As if they're a pilot flying without navigational instruments or even a map.
No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)
- Thread starter alexmilman
- Start date
Well, just as the first pilots…. 😜
Seriously, after the massive idiocies that led to wwi and wwii this should look like children’s brawl in a sandbox.
It was funny that Poland create a alliance for war than immediately getting surrounded by neighbors.
As was already explained by @TimTurner, nothing is a problem for true genius but, besides this, formally, the alliance includes AB, Hungary, Sweden, Germany and France. An extended interpretation “ally of my ally is my ally” is not advertised so RE and Greece formally are not in the picture. France is Italian problem and Il Duche even in OTL was a big optimist in his acts and statements. Germany is not as militaristic as in OTL, where the Polish government boasted that it will be defeated in a couple of weeks, so it is initially Poland, Italy, Serbia against AB and Germany: Sweden does not have too much of an offensive power and neither does Hungary so they can be ignored on the first stage.
I really want Britain to join, this would be great to get an "on the fence" Russia to join
And help India get independence
And help India get independence
You are missing something fundamental about the Russia position in the whole schema. To illustrate an idea, look at the picture below and read the text. Then think about the analogies. 😜
I tried to create a map as best as possible, could you all please tell me any discrepancies
Thanks. Two minor things:
1. Poland is landlocked with Danzig area held by Sweden and Germany connected by land to East Prussia
2. In the Caucasus there are independent Georgia and Armenia .
And, oops, I forgot to grant Ireland independence. Will have to fix that…😂
I will fix those tomorrow
na, it looks nicer the way it is
I think the Dutch one is better, this one looks drab
aim for the stars so you fall at the moon
Europe can wait
454. Europe can wait
Europe 1935 was seemingly nice in tidy. Almost everybody who was somebody was a member of either vertical or horizontal coalition and was busily preparing to a future Big War in Europe, which was going to be one more “War to Finish all European Wars”. The countries which had the armaments industries, had been increasing volumes of the weapons production and those who did not had been finding the ways to buy them from those who did.
So far, two European Great Powers had been conspicuous by their absence from the coalitions and even more so by them suddenly improving their relations. These countries were the Russian Empire and United Kingdom and the reason for their behavior were the events on Far East. Specifically, in China. The ongoing routine mess of quarreling between Japan, which controlled Manchuria (but physically occupied only a small part of it) and couple coastal areas outside it, and Kuomintang, which was (at least in theory) controlling the rest of the country was somebody everyone got used to but in 1934, the Japanese invaded Manchuria during the Mukden incident and invited the last Qing Emperor Pu Yi to restore the Manchu state. On March 1, 1935, by the decision of the All-Manchu Assembly, the State of Manchuria was formed, then recognized by Japan. [1] Immediately afterwards Japan started dramatically increasing size of its military forces in China and kept building up the brand new Manchukuo army. Their combined presence rose from less than 30,000 in 1933 to over 500,000 and kept growing. Toward the two of three Great Powers having direct interests in China, the US and UK, Japanese attitudes kept noticeably changing toward “screw you” level after Japan unilaterally withdrew from Washington Naval Treaty.
With Russia, so far, Japan was relatively polite, valuing the existing fishing treaty but Manchukuo government insisted on buying out concession to the North Manchuria RR going from Heihe to Harbin and providing a shortcut to TransSib by the railroad ferry circulating between Blagoveschensk and Heihe. Japan/Manchukuo also constructed a railroad, extension of the South Manchuria RR, that was bypassing Harbin thus cutting it from the trade with North Manchuria, which was a part of Manchukuo. Not that this trade was big but Harbin used to be an important transitional RR station and business center and now a big part of its transitional activities had been gone leaving only the business activities related to soybean trade and if now it involved most of the produce of the Sungari Triangle (Russian Manchuria) and North of it, now it was just the Russian produce. To reciprocate, Russia stopped a Southern sector of the exports, Harbin - South Manchuria RR - Dairen
_______
[1] In OTL in 1931 and 1932.
“When the Emperor of Russia is fishing, Europe can wait.”
Alexander III
“— I have a diabolical master plan.
— What is it?
— If I told you, it wouldn't be very diabolical, would it?”
‘The Vampire Diaries’
“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”
Woody Allen
“Do you think he plans it all out or just makes it up as he goes along?”
‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End’
“And if the other 10, 20, 50 centers are hit the next day, who else can keep the mad population from fleeing to the fields and villages to escape from cities that are targets for enemy strikes?”
Giulio Douhet
“God is not on the side of large battalions, but on the side of the best shooters.”
Voltaire
“The brave is not the one who goes to the ram, but who on time and coolly maneuvers to avoid troubles!”
Kshusik
“On the battlefield, the ideal military genius and an absolute idiot are allegedly the most dangerous, with an advantage on the side of the idiot, since his actions are absolutely impossible to foresee.”
Napoleon I Bonaparte
“War is bullshit! The main thing is maneuvers.”
unknown author
Alexander III
“— I have a diabolical master plan.
— What is it?
— If I told you, it wouldn't be very diabolical, would it?”
‘The Vampire Diaries’
“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”
Woody Allen
“Do you think he plans it all out or just makes it up as he goes along?”
‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End’
“And if the other 10, 20, 50 centers are hit the next day, who else can keep the mad population from fleeing to the fields and villages to escape from cities that are targets for enemy strikes?”
Giulio Douhet
“God is not on the side of large battalions, but on the side of the best shooters.”
Voltaire
“The brave is not the one who goes to the ram, but who on time and coolly maneuvers to avoid troubles!”
Kshusik
“On the battlefield, the ideal military genius and an absolute idiot are allegedly the most dangerous, with an advantage on the side of the idiot, since his actions are absolutely impossible to foresee.”
Napoleon I Bonaparte
“War is bullshit! The main thing is maneuvers.”
unknown author
Europe 1935 was seemingly nice in tidy. Almost everybody who was somebody was a member of either vertical or horizontal coalition and was busily preparing to a future Big War in Europe, which was going to be one more “War to Finish all European Wars”. The countries which had the armaments industries, had been increasing volumes of the weapons production and those who did not had been finding the ways to buy them from those who did.
So far, two European Great Powers had been conspicuous by their absence from the coalitions and even more so by them suddenly improving their relations. These countries were the Russian Empire and United Kingdom and the reason for their behavior were the events on Far East. Specifically, in China. The ongoing routine mess of quarreling between Japan, which controlled Manchuria (but physically occupied only a small part of it) and couple coastal areas outside it, and Kuomintang, which was (at least in theory) controlling the rest of the country was somebody everyone got used to but in 1934, the Japanese invaded Manchuria during the Mukden incident and invited the last Qing Emperor Pu Yi to restore the Manchu state. On March 1, 1935, by the decision of the All-Manchu Assembly, the State of Manchuria was formed, then recognized by Japan. [1] Immediately afterwards Japan started dramatically increasing size of its military forces in China and kept building up the brand new Manchukuo army. Their combined presence rose from less than 30,000 in 1933 to over 500,000 and kept growing. Toward the two of three Great Powers having direct interests in China, the US and UK, Japanese attitudes kept noticeably changing toward “screw you” level after Japan unilaterally withdrew from Washington Naval Treaty.
With Russia, so far, Japan was relatively polite, valuing the existing fishing treaty but Manchukuo government insisted on buying out concession to the North Manchuria RR going from Heihe to Harbin and providing a shortcut to TransSib by the railroad ferry circulating between Blagoveschensk and Heihe. Japan/Manchukuo also constructed a railroad, extension of the South Manchuria RR, that was bypassing Harbin thus cutting it from the trade with North Manchuria, which was a part of Manchukuo. Not that this trade was big but Harbin used to be an important transitional RR station and business center and now a big part of its transitional activities had been gone leaving only the business activities related to soybean trade and if now it involved most of the produce of the Sungari Triangle (Russian Manchuria) and North of it, now it was just the Russian produce. To reciprocate, Russia stopped a Southern sector of the exports, Harbin - South Manchuria RR - Dairen
_______
[1] In OTL in 1931 and 1932.
It is not interesting. The damn thing self-posted in the middle and when I edited, cut most of the text. So I’m making continuation.
Oh, I was thinking there would be possible changes in Russo-Japanese relations. I was hooked enough to feel there was something at the end of the line, if you will...
Europe can wait (cont)
454a. Europe can wait (cont)
All Russian soy-related exports were now going from Harbin by the Usurian RR to Vladivostok with Britain getting, as a result, a bigger slice of the export’s share. Well, of course, this was just business, nothing personal, but a continued sharp increase of the Japanese and Manchukuo’s forces was a completely different story causing quite understandable concerns. On the map below the red line - Russian border, purple - Mongolian, the rest are major railroads (Usurian RR - black).
