To the Victor, Go the Spoils
- Thread starter TheReformer
- Start date
Also, Zanzibar and Pemba are coloured in German grey rather than British pink. Is that deliberate?
Ah yes, another minor error. Map was based off one from during the war itself when these parts were occupied, thus why it's a tad off atm. Cheers anyway.
Wow. Incredible- just incredible. Very well thought-out, well-researched, and eminently plausible. I liked the bit about Luxembourg especially. The maps are also very nice. I eagerly await more!
Peace in Our Time?
The Summer Crisis
The Summer Crisis
The Sun was hot, and the roads to Paris were deep with dust. For any ordinary Frenchman the new mood, with a truce in place and the good weather of the last month, might have felt like life was finally starting to get back to normal. Five million men had been deployed in the many associated roles across the world for the war, and many millions of them now descended on their homes from the front. Wives finally embraced husbands, children met their fathers for the first time, mothers welcomed and embraced their sons; for many ordinary Frenchmen, June 1918 proved a brief moment of joy. Yet on paper, France was a deeply divided, bitter and broken nation. Its Government did not even occupy Paris, and much of the country's south remained in the hands of local socialist militias and self-proclaimed authorities with no actual standing, unable to be removed by local police forces either too uninterested or too outnumbered to do anything. France had been heavily indebted in 1914 anyway, but now owed Britain and the United States alone over four billion US Dollars, with total debts at 170% of GDP, while the country's northern region lay in utter ruin - and German negotiators set on tearing away from the French one of the largest pig iron deposits in Europe. Yet now the French had five million more unemployed men. In a situation like that, one stops to wonder where a Government would even begin to address the problems they faced.
For Briand's Government there were three clear priorities. First, they needed to achieve political stability. For that, Paris had to be retaken, the socialist militias across the country had to be stamped out, and then, finally, elections had to be held. The Government would of course lose, that was pretty much a certainty, but at this point duty to the country had long overtaken potential political careers for the men of this cabinet - you don't lose a war this large and expect to survive politically anyway. This did have it's advantages though, as nobody wanted to remove the Government for risk they'd themselves have to deal with the situation. Secondly, the Government needed to achieve some form of economic stability. This of course would be a longer-term project than they'd be in power, but for the immediate term they had to deal with the fact that France was almost certainly not going to be able to repay it's war loans. For this they had several options, one being to renegotiate the debts under threat of defaulting on them. Another being to simply default and use their 'lame duck' political position to take the heat so the next Government could try to fix things debt-free. The final option being to borrow more, and use it to try and spur economic growth. Each suggestion had flaws though, namely that in the first case the UK would never restructure the debt given that it'd risk British bankruptcy as they also owed the US billions. The second suggestion would probably see the western financial markets implode and would ensure France would be unable to take out loans for the next decade, not to mention it would drive the unemployed into the arms of extremists. The third option, while risky, posed potentially the best path to survival, yet also ran the risk of leaving France debt straddled or even economically subservient to Germany. Finally, the Government needed to make peace with Germany - which as aforementioned was somewhat the 'end date' of their administration given that the incentive to maintain the Briand Government in office would vanish after that date.
The first act of the Government would be to order General Petain to recapture Paris. He had surrounded the city on the 13th, and had issued an ultimatum to the Paris 'French People's Republic' Government demanding that they surrender the city peacefully and disperse. For many Parisians this was a welcome development; as Paris, while harbouring a significant left wing presence and a history of 'revolutionary' activities, also had a sizeable portion of it's population that voted for the more Conservative parties, and while furious with the Briand led Government for giving in, had no interest in legitimizing the Government proclamation by the SFIO. You see, the SFIO had effectively launched what as tantamount to a coup in the country - albeit one that naively was aimed at being entirely peaceful. Caught up in the moment, the party had fallen into the trap of cheering crowds and assumed that the Government of the country, fleeing from Northern Reserve Army mutineers, would collapse or lose credibility to Govern. With the Mutineers calling for a Peace Government, the public unaware of the legitimate Government's intention to seek peace, and crowds of angry socialists and sympathizers calling for the SFIO to make peace as the Bolsheviks had in Russia, the party's leaders like Longuet and Frossard had been swept up in the moment and done exactly that. Yet, their bluff had been called, and now Petain was here to put a stop to it.
