killing their momentum and standing around - using their naval supremacy in the seas, supremacy only sometimes shaken by one or another submarine attack, the Germans began a series of amphibious landings across the Aegean Sea islands and the coast of western Anatolia. In February of 1942, the Germans secured Izmir, Edremit and Canakkale, receiving mixed reactions from the mixed civilian population. The local Greeks greeted the Germans with flowers and as liberators, while the Turks weren't excited about this at all. Still, despite the mixed reactions, the Germans moved quick, securing perimeters around the beachheads and expanding their controlled territory outward - the opposition standing in ther way were only local militias, garrisons and a few units brought from the front, most underequipped and understrength, thus made easy work of. This immediately sent the Unitarian leadership into panic mode - especially after the fall of the city of Bursa and it's surroundings, cutting Kubilay off from the rest of the world. The Siege of Kubilay had begun. 125 000 defenders were locked in the capital with little chance of escaping, now forced to endure constant German bombardment and artillery fire.

After diverting all available troops from the insides of their country, even ending up forced to give up their share of Persia for the time being - which the Indians were very glad to hear - and divert the occupying troops west, the Turks eventually managed to stop the advancing Germans in western Anatolia, with heavy losses in equipment and personnel for both sides, leaving the front in a standstill. Despite the Unitarian government's screaming orders to retake a path to the Bosphorus, the military was hesitant to try any doomed offensives against, while weakened, but still strong and entrenched German positions, throwing the capital to the angry wolves. Kubilay held it's own for the first month, but the morale of the troops defending wavered much faster than the perimeter they had to defend. Few of the troops in the city had any hopes that the war could be won, many were disillusioned with their nation and it's ideology, and only a select few bought into the widespread government propaganda that the Germans are "the next Crusaders", who will pillage Anatolia and the Levant, rape all women they'll get their hands on and enforce Christianity on the survivors. Through underground channels of information and German propaganda, they had been made aware of the fact that it was their regime which was far more brutal and repressive than the democratic Germans and their allies. The besiegers were well aware of the constantly plummeting morale within the city's walls and used it to their advantage: inciting the defending garrisons to revolt and promising fair and comfortable treatment for the surrendered.

By March, food in the city was getting so scarce - the city planners assumed Kubilay would be supplied with food from the mainland, after all - that many of the defenders were doing exactly that - outright surrendering to the Germans. To hasten the situation, the Coalition bomber command switched from dropping bombs to packets of leaflets - colorful documents which, as the text on it read, would let you to be untouched by the German troops if you march to them with it. It was basically a leaflet allowing you to easily surrender, and while many of them were burned by loyalists in the city, thousands ended up fleeing in mass. A final German offensive on March 18th, Operation Dandolo, would end the Siege of Kubilay within a week, and push Turkish morale to a breaking point.

Seeing the broken state in which Turkey was at the moment, Bertolt Brecht ordered the remaining German troops in Anatolia to dig in and hold their ground in the front that they were in. At this point, the German army was too exhausted to continue pushing forward through poor, hostile territory, their supply lines went through ruined and destroyed Balkan roads and railways, and there was little that could be achieved with a push into the Levant, although some of the more... extreme members of the Congress of Vienna were calling for an "Operation Crusade" to liberate all of Anatolia and the Levant. Prime Minister Sternberg and her cabinet were not planning to have the Army lay down it's arms, however - one more opponent in Europe had yet to be beaten.

Of course, it's not that Germany planned to wait in Anatolia forever - one day or another, they hoped to either return to finish the job or give the occuped territory should any successor regime be comfortable enough for them. What the Germans couldn't have expected, however, was that the front line would soon become a hard border between two rival regimes.

vintage-historic-photos-of-the-battle-of-berlin-1945-bw-09.jpg


A street in Kubilay (Constantinople), March 1942
The Union fell the same way it arose - after a pointless war and in a bang.

