Rule of the Qinlong Emperor

This is my favorite TL


Why?


Because China gets larger. :cool:

XD; well it's not that much bigger than OTL if you don't count its colonies. That being said, I really need to write more about China, I've veered off on too many tangents-I just hope everyone else is enjoying them.
 
It's hard to tell on the map, but it seems France loses Alsace-Lorraine, but gains Flanders and parts of the Netherlands?

...well. I see France staying a major industrial power.
 
If France can could it still be able to assert hegomeny. And if not Could still be a world power.

And in this OTL, win some wars against other foreign powers.

(Unwesternized powers do not count)
 
If France can could it still be able to assert hegomeny. And if not Could still be a world power.

And in this OTL, win some wars against other foreign powers.

(Unwesternized powers do not count)
Well, in terms of Europe, since Britain has been rather weakened, it can play the great game of Diplomacy with Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Plus, with Belgium included in it's territories, it's likely to be more industrialized then OTL, even accounting for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine.

Personally, I'd rather they join up with Austria and Russia for a repeat of the Seven Years War without the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg (if only because that dangling piece of Silesia looks awkward :p ). Plus, one would think that France would have more claims on Germany than Austria (Alsace-Lorraine). That, and natural frontiers and all (a full border on the Rhine has always been a French goal).

But anyway. Get back to China! I want to see China grow bigger. :D
 
I can see a more Afro-centric Britain in colonial terms. I mean all of their colonial possessions are in Africa which could result in more colonial Possesion in Africa.

Which might make Africa the Jewel of their Empire.

The Empire that the sun never sets has died politically
 
Well, in terms of Europe, since Britain has been rather weakened, it can play the great game of Diplomacy with Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Plus, with Belgium included in it's territories, it's likely to be more industrialized then OTL, even accounting for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine.

Personally, I'd rather they join up with Austria and Russia for a repeat of the Seven Years War without the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg (if only because that dangling piece of Silesia looks awkward :p ). Plus, one would think that France would have more claims on Germany than Austria (Alsace-Lorraine). That, and natural frontiers and all (a full border on the Rhine has always been a French goal).

But anyway. Get back to China! I want to see China grow bigger. :D

Thanks, that's sort of my plan, without giving too much away. Germany will be the diplomatic bogeyman of Europe as it rapidly industrialises and becomes more and more militant.

In the short term though the Ottomans will be a big question for the European powers. As you can see, they've expanded significantly into Africa and have solidified their hold in Europe. Austria and Russia are doubltess hostile to her, but will they ally against their common enemies or will they continue to hate each other for the losses inflicted by each party in the first half of the 19th century?
 
The great crisis of the mid to late 19th century would not, however, come from Germany or even from Europe, but rather from the dark continent to the south. Africa had long been but a backwater to European colonial ambitions-a place to find slaves and to trade gold and guns with a few native chiefs. The British had extensive colonies to the south which covered most of the coastline and which were beginning to nose their way into the rich grazing land of the north. Bands of intrepid British explorers were staking out new lands for His Majesty, and settlers were moving there in droves. To the north of this, however, there was nothing. Just an empty continent, with no topography, no peoples, no kings. To even the most well heeled European, the heart of Africa was a question mark.

There was one Royal Court, however, which was interested in this vast continent. The Ottomans had long exerted considerable influence in Africa through the multifarious Muslim communities of the continent, mostly in Northern Sudan and Chad. In the mid 19th century, Sultan Mehmet IV began to press further south into the continent, sending raiding parties ever further down the Nile in search of slaves. The traditional source of slaves-the Balkans and Poland-had dried up due to international pressure, and so now Mehmet was keen to find new sources of slaves. He was especially keen to do this to break the power of the janissaries. These formerly Christian slave soldiers had become far too powerful, and Mehmet was looking for a new supply of soldiers to replace them. He found them in the Sudanese slaves whom he recruited by the thousand, and he opened up a new barracks in Cairo. He created nine ‘Black Janissary’ regiments which were formed in the European style, and were supported by an engineers corp. with modern cannon and knowledge of siege warfare. He intended to use these soldiers to destroy the janissaries, help train and new army and stabilise the state-he then intended to liquidate them lest they too become disloyal.