On June 20th, after a week of waiting, Petain officially ordered his men into Paris to secure the city. In some streets, the men - battered by war - would be welcomed by cheering crowds and adoring supporters - desperate to bring normality and stability to the country after years of war and ultimately a shocking and sudden defeat by Germany. While in others, the army found barricades erected against them and armed men wearing red bandanas opposing them. Surprisingly though, the advance into the city would only take three days and would cause very little actual bloodshed. In the end, only eleven mutineers and revolutionaries would be killed, with twenty-three wounded, while twenty-four soldiers under Petain would die dismantling pockets of resistance in the city, with thirty-five wounded. Thousands of mutineers would be arrested though, with an enormous camp being erected outside the city to house them all for summary trial, imprisonment or even eventual execution in the most egregious of cases, though the vast majority were simply let go in order to avoid inflaming tensions. The very first victim of Petain's attack however would be Jean Longuet. Never fully invested in the idea of a radical takeover of the Government and from the Parisian, ironically less 'revolutionary' community within the SFIO, Longuet found himself whipped up in the moment. Urged on by his friends and compatriates, he had assumed he wouldn't ever lead the party, let alone France itself, yet his peace motion and its sudden passing in an emergency session of the SFIO's delegates in Paris saw his influence in the party elevated significantly and rapidly. When confronted with the prospect of making peace for France where the Government seemed determined not to, having fled the Mutineers only the day before, Longuet had reluctantly opted to step into the role and request an armistice on behalf of France's armed forces where the Government wouldn't. Calling for a General strike in the country to remove the Government, and replace it with a pro-peace administration. Yet, with Clemenceau having resigned when the Mutineers marched on the city, the socialist Aristide Briand had assumed the mantle of the Premiership and immediately sought peace himself - leaving Longuet in a moral conundrum. Across the country, socialist paramilitaries, Army units and even just peaceful protestors had walked into their local Mayor's offices, Commanding Officer's barracks, and city councils and informed their superiors that they would no longer be taking their orders unless they recognized the People's Republican Government in Paris. In many cases this was obviously refused and these mobs simply took over, peacefully or otherwise, and as such the country had suddenly entered a massive state of insurrection. The Government in Paris, seeking peace and constitutional reform - as well as various left-wing policy changes, while the 'legitimate' Government in Tours offered seemingly the same, albeit doing so a day after the Socialists did. In Longuet's eyes therefore, his mission had been achieved - yet now thousands, even tens of thousands of people had broken the law in his name. As such, the grandson of Karl Marx had a choice to make; should he surrender and hope the Government were lenient to the rebels, or should he dig in his heels and fight to control France. For a pacifist, the choice was clear.
An hour after Petain ordered his forces into Paris, Longuet resigned and a telegraph was wired to the administration in Tours offering to renounce the insurrection in exchange for pardon for all mutineers, and that the SFIO be permitted to run in the inevitable post-war elections. This was an un-enforceable deal for the SFIO, as once the Socialists gave up, they were removing any roadblock they had to enforce terms later - however this was inevitable anyway judging by the speed at which Petain's forces had mopped up resistance outside of Paris. Thus, they were trusting that Briand would indeed be true to his word - perhaps naively. Briand, of course, accepted immediately and soon after Longuet would emerge outside the Parliament in Paris to announce that the Government had agreed to his terms and that the SFIO leadership would be surrendering peacefully rather than risk further violence "the goals of our protest [having] been met" he explained. For the SFIO, this was enough and the vast majority of the party's leadership in Paris would turn themselves in. Yet, for some loyal to the 'People's Republic' Government this would be seen as an enormous betrayal, and would immediately cause an internal division within the party over how Socialism should be achieved that would last for years.
With the leadership and heart of the revolutionary state gone, the remainder of Socialist France was left essentially in flux. Militias across the country began acting entirely of their own fruition resulting in a highly disorganized, chaotic, incapable rebellion that sporadically expanded throughout the largely unprepared south. These militias, made up of teenagers, angry ideologues and those inspired by the Bolsheviks would take advantage of the chaotic national picture and start taking settlements for themselves. With a lack of clear leadership or strategy though, these mobs in many cases became criminal, and more akin to an extended form of rioting. Blocs would emerge, such as the Occitan Red Army, and the True People's Republican Army, as individuals with little political prominence or minor members of the SFIO attempted to invoke their own authority over the revolt - and in some cases this would prove successful. One particularly successful individual would be a mutineering sailor from the French Mediterranian Fleet that had mutinied immediately after the People's Republic was declared; André Marty. Marty was of the mindset that the SFIO had betrayed the reasons for revolution, believing that the French state ought to be transformed into a Socialist State on the basis that throughout the conflict the Republic's leadership had acted slowly and recklessly, as he saw often in the fleet when rations were low and conditions were poor; throwing men away into the conflict en mass with little regard for the suffering those men experienced. Yet Marty's feelings were not felt the same way among the majority of the French fleet's sailors. While initially they did revolt and the majority of vessels overthrew their officers to back the People's Republic, the detente that was reached on June 21st with the SFIO and Briand Government divided the fleet mutineers. The Majority, content with the rapid demobilization of the armed forces as demanded in the German truce, left the fleet or affirmed their loyalty to Briand's administration. Yet, a handful of a few thousand sailors and local port guards felt differently and elected a Praesidium of leaders to represent them and their interests.
