Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg

Well I'm not *the* dev, just one of many working on EE and Russia. Thanks.


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Huh. I would almost rather he tone that down in favor of something else. It feels kinda like a cheap Hitler nod. Maybe going more openly 1984? But Mosley already has that.

I agree with Worffan, state quotas of prisioners means that people who are not even a threat to the regime are being arrested, it's something very stalininst-esche
Instead he could be purging everyone non affiliated and even lower threats, but quotas?
 
Fair enough.

Yeah, it just seems kinda like too blatant of a Hitler parallel. And Savinkov was married to a Jewish woman. But yeah, Black Hundreds, pogroms...

Really hard to find a good balance between fun and realism here, IMO.
He could be married to a Jewess and still be anti-Semitic as a matter of policy. The Protocols were originally written by the Okrahna mainly to tar dissidents by tying their movements to pre-existing antisemitism. And I always found it amusing that H.P. Lovecraft would occasionally say anti-Semitic things only for his wife to gently remind him that she was Jewish.
 
Fair enough.

Yeah, it just seems kinda like too blatant of a Hitler parallel. And Savinkov was married to a Jewish woman. But yeah, Black Hundreds, pogroms...

Really hard to find a good balance between fun and realism here, IMO.
In our timeline, Savinkov being married to a Jewish wife didn't stop him from collaborating with people like Bulak-Balachowicz and ignoring pogroms in White occupied territories until the Entente began pointing it out 🤷‍♂️ he was not any sort of progressive regarding Jewish rights and it wouldn't change in KR.
 
In General how do you think the progressive movement will develop in this world?

Slower unless the Internationale wins.

If the German empire wins, and long wins in America, colonialism won't be discredited and the USA will be isolationist and not going to prop up rebels.

There was no Holocaust, so antisemitism remains normal for longer, in fact it can be reinvigorated if iron guard Romania survives and the Brazilian empire refuses to fire the anti Semites.

Depending of Long actions, segregation might end sooner in the USA for him to get the support from the Afro-Americans.

In general, aí Believe that by the year 2000 we would have a modernized and polished 1900, with large changes, but nothing close to what we had OTL.
 
Slower unless the Internationale wins.

If the German empire wins, and long wins in America, colonialism won't be discredited and the USA will be isolationist and not going to prop up rebels.

There was no Holocaust, so antisemitism remains normal for longer, in fact it can be reinvigorated if iron guard Romania survives and the Brazilian empire refuses to fire the anti Semites.

Depending of Long actions, segregation might end sooner in the USA for him to get the support from the Afro-Americans.

In general, aí Believe that by the year 2000 we would have a modernized and polished 1900, with large changes, but nothing close to what we had OTL.

Honestly I find it very likely the Brazilian Empire would tame it's antisemites, I think the Emperor would follow its grandfather's footsteps and won't tolerate that crap.
 
You know, with all this talk about Savinkov and how bad he would be, I'm surprised no one has talked about the possibility of restoring an absolutist Russian Empire and how horrific that would be.

Think about it for a second. You have one of the most horrific and brutal absolute monarchies to ever exist, which was filled to the brim with antisemitism, racism, totalitarianism, and kept 90% of its population under a brutal state of serfdom. Now imagine that same monarchy being restored with all of its original power in the context of KR, where a military coup overthrows the republican government after Kerensky's assassination, and after a period of "stabilizing the country", invites Grand Duke Kirill back so that he can claim his throne.

We now have a country that is once again ruled over by its tyrannical monarchy with the support of a military that is more than willing to commit horrific atrocities against Jews and other ethnic groups, and is now looking towards its former territories in Eastern Europe, with the goal of cutting a bloody path through them straight to Berlin. Quite frankly, a restored absolutist Russian Empire could possibly be more similar to the Nazis than Savinkov, if you take into account what the Whites did in OTL, and what they would be more than willing to do ITTL in order to destroy Germany.
 
Has anyone thought about what a realistic(ish) Kaiserreich could be, while still maintaining most of the original key elements?

I would think :
  • British Revolution either doesn't happen or occurs as a more general pushback against the conservative monarchy, and it establishes a SocDem Republic with Liberals still being a major force.
  • Russia by 1936 is either under a reactionary White figure's control, or Savinkov's faction is about to seize power. This makes Russia into more of France's right-wing mirror.
  • Entente is either fully fascist or highly reactionary. Russia should almost always join the Entente, making the faction into more than the Reichspakt's lapdog.
  • American Civil War is less of a three-way war, but more of a two-way war. In that Long and the Syndicalists realistically should form a kind of United Front at the start of the war to oppose the Federalists, who would in turn gain assistance from Canada and the Entente. With opposition to the current regime centralized under a single banner, a Civil War is in turn more likely. Additionally, it opens up new options for post-civil war content, as either the Longist faction or the Syndicalist faction can gain influence/power over each other.
  • Not only should Germany go through Black Monday, but if it mismanages the crisis too much, Mitteleuropan puppet countries will rise up against the Reich.
  • Mussolini doesn't become a socialist again (he left the socialist movement before the KR POD)
  • Thus, Totalism isn't a major thing on the Left, being replaced more by general authoritarian socialism.

As someone who is still a fan of Kaiserreich's more "meme-y" paths, this as a general alternate history scenario still intrigues me alot. In your scenario is mainland France still syndicalist and the french government in exile in Africa, or is France a united republic more along the lines of this scenario's Britain?

