sparkz
The Italian Civil War
While a lot has been teased regarding the Italian Civil War in recent months, it hasn’t quite been explained in detail yet.
Lore (skip to the end if you don’t care about this)
If you prefer to view the lore in the form of the intro events see here:
First, it is necessary to provide a brief bit of background lore. In this timeline, the post-war years of socialist unrest never truly ended. Italy became embroiled in a conflict in the Balkans known as the
Adriatic War not long after the end of the Great War. Although this war ended with a rapid Italian victory, it placed major economic and political pressure on an already war torn Italy. The establishment of the puppet state known as
Illyria in Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia only served to increase this pressure, as Italy was forced to prop up the unpopular and unstable state.
This pressure exacerbated the already existing economic crisis, leading to mass unrest among workers and veterans. 1919 alone saw over 1,600 industrial strikes, and over a million peasants took part in their own strikes in 1919 and 1920. The
Italian Socialist Party(PSI) was divided, and failed to develop this unrest into a revolution. This was, in large part, because of the opposition of the reformist wing of the party. This nearly resulted in a split off of the communists, but with outside pressure mounting the reformist wing was expelled in January 1921 and the party was renamed to the
Communist Party of Italy (PCd’I) in accordance with Comintern guidelines.
Amidst the rise of left-wing radicalism, the
National Fascist Party attempted a coup in 1922 known as the “March on Rome”. Under pressure from the increasingly influential military as well as the Prime Minister, the King reluctantly authorized military action against the fascists, who were quickly defeated as many of the coup leaders abandoned the coup at the first sight of resistance. Some fascist leaders, including
Benito Mussolini, were arrested and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Others, like longtime general Emilio De Bono, were released. The party was subsequently banned.
A scarred Italy held new
elections in 1924 which saw the unexpected rise in separatist parties, as well as an increase in votes for the communists. The liberal and right-wing opposition formed a wide coalition and Alcide De Gasperi of the conservative
Italian People’s Party became the Prime Minister. However, he and the coalition proved unable to quell the strikes and political violence. The period between 1924 and 1928 became known as the “Years of Lead” due to a significant rise in political assassinations. De Gasperi resigned in May 1926 in favor of Luigi Sturzo, a self-described Christian socialist also from the Italian People’s Party. The Sturzo government saw some limited reconciliation with the communists, but in April 1928 he was brutally gunned down by a group of assassins. The act was initially blamed on the communists, but investigators soon uncovered evidence pointing to former members of the fascist Blackshirts. Ivanoe Bonomi was appointed provisionally as Prime Minister.
However, on May 5th 1928, a clique of military officers led by the influential General and former colonial governor
Pietro Badoglio presented their demands to the King, only a month before the scheduled elections. It was demanded that the King appoint Badoglio as Prime Minister, and that he allow the replacement of the liberal cabinet with a cabinet of military officers. Fearing civil war, the King agreed, and the rule of the
“Governo Militare” began. Elections were immediately suspended and Badoglio had the investigation team for the Sturzo assassination replaced with a team that would present fabricated evidence pointing towards the communists. Badoglio used this to justify a ban on the communists, and this was followed not long after with a ban on the reformist
Unitary Socialist Party), as well as the two main separatist parties, the
Lion of Saint Markand the
Sardinian Action Party. This would trigger the formation of various separatist paramilitaries, and inspired nationalists in Sicily would go on to form
their own party in 1929.
End of Lore
So, that brings us to the end of this wall of text and to the start of the game. Italy, by all observational metrics, is a mess. Its economy is in shambles, the Governo Militare is wildly unpopular,
separatists are actively waging an insurgency against the government and it is seemingly on the brink of Civil War. All that is needed is a few sparks to light the flame.
The two main sparks come in the form of a familiar economic crisis in March 1932, as well as a certain repeating of history in November.
These two unavoidable sparks are enough to fan the flames of Civil War, but it is important to note that the Civil War changes radically in nature depending on whether the fascists succeed in their coup or not. Within a few months, Italy will be fractured into various pieces, and the divides will take years to mend no matter who emerges victorious.
But, of course, it should be noted there is multiple other escalations that will occur between the coup and the beginning of the Civil War. If the fascists are dispersed, their leaders will ultimately slip out of prison amidst the chaos.
If their demands are met, they will quickly backstab the King, abolishing the monarchy and sending him into exile.
The chaos does not end there, however, for the socialists will have their own reactions:
What comes next is tragic, but also not unexpected. The “Milan Massacre” is an event that will go down in Italian history for decades, if not more, regardless of what happens next.
With the situation rapidly deteriorating, the communists will reemerge, now stronger than ever. The government is powerless to stop the return of exiled communist leaders, as their grip over the northern industrial areas falters by the minute.
However disaster will, inevitably, hit, and when it does it is chaotic to say the least. Socialist militias rush to take hold of the northern urban centres and the surrounding areas, while separatists scramble to seize their local governments and declare their independence. The police and military clash with them, disputing socialist and separatist control over Italian territory. Some military formations defect, others refuse to fight. Anti-socialist and anti-separatist civilian militias form, often taking the place of reluctant soldiers.
But there are some differences that depend on your previous choices. If the monarchy survives, they will face a fascist rebellion based in the Puglia region. If the fascists take power, they will face a Sicilian separatist uprising based in Palermo as well as a potential war with the exiled monarchy in Illyria.
