If your arguing from that context I agree quite easily, The Feds would have both all the resources of the Plains states and Texas and the Industry of California and the other parts of the west coast (No PSA) the only hope the CSA or AUS has any hope of winning is to knock the other one out quickley and grind there way West.If its drawn out slug fest between the two of them the Feds will eventually sweep back east.
Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg
- Thread starter RiverDelta
- Start date
The states composing the CSA only have ~40 million people, and if we're talking about internal stability, then it's the CSA who gets the short straw there, given that they are literally a fresh breakaway state in the middle of a three way civil war. In this scenario, that is.
Hang on, I ran the numbers on this, gimme a sec.
And the CSA is largely dominated by the Socialist party and is full of angry poor people who almost certainly voted straight-ticket SPUSA. If anything they'll be more stable than Canada.
So you are correct that it's only 3-4 times as many as Canada has (and keep in mind, the devs are reducing Canada's population because there's no way a ninth of the UK's population just up and left in 2 weeks of revolution).
This is assuming a 4-way ACW, btw, if it's 2-way the Reds get Missouri, too.
The long and short of it is that Canada is basically numerically fucked. Especially since if they try to puppet New England there is a substantial lower-class population that will likely not be fond of an authoritarian king-Emperor swanning around. And NE has the same population as all of Canada and a stronger economy to boot.
The CSA, at the start of the game, is far from dominated by socialists. Its government, sure. But we are talking about the first weeks of a civil war. Thousands of those angry poor people you mention most likely voted for Long and his populist platform, thousands of others stuck to their guns and remained loyal to the Federal government. There is the National Guard which is not necessarily aligned with the state they reside in. Long's Minutemen are a nation-wide organization and are not limited to the Southeast - so their cells in all of CSA's cities would bust out and get into street fighting on the very first day. Considering that violence and riots were commonplace in the region, you would see Federal army units stationed there at the start of the civil war, too.
Oh, and by the way, which region was the KKK strongest in during the 1920s and 1930s? It's not the South. It's the very same Midwest which the CSA is trying to carve into a Syndicalist state.
What I'm trying to get at is that the first month, two months, three months of the war would be messy as hell. Russian Civil War levels of messy, where nobody has a clue who is in charge and which faction is in control of what. And the CSA does not have an army - it only has worker militias, which, if we take the Russian Civil War as an example again, are likely just mobs of workers armed with whatever they have and commanded by rebellious junior officers. No heavy equipment, no aircraft, no supply system or logistics.
Canada's professional army, which is canonically prepared for a Second American Civil War in advance and has drafts for action if it occurs, would eat the CSA for breakfast.
One, it's a very different '30s. With a stronger socialist movement in the early '20s, no entry into WW1, the Klan and pals having a southern resurgence, the Rust Belt is likely to be strongly anti-Klan.
Two, having a big army is great (though I doubt that it's a particularly large or loyal army given the nature of the evacuation and the rage that must be building up in the Canadian populace after the catastrophes of 1918 and 1919, and the small Canadian population), but it's not going to help the fact that logically Canada will be a tinderbox waiting to explode. IMO, authoritarian Canada should be a straight-up fail option, as in, if you don't appease the Canadian people (all 10 million of them) by giving them back democracy, then the Exiles (all 1 million tops of them) will suddenly find themselves thrown out on their ears.
Either way, the only way that the Reds are losing the 2ACW is if the Feds and Canada both focus on driving to Chicago and achieve total success within the first two weeks. Because if they don't, then they're basically fucked, as I can attest from having easily thrashed Canada, MacArthur, and Long by Christmas '37 (and I'm not even a very good HOI4 player). Even with the artificial debuffs given to the Rust Belt in Kaiserreich and the buffs to Canada for game balance purposes, Canada is basically doomed.
The Second Klan in particular was nativist as much as it was white supremacist - and nativism has the most fertile ground in the Midwest, with or without KR's divergences. Just like you said - lots of angry poor people. I don't buy that this lean towards the KKK would fade away, the foundations for it are still there.