In 1862 this was done-the janissary barracks in Constantinople were surrounded and shelled until they surrendered. Five thousand janissaries surrendered and Mehmet had them all executed-he did not trust a single one of them, these ‘sanctimonious mercenaries’ as he called them, who had killed far too many of his family members. they were drowned en masse in the Golden Horn. For the next three years, the Black Janissaries lived in Galata, away from the Sultan’s Palace and away from the decision makers. In 1866 the Sultan ordered them disbanded. They were despatched back to Africa and reintegrated with the regular army. Ottoman expansion into Africa had not ended, however, as Mehmet ordered his armies down the Nile to secure its headwaters. Behind his armies came a surge of settlers, most of them Egyptian or Serbian, who were fleeing economic stagnation in their home provinces to live a new life in the fertile climes of the Sudan.

Ottoman expansion was coupled with economic reinvigoration. Mehmet poured money into industry and into modernising agriculture. Industrialisation was driven by military requirements-Mehmet was determined to build a modern sea-going fleet, and so enormous dock facilities were built in Mesopotamia and Sinai. These churned out gunboats which intimidated the Gulf Emirs and the Yemenis into accepting Ottoman hegemony. They were also turned on Persian docks and shipping, and the Shah was forced into signing an agreement which tied him to free trade with the Empire and ‘eternal friendship and Muslim solidarity.’ Railways were built throughout the Empire-in 1876 Mehmet inaugurated the Constantinople-Thessalonica-Athens line and in 1876 he opened the Uskudar-Ankara-Adana line. The most vital, however, was no doubt the Baghdad-Damascus-Cairo line, which linked three of the greatest cities of the East together, and which stimulated the Empire’s economy as Mesopotamian cotton was combined with Syrian labour and Egyptian capital.

The Turkish expansion into Africa greatly concerned the Europeans, especially the British. If they continued to advance, soon they would be across the Zambezi! The Cape Colonies were threatened, and with them Britain’s access to the Indian Ocean. However, war with the Turks would be costly-their navy was small yet modern and their armies were formidable, if poorly organised. What was needed was an agreement with them to limit their expansion into Africa. But to do this, other nations would be required in order to lend credibility to the resolution.

The Congress of London of 1883 was chaired by the Prime Minister David Thorstein, and hosted delegates from Germany, France, Spain, the Ottoman Empire and, oddly enough, Korea. Korean commercial interests in the east coast of Africa was considerable-large plantations were owned by Korean companies and Madagascar was home to several Korean naval bases. That fateful meeting effectively laid the ground rules for dividing up Africa. Two months of negotiations were shocking in their blasé attitude towards the inhabitants of the areas they were dividing up-it was safely assumed that they would be oppressed, forcibly converted and suitably ‘civilised.’

The result was thus: Turkey was guaranteed all areas south of the Maghreb with Muslim majorities which were not already held by another European power. Korea was guaranteed Kenya and the coastline south until the most northerly British coastal colony, and as far inland as Lake Mehmet (OTL Lake Victoria). The Spanish took a huge swath of land in West Africa, from Algeria to Sierra Leone. It looks impressive on a map, but it largely worthless. A sliver of coastline in West Africa was taken by the British as a naval base and as a means of supporting its colonies in Guyana. Britain took a large wedge of land around the Gulf of Gabon, as well as her pre-existing colonies in south Africa. Germany took two small colonies-one south of the Congo River and one a few mile north. The land in between and the entire Congo basin-that vast tropical depression in the heart of Africa-was taken by France, as was Angola and all lands west of Lake Melville (OTL Lake Malawi).

The Treaty of London was terrifying in its scope but also in its lack of detail-enormous areas were signed over without reference to maps or statistics. The Congress would later be caricatured by the rulers of Europe dividing up Africa with ruler and pencil, and although the proceedings were a little more complicated than that, they were certainly on a scale never seen before. Not since the death of Alexander the Great had so vast areas been split between the crowned heads of Europe.

Korea’s involvement in the talks marked it as a power in its own right separate of China. This caused great concern within China, as the Emperor feared that Korea’s newly unleashed dynamism would wrest its own empire from the Mandate of Heaven. In 1887 the Emperor made a treaty with the British which divided Australia between them-China took the north and west, yet the British took the vast majority of the continent. China also browbeat Siam into ceding it Laos and the headwaters of the Mekong River. This waterway was seen as a core strategic interest of China’s, as it dominated trade through Khmer and Siam. However, it was seen by the government in Ayutthaya as a sign of naked aggression. Anti-Imperial sentiments began to run deep within the courts of South East Asia, and the kings of Khmer, Siam and Burma began to look to Korea for leadership.