On one hand, so-called “Sungari Triangle” was squeezed between the Northern and Southern parts of Manchukuo, which was making it vulnerable to attacks from the North and South. OTOH, the Northern Manchuria was squeezed between the Triangle on the East, Russian Far East on the North and Mongolia on the West and a coordinated attack from the East and West could easily cut off the South and Central Manchurian RRs (blue and green on the map) isolating North from the South and allowing (the forces permitting) advance southward along that RR to Mukden and even Dairen. But then Mongolia was also vulnerable to the Japanese attack (the forces permitting) from their Kwantung base. So who is going to cut off whom was a matter of the balance of the relative strengths and one of the reasons why the maniacs in JIA had been at least somewhat restrained in their hysteria: inefficient as it was, the Kuomintang army was huge and reasonably well-armed so, strategically the Japanese forces could find themselves squeezed between the Russians and Chinese. Ah yes, and the Mongolians as well. As a minimal precaution, the Northern Manchuria, Mukden and Kwangtung peninsula had to be strongly fortified and this required time a resources so RE still had time for its own preparations.
JRN also got its doubts after information was “leaked” that at the first sign of a trouble the Russians are going to destroy all oil production in Sakhalin, most of which was going to Japan. Unless an alternative supply source is secured (like the Dutch oil in Indonesia), this could seriously handicap the naval operations. So priorities had been shifted to have a reasonably secure scenario.
The naval situation for RE was quite complicated because it had to protect a very long perimeter Vladivostok - Sakhalin - Kuril Islands - Kamchatka - Aleutian Islands - Alaska with Sakhalin being the obvious #1 attack target due to its proximity to Japan, oil and the obvious fact that if Japan takes it, then Vladivostok as a naval base will be cut of the rest of the perimeter. Which means that prior to the conflict the naval bases on Alaska and Kamchatka must be strengthened, properly supplied and a part of the Pacific fleet must be relocated to them with the obvious supply problems in the case of a prolonged conflict and a need to intensify traffic on the “Arctic route” by redeploying two more icebreakers from the Baltic. All things considering, it would be very nice to have the allies with their own interests on the Pacific and the navies to back up these interests.
Two other big players in the region, the US and UK, also were not quite happy. Japan was controlling both sides of the Bohai Strait and, as a result, access to Beijing and the Huang He River. Also, from Japanese-controlled Shandong region, very important (in the terms of the American and British businesses) Shanghai and Nankin were within a reasonably easy reach by land. Of course, Kuomintang still would have a big army and a lot of space for maneuver but a war lasting forever would mean no business in China for a long time. UK already had experience with Hing Kong during the Barmalei War, which made it clear that the place is not defensible. It was expected that the combined American and British naval power would be adequate for standing up to the IJN and eventually break it but this would not easily solve the issue of the land operations and an ally with a really strong army would be quite important. The list of such allies had been limited to one.
It was a small wonder that relations between the three Powers had been warming up really fast. It was also a small wonder that these developments made the ongoing European mess extremely inconvenient for Russia due to its allied obligations and for Britain because the potential mess on the Med may led to a closure of the Suez Canal or, at best, will create problems with shipping. Of course, the Domestic Almost Genius assured the Emperor that the Russian Imperial Army is quite capable of fighting on two fronts and, in a rare show of a solidarity, there was a complete consensus of the Russian military establishment on the subject. The Navy was slightly less enthusiastic but commander of the Pacific Fleet, vice-admiral Kolchak presented a seemingly viable plan of operations wholeheartedly supported by Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. However, both the army and the navy, not to mention the Finance Minister, expressed an opinion that one war at a time would be a better option.
But how to calm down the excessively bellicose members of the two Axises? While Russia had a clear leverage over the Horizontal one, the Vertical one was a clear case loose cannon or a car without the breaks, or something completely weird like the image above. The diplomatic efforts did not produce any results and at that point the Almost Genius rose up to the task by proposing “a diabolical master plan” so simple and obvious that suspicions arose about him possibly being a Full Scale Genius. The old Russian proverb which inspired the whole plan was “It is better to see once than to hear hundred times.”