Early 1941 was the point in time when many members of the Turkish leadership, especially numbers of junior officers, first realized that the war was unwinnable. Without any tangible Indian help, it was only a matter of time until the nation is defeated and pillaged - and yet, the government of Tevfik Rustu Aras, and then the "deep state", continued screaming about 'not one step back' and the need for all to do their part in this crusade against inequality, imperialism and evil. Peace was quickly becoming the only option for Turkey's survival. Around the same time as the "deep state" puppetized the Unitarian government and strengthened the grip it had over the Union's society, a secret, quiet conspiracy of disgruntled junior and higher military officers began to form in the front lines and through underground channels. Simply titled "Renewal" (Yenileme), it was not so much an ideological organization as much as a group seeing it as their burden to "save" Turkey from destruction in the form of a German invasion. With morale across the Army plummeting and its ranks rapidly thinning, Renewal surged in support, so much so that when the Germans surprisingly stopped attacking and gave the Union a chance to take a breath, the collective command of the organization decided on this being the time to end this pathetic excuse for a regime.

In April of 1941, military units loyal to Renewal began to surround the city of Gaziantep - however, instead of being faced with no opposition at all and an easy drive into the temporary capital, they were greeted by a fortified town held by up to 11 000 defenders. This was the first battle of the Second Turkish Civil War, taking a grand total of three days - the soldiers in the city were quick to surrender, being similarly disgruntled and angry at the regime, and the "deep state" barely managed to flee with their lives on an airplane. The Renewal movement soon began taking control of cities across the country, electing lieutenant Sefa Armagan as the temporary "Democrat" of the country and gathering a cabinet of ministers from the entire ideological spectrum, from republicans to reform-minded Unitarians to monarchists and nationalists. "Democrat" only in the most superficial sense of the word, as any resemblance of democracy was quick to erode in exchange for an oligarchic military junta and the former rainbow coalition collapsed and was changed by a strongman regime. Still, for all intents and purposes, this new "Yenilemist" Turkey was more comfy than it's predecessor - the name 'Turkey' was officially returned, state atheism was dropped in exchange for a relative freedom of religion (although Muslims gained preferential treatment), and Turkey was sure to drop the brutality of it's predecessor. The siege and liberation of the Batman Labor Camp in the Kurdish mountains, freeing the three thousand prisoners formerly under Unitarian jurisdiction, marked a symbolic end to Unitarian totalitarianism and human rights abuses in Turkey, was captured on camera and spread across the world, increasing global sympathy and support for the Yenilemist regime.

However, not all was sunshine and flowers in the corpse of the Union. Renewal never gained control over the lands in the Arabian peninsula and much of the Levant - here, the Unitarian regime was overthrown by Al-Qaeda, which, in the Declaration of Independence of the Peoples of Arabia in April 11th of 1942, signed in Mecca, declared the foundation of the United Republic of Arabia. This act inspired many other cultural groups in the Union, like the Kurds, to rise up with their own hopes of independence. Yenilemist Turkey, pronouncing Turkish nationalism and the desire to create a nation state, did little to stop the Arabs, even encouraging them, in a way, but a potentially independent Kurdistan was not at all what they wished to see, hoping to have Kurdish lands attached to the Turkish state - so, to war! The rest of the Union was not any more stabler, either - Arabia had to not only deal with the poverty across their country, the problem of creating unity above the differences each part of "Arabia", from to the Gulf, to the Bedouins, Palestine and Iraq, but also deal with a threat to their sovereignty from the north.