China, however, was still the unquestioned regional leader, as her economy began to recover from a long depression. Its shipyards began to churn out new ships and its factories grew once more. In 1887 the Emperor signed the Foreign Passport Edict, which gave foreigners freedom of travel within the Empire so long as they carried a valid passport. This boosted trade and industry, as foreign investors could send specialists to China easier without so much bureaucracy (or bribery). In 1889 the Xonting Emperor ascended to the throne and he began a programme of liberalisation. He began with the bureaucracy, scrapping the Table of Nobility which gave rank and title to long-serving bureaucrats and replaced it with a Table of Merits, which measured a bureaucrat’s importance by his ability to access the Emperor. He harnessed his own semi-divine status to better serve the imperial system. The entire government could be mapped by a series of concentric circles: the lowest administrators could not hope to even catch a glimpse of the Emperor, while the most senior met with him daily and the five most important men in the country had the privilege of entering his bedchamber uninvited.

This Imperial revival worked its way down to the common people. Posters began to turn up with pro-imperial slogans on them, and as education spread, loyalty to the Emperor was taught above all else. Imperial Academies were founded-over 2,000 from 1889-1910, which taught a rigorous curriculum of science, history, geography and ‘national awareness’-a topic which was the brainchild of Li Xiabao, the Emperor’s Chancellor who had studied at Cambridge and Heidelberg and who had been affected as anyone by the nationalist unrest in Germany in the 1840s. The Academies were his idea, and his militant mind can be seen in their lay out. Classrooms were stark rooms with one end dominated by two huge charts: one of China, the other of the world. Hanging on one wall was a portrait of the Emperor and opposite him the Imperial Banner. Students were seated in rows-fifty children to a classroom, and they were taught by one-always male-teacher. Discipline was ruthless yet academic rigour was central. The Academies served to funnel China’s best into the bureaucracy and the upper echelons of the state. Students were offered junior commands in the army if they signed up for ten years, while others were offered prefectures if they joined the civil service.

The Academies were mirrored by the Imperial Schools, which were rolled out across the Empire, from Uighurstan to Borneo. These were schools which taught children from 6-14. They taught in Mandarin Chinese and the curriculum was the same nation-wide-Xiabao boasted that he knew what every child in China was studying at any given time. These schools shrank illiteracy from 80% to only 20% in fifty years, yet they also crushed local identities. Uighur, Mongols, Vietnamese were all suddenly labelled Chinese, much to the distress of their parents, and the local languages of the Empire began to die out. Only in China’s discontinuous territories-Borneo, Java and Australia-did this not apply. Local languages were taught, yet they were invariably the language of the ruling class. Malay, for example, was forced on Javanese speakers, while Mandarin was taught in Australia to settlers from across the Empire.

The state was also expanded by the Eastern Blockhouse-the informal name of the Office of Inquiry. This enormous secret-police infrastructure had branches everywhere, from Lhasa to Jakarta. They were the most secretive branch of the imperial government, and indeed its existence was never officially recognised, yet everyone knew of it. Their most infamous feat was done in Tibet. The Twelfth Dalai Lama died in 1896 and a successor found. The new Thirteenth Dalai Lama, however, was taken by Chinese officials and escorted to Beijing where he was raised in a cloistered world. He would occasionally be trotted out to address a small group of followers-he always spoke Mandarin and many guessed that he could remember how to speak Tibetan. In 1903 the Panchen Lama died, and as the Dalai Lama was not present to acknowledge a successor, his post was left open. Instead, the Chinese nominated their own candidate, who was enthroned in Lhasa. The Dalai Lama returned in 1908 as a young man in spectacles who spoke only Mandarin and who hardly knew the tenets of Buddhism. Nonetheless, he was propped up by the Chinese Imperial government and who ruled more like a Chinese bureaucrat than a theocrat
 
World 1900.GIF

The World in 1900.

By the way, Russia sold its North American holdings to Mexico in 1889. Just thought you should know.

World 1900.GIF
 
Save maps as .jpg, it looks nicer. I love everything else though.

I'll do that in future-honsetly speaking, I'm rather inept at the whole technology thing. I still don't know how to respond with multiple quotes.

Alaska gets taken away the same way it does IOTL: the Tsar wants cash and doesn't want all the exposure that Alaska brings, so he sells it to the Mexicans, although he gives a bit to the Americans (the Union, that is) to maintain some regional parity of power.
 