All Russian soy-related exports were now going from Harbin by the Usurian RR to Vladivostok with Britain getting, as a result, a bigger slice of the export’s share. Well, of course, this was just business, nothing personal, but a continued sharp increase of the Japanese and Manchukuo’s forces was a completely different story causing quite understandable concerns. On the map below the red line - Russian border, purple - Mongolian, the rest are major railroads (Usurian RR - black).
On one hand, so-called “Sungari Triangle” was squeezed between the Northern and Southern parts of Manchukuo, which was making it vulnerable to attacks from the North and South. OTOH, the Northern Manchuria was squeezed between the Triangle on the East, Russian Far East on the North and Mongolia on the West and a coordinated attack from the East and West could easily cut off the South and Central Manchurian RRs (blue and green on the map) isolating North from the South and allowing (the forces permitting) advance southward along that RR to Mukden and even Dairen. But then Mongolia was also vulnerable to the Japanese attack (the forces permitting) from their Kwantung base. So who is going to cut off whom was a matter of the balance of the relative strengths and one of the reasons why the maniacs in JIA had been at least somewhat restrained in their hysteria: inefficient as it was, the Kuomintang army was huge and reasonably well-armed so, strategically the Japanese forces could find themselves squeezed between the Russians and Chinese. Ah yes, and the Mongolians as well. As a minimal precaution, the Northern Manchuria, Mukden and Kwangtung peninsula had to be strongly fortified and this required time a resources so RE still had time for its own preparations.
JRN also got its doubts after information was “leaked” that at the first sign of a trouble the Russians are going to destroy all oil production in Sakhalin, most of which was going to Japan. Unless an alternative supply source is secured (like the Dutch oil in Indonesia), this could seriously handicap the naval operations. So priorities had been shifted to have a reasonably secure scenario.
The naval situation for RE was quite complicated because it had to protect a very long perimeter Vladivostok - Sakhalin - Kuril Islands - Kamchatka - Aleutian Islands - Alaska with Sakhalin being the obvious #1 attack target due to its proximity to Japan, oil and the obvious fact that if Japan takes it, then Vladivostok as a naval base will be cut of the rest of the perimeter. Which means that prior to the conflict the naval bases on Alaska and Kamchatka must be strengthened, properly supplied and a part of the Pacific fleet must be relocated to them with the obvious supply problems in the case of a prolonged conflict and a need to intensify traffic on the “Arctic route” by redeploying two more icebreakers from the Baltic. All things considering, it would be very nice to have the allies with their own interests on the Pacific and the navies to back up these interests.
Two other big players in the region, the US and UK, also were not quite happy. Japan was controlling both sides of the Bohai Strait and, as a result, access to Beijing and the Huang He River. Also, from Japanese-controlled Shandong region, very important (in the terms of the American and British businesses) Shanghai and Nankin were within a reasonably easy reach by land. Of course, Kuomintang still would have a big army and a lot of space for maneuver but a war lasting forever would mean no business in China for a long time. UK already had experience with Hing Kong during the Barmalei War, which made it clear that the place is not defensible. It was expected that the combined American and British naval power would be adequate for standing up to the IJN and eventually break it but this would not easily solve the issue of the land operations and an ally with a really strong army would be quite important. The list of such allies had been limited to one.
It was a small wonder that relations between the three Powers had been warming up really fast. It was also a small wonder that these developments made the ongoing European mess extremely inconvenient for Russia due to its allied obligations and for Britain because the potential mess on the Med may led to a closure of the Suez Canal or, at best, will create problems with shipping. Of course, the Domestic Almost Genius assured the Emperor that the Russian Imperial Army is quite capable of fighting on two fronts and, in a rare show of a solidarity, there was a complete consensus of the Russian military establishment on the subject. The Navy was slightly less enthusiastic but commander of the Pacific Fleet, vice-admiral Kolchak presented a seemingly viable plan of operations wholeheartedly supported by Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. However, both the army and the navy, not to mention the Finance Minister, expressed an opinion that one war at a time would be a better option.
But how to calm down the excessively bellicose members of the two Axises? While Russia had a clear leverage over the Horizontal one, the Vertical one was a clear case loose cannon or a car without the breaks, or something completely weird like the image above. The diplomatic efforts did not produce any results and at that point the Almost Genius rose up to the task by proposing “a diabolical master plan” so simple and obvious that suspicions arose about him possibly being a Full Scale Genius. The old Russian proverb which inspired the whole plan was “It is better to see once than to hear hundred times.”
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