If that all seems a little confusing, here is two maps showing how each scenario of the Civil War is set up:
Monarchist:
Fascist:
The Italian Civil War is, at this stage, fully playable, but more in depth mechanics will be explained in the future progress reports. This will include the decisions system, warfare, focus trees, comprehensive explanations of the internal politics of all the participants, political paths and more.
BlazedSoulofHate
Indian Lore (the full version)
https://spartakus.fandom.com/wiki/British_Raj
I know, it's lazy to just link a Wiki page, but I promise there’s a reason. I decide to not blob the report because that wiki page is massive, and genuinely bloats the entire report (I tried). However, I will explain why India is the way it is, and how it gets so bad that Rajsplosion™ occurs.
First thing first, Gandhi is dead. RIP, big F for hungry boi. While officially I’m choosing not to state his cause of death, I’ll let you piece the puzzle, it's 1919, and the official autopsy states his cause of death was pneumonia (wrong) and associates who met with him prior to his death state that he was coughing severely and appeared pale. All I can say is the sudden death of a respected independence leader, who a year later would be the host of joint action between the two largest independence groups looks really, really suspicious to your average Bengali farmer.
This residual tension, combined with the successful uprising in Peshawar and a worse Amritsar Massacre (
both OTL) leads to a vastly different backdrop to the
Third Anglo-Afghani War , where Col. Reginald Dyer holds a more important post than OTL and loses the Khyber Pass. This leads to the loss of Peshawar and the Treaty of Tahkt-e-Nasrati.
After a temporary recovery, the Raj is thrown to chaos, when angry farmers re-enact the storming of the Bastille on the Yerawada Central Jail and free none other than Lala Lajpat Rai, who decides to make the trees speak Hindi by launching a guerrilla war against Britain. Due to its agrarian nature, the revolt is neatly known as the
Red Revolt.
Now, you have to remember that the Empire is overstretched, having to protect its interests in Africa, the Caribbean, Iran and has to take the mantle of the protector of Europe from the ‘Red Horde’. This means that while bandits are robbing them blind, they can’t even send troops around quickly to protect roads, let alone conduct counteroffensives. Enter the happy solution, just get the Princes to deal with it. The plan succeeds, and Britain basically has a vassal swarm in real life. Unfortunately, the swarm can turn on its master just as easily as its enemies. However, the issue is shelved for now.
Next, the London Crash. This is another one of those, shouldn’t it be a problem type things? To answer this simply, it's about exports. Italy, Japan, the Persian states, Turkey and Illyria all need cotton, and the Raj can supply it, with most of its agriculture dedicated to cash crops, furthermore, everyone else doesn’t mind more spices. To add to this, India doesn’t really have a middle class, as there was the poor and the English, resulting in a tiny manufacturing sector that no one cares about dying.
India is fine, for now, but since no-one bothered to ask the Burmese if they were ok with getting their rice from China and Siam, they revolt. Leading to the start date, and an economy that can take the hits of future market crashes, but will collapse spectacularly if the cotton industry yeets itself. I wonder what causes Rajsplosion™?
Seriously tho, the Raj is crazy, and I’ve tried to explain my thinking as to why it's so precariously balanced at the start of the game. Rajsplosion™ is going to be insane (If I ever get the guts to code it) and I hope you pay attention to this corner of the globe.
Saddam
China! Environmental Warfare
The China lore has been unclear for a long time now, but rest assured the details are being hammered out behind the scenes. A large number of changes have been made, but we weren’t quite ready to show it off this time around, but we’ll tell you all about it in the next dev report! This time around, we’ll talk about province modifiers and weather.
With the release of Man the Guns, the concept of environmental warfare has arisen (for example, with how Paradox implemented flooding in the Netherlands). While the Netherlands did use some aspects of environmental warfare to halt the German advance, it was not the sole use of such measures during the period.
in China in particular, the 1938 Yellow River flood was strategically created to halt the advance of Japanese forces in Central China, having devastating effects on both the civilian population and the Japanese army. In addition the Changsha fire of 1938 was intentionally created by the Kuomintang to prevent the Japanese from obtaining the city’s vast wealth.
In STL, while the circumstances are much different, there is always the chance that a foreign power would invade China as a whole, and using environmental warfare to slow their advance can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Human-made disasters will also have opportunities of appearing in several other places in Europe which will be revealed at a later date.
In addition, some natural disasters will also be shown including various earthquakes that occurred in Western China during the early 1930’s (1932 and 1933). The new modifiers allow the impact to go beyond just flavor events.
Crimean Khanate/EnlightenedHo
Quick Nejd update
So, despite personal difficulties recently, I have recommitted to working further on Nejd, the land of the Saudis, along with anything that it can come to be. Currently, I’m having issues with Hoi4 crashing to desktop while loading, seemingly due to the recent update. Gonna keep trying to fix this, and I might have to reset my PC. Anyway, when this is resolved I will work on getting the Saudis up to standard, though this may take a while. For now, I will tease the fact that the Ikhwan will be appearing. I would also like to ask for anyone to recommend materials, images, people, or articles related to politics in 20s-30s Saudi Arabia, as there is a third faction I’m planning aside from the House of Saud and Ikhwan, though they’re still being conceptualized. If you’ve got information that may be useful, contact me at EnlightenedHo#2775 on Discord. Thank you for reading.
We hope you enjoyed the seventeenth Dev Report! Remember to join the Discord as well, as many additional teasers are posted on there.
https://discord.gg/5dw7c2E
Also, if you are interested in joining the Dev Team, please remember all you need to do is fill out this form:
https://goo.gl/forms/VcSAlQgJTldM4RPm2