The current order, a world divided between the sprawling empires of Britain and France, is nearing its expiration date. The cracks in this system, founded in 1853 as the Ottoman Empire was carved up into spheres of influence, and reinforced with the Global War of 1861-1866, are evident.
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Seeking to avoid a continental war, Britain, France, Austria, and Russia agreed to divide the various peripheries of the Ottoman Empire among themselves, rather than fight a needless war over the Levant. The Ottoman Empire, already in decline, fell to a frozen civil war, one which is now thawing.
The 1860s, however, were a time of chaos and conflict. In 1861, shortly after emancipating the serfs, Tsar Alexander II was felled by a Polish nationalist. His son, Tsar Nicholas II, began a retaliatory crackdown on Poland, triggering a great uprising. France and Britain intervened on behalf of the Shogun and the Qing Emperor. The war escalated in 1862, with Britain and France recognizing the Confederate States the Polish rebels, with the mighty Royal Navy breaking the Union blockade and the French army landing in Mexico. Prussia attempted to take Schleswig-Holstein and assert its dominance over Germany, prompting Austrian and French intervention. And in 1863, Italy involved itself by invading the Papal State, and France and Austria invaded.
Ultimately, the Franco-British axis prevailed in the bloody Global War. Though the United States fought as hard as it could, when British troops captured Detroit and Royal Marines sacked San Francisco in 1866, President McClellan was forced to seek peace. The Russian Army was simply unequipped to fight the modern French and British armies, while Prussia, overwhelmed, was utterly broken. The Confederate States was recognized as independent, Poland-Lithuania was revived, and Prussia was stripped of its Saxon and Rhenish possessions, leaving Austria as the dominant power in a decentralized Germany. And Italy was dissolved, the old Kingdoms and Duchies revived, with Sardinia-Piedmont left as a French client state.
In the decades after the Global War, France has solidified its control over Mexico and established protectorates over Japan and Korea. The Confederate States has increasingly come under the influence of Britain, and Africa has been partitioned between the two Great Powers. King Edward VII and Emperor Napoleon IV rule over the two wealthiest, most powerful nations on Earth.
But this peace cannot last. With two sprawling colonial empires, a dispute is bound to arise, and escalate. Who know where the spark is to light this tinderbox on fire? Is it Soudan? Indochina? Guyana? No one can tell, but the storm clouds are gathering on the horizon.
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