The Silver Knight, a Lithuania Timeline
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Chapter 69: Armageddon, pt. 1
Part 69: Armageddon, pt. 1 (Jan-May 1913)
The agriculture of the Indian subcontinent was the field of economy least affected by the Empire's industrialization - despite some attempts to introduce fertilizers, modern crop rotation and agricultural machines, the majority of the nation remained stuck in the old ways, limited to small plots of land worked by a single family. At the same time, however, the population of the Mughal Empire grew by a lot, even overtaking China as the most populous country in the world - and this combination of overpopulation and disproportionately weak agricultural output created an extremely fragile balance in India, and even the slightest alteration to that balance ran the risk of famine. This alteration, not one, but two of them, came during 1912. The first was India's participation in the Great European War - the offensives in Persia had to be supplied with food, ammunition and equipment, after all, and neither one comes from thin air. The nation was mobilized, war taxes were introduced, capable hands were taken from villages and sent to the front, and all of this created a large burden for the agricultural countryside. The second was weather - the summer monsoon of 1912 was notoriously weak in comparison to previous years, bringing less rainfall than usual, which resulted in lower crop yields.
All of this was fertile ground for the beginning of the Great Indian Famine. Outbreaks of starvation and hunger were recorded from as early as September of last year, but it only became catastrophic during the winter, the dry season. The Indus river valley and the Deccan were the most affected areas, but the rest of the country also suffered - except for Bengal, which was not only the most industrialized region in the Empire, including agriculture, but also received rain from the winter monsoon like usual, helping alleviate the damage. By May, when the worst of the catastrophe blew over, it was counter that over one and a half million people died from malnutrition and almost ten million more were affected. The famine took the government of the Empire off-guard, and they figuratively panicked, ordering the high command to cancel plans for a spring offensive in Persia and instead diverted the stockpiled supplies to helping the people - however, Mughal relief was only limited to major cities and barely even reached the Deccan, not to mention that many of the relief efforts were botched by corrupt governors or poor infrastructure. The famine was a severe blow to Indian morale and war enthusiasm, fears of a potential second famine were spreading, and opposition to the war started to rise.
And since it was the Mughals who brought India to war, this opposition was also directed at them.
Malnourished Indian farmers in Punjab
Malnutrition and hunger was not limited to the Mughal Empire, far from it, although the other places didn't suffer nearly as much. One notable such place was Lithuania - much like in India, poor harvests combined with war drain and war exhaustion led to food shortages, though, to the relief of the Imperial government, it did not devolve into an outright famine. Bread riots rolled over the nation, and in many places, workers, having not received their wages for months, went on strikes. In all cases, public dissent was countered with police batons, arrests and broken bones - but oppression didn't change the fact that the people of Lithuania were suffering from the war. Combat casualties were already far above a million, most of the dead and injured being young men. The cold winter resulted in the death of a large portion of the empire's livestock, neutering food production. Wounded, bitter soldiers were returning home, only to find an equally depressed homeland. This was fertile ground for radicalism of all kinds - Unitarianism, Republicanism, nationalism...
Emperor Žygimantas IV started a scandal in the very beginning of the year. Hoping to boost the morale of the nation somewhat, he decided to organize an open Christmas party in the Imperial Palace, inviting the citizens of Vilnius to visit and "cheer up a little". The hungry lower classes did not take this lightly, perceiving this as an attempt to show off his wealth in the face of food shortages across the population, and thus, numerous organizations, labor unions and underground movements recommended to just boycott the "party". So, Žygimantas spent Christmas drinking alone in his room. Public support of the Emperor dropped to a new low - not that it was ever high, really.
However, the royalty's inability to relate to the plight from the people was far from news - but something else related to royalty was, and that was the palace coup in the Ottoman Empire. Rumors about Abdulmejid III being secretly overthrown turned out to be true, as a public announcement on February of 1913 revealed that the old Sultan has been removed from power, presumably also executed, and the red-wing elements of the army seized control of the state, installing one of the Sultan's brothers, now calling himself Mehmed V. Mehmed was already a familiar face to the people of the Ottoman Empire, and it did not inspire or give them joy - quite the opposite, actually. Before seizing control of the country, he controlled it's internal affairs and oversaw the secret police, and rumors spread about his brutality, sociopathic tendencies and "impiousness". Were those rumors deserved? Who cares! The collective beliefs of the populace matter more than little obstacles like "facts"! Mehmed V started with a low "approval rating" and only harmed it more by declaring martial law across the country, trying to root out dissent against the regime, which, in the end, only made his opponents more powerful.