The collapse of the Union came as no surprise to India, and they, watching the situation unfold from their safe lines in Persia, couldn't be any more excited. Indian intervention in the Second Turkish Civil War began by a landing and ground invasion of the city of Basra, held by Arabian nationalists, where, under Nijasure's orders, some surviving members of the Unitarian Turkish government were brought to form the Supreme All-Union Government on Unitarian Restoration. Unlike the Union which they declared to be restoring, this was nothing more than an Indian puppet... Sanjay Nijasure had many ambitious goals on the Middle East. While India was too overstretched to invade and directly annex any parts of Turkey, the All-Union Government was a neat way for India to accomplish what they wanted anyway - to carve themselves out a buffer in the Middle East and gain control of the Suez Canal. Whatever way you think of it, Nijasure feared a combined German-Chinese invasion of his empire, either through land or the sea, and a success in the Second Turkish Civil War was a neat way to accomplish both - a buffer in the form of both Persia and a Middle Eastern puppet would bog down any western land invasions, and if the Indians control the Suez Canal, a naval invasion of India would be made impossible. To accomplish that, Arabia and Turkey both needed to either be destroyed or severely curbed.

To keep up the facade of being a restorationist government, the All-Union Government was first tasked with recreating an army from he locals - however, few wanted to serve for what was obviously an Indian pet project, and even fewer had any warm feelings towards Unitarianism. Recruitment was a total failure, only about 6000 soldiers answered the call - as such, troops from India had to be brought to compensate. By May, up to 50 000 of them, with sufficient air and naval support, were in Iraq. May was also the month when Baghdad, one of the largest cities in the Middle East, fell to the Unitarian government. For India, this looked like a walk in the park. For Arabia, this was a war of survival, a conflict of similar stakes as their first war of independence - and they had no plans to fail this time.

SAS1.jpg


Troops loyal to the United Republic of Arabia in Karbala, May 1942
The Union wasn't the only Unitarian regime to fall this year. Japan, a former member of the Commonwealth, may have had tenacity for days, but tenacity doesn't fill up a starving stomach during a prolonged blockade. For some time, the regime of Nagai Takashi practically had Japan eat itself from the inside out to survive - harsh requisitioning of any and all agricultural surplus was widespread in order to maintain the fighting capability of the army with little regard for the civilian population. By the time 1942 arrived, mass protests were breaking out across the nation's cities and control of the countryside was slipping from Nagai's government's grasp. Hokkaido was practically lawless, the local Ainu population had practically broken itself free and turned towards China for support, while the Japanese there were divided between warlords, bandits and other offshoots unaffiliated with the central government. Still, the Unitarians tried their damn best to remain in control of at least Honshu, even if it meant suppressing opposition by force - which is exactly what happened during the Kōreisai Protests during the Vernal Equinox of 1942. Breaking the statewide ban on celebrating Shinto holidays, the people of Kyoto protested against the government and demanded an end brutality and forced requisitioning, to which Nagai's government responded with batons and machine gun fire, killing 285 people and injuring over a thousand.

The suppression of protests only sparked more similar events across the country, civilian resistance started to turn more and more violent, and this is where China finally decided to respond. Having a civil war on the Japanese islands was the last thing they wanted, so as such, the Chinese army and navy hastily assembled and executed Operation Shenfeng (Divine Wind) - a landing on the Japanese home islands. The first transport ships ferrying Chinese soldiers, sent from Korea, reached the shores of Kyushu and western Honshu in April of 1942 and immediately secured their landing spots - the opposition against them was weak and demoralized. Most of the enemy troops were more interested in raiding the countryside than fighting the Chinese - if they were even standing and didn't demobilize all by themselves, that is. After a victorious, albeit slow campaign through the south of the archipelago - the infrastructure was too ravaged and bombed to support large scale troop movement, after all - the landing forces reached Kyoto on May 8th, only to find it already pretty much abandoned and overrun by anarchy. Government officials fled the city in mass, but most were captured throughout the following weeks. While many found themselves in Chinese hands, the "enemy number one", Nagai Takashi, did not receive such a comfortable fate - attempting to escape Kyoto at night, he overestimated the popularity he had across the population and, upon found by Unitarian troops, ended up shot by their hands and left in a ditch to rot.