As for the general idea, a couple of other ideas I've had:

The 2ACW would be fought between the "Populists", a coalition of various left-leaning groups including traditional Progressives, Syndicalists and Huey, and the "Nationalists" which is the moderate liberal/conservative US establishment, MacArthur, and Right-Wing groups like the WPC and KKK. The Populists would control the great plains, rustbelt, and Texas-Louisiana area while the Nationalists control the deep south, New England, and the Rockies. Floyd Olson leads the Populists as a member of the Progressive faction, but if the war goes on for too long he dies due to Stomach Cancer and Huey Long takes leadership of the Progressives and the nation (though under him they become more authoritarian). In response, socialists and communists split from the Populists and form a Socialist faction, like how in base HoI4 the Spanish Civil War can devolve into a 4-way war.

In a parallel to KR's Russia, Russia is at the start mostly controlled by Kolchak, with a small eastern state controlled by Kerensky. An event for an assassin striking Kolckhak at the beginning of the game will occur, though its the choice of the player if the assassination succeeds. All of Russia's paths lean Right, and can at best be a Wrangel-led Junta or Constitutional Monarchy, or at worst can be a Black 100s Monarchy or a Russian Hitler analog (Perhaps it would be led by Savinkov, I don't know much about him in real life and if his portrayal in KR is accurate). Kerensky's far eastern government, meanwhile, is made up of Liberals, SocDems, RadSocs, and even the remnants of some Soviets that are only united against Kolchaks Russia, with Japan reluctantly guaranteeing them since they're a good buffer.

The Austrians and Ottomans have already collapsed despite winning the war, considering how bad of a shape they were in. The Germans occupy Austria and have to manage relations with the new Hungarian State. They can either prove to be a useful ally or a sponsor for Eastern Europe anti-german terrorists. The Ottomans have lost control of their Middle East Holdings and a civil war is ongoing in Turkey, with each of the major factions being able to back a different combatant.

Is this a bit too unrealistic? Any other ideas from anyone?
 
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You know, with all this talk about Savinkov and how bad he would be, I'm surprised no one has talked about the possibility of restoring an absolutist Russian Empire and how horrific that would be.

Think about it for a second. You have one of the most horrific and brutal absolute monarchies to ever exist, which was filled to the brim with antisemitism, racism, totalitarianism, and kept 90% of its population under a brutal state of serfdom. Now imagine that same monarchy being restored with all of its original power in the context of KR, where a military coup overthrows the republican government after Kerensky's assassination, and after a period of "stabilizing the country", invites Grand Duke Kirill back so that he can claim his throne.

We now have a country that is once again ruled over by its tyrannical monarchy with the support of a military that is more than willing to commit horrific atrocities against Jews and other ethnic groups, and is now looking towards its former territories in Eastern Europe, with the goal of cutting a bloody path through them straight to Berlin. Quite frankly, a restored absolutist Russian Empire could possibly be more similar to the Nazis than Savinkov, if you take into account what the Whites did in OTL, and what they would be more than willing to do ITTL in order to destroy Germany.

I think you are extremely wrong on the Russian empire, I myself cannot refute you in all but one point, serfdom was abolished in 1864, and the russian empire did turned into a constitutional monarchy in 1904 before the 1907 coup ended it

The Russian empire isn't totalitarian also, as it doesn't have every single sector of the civil society under government control, it was a highly authoritarian constitutional monarchy

The defense rests on the other points
 
Maybe going more openly 1984? But Mosley already has that.

Frankly I'd prefer there not to be any big Nineteen Eighty-Four references in the mod, because referencing it has already been done to death in media. I also remember one of the devs being embarrassed by the whole "Ministry of Truth in Art" thing many years ago already. Maybe have the mention of the novel Nineteen Sixty-Three (or whatever the name was) and that's that.

On a marginally related note: what's Ayn Rand up to in Kaiserreich?
 
(Perhaps it would be led by Savinkov, I don't know much about him in real life and if his portrayal in KR is accurate)
He's best described as a vaguely anarcho-fascist apocalyptic violence fetishist. He liked revolutions not for the theoretical end result but for what he saw as the cleansing power of people murdering each other.
 
serfdom was abolished in 1864
While serfdom was officially abolished in 1861 (the fact that it lasted this long is kind of telling), the life of the average Russian at this time was still extremely awful, and the Tsars did nothing to actually improve the living conditions of the population unless they were forced to.
the russian empire did turned into a constitutional monarchy in 1904 before the 1907 coup ended it
A constitutional monarchy where the Tsar still held absolute power and could dissolve the Duma whenever he wanted to. I also might add that Nicholas II’s refusal to pass the necessary reforms that the Duma was proposing was what led to the 1907 coup in the first place.
The Russian empire isn't totalitarian also, as it doesn't have every single sector of the civil society under government control, it was a highly authoritarian constitutional monarchy
I would say a monarchy that actively cracked down on any and all possible opposition, used secret police (Okhrana) to hunt down and murder any threats to its power, resisted every chance of reform in order to retain its autocratic power over Russia, and treated 90% of its own population like slaves fits the definition of totalitarian.
 
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Deleted member 107125

Honestly I find it very likely the Brazilian Empire would tame it's antisemites, I think the Emperor would follow its grandfather's footsteps and won't tolerate that crap.
Well it’s more likely considering Barroso was a massive anti-Semite and a Hitler admirer
 

Deleted member 107125

He's best described as a vaguely anarcho-fascist apocalyptic violence fetishist. He liked revolutions not for the theoretical end result but for what he saw as the cleansing power of people murdering each other.
He also was a firm believer in the idea of an übermensch and was feared by the Soviet government to be a Russian Mussolini.
There was a post on Reddit about this that I quite liked, one moment now and I’ll find it.
 
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