Mehmed V, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, 1913-
Mehmed V's government would receive a major challenge in the spring of 1913 - but not from where you'd expect. Rumors about a possible separate peace between the Ottoman Empire and the Coalition being negotiated under the orders of the new Sultan were present ever since the palace coup, and such negotiations taking place would have been a logical idea - after all, the Ottomans were being defeated in the battlefield and disintegrating from within. The truth was that Mehmed V was not considering a truce, gambling on a successful Lithuanian summer offensive to break into Poland and divert Visegradian attention from the South, but the rest of the Entente overreacted to the rumors - overreacted in probably the most self-destructive manner. While France merely sent a bunch of angry letters, the Lithuanian government cut off all trade and supplies through the Baltic Sea to press the Turks into remaining in the war, which proved to be not only ineffective, but also detrimental to their war effort, as the weaker and dissent-ridden Turkish industry was incapable of supplying all ranges of modern weaponry to it's army without allied assistance and loans. Just in time for Operation Bathory.
In April, the Visegradian army, bolstered by additional reserves, began a sudden push into Greece and the rest of Bulgaria, aiming to take over the remainder of the Balkans by the end of the year. Their opponents, three Ottoman armies, were war weary, infested with Unitarian, Republican and nationalist dissent and lacked almost anything beyond basic infantry equipment. As a notable example, the Turkish soldiers were not yet supplied with gas masks, even though the high command expected 500 thousand of them to be bought from Lithuania this spring, which just so happened to never arrive - and what do you know, the Visegradians employed gas shells for the first time in this offensive. In Greece, the Ottomans had to fight not only Coalition soldiers, but also local resistance, risen up in the mountains and hills of the nation, they disrupted the Turkish army's weak supply lines and picked off weaker units in support of Visegrad's invasion. The situation was no better in Bulgaria - the 3rd Hungarian Army reached Thrace and the outskirts of Konstantinyye by early May of 1913. The first artillery shells fell on the City of the World's Desire. The Southern Front was now reduced to a stretch of 200 kilometers, easily defensible thanks to the Bosphorus, and with so many forces now freed, the Visegradian General Staff could now look north, sensing weakness in the Lithuanian lines...
Despite the Great Indian Famine, Mughal forces continued to advance in Persia, although their gains were very limited. In many regions, Turkish soldiers and authorities were fleeing in fear of the arising Iranian rebellion against their rule, and the Indian forces arrived to an undefended Tehran in late April, only to see it already liberated by Persian militias, some raising blue flags - the color of Unitarianism - and some flying the old banners of the Safavids. With Tehran and most of Tabaristan under the control of the rebellion, Ottoman Khiva was now completely cut off from the rest of the Empire, too. Not good, not good at all...
Finally, the first months of 1913 saw the entrance of a new participant into the war - Shun China. The Shun Dynasty had been ruling China since the fall of the Ming, and their period marked a decline in China's importance on the world stage thanks to relative isolation and failure to catch up to the West and the Middle East. While the Mughal Empire embraced Western technology and scientific advancements, China was a relative laggard, but the last decade of the 19th century marked a change in the Middle Kingdom, led by the Yongwu Emperor. Under the guiding words of "change from above", he reopened China to foreign trade and led the nation to a slow beginning of industrialization thanks to a number of imperial decrees easing foreign investment and adapting Western novelties in local businesses. His son, the Shangwu Emperor, ascended to the throne a few years before the beginning of war in Europe, and he decided to exploit the chaos among "Western Barbarians" to retake the island of Taiwan, more commonly known across the world as New Zealand. Whether this move of pragmatism would succeed or would the weakened Dutch still be able to push back the invasion from the mainland was a question for the future to tell.