Just think about the various people that the Korean's and Chinese have conqured in this TL


It's pretty awesome!

Korean African Aboriginal Chinese now is that cool or what!:D
 
The Ottamans are very progressive in this time line and i am guessing they dont have to worry about as many barbrian up risings as in OLT which makes sence sort of.:confused:

There's going to be a lot of pan-Islamism, which won't go down well in the Balkans, so what happens there will be seen
 
Early 20th century China was a time of great reawakening. The Emperor knew that not all of his successors would be as reform-minded as he, so he bound them to his programme to make a world power, a nation capable of exerting influence across the oceans, through the state education system. Through Li Xiabao he tied up the Mandate of Heaven with success in foreign ventures; domestic stability was one thing; for an Emperor to be great he had to expand China. By these counts, then, he was a failure, for he did not gain an inch of ground for China. What he did, however, was make China a nation. Emperors had been using an appeal to the Mandate of Heaven for millennia, yet it was Xonting who centralised this around himself and no other. The Mandate of Heaven had been with the Ming Dynasty-one branch or another-since the 14th century, and so it was clear that Heaven was most pleased with the family’s reign. Any uprising against a Ming was, therefore, blasphemy, and so long as a Ming sat in Beijing, all would inevitably be well.

Loyalty to the Imperial family was thus central to nation building. The Emperor, however, did not wish this absolutism to become populism-he wished to maintain his family’s loftiness and distance from the average Chinese commoner. Thus the office of Chancellor was created. Its holder was the Emperor’s closest confident and would relay his intentions to the people. The Emperor himself would be in constant correspondence with his government, and would meet with them daily, yet it was the people who the Chancellor would address. Xonting wanted to create an inclusive absolutist state, where people knew something about the workings of power yet were still detached from it.

His first Chancellor, appointed in 1896 was Hu Yijing. A confident speaker and a talented writer, he wrote numerous propaganda pieces and founded China’s first newspaper, The Bannerman which was carried to the countryside by China’s rapidly growing railways. In 1890 there were 6,000 miles of railway line in China, yet by 1900 there were 11,000. These were mostly focused in the north east, where industry was focused, yet they also penetrated into the centre and the highlands, where enormous mines were opened in these years, sending trains of coal miles long down to the factories of the coast. China’s strict command economy made its vast, monolithic economic structure a blunt-force instrument which could hammer down its competitors by sheer force of numbers. When it came to quality, or to refinement, however, Korea was the master of industry.

Korea’s new-found empire was put to good use. The Malay Peninsula was systematically stripped of its forests, its indigenous inhabitants dispossessed. Replacing them was mile after mile of commercial rubber plantation. The rubber was collected by locals, who were housed in brick barracks and held under armed guard. Korea learned how to keep its colonies quiet quickly. Its armed forces ballooned enormously from 1880-1900 so that by 1905 there were 140,000 Koreans in the army. Most of these were stationed in Malaya and Africa.

Korea’s African colonies, named Kyuyu (after the Kikuyu people of Kenya) were subjected to harsh commercial exploitation. Settlers were encouraged to move there, and the cities of the coast became almost entirely Korean, with many French and Turks as well. The native peoples were expelled from their land and settled in the uplands, in carefully managed reservations. These gradually shrank, until the Korean Imperial Treasury finally paid each tribal family a small condolence sum and then took their land. Many refused, and the Kikuyu War began which lasted from 1895-1902 and which killed 4,000 Koreans and as many as one million natives. The war saw the extensive use of machine guns and spotter balloons, which were used to detect insurgent camps. These were to evolve into motor-propelled balloons capable of independent motion against the wind with small payloads of explosives or gases.

Korean settlers in Africa became like landed aristocracy; relatively few decided to leave the security of the homeland and go to the dark continent, so the Imperial government encouraged others to settle there. Many Latin Americans, Russians and Persians moved there and became smallholding farmers. Inevitably, their small plots were bought out by massive corporations, who used the land to grow tobacco and cotton for export to Korea.

From 1883 to 1910 the European powers, Korea and the Ottoman Empire ate away Africa, destroying its ancient history and turning it into a land of misery, poverty and oppression. This could most clearly be seen in the south, where the British Cape Colony expanded north to encompass the vast arable lands of the southern continent. In 1901 Parliament voted to grant the colony devolved powers, and a new government was set up in Albia, on the banks of the River Preston (Limpopo). The Albia government began by passing an act which recognised only white inhabitants of the country as citizens. The government also began a huge propaganda campaign to encourage white European migration. Enormous tracts of land were cleared and signed over to real estate corporation which sold the land to investors; ideally, these would be poor farmers from Germany or southern Italy. In reality, they were snapped up cheap by German and Korean meat conglomerates, which used the land to raise huge herds of cattle. This too boosted the economy, as the coastal cities became meat packing and shipping centres; new refrigeration techniques meant that the meat could be shipped for thousands of miles.

