The Match in the Vulcazine: The Second Global War Goes Global
The invasion of Mexico by the CNA created the two front war that the world was on the brim of before 1974, with Germany and Britain dueling in the English Channel, and Germany's ally Italy giving them a significant boost in the naval war. Arabia, a constituent member of the Empire, gave ample vulcazine to the German cause, but it kept its soldiers as a reserve should Kiermaier need them. The various German-aligned North African states were busy marauding the Atlantic Ocean, destroying British shipping that was attempting to reach India to either resupply or support their forces in India.
What truly made the war the designated successor to the last war of such a scale was the tangled web of diplomacy that had brought the world into the two alliances that had formed. East Asia was prime example, with the mutually opposed Osaka Agreement and Pacific Joint Defense Pact were hounds waiting to be released. When the Mexicans were invaded, the states of this pact, Sichuan, Hunan, Tibet, Turkestan, Siam, Kampuchea, Mahajapit, Sulawesi, and Papua, were gearing for war. However, Mexico had not formally declared war on Britain or the other parts of the United British Empire. The world waited on whether two wars, similar in cause, would merge into one. The nations of the Osaka Agreement, Japan, Korea, Australia, Jiangsu, Greater Mongolia, Manchuria, Siam, Kampuchea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Siberia, were on the alert for an attack on their interests.
With the fall of Henrytown, British Prime Minister Gordon Perrow conferred with his commanders and asked whether a declaration of war on the United States of Mexico was desirable. They were divided; Lord High Admiral Isidore Morris was opposed to such a declaration, saying that the Royal Navy was needed to defend the British Isles. The highest general in the Army, George Treadwell, supported a declaration, saying that the war was winnable, and the Empire would be able to help this objective, along with the powerhouse that was the Confederation of North America. After conferring with the various foreign ministers of the United British Empire, Perrow made a speech in Newcastle regarding his course of action:
"Our distant brothers in North America are waging a just war, in the same manner that we are fighting the Germans. As the father of that great nation, we must support our son by aiding him against his enemy. It is in solidarity with the great Theodore Worden that I, in my capacity as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, formally declare war on the United States of Mexico and her allies. The world will be awash will hellscape that will make the last war look tame. Pray that we will come out of it alive and independent from Berlin."
What seemed like a simple gesture of support outwardly meant significantly more. The Prime Ministers of Australia, New Zealand (which due to post-Global War government policy had not sent troops to India), Victoria, and India declared war on the United States. This sent a cascade of declarations of war throughout the world: the nations of the Pacific Joint Defense Pact declared war on the United British Empire. Australia proved to be the next step; as a member of the Osaka Agreement, the nations of that alliance declared war on the Pacific Joint Defense Pact, and thereby Mexico.
This sent China and Southeast Asia awash with blood, as the regional warlords that had established their own states in that region finally had an excuse to break unsatisfactory peace treaties imposed by foreign powers in the 1950s and 1960s and engage in a bloody catharsis of the nationalistic urges that they had held back for so long. Australia, not letting the PJDP take the advantage and acting on decades-old distrust of Mexico, prepared their invasion of Papua and the southern islands of what was formerly the Dutch East Indies. In India, the forces that had belonged to the Coalition had all but destroyed the ILM and thusly began moving on Tibet, Kampuchea, and Siam.
Africa, too, was caught up in the violence, when the African nations of the Global Association for Peace declared war on Victoria to aid their Mexican allies. States such as Mutapa and the Benadir, both members of the GAP, began moving forces towards Victoria, and were aided by the states of Katanga, Singatini, and others bordering Victoria, which quickly found itself surrounded by the GAP. The most powerful of these nations was the Empire of Ethiopia, which had a long tradition of independence and was for a time the only independent state in Africa, and had consorted with the Mexicans and Germans many times before. Further aid came from Arabia and the German-allied North African states.
In Berlin, Chancellor Reinhold Kiermaier asked his foreign minister, Thorben Denzel, on the wisdom of declaring war on the Confederation of North America. Denzel had no issues with it; he saw it as necessary to support Mexico and keep the British at work in Europe while the various British allies fought the various German allies around the world. The German declaration of war on Worden was swift and decisive, and Kiermaier denounced the "warmongering ways of the current Governor-General." A similar cascade of war declarations followed, and the German allies declared war on the nations of the Osaka Agreement. This was first noticed in the border between Siberia and eastern Russia, where Siberian raiders attacked Russian towns, causing a deployment of the German-loyal Russian troops into that area.
Anatolia and Persia were both officially neutral but were under heavy German influence, and the German ambassadors in Istanbul and Tehran were putting extreme pressure on the governments of these two nations to open a front in India against the UBE. After threats of economic sanctions and occupation via Arabia, the two declared war on all hostile parties and launched a half-hearted invasion into the western reaches of India including Balochistan on September 30th, surprising the Indians and forcing them to defend Karachi.
South America, however, was peculiar in its near-unanimous support of the Mexicans due to the Global Association for Peace and seeing their main ally in Mexico be invaded by what they saw as imperialists. Throughout the continent, barring one country, enlistment in the military soared, and every one of these countries began offering their brigades to Lassiter's aid. They had common cause with Mexico, they thought; centuries of oppression from the empires of Europe had not endeared them to the Confederation of North America nor to the United British Empire. Germany they tolerated.
There was one outlier: New Granada. President Enrique Hermion was not fond of Lassiter's strongarmed policies in the region and thusly did not sign onto many agreements made by the Global Association for Peace, and entertained the prospect of British investment in the Caribbean shores of the country. In concurrence with this foreign policy, Hermion did not issue a draft nor did he permit the forces of other South American countries to enter his territory to reach Guatemala and then Mexico. John Paul Lassiter was incensed at what he saw as New Granadan treachery. He saw one solution: war.
Lassiter told his South American allies to not worry about Mexico at that crucial moment and instead put pressure on New Granada. They obliged, and that continent once again erupted into war. Brazil and the Argentine were at a match for New Granada; every other country did not have the industrial base to prepare suitably. Both sides used weaponry bought from the Mexicans; terramobile and warmobile similarities in the New Granadan front led to great confusion on both sides. In the north of the country, Guatemalan forces were beginning their own invasion. Also from Guatemala, Mexican air forces were deployed in the country to help the South Americans take down New Granada as soon as possible. Bombing runs over La Guairá, Bogota, and Caracas, among other cities, helped them immensely, including the first Mexican usage of stickzine in firebombing over the latter city.