Over two years have passed in the Great European War, and while peace is still far behind the horizon, some participants were already deeply regretting ever joining. And soon, some countries will regret it even harder.
Many, many heads will soon roll.
The war in May 1st, 1913
Please friend, do not quote a wall of text, it wastes a large space of the page which could be used for better purposes.
At this point the Ottomans would be LUCKY to just remain in charge of Anatolia at the end of this.
...
Hopefully a bit better.
Maybe they will keep the Azerbaijani and levant regions
Chapter 70: Armageddon, Pt. 2
Part 70: Armageddon, Pt. 2 (May-Oct 1913)
The time was ripe.
The people were angry.
And they were angry towards the Monarchy.
All that was needed was a trigger.
At the beginning of June, 5000 workers in Konstantinyye rose up for a labor strike, protesting against the recent wage cuts among nationalized industries and government positions. These strikes were pretty much a daily occurrence by now, but this time, the Imperial government overreacted and attempted to suppress the event. This brought the attention of the nation's underground organization, thousands more people joined with the original protesters, now calling for not just a restoration of wages, but also for a separate peace with the Baltic-Adriatic Coalition and an end to the Ottoman monarchy. Unitarian cells were being activated, and street fighting broke out across the city. Visegradian forces, stationed as little as 10 miles away from the city, recorded fires breaking out, screams and shots being heard from the city, and even the Ottoman forces stationed in front of them fighting amongst themselves. This would have been the perfect chance for the Coalition to strike and take the Bosphorus, but the General Staff decided to wait and let the Turks bleed themselves out first.
In the chaos of the June Revolution, Mehmed V fled the city on a steamship, and in a surprising turn of events, he was let through by the French and Visegradian naval blockade to flee to the south of the country. The Ottoman Empire was decapitated, and the capital, Konstantinyye, fell under the "control" of a loose collection of Unitarian, Republican, anarchist and a plethora of other movements. Follow-up rebellions took place across the entire empire, and in the capital, the chaos eventually ended up sorted out, through only more bloodshed of course, and a junta of Turkish Unitarians, led by Akarsu Kubilay, took power. The Unitarians sought to wipe away all vestiges of the old imperial system and turn the Ottoman Empire into the center of a world revolution to destroy inequality and bring about the Unitarian utopia that was imagined by Weber - and at first, this new "Turkey" didn't even have an official name, as the revolutionaries saw any titles as temporary and obsolete once the rest of the world follows suit. To them, they represented "The Union" (Birlik), but the rest of the world gave them the name "Unitarian Turkey".
Flag of Unitarian Turkey
A civil war was brewing.
The Mughal Empire, now joined by separatist Persian forces, advanced forward through the Zagros and towards Tabriz, and while the original Indian plans expected heavy casualties from enemy resistance, what the armies noticed was a bunch of fleeing, infighting, disorganized ragtag groups of soldiers. They would much rather fight amongst themselves, some pledging allegiance to Kubilay, some to the Sultan, and fighting an external threat was not in their mind at all. By September, the Mughals took over pretty much all of Persia, seized Ottoman Khiva, and much like Visegrad, they stopped just to see how the events would play out. It might be easier to just let the Turks fight amongst themselves and get a separate peace out of them, rather than invade Anatolia and Mesopotamia and risk an actual resistance. Visegrad did the same thing - and while Turkey was in chaos, they had a much larger fish to fry.
The expected 1913 summer offensive arrived in the form of Operation Egérfogó (Mousetrap), a two-month Visegradian military operation in the Eastern Front. The General Staff of Visegrad found an exploited a weakness in Lithuanian ranks - as last year's offensives proved, their defenses along Galicia were weak, and with a strategically placed push, a breakthrough was possible, with the chance of surrounding and enveloping the Lithuanian and Romanian defenders in Moldavia. The green light for Egérfogó was given in January of 1913, over 400 000 soldiers were brought in from the now "peaceful" Southern Front, and July 1st marked the beginning of the largest offensive in the Eastern Front in this entire war. Using a combination of landship assaults, concentrated artillery fire and exploiting the wavering enemy morale, the Visegradians achieved a breakthrough in Galicia and Bukovina, and the conflict became a war of movement once again. The Lithuanian army was caught off-guard by the sudden invasion, although they had suspected some kind of offensive a few months in advance, and although they achieved victories in the Pripyat and at Bila Tserkva, preventing Kiev from falling to the Coalition, but they were defeated decisively in the Battle of Mogilev-Podolski and later along the Dniester, and in early September, the last strategic goal of the operation - Odessa, a minor port on the Black Sea - fell under Visegradian occupation.