For a while, conflict was avoided. There would be more bloodshed to come, however, and rather predictably the progenitor of international strife was beleaguered America. In 1875 the Confederate States of America signed a treaty with Great Britain, Mexico and France which promised mutual assistance if one were attacked. In response to this, the United States of America signed a similar treaty with Germany and China. Thus a series of entangling alliances began to grow up around the great powers until by 1906 Austria, Russia, Britain, Mexico and the CSA were arrayed against Germany, the Ottoman Empire and the USA. An arms race between Germany and Austria nearly boiled over into open war in 1911 when an Austrian Division accidentally crossed the border into Silesia. By 1915, war seemed inevitable. The only question was where, when, and, in the East, would China become involved? And if she did, would Korea follow her?
 
Korea’s African colonies, named Kyuyu (after the Kikuyu people of Kenya) were subjected to harsh commercial exploitation. Settlers were encouraged to move there, and the cities of the coast became almost entirely Korean, with many French and Turks as well. The native peoples were expelled from their land and settled in the uplands, in carefully managed reservations. These gradually shrank, until the Korean Imperial Treasury finally paid each tribal family a small condolence sum and then took their land. Many refused, and the Kikuyu War began which lasted from 1895-1902 and which killed 4,000 Koreans and as many as one million natives. The war saw the extensive use of machine guns and spotter balloons, which were used to detect insurgent camps. These were to evolve into motor-propelled balloons capable of independent motion against the wind with small payloads of explosives or gases.
The highlands were the areas that OTL Europeans settled because the disease régime was a lot milder (fewer mosquitos, etc.). Koreans would want to do the same, surely.
 
The highlands were the areas that OTL Europeans settled because the disease régime was a lot milder (fewer mosquitos, etc.). Koreans would want to do the same, surely.

Yeah and that's what happens eventually, but they want the natives out of the way so their ports are secure. It's only later when they start moving inland and settling people there that a campaign of enforced reservations and displacement is enacted.
 
In January 1916 John Irving was sworn in as President of the United States of America. Formed in 1866 with the Articles of Union between Canada and the UAS, it was one of the world’s foremost industrial powers. Irving had run on a strong progressive ticket, with his main policies being welfare reform, ‘trust busting’ and arms talks with the CSA. From the 1850s onwards, there had been a steady increase in expenditure between the North and South. His election by a razor’s edge in 1915 offered an end to what saw as the biggest potential war-starter on Earth. A week after his taking of the Presidential Oath, the New Albatross, the USA’s foremost political journal named him their ‘an of the Century’ and said that ‘President Irving could be the greatest thing to happen to this beleaguered continent since its colonisation some four hundred years ago.’ Such praise was not bestowed lightly, for in the months after his election he showed himself to be something of a perfect president. He passed bills to break apart the huge banking corporations which had taken over huge segments of the American economy, and he also introduced the Ten Hour Bill, which limited legal working hours to ten hours a day. On the 27th November, he signed a treaty with the CSA President Aldeville which opened up the possibility for future talks-there were even rumours of reunification.

Alas, it was not to happen. Irving was deeply unpopular in many parts of the country. He had won the Canadian States comfortably-he polled over 70% of votes cast in Quebec, due to his Catholic running mate James Albany. However, the border states of West Virginia and Tennessee were unconvinced by this northern radical; he received less than 20% of the vote in many Tennessee counties. The House of Representatives was deeply divided between the Progressives, those Congressmen who thoroughly supported the President, the Republicans, who were from the Canadian political pedigree of small but responsible government; and finally the ad hoc coalition of southern Congressmen, laissez-faire and chauvinists who formed an aggregate stolidly opposed to the President’s progressive agenda. This reflected a huge divide in the nation; the border southern states were fiercely opposed to the northern President, and some of the most radical party leaders even whispered of secession.

On the 19th May 1917 the President was visiting small-holding farmers in West Virginia when someone from the crowd who had gathered around his car fired three shots at him. The President fell and the assailant was captured immediately. Word was sent to Vice President Albany by telegram, and he was sworn in four hours later as President of the United States of America. Irving was dead.