Logically, Canada isn't very tenable - but also logically, the Second American Civil War shouldn't happen at all. Both of these cases stretch plausibility, but both of them are internally consistent within the lore and content of the mod, so I'm taking them as it is.
Operation Faustschlag is a very good example of what happens when a professional army - even a demoralized one - faces off against an opponent embroiled in revolution. Which is exactly what would happen here. Canada has a professional, well armed and prepared professional army, the CSA has rebellions of armed workers and a tenuous, if existent, grip over its territory. Their population advantage doesn't matter when communications and any economic activity are frozen, there is no civilian administration to speak of, no taxes being levied, no draft system in place, no cash reserves and nowhere to buy anything from. Once the CSA gets rolling and gets, say, half a year of buildup, then sure, they could reasonably take on a Canadian invasion, especially if they have established an American Red Army - but on the first days of the war, there wouldn't really be anything stopping a Canadian attack on the Midwest.
I have held back all of the Reichspakt as Lithuania by holing up in a level 10 fort in Vilnius, that doesn't mean that Lithuania could have actually turned Vilnius to a sky fortress and held back half of Europe. It's a game, and a game which can't accurately simulate civil wars and internal strife.
Faustschlag was at the high water mark of German power and at a catastrophically weak time for a war-weary Russia, though. Kaiserschlacht hadn't fallen flat on its ass yet and the Americans hadn't quite flooded the front with materiel yet. Canada has 1 million (tops) loyal citizens and 10 million really angry people who want their democracy back yesterday and are still mad about First and Second Gallipoli. The CSA has had armed Socialist paras on the streets for months, and the National Guards of all its states are undoubtedly ready to move--especially if the Socialist governors are smart and recognize that the Red Guards paras are not a great thing to have clashing with government authorities. When you're trying to take power through the ballot box it'll help to be ready to kick your nuts back into the nut box.
Morale in the CSA is high, the state governments are on their side (they specifically recognize MacArthur's government as illegitimate and swear allegiance to Reed), and they have lots of guns. A Canadian attack would do some damage, but the King will have enough trouble keeping his own house in order before he can consider going on foreign adventures.
Morale in the CSA is high, the state governments are on their side (they specifically recognize MacArthur's government as illegitimate and swear allegiance to Reed), and they have lots of guns. A Canadian attack would do some damage, but the King will have enough trouble keeping his own house in order before he can consider going on foreign adventures.
What Worf says. It's important to remember, not only is Canada smaller in terms of military, etc., but it has major internal problems with its own Syndicalists, Quebecois Nationalists, Canadian Nationalists who're upset with how the Exiles have been doing things...
The CSA definitely have the advantage here. Especially since a foreign enemy is a great force for rallying the nation. If Reed is the elected President, I could see the PSA going 'we're not that fond of him...but the people elected him and he's an American, by God, not a damned Brit monarch' and siding with him to help kick Canada out (and pound Dugout Doug and the Kingfish down, ultimately).
I don't know where you're getting the persistent idea that Canada is an authoritarian state or that it's controlled by the British exiles. It's a democracy, it has a native Canadian government led by Mackenzie King - who isn't even pro-British. R.B. Bennett's British exiles are a shadow presence which advise the king rather than outright control the country. Canada can have Edward VIIi assert royal prerogative and become a semi-constitutional or an absolute monarch, but this is not a common path and not really likely to happen in Canada anyway.
Morale in the CSA is high and they have a lot of guns (even though only having guns is nothing when it comes to modern war), but they are simply not even a fully established country at this point in the timeline. This wouldn't be a conflict between two countries each with their own resources, manpower and militaries - this is a conflict between a military and, effectively, a Syndicalist uprising.
Speaking of uprisings, I kind of thought it would be fun if the level of reconstruction you need to do is tied to how long the civil war takes. I mean, a four way slugfest that lasts into the 40's should require an enormous amount of time, effort and money, while a two-sided war where the CSA or AUS gets stomped in 3 months flat would require significantly less, since that's less of a war and more of a failed uprising. I know that the devs have stated that the main reason for the ACW (and being unable to skip it) is balance, but it would be kind of nice if there was some kind of gameplay bonus for being able to end the war quick.