While Egérfogó was taking place, follow-up offensives across the Carpathians crossed the mountains and placed further pressure on the defenders of Moldavia, and with Odessa fallen, the encirclement was set in place. Over 150 000 soldiers were now trapped in what was nicknamed by the media in Lithuania and Visegrad as "The Cauldron" (Lith. Rumunijos katilas). Hungarian and Polish armies surrounding the Cauldron were not rushing to crush the encirclement, at least not yet - for one, the operation came at quite a high cost to the Visegradian troops, too. Modern historians, assessing the "crushing success" of Operation Egérfogó, note that many of it's successes came from sheer luck - for example, the miscommunications between the Lithuanian armies in the Battle of Mogilev-Podolski, which allowed the 4th Hungarian Army to break the Lithuanian 3rd Imperial Corps and seal the battle, or the fact that the troops stationed in Lithuania were reservists brought from the Tver region, and their loyalty to the Empire was... questionable, at best. While the success of the operation cannot be understated, it should not be forgotten that without such strokes of luck, "the mousetrap may not have missed the rat", as one historian from Lithuania once commented.
During Operation Egérfogó, the Legion of Archangel Michael fought alongside Visegradian troops in Galicia, later participating in the Battle of Mogilev-Podolski and other follow-up battles. Not only was it rapidly rising in strength, counting up to 80 000 soldiers by September of 1913, but it was also creating a lot of turmoil in their "home nation", Lithuania. This was where the government of Visegrad saw a golden opportunity, and as Alexei Krutov stated in disappointment: "We want to be heroes, but the Hungarians want us to be pretty faces on posters". The Legion was used as a propaganda tool, through and through - they were consistently used in Ruthenian territory, and usually against Slavic units, they appeared on propaganda posters and letters distributed in secret across Lithuania, and all "Legionnaires" were recommended to keep writing letters home and present their new service as positively as possible. At the same time, however, Visegrad viewed the Legion with suspicion. The General Staff removed a number of officers and relieved hundreds of soldiers whom they perceived as too radical - as in, they were supporters of the creation of a "Greater Russia", a concept Visegrad hoped to erase from existence just as much as the Lithuanians did.
After obtaining the green light of the Convention of Three Nations, the East Slavic exodus in Visegrad formed the 20-member Council of Lithuanian Slavs, successor to the former Foundation for the Liberation of Lithuanian Slavs, now an organization with the goal of setting up the foundations for a Visegrad-aligned East Slavic state. The chairman of the group was Vasily Zakharov, and the members of the council were hand-picked out of Ruthenian nationalists and opponents to "Greater Russia". This immediately placed the group against Alexei Krutov, even though Zakharov hoped to see the Legion of Archangel Michael become the military of this new "Rus'". Still, the Legion and the Council cooperated, for now.
Ruthenian legionnaires operating a machine gun in the Eastern Front, in Volhynia
The Empire of Lithuania had more to worry about than just a few East Slavic emigrants causing trouble. The nation was falling towards an economic collapse.
At the very beginning of the war, the Grand Chancellor appointed Martynas Yčas as the Grand Treasurer of the nation - under the Emperor's order, obviously, of course, definitely. Yčas was a man of a military background, having served as a major general in the Army for a few years before his appointment, and the task given to him was related to that - mobilize the nation for war. A task he has successfully done, and thanks to him, Lithuania had become the world's third largest military equipment manufacturer and was in great fighting shape ever since the beginning of the war. However, all this funding for military construction and mobilization couldn't come from nowhere, and in order to pay for all of that, the Empire had to metaphorically tighten it's belt. New war taxes were introduced, including an income tax and numerous other taxes, farming subsidies were cut and even completely removed in some places, while a number of heavy industries were nationalized and converted to military factories. Meanwhile, almost all of Lithuania's pre-war trade partners were now either enemies or were cut off through naval blockades (especially through the Baltic, which used to be the empire's main trade artery).