The national outrage felt by the murder of the President was unprecedented, although the act of assassinating a president was novel in itself. The assassin, Telamon H. Jarvis was interrogated and at first confessed to being a member of an anarchist cell which called itself the Black Hand Gang. However, on further examination he turned out to be a member of an all-white drinking society, whose clubhouse was raided by Federal officers. Within it were found Confederate flags, and, most damming of all, telegrams sent from Confederate cities which contained passages which could be seen as seditious. President Albany, at the head of a divided nation, needed something to unify the Republic and pull it through its time of tragedy. He therefore expelled the Confederate Ambassador to the USA and withdrew the Union representitive in Atlanta.

What started as a diplomatic spat, however, escalated swiftly and President Albany found himself swamped by the people’s reaction to the severing of diplomatic relations with the CSA. Some called for war, whereas others called for the President to ‘restore amicable relations with our continental neighbours.’ The President, however, would hear nothing of either side. He drew up a list of demands and had them sent to President Aldeville via a French merchant marine vessel. The demands were: 1. The official disclosure of all CSA-supported and funded organisations operating within the USA. 2. The resignation of North Carolina Governor Patrick Keattes, due to his knowledge of the Black Hand Gang’s treasonous intentions. 3. The withdrawal of all CSA soldiers from an area of land 20 km from the border. 4. The opening of the Mississippi to Union warships. 5. That President Aldeville sign a treaty promising never to disrupt the status quo of the American continent.

Rather unsurprisingly, the demands were rejected utterly. President Albany read the Confederate reply to his demands to Congress. Chants of ‘War! War! War!’ came from the Republican and Progressive benches, yet Albany would not relent. He consulted his allies-he sent word to Berlin and Constantinople as to what to do. The Prime Minister of Great Britain offered to arbitrate the dispute, yet he was turned down by both parties. Finally, President Albany delivered his final ultimatum. Either the CSA demilitarise its border with the USA and the Mississippi River, or there would be war. When this was rejected on the 14th October 1917, Congress voted for war-65% in favour while 21% abstained. The Chiefs of Staff who had been playing war games for decades finally dusted off their maps and charts, and polished all their medals for the war to end all wars; this would decide once and for all who would dominate America.

But first, the diplomatic game had to wind down, yet once the declaration of war was served to President Aldeville there was little doubt how the die would be cast. Hours later, Mexico declared war on the USA and in response to this, Germany declared war on Mexico. France, Austria and Russia served a joint declaration of war against Germany, and the Ottoman Empire delivered the coup de Grace to the old diplomatic system by declaring war on the Triple Entente.

Late 1917 would see relatively little action-or at least compared to the following years. Union forces, numbering 5 million infantry and with thousands of pieces of artillery all ferried south by railway, swamped Confederate forces in Maryland. Baltimore fell by mid-November and Richmond was threatened by Christmas. The American front ground down for winter with Union forces well within the CSA’s borders. While this happened, Mexico began to mobilise for war. It was a slow process, given the distances involved, yet by early December Kansas and Texas were home to some 3 million soldiers waiting to make the Spring offensive. In the meantime they secured the Mississippi and its tributaries and conducted a few raids into American territory.

In Europe, the war planning of the Triple Entente, which had never been good by any stretch of the imagination, almost fell apart entirely. Mutual Russian and Austrian mistrust over the Balkans had meant that the French, who had wanted a more solidified joint command structure, was left with two bickering allies who had almost declared war on each other in 1919 rather than on Germany. The three countries’ war aims were wildly different in almost every conception. France’s birth-rate had fallen dramatically since the loss of its Empire, and Emperor Napoleon III had realised that France could not hope to win a war of attrition against Germany’s far larger, far younger population. France’s strategy was therefore to sit and wait. For decades, the French General Staff had been planning their defence of the Rhine against the Germans, and millions of Francs had been spent building bunkers, roads, coal depots and ammunition dumps all along the river. The French army, for the time being, at least, was going nowhere.

The Austrians, on the other hand, were not so fortunate as to have one of Europe’s largest rivers running along its border with Germany. The German Army crashed through Bohemia in November and was nearing the Danube by December. The Austrian Army, despite the substantial military reforms of the mid-19th century, had gentrified. Germany’s Officer Corps were the best trained in the world and the Imperial Artillery the most responsive, most accurate, most mobile in Europe. For two months, German war planners’ dreams came true as thousands of Junker horsemen poured across the Bohemian plateau, taking Prague and raiding through the countryside. Austrian collapse seemed imminent, and it was only a last-ditch defence on the borders of Austria itself which saved the Hapsburg monarchy.