Also probably the Canadian political establishment probably would not want to give up power even if they respect the Exiles. The most I see the Exiles getting is a general guarantee of being able to steer foregin policy and that's that.
Because, at that point, there has been no precedent in 200 years for a British monarch to assert royal prerogatives. And this action is coming from a fresh young King instead of one who is respected by the Canadian public, making such a decision even less popular.
As Edward VIII and his privy council are not idiots, I deem it unlikely that he would go as far as to interfere in constitutional government simply because a bill failed to pass.
The British Exiles canonically disbanded the Canadian Senate and replaced them with a house of Lords. Mackenzie King is literally the only thing preventing revolt.
Like what has been already said, the CSA would realistically have far from unanimous support in the Rust Belt territory it starts with in hoi4. They would be concentrated in the urban industrial centers, but would be beset by Longist and Federalist partisans in the rural regions. This is honestly my main problem with the current depiction of the SACW, there really isn't a good depiction of the insurgent activity that would occur in the territory of all sides.
Plus, the CSA's industrial advantage is kind of moot when you consider that the bulk of the CSA's military is made up of worker's militias. The CSA's base can't be working the factories, maintaining public order, and fighting a multi-front war all at the same time.
The notion that the CSA could overwhelm Canada is, in my opinion, unlikely at best. Not only are they dealing the with previously-mentioned difficulties, but almost all of their army is made up of disorganized militias. Regardless of the CSA's numerical advantage, armed mobs have been proven time and time again to be no match for a professional military. As for the possibility of a Canadian revolt, I don't really see it happening, certainly not if Edward remains democratic. The Canadian government will have gone a long way to root out syndicalist infiltration, and I don't really see Canadians rebelling in support of a hostile foreign faction anyhow.
I don't care how big the CSA's population and industrial base are on paper, there's little realistic chance that what is essentially a large mob of angry factory workers and a handful of military defectors could win a multi-frontal civil war against the Federals and Longists at minimum, with understaffed factories and tenuous at best control over agricultural regions, while establishing a new government and dealing with a large insurgency within their own territory, and fighting yet another front against a professional military power that has actively been preparing for war against syndicalism for a decade.
Plus, the CSA's industrial advantage is kind of moot when you consider that the bulk of the CSA's military is made up of worker's militias. The CSA's base can't be working the factories, maintaining public order, and fighting a multi-front war all at the same time.
The notion that the CSA could overwhelm Canada is, in my opinion, unlikely at best. Not only are they dealing the with previously-mentioned difficulties, but almost all of their army is made up of disorganized militias. Regardless of the CSA's numerical advantage, armed mobs have been proven time and time again to be no match for a professional military. As for the possibility of a Canadian revolt, I don't really see it happening, certainly not if Edward remains democratic. The Canadian government will have gone a long way to root out syndicalist infiltration, and I don't really see Canadians rebelling in support of a hostile foreign faction anyhow.
I don't care how big the CSA's population and industrial base are on paper, there's little realistic chance that what is essentially a large mob of angry factory workers and a handful of military defectors could win a multi-frontal civil war against the Federals and Longists at minimum, with understaffed factories and tenuous at best control over agricultural regions, while establishing a new government and dealing with a large insurgency within their own territory, and fighting yet another front against a professional military power that has actively been preparing for war against syndicalism for a decade.
I'd add that they would not even have the most secure population even in the cities, namely Ethnic Catholics. The 20s and thirties is undoubtedly when Catholic Instuions were the most powerful in the USA and Catholics were very attentive to the hierarchy. If the Church going anti Syndie, It could be a land mine for Reed to deal with.
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By 1937 when the ACW breaks out the Canadians have had that one year to pass the constitution act and bill C-7 giving a major push to industry and stabilizing the government. It’s a rare game when you see commonwealth of Canada replaced by Kingdom of Canada. It does give some credence to the idea of a large scale Canadian intervention early on.
and Sub4s are completely and utterly broken in-game. Macarthur's junta and or the loyalist US government has control over the Atlantic fleet and blockading Phildapehia and New York isn't going to be a particurly large hassle