Not even talking about the winter of 1912-13, which neutered Lithuanian food production and resulted in a massive loss of livestock, nor about the loss of vital chernozem territories after Operation Egérfogó. Or the continuous unrest, labor strikes, et cetera...
As should be expected with this situation, the economic situation of the nation swiftly deteriorated - and the impact was the highest in the nation's most agricultural regions, which lost many working hands to recruitment and mass mobilization, were the most touched by the loss of subsidies and trade as well as by the winter. These regions included Russia, the Don river valley, Ruthenia, Circassia... And yet, the nation required more and more military spending - entire armies had to be rebuilt from scratch after Egérfogó, new technological advancements and research cost a lot as well, and also paying out loans already taken to industrialize and mobilize...
A meeting of the Council of Lords in September decided that the best course of action would be to wait the situation out and try to keep up the status quo - Lithuania must not give up on the war effort now, because if the Empire decides to reduce it's focus on the military, it will only get defeated on the battlefield yet again, making the situation worse. But was this the right choice?.. A few members of the Council were opposed to continuing the war, most notably Jonas Valančiūnas, the chief of diplomatic affairs. Valančiūnas created a potential plan for a separate peace with the Baltic-Adriatic Coalition, the Sore Loser Plan (Lith. Liurbio planas), as Vincentas Jonas Čepukas called it. The plan guessed that Lithuania would at least have to say goodbye to control over Wallachia-Moldavia and pay monetary concessions, although giving up territory on the border was not out of question. According to Valančiūnas, should Visegrad demand territorial concessions, nothing more than Podlasie, parts of East Prussia and some of Galicia-Volhynia should be given. The diplomat also determined that if Lithuania wants the best peace deal possible, it must request an armistice now, as the further the war goes, the more they will be beaten and the more Visegrad will demand.
As should be expected, the plan was shelved and forgotten.
Meanwhile, the Saugumas had it's hands full - radical, anti-government movements were cropping up like weeds. The June Revolution in the South gave a major boost to the Lithuanian Unitarian movement, which was, much like Akarsu Kubilay's Party for Unity and Unitarianism, arming itself to try to repeat the Turkish success in Vilnius. However, here they had a much stronger Republican opposition, and while far from all Republicans in Lithuania were radical or militant, they also presented a major threat to the current order. Volgak and Visegradian support was reaching underground Russian nationalist organizations, and they were about to receive an unexpected supporter...
While the war was turning mobile and chaotic in the East, it was as stationary as ever in the West. 1913 marked the unsuccessful French Darmstadt Offensive, and much like last year, the French attack was pushed back after months of grueling trench warfare. Chinese entrance into the war was turning the tide in Indochina, even though they failed to capture New Zealand, while Spanish help in Tripolitania pushed the Egyptians out of most of Cyrenaica. France and Spain were eyeing each other with wary. A new participant was ready to join the war, which has so far yielded one failed nation and over three million dead men.
The war in October 1st, 1913
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MY guess will be The Kingdom of Brittannia given it's ethnic cleansing.
All good guesses.
I guess you'll have to wait and see
Occitan language is doing somewhat worse than OTL, as France has had plenty more time as a centralized republic and has thus more or less assimilated the language. But they themselves aren't doing badly, being a part of the strongest nation in Europe and all.
Armenians are one of the many cultures in the former Ottoman Empire seeking to break free and acquire independence. The Armenian Genocide didn't happen, so they are considerably more numerous.
Slovaks are usually registered and seen as Czechs living in Hungary, and thus while they have full citizenship rights and are counted as a part of the three main nations of Visegrad, their separate language and culture are seen as regional offshoots of Bohemian and treated as such.
Romanians are split in between a Lithuanian puppet duchy and a Visegrad that doesn't really tolerate them much, and it's been quite common in this war so far for the Romanians to appear on both sides and often face off against their countrymen in battles, especially in the Carpathian Front.