The pacification of the lawless, hungry and demoralized Japan would continue well into 1943, a period which would see famines continue to break out and the Chinese government have a long headache over what should be the fate of the country. There wasn't really any government in exile to restore to power, and Nagai's regime had thorougly purged the population from any potential dissenters, even successfully cracking down on underground resistance organizations, so there were no local powers to hand the keys of the state to. The Imperial family was long gone, too - while some of the more protectionist Chinese politicians toyed with the idea of placing a relative of the Emperor in Japan to start a new Japanese imperial dynasty, consensus was eventually reached on the future of Japan being a republican one. Yang Long turned to the small, but noticeable Japanese emigre population in Korea - fleeing the Japanese Revolution and subsequent Unitarian persecution, they mostly settled in the south of the peninsula, in cities such as Busan and Seoul. With some deliberation and discussions, the Chinese legislature wrote a democratic constitution for the soon-to-be formed Republic of Japan and handed it to one of the more prominent Japanese emigres, Izuku Midoriya. A provisional government, formed in Kyoto under Chinese jurisdiction, approved the imposed constitution, petitioned to join the EASA and began on the tough task of rebuilding the destroyed Land of the Rising Sun.

00750212.jpg


Chancellor Yang Long's visit to Japan in October of 1942, with provisional leader of Japan Izuku Midoriya to his left

640px-Flag_of_the_Japanese_Resident_General_of_Korea_%281905-1910%29.svg.png


Flag of the Republic of Japan (1942-)

While Germania and the rest of democratic Europe couldn't help but cheer for the Chinese victory in Japan, the dissolution of the Union was very worrisome to them. Not just because India was actively interfering in the conflict, but also because of the successor states which were set to form out of it. While nationalist Turkey was surely better than a Unitarian one, it was still dictatorial and thus not preferred by the Germans - and Arabia seemed to be too large to be stable in the long term. Whatever may result out of the Middle East, and even though no peace was yet settled with the Commonwealth, the civilian government in Vienna was safe to call the War of the Danube a victory.

The hard task was set to arrive - determining the borders, nations and powers inhabiting postwar Europe. Despite the Herculean nature of the task, much of the German government was enthusiastic - it was the chance of a lifetime, a moment only rivaling the Treaty of Amsterdam in how revolutionary it was to European geopolitics, and a possibilty to achieve what hasn't been achieved since Pax Romana, to eradicate war in the continent. However, Augustina Sternberg herself was willing to set this aside for when all sources of conflict in Europe are dealt with - and these was one more of these sources not yet done with, to the east. Although hostilities against the Commonwealth seemed to be over, the German Army was not yet demobilized. Two armies, a total of 120 000 men, were kept in Anatolia in case any of the belligerents of the Second Turkish Civil War attempt a surprise attack, while the rest was moved to Poland and Wallachia-Moldavia.

If Europe wants peace for the rest of its history, Revivalism cannot be allowed to exist.

On May 21st, 1942, citing the unlawful annexation of Krajina and unjustified aggression against Russia as the official reason, Germania declared war on Lithuania.

c0iQcT3.png


The map of the world in May of 1942
 
This might be very bad for Germany. They've got a massive army, but they are stretched hard. Lithuania doesn't have to deal with that. It's got home front deference and territory it's willing to sacrifice. This will get messy fast.
 
The Imperial family was long gone, too - while some of the more protectionist Chinese politicians toyed with the idea of placing a relative of the Emperor in Japan to start a new Japanese imperial dynasty, consensus was eventually reached on the future of Japan being a republican one. Yang Long turned to the small, but noticeable Japanese emigre population in Korea - fleeing the Japanese Revolution and subsequent Unitarian persecution, they mostly settled in the south of the peninsula, in cities such as Busan and Seoul. With some deliberation and discussions, the Chinese legislature wrote a democratic constitution for the soon-to-be formed Republic of Japan and handed it to one of the more prominent Japanese emigres, Izuku Midoriya. A provisional government, formed in Kyoto under Chinese jurisdiction, approved the imposed constitution, petitioned to join the EASA and began on the tough task of rebuilding the destroyed Land of the Rising Sun.
I don't think this government will last until present day...
 
Top