...themselves with the Hungarians; and the Albanians and Bosniaks are working with the Serbs.
What do they attempt to gain? Are they still fond on the idea of a Yugoslavia themselves, or?
In the mean time, in Russia, the UWF has started 2 offensives, on St. Petersburg and along the Ukrainian coastline. It is hoped that if these two areas can be held, Russian shipping & trade will dwindle and hurt its economy. If the plan works, then it will be used as a possible bargaining chip.
Do they control the Baltic?
Britain and France continue to ship equipment to the UWF, particularly to the Polish front. They hope that Germany can be severely weakened by the UWF. Plans are also conjured for sending supplies to the Hungarians and Serbs. Italy adds on to this by considering a direct intervention against Austria, but is very cautious of the idea due to fear of war with Germany.
Seems like a pretty bold and outrageous move. I can imagine Germany threatening to use indiscriminate submarine warfare against any French and British ships(or any ships in general) suspected of supplying the rebels.
Which begs the question: Did a red scare occur during the early 20th century like it did OTL? Because arguably, if the British and French are covertly supporting the UWF something tells me that must not have happened.
But again, the British and French are not allied to Russia as they were in OTL.
Towards the end of the year, fractures can be seen forming in the UWF leadership. Though the revolution is going well for them, and they have a large amount of territory, what they will do if they win is heavily debated. The men at the head of the movement, however, are fortunately able to quell the arguments for the time being.
I assume Lenin and his henchmen are still in charge?
The two sides of the Ottoman Civil war are now picking themselves up from underneath the rubble. The Republic of Turkey is formed in May, and consists of the territory held by the nationalist forces of the war. The loyalist forces’ territory remains as the Ottoman Empire; however, the empire is a different animal from before its civil war. The Turkish majority mostly belongs to the Repbulic of Turkey, meaning that the minority Turks hold power of the majority Arabs. This will cause problems in the future.
Where is the Ottoman capital situated? Being that it isn't Baghdad as that is located in German Mesopotamia now(Still a strange move in my opinion, but maybe the German leadership at the time thought that the Ottomans weren't going to be of any use anyway and decided to take Mesopotamia for themselves).
Airship development continues in Great Britain. The British RAF furthers its plans for a dirigible airship fleet to connect the various parts of the empire. Experiments and trials are to take place once 3 new airships, designated R9, R10, and R11. The airships are rather large, at around 630-640 ft long; they also each incorporate a unique design feature: a small fighter wing of 3 aircraft. The aircraft are stored via an internal hangar on the bottom of the airships; they are launched and retrieved in-flight via a hook-and-trapeze system that saw many intense months of R&D to create. As such, the aircraft lack an wheeled undercarriage, as the mechanism is deemed unnecessary. The three airships undergo trials throughout the year.
Why would they prefer Airships over carriers? Unless they want to use the aerial carriers above land(In which case they might as well use improvised airstrips instead).
China receives its airship from Germany later in the year. The craft is given to the Army Air Force, who are pleased with the acquisition. The craft is planned for naval reconnaissance. However, the Chinese Republican Navy is not pleased with the Army’s control of their resources. Debates and arguments flare up between commanders of both branches, until the issue is finally compromised. It is decided that the creation of a Naval Air Service will permit the Navy to direct usage of the current and future airship resources, and possibly carrier aircraft if the idea ever comes to fruition in the ROCN. However, in the mean time, all land-based heavier-than-air craft will belong to the Chinese Army Air Force.
It strikes me as more plausible that the names would be "The Republican Navy" or "The Republican Chinese Navy" and "Chinese Army Air Wing".
[quote[The Russians, suffering heavy losses against the UWF with their outdated French-designed war tractors, decide to come up with some designs of their own. Their war ministry goes into a period of much R&D. Various designs are proposed, but none are officially chosen yet.[/quote]
I assume the UWF are using anti-tank guns and light artillery en messe to counter the slow and vulnerable war tractors?
Germany, thanks to closer relations with Russia, asks for some of the somewhat-obsolete war tractors originally given by the French so they [the Germans] could further develop their designs. The Russians reluctantly agree and give the Germans a batch of 10.
If they do that I assume that war tractors are considered entirely obsolete on the field as of now(at least versus anti-tank guns and light artillery, and to some extend light explosives like grenades)?
Oil prices, which have been steadily drooping for a while now (thanks majorly to a large supply and slowly rising demand), threaten to take a large dip. This worries many nations, such as Russia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the Kingdom of Iberia, as a good portion of their economies are based on oil revenue. Other nations, such as Britain, Germany, and the US, are also worried, as they are concerned that such a steep drop could cause a collapse in the worldwide economy.
Well, that strikes me as unusual, unless, cars and other oil consuming apparatus are much more common.
Even if they have nationalised their oil industries I doubt oil will be a big part of their economies I still can't see how it can be a big chunk of their revenues.
But again, industrialisation might have taken a different turn. That said, in OTL Russia's economy was long on par with that of Germany at the beginning of the 20th century.
How is industrialisation going as of late? In OTL nations like Italy, The Netherlands, The Iberian Peninsula and to a lesser extend Russia were lagging behind behind the likes of France, Great Britain and the industrial powerhouses of Germany and the United States.
How about immigration to the Americas, if there are less pogroms and less poverty in Russia(Which triggered mass immigration) and more industrialisation in Italy(Especially the North-East and South), earlier social reforms in Germany(although that possibly requires a POD of pre-1900, although arguably Germany is a lot more wealthy now without WWI having screwed it over) and an earlier industrialisation of Iberia I can imagine the population statistics being quite different ITTL.
Also note the lack of the demographic meat grinder that was WWI population might be much higher then they were in OTL.
Adding to that, a generally higher wealth and GDP per capita and higher purchasing power coupled with more industrialisation might increase the demand for oil to levels not seen in OTL early 20th century.
That said, I can imagine a split occurring between Polish nationalist and Ukrainian nationalists.
Also, in OTL the Polish nation was generally a bastion of anti-Bolshevism, while this might be less of the case or even not at all in OTL, I can still see the split occurring with the Polish and Ukrainian factions hijacking the revolution for their own interests.