Thanks.
Anyways, I look forward to see how the Germans will punish France in case the Coalition wins. If not, I suspect we'll see a multitude of Germanic states in a confederation akin to the HRE.
Anyways, I look forward to see how the Germans will punish France in case the Coalition wins. If not, I suspect we'll see a multitude of Germanic states in a confederation akin to the HRE.
Chapter 71: Armageddon, pt. 3
Part 71: Armageddon, pt. 3 (Oct 1913-May 1914)
The Kingdom of Britannia was perhaps the weirdest nation in Europe. While most of the continent had already adopted some measures of democracy, if not reforming into republics or constitutional monarchies, Britannia stayed as an absolute Christian fundamentalist monarchy, and while the thought of having a staunchly religious, nigh-Medieval, but still powerful Western European nation in the 20th century seemed unbelievable, it was happening. Britannia, both it's people and it's upper class, harbored deep resentment for France ever since the Flammantian Wars, and while originally it was supported by a feeling of revanchism, the source of this bitterness eventually changed into a combination of resentment for the Flammantian heresy, a perennial feeling of rivalry, nationalism and colonial competition, especially in Africa, where Britannia and France fought a number of proxy war across West Africa and the Niger delta.
This anti-French sentiment was one of the few things preventing Britannia from going completely nuts and anti-modernization, like what people like Sir Henry Braddock of the 18th century wanted - the Puritan monarchy had to begrudgingly accept industrialization and modern, "French" technology in order to keep up on the technological face. While that was a good thing in the end, this national feeling also resulted in something... weird. Under the orders of King Edward X in the 1890s, a "Royal Commision on English Language" was formed, which enacted a policy of Purification of the Mother Tongue. This policy meant a wide sweep across the English language, destroying and removing borrowed French or Latin words and replacing them either with obscure local words or new Germanic cognates. Because of centuries of contact with France, especially during the period of the Dual Monarchy, English had borrowed a lot of it's vocabulary and grammar from Latin languages, and this "language of the enemy" just couldn't do.
Before the outbreak of the Great European War, Britannia was quite close to joining the Baltic-Adriatic Coalition, but district of the radical Republicanism espoused by the Germans and Visegradians kept them neutral by the time that the war started. Interventionism in Europe was supported by the Evangelist faction in the King's court, who saw it as Britannia's God-given task to land in Europe and liberate it from degeneracy, heresies and heathenry. The international situation was in their favor, too - constant French scuffles with the British navy while trying to put up a continental blockade, while the Entente itself was not doing too well at the front. One member of their alliance was already pretty much down for the count. The Evangelists obtained a major political victory in late 1913, after the death of Edward X - his successor Edward XI was an Evangelist sympathizer, and with the monarch himself in favor of joining the war, it was pretty much sealed.
But what could they blame on France? They decided to blame the torpedoing and sinking of the British cargo ship Commandment in the Bay of Biscay on October 21st, 1913, as "the straw that broke the camel's back", and on December 1st, Britannia declared war on France.
Edward XI Plantagenet, King of Britannia, seen here in his military uniform
While the British navy engaged against the French in a number of unsuccessful attempts to break the former's naval superiority in the Atlantic, the rest of the Coalition were... having second thoughts on Britannia's entry into the alliance. Sure, more allies was always a good thing, and Britannia's strategic position and naval expertise were very necessary for the war effort... but on the other hand, the Brits were probably the most repugnant nation to ally with. Germania and Visegrad were both liberal democracies, while Britannia was an absolute Christian fundamentalist monarchy, almost a parody of medieval monarchies by now. However, pragmatism prevailed over ideology, and Britannia was accepted into the Baltic-Adriatic Coalition - a name that has grown more and more meaningless over the years - in December of 1913. In the spring of 1914, the first British expeditionary troops arrived to the Netherlands to reinforce their German "allies" - and the Germans immediately noted just how weird they were. Every regiment had a "physical leader" - the commander - and a "spiritual leader", usually a monk of a priest, who would give away Sacraments, bless the troops for battle and "keep them in touch with God". The Brits brought entire portable churches with them, and resisted all efforts of integrating British regiments with the German ones, citing that the Germans, being Reformists, would "drift the pure British youth to Satan". Many British soldiers were equipped with outdated weaponry, but they fought with vigor and exceptional morale, and proved to be if good use in breaking through the French lines in numerous places across the Dutch front.