Spring of 1918 saw the war begin in earnest. Except for Austria and Maryland, the war had barely started for most combatants. The Russian Army was still mobilising and the French were still sitting on the left bank of the Rhine. The Mexicans, meanwhile, were building up a head of steam in Colorado and Kansas, waiting to come crashing down upon the East like a furious locomotive. Russia and Austria had yet to get any momentum to their war effort-conscription was still haphazardly enforced, war time production was run on civilian lines and with little direct state involvement. Germany, however, had introduced conscription immediately, and drafted women and Scandinavian immigrants to run the war economy, which was run by national price and supply boards. In Spring 1918 the Austrians had 2 million men under arms, the Russian 4 million. The Germans, on the other hand, had 8 million and a further 7 million in reserve.

It was this enormous numerical superiority which let Germany, surrounded and seemingly choked, to break through. A co-ordinated assault comprised of German and Ottoman forces broke through the Austrian defences at Salzburg and Sarejevo. German forces advanced 100 km in two days, and by the end of March, Vienna was under siege. The Emperor fled the city with his court and set themselves up in Pressburg and then in Budapest. When it became apparent that the city was doomed, a Provisional Government was formed and the city surrendered in the name of Austria. The court in exile attempted to continue the war, yet the tensions of decades of forced cultural and political union were taking their toll. German forces were greeted as liberators in Pressburg and Ljubljana, and on the 25th June 1918 Emperor Franz Joseph abdicated, and released the news that the centuries old Hapsburg Empire was dead. He surrendered to the Germans before going into exile in Spain.

The collapse of the Austrian Empire freed up millions of men for the fight against Russia, which was making steady advances into Poland. Facing a three-pronged assault from East Prussia, South Poland and Moldavia, the Russian army was overwhelmed. From 1918-1919 there was a string of massive victories for German and Turkish armies. Poland was liberated by the end of 1918, and the 1919 offensive saw German forces enter Talinin. In May 1919 the Tsar entered into negotiations with the Germans for a conditional peace. The Germans demanded that Poland and the Baltic states be ceded to Germany to do as it willed with them. The Turks also demanded that the Black Sea be demilitarised and that the Crimean Peninsula be ceded to them. The Tsar refused the Turkish demands, although he secretly accepted the German ones. However, the Germans decided to prod the Tsar, and a joint offensive into the Ukraine in Summer 1919 saw Kiev fall. The Turkish fleet also landed detachments in the North Caucasus, and there were uprisings in Chechnya and Dagestan. His armies shattered, his generals distraught and his people starving, the Tsar capitulated. A new treaty saw drafted and the Tsar signed. The war in the east was over.

The Treaty of Helsinki saw much of the Russian Empire dismembered. Poland saw carved out from its holdings (but not from German holdings) and former Austrian possessions, and the new Grand Duchy of Livonia was created on the Baltic, with a cadet Hohenzollern family line seated in Riga. Ukraine was divided between the victorious allies; a German-backed Prince was installed in Kiev, yet there were significant concessions granted to the Muslim cossacks who were patronised by the Sultan. He also took the Crimea and Chechnya for himself.

In America, 1918 and 1919 saw a race between the USA and Mexico to see who could ravage the Southern States the quickest. General Ross of the US Army led an offensive through Tennessee and then into north Georgia, where the Confederates were weak. A simultaneous attack through Virginia and North Carolina saw Charlotte and Richmond capitulate, and Missouri also surrendered to Union shelling. Meanwhile, the Mexican juggernaut fell on the American flank. It cost many lives to cross the Mississippi, yet it was finally done and a bridgehead established in Arkansas. The Mexicans were, however, by and large kept on the left bank of the river, and Union gunboats kept it thus. President Albany was meanwhile engaged in secret negotiations with President Gardez of Mexico. Gardez saw that the Entente powers were losing the war and that he needed to get out of the bloody affair as soon as possible-there was already considerable unrest in the southern provinces, where most Mexican soldiers came from.