While one nation had just joined the war, an another was leaving it. Seeing the outbreak of a civil war within their nation, knowing that the people of their country are sick and tired of war, and fearing that any further enemy offensives could break their country outright, the Turkish Unitarians have finally entered peace negotiations with the Baltic-Adriatic Coalition, which resulted in the Treaty of Tirana in January of 1914. The borders between the Coalition and the Union were drawn across the front lines of the time, and the Unitarians relinquished their grip over almost all of the Balkans, Persia and Khiva, and at the same time agreed to war reparations, to be paid "once the Union is able to". This passage was added knowing that Turkey was currently unable to pay anything and probably wouldn't be until the civil war is over, but it was also a major diplomatic mistake by the Coalition, as they later realized. But for now, the borders were set in stone, and while Unitarian Turkey was fighting the Turkish Civil War against Ottoman loyalists based in the south of the country (centered in Baghdad), Republican rebellions across the entire nation, anarchist and warlord uprisings, Arabian, Azeri, Armenian and Kurdish nationalists and many, many other opponents, the Coalition reorganized the land they gained from the Treaty of Tirana. In the Balkans, provisional nationalist puppet governments were gathered from the local activists and collaborators, leading to the foundation of the Duchies of Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania and Greece - although the first of the four was only going to be a temporary government until the nation's incorporation into Visegrad. The Mughals, meanwhile, formed two semi-independent Sultanates - Persia and Khiva. Both Visegrad and India had to spend a lot of resources occupying the regions, however - both Persia and the Balkans hosted large Turkish settler populations which weren't necessarily happy with the new regime, and now that nationalist governments were being formed, old territorial conflicts were starting to arise from the ashes once more.
News of the Treaty of Tirana reached the ears of France and Lithuania almost immediately, and while they were absolutely livid, there really wasn't anything they could do about it. The only Entente power which even had a land connection to Unitarian Turkey was Egypt - and speaking of Egypt, it was involuntarily drawn into the Turkish Civil War at this time. Among the separatist rebels arising throughout the former Ottoman Empire were Arabian nationalists, supported by the now independent sultanate of Nejd, and one of the many territories they claimed for the nation of Arabia, which they hoped will son arise, was Palestine, or even all of Egypt as well. Sensing a golden opportunity to take these lands while the Egyptians are busy in the West, a coalition of Arabian tribes and militias invaded Palestine in early 1914, capturing the region within the span of a few weeks and even taking some of the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt was currently in an unsatisfactory position in general - a combined Spanish and Visegradian offensive pushed them out of most of Tripolitania, outside of a few desert fortresses, by May - so this set of events was definitely not welcomed by the Entente.
Mounted Unitarian militias in Kurdistan during the Civil War
"Unsatisfactory" was also the word one could use to describe the situation on the Eastern Front. After about a month of waiting around, the Visegradian Army initiated the destruction of the Cauldron on the beginning of October 1913, starting the offensive against the encirclement with five armies and a total of 300 000 men. They were opposed by 80 000 Romanian and 110 000 Lithuanian soldiers, most of whom were tired, poorly fed and lacking even such basic military equipment as bullets or knives. Still, now that they had nowhere else to go, many of them fought like wolves, to the bitter end. Others, especially Ruthenians and Russians, surrendered in mass. The Lithuanian Fleet managed to ship out around 30 000 men from the Cauldron, but the rest were either killed, captured or surrendered, and all of the Grand Duchy of Wallachia-Moldavia fell under Visegradian occupation. While this was a major blow to Lithuanian war capacity and morale, a second such strike arrived on March of 1914, in the form of the Battle of Kiev. After a month of heavy large-scale warfare, the Coalition captured the city, one of the largest in Lithuania, a major economic, industrial and cultural hub, and, most importantly, one of the two main competitors for the position of "capital of Rus'". The other was Tver.
The situation was growing so problematic - both in the front and back home - that even parts of the government were starting to question the longevity of the current government. Of course, not in the way you'd expect. A secret meeting of many major officials and leaders of the Lithuanian military in Polotsk on April 3rd determined that, if the current situation lasts, the only option for Lithuania is to have the military return to power, much like in the Hetmanate period. Public opinion against Emperor Žygimantas IV and his court was rapidly falling, he was almost universally seen as weak and incapable of leading the nation in this dire time, and while some of the mud also fell on the military leaders, they only received a minor part of the blame for the failures at the front. Anti-government organizations were rising in popularity, and the Saugumas informed that a popular revolt against the government is a very likely future result - as such, many militarists contemplated that a firm hand, backed by the Army, will be able to disperse opposition and keep Lithuania in the war. However, these anti-monarchist meetings were soon dispersed by Grand Hetman Jogaila Aukštaitis, who was firmly against any and all such anti-government action. He may have been an old guard and, in some places, utterly incompetent, but there was one thing about him - he was a man of gentleman honor. And such honor was opposite to the idea of overthrowing your superior.
Was that a good choice or not - well, it's up to the future to decide.
Meanwhile, something... unexpected, if taken out of context, happened during April of 1914. Large numbers of the Legion of Archangel Michael mutinied and dispersed, many fleeing back to Lithuania, including Alexei Krutov, the commander of the legion, himself. What happened? Weren't they fighting for freedom to their people?
The answer was simple.
With large swathes of Ruthenia now occupied by Visegradian forces, the Council of Lithuanian Slavs moved to the provisional capital of Mogilev-Podolski to discuss one important task - the foundation of a Visegrad-aligned Ruthenian nation. It was time. What should be it's form of government? How close should it's ties to Visegrad be - a fifth member of the Union, after Slavonia, or merely an allied nation? Hell, what should the name of this hypothetical state even be? For centuries, the Ruthenians, much like Russians, used the same name for their nation - "Rus'", like, for example, the Kievan Rus'. However, the Council, composed of Ruthenian nationalists, was iffy about picking this name, seeing it as too "tainted" with Greater Russian aspirations. Other proposed names were "Volhynia", "Podolia", "Slavica", "Ukraine" and even "Scythia". However, eventually the Council decided on a more simple name, picking the East Slavic word for "country" and turning it into a name, leading to the birth of the name Krajina. In the end, the newly renamed Council of the Krajina decided on creating an independent, but Visegrad-aligned Ruthenian state, inviting one of the brothers of Ferenc III von Luxemburg as the monarch of the Grand Duchy of the Krajina.
Banner of the Grand Duchy of the Krajina. The right lion is the symbol of the House of Luxemburg, while the left lion is a modern version of the coat of arms of Galicia-Volhynia, also known as the "Kingdom of Rus'", considered by Ruthenian nationalists to be the "original Ruthenia".
Obviously, Alexei Krutov and many members of the Legion - who were Russian nationalists - were absolutely disgusted by this development, and lost hope in Visegrad ever giving the green light for a "Greater Russia".
But, as a bright man would say, if you cannot get what you want handed to you, then achieve it yourself.
Map of the world in May 1st, 1914
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If the Brits do open a front on the French coast, ala Normandy, then France will truly be on the back foot.
That said the most important diplomatic and covert battles must be taking place in Italy. It's all very well and good for India and China to be in the war, even Britain to a degree. Italy has a massively strategic importance. If the Italian states realise that France is looking to lose this war, then they will jump ship, cut off the French armies in the Alps. Lithuania is important, but the key to ending this war is taking out France. If France crumbles under this mounting pressure Lithuania will have no choice but to call for peace.
That said the most important diplomatic and covert battles must be taking place in Italy. It's all very well and good for India and China to be in the war, even Britain to a degree. Italy has a massively strategic importance. If the Italian states realise that France is looking to lose this war, then they will jump ship, cut off the French armies in the Alps. Lithuania is important, but the key to ending this war is taking out France. If France crumbles under this mounting pressure Lithuania will have no choice but to call for peace.