The President Aldeville surrendered Atlanta and the CSA on the 16th July 1919 and ordered all Confederate forces to stand down. A week later, Gardez and Albany signed a peace treaty which admitted no responsibility for the war and which promised ‘eternal friendship between the nations of the Americas.’ The treaty gave Albany the right to occupy the Southern States, except for Louisiana and Arkansas, which were annexed by Mexico as the spoils of war. The mood of jubilation as President Albany announced the final reunification of the ‘Ancestral colonies’ was unprecedented-he was re-elected in 1920 with nearly 80% of the popular vote (the occupied states did not vote until the 1928 election).

In Europe, late 1919 saw France make one final attempt to win the war. Her policy of defence had been shown to fail miserably, and so one finally effort was made to break the stalemate. Attempts to cross the Rhine were repeatedly defeated, and so the decision was made by Emperor Napoleon to violate the neutrality of British-protected Holland and to take Germany by surprise.

The invasion of Holland was itself a success-Amsterdam fell within weeks, and soon French forces were pouring into Germany. However, it spelled the end for France’s hopes of victory. The violation of Holland’s neutrality pulled Britain into the war, and not on France’s side. The Royal Navy blockaded French ports, and British Colonial forces made landings in Duvallierville (Congo) and Nuveau Montpellier (Harare). By the close of 1919 it was apparent that France couldn’t go on for much longer.

Spring 1920 saw France begin to starve. Paris was filled with beggars and war-wounded. Napoleon was spending more and more time away from the capital, leaving the business of state to the Senate, which began to turn against its Emperor. the knockout blow came in March 1920, when German Divisions marched through occupied Italy and captured Turin, threatening the cross the Alps. On the 4th April the Senate announced a State of Emergency, and deposed the Emperor. The Second Republic was born in a moment of national emergency, and for a week or so it looked likely that it would fall. The generals, however, chose to back the Senators, and Napoleon was left hung out to dry. He fled to Brazil and died there in 1934.

The Great War, as it came to be known, did not, therefore, end in some cataclysmic battle in which millions perished and in which imperial edifices were toppled, but rather in a rather lethargic coup which saw a corpulent Emperor replaced by a fragile Republic which opened negotiations with the victorious powers. Now that the fighting was finally over, it was time for the diplomats to step in.

When it came to Europe, there was only one man drawing the borders and writing the new constitutions, and that was German Chancellor Peter Hierring, who was given a free hand in Eastern Europe. Poland and Livonia were both bound to Germany in perpetuity by cadet branches of the Imperial family. Austria and Bohemia were annexed as was Istria. Austria’s Italian possessions were carved out into the Kingdom of Italy, and given to the King of Bavaria, who was married to the Kaiser’s niece. Hungary and Slavonia were both made into monarchies, with local aristocrats made kings yet with German subsidy and military backing. The Kaiser saw his borders not as the Rhine, the Alps and the Vistula, but rather the Mediterranean, the Carpathians and the Danube, and German military installations graced each of these frontiers.

It was Africa which caused the biggest headache for the diplomats, for France was stripped of all its colonies, yet the three victorious powers could not decide how to divide them. Finally, Germ any took the Congo Basin, the Ottomans received territory north of the Congo River and Britain took all territory south of the Basin. Germany therefore got rubber and vast deposits of copper and silver; the Turks got access to central African trade routes and Britain got thousands of miles of farmland, which was the driving force behind its African colonial policy.

Outside the peace talks, yet not unrelated to them, were a series of international events. The Ottoman Empire annexed Oman and the Gulf States, and proclaimed the unity of all Arabia. The Confederacy of Gran Colombia also collapsed due to the economic divide between the north and south; by 1920 all that was left of the grand South American project was Colombia and Venezuela, which remained bound together by a brutal dictator. Chile and Peru became homes of thriving democracies, whereas Paraguay and Ecuador became dens of corruption and vice. In India, as well, the Ayughib Empire, founded in the ashes of the Mughal Empire, fought a brutal war against the Maratha Confederacy, which eventually split the continent. The Maratha held the south and the western seaboard, whereas the Ayughib held the North, Bengal and Deccan. The Chinese also used this opportunity to annex several Himalayan kingdoms north of Burma, thus solidifying its hold over the most independent of its Asian vassals.
 
How does this TL's Mexico and USA compare in terms of population and industry?

Mexico has a larger population because it's basically attracted the immigrants who would otherwise have gone to the USA. Mexico has a population of around 90 million and the USA has around 50 million. They're both growing very quickly, however, and although Mexico has more industry and trade it has more extremes of poverty than the USA.
 
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