Proposing a more radical course of action, on June 30th Marty would urge the Praesidium and it's sailors to leave Marseilles and seek to aid forces in France in securing the country for Socialism. Cautious by nature, the praesidium initially rejected the proposal - however, on July 2nd it was learned that the North African Fleet and a significant force of what little of the French Army fo Africa remained in the region during the war were being deployed to the city to secure the fleet and link up with loyal vessels. As such, with the support of many of the sailors under the Praesidium's control, the revolutionary vessels of the fleet would raise anchor and leave the port in the early hours of July 3rd. While there were some attempts to prevent these vessels from leaving by loyal forces under Vice Admiral Dominique Gauchet, many sailors were unwilling to actively engage in combat with their fellow vessels and thus while five Destroyers were rammed and prevented from leaving port, the two Semi-Dreadnoughts, fifteen destroyers and three armoured cruisers that sympathized with the red cause were able to leave port and head east towards sympathetic forces at Nice. Five days later, the 10,000 men of the Army of Africa would arrive in port and seize control of Marseilles.
From here Marty's influence began to grow, dissatisfied with their refusal to leave port initially - many sailors in the fleet began to turn on the Praesidium, allowing Marty to gather greater influence. A Paranoid man, on the night of July 8th Marty would order his friend and comrade from his initial mutiny Charles Tillon, along with a group of sailors to murder two members of the Praesidium who were least loyal to the violent cause of the revolution. This meant that when his fleet arrived in Nice, to the celebration of local socialist forces, he largely had gained political control of the fleet. Here he would disembark and, like many other men had already done, declare himself President of the French People's Republic - to the dismay but ultimate agreement of local militias and discharged former soldiers supporting the revolt. An extreme disciplinarian, and an adept, if somewhat ineffective commander, Marty would organize the various militias around the region into a more structured force. Eventually gaining the support of units in the True People's Republican Army, based in Auvergne, Marty's socialist administration by July 20th encompassed territory from the Italian border to Toulouse. This would not last though, as the Army of Africa soon began 'port hopping' along the coast towards Nice to secure the remaining vessels. Dropping regiments in each port as they went to secure their facilities and begin disrupting Marty's forces supply routes coming from Italy; Marty having secured a deal with the Italian Socialists that saw him turn over several vessels to the more power Socialist Republican Government or Italy at Turin early on during his period in power, in exchange for weapons and ammunition. This would come to a head when, on August 28th, the French Mediterranean Fleet, manned by more motivated sailors, engaged the People's fleet just outside Nice. The battle, that would be a brief and surprising show of willingness by the Socialists, would last just over an hour before the defeated and generally unmotivated Socialist forces fled east to seek refuge in Italian waters. Soldiers would quickly land in Nice, securing the city after a brief engagement that saw several men killed until French forces threatened to use artillery guns on the pockets of opposition there. Marty himself, along with most of his forces, would retreat in-land towards Marseilles - the new hub of Socialist resistance.
Meanwhile in the north, with SFIO leadership having abandoned the cause, Petain's forces tacked south-west towards Aquitaine where the self-declared Occitan People's Republic had emerged as a successor to the failed Parisian 'revolutionary' Government. Their army, known as the Occitan Red Army, were ill-equipped and primarily just local militia from dockyards and other industrial centres that armed themselves with weapons from local police stations and armouries. With little to no artillery and very few automatic weapons, Petain's forces swept through them with relative ease, securing Bordeaux virtually all of the Aquitaine region in a quick offensive through July. In Augverne meanwhile, General Humbert's own forces decisively crushed defectors from the 'True People's Republican Army' that declared itself the successor to the Paris Government in late June. The Offensive, which began on June 23rd from Dijon/Chaumont, faced surprising resistance from the Socialist forces north of Lyon, aided mainly by local geography that slowed the army's progress. Lyon itself would fall on July 7th after two weeks, with opposition quickly collapsing after the city's fall and the withdrawal of 'True People's Republican Army' forces south where they quickly pledged allegiance to André Marty's administration. Now more organized and somewhat better armed with limited artillery and explosives, Marty's forces were a better - albeit severely underequipped - match for Gen. Humbert's forces who would seize the vital rail and road intersection at Valence on July 16th regardless.
With the writing on the wall for the fate of this attempted revolt, more and more socialist aligned soldiers began abandoning their militias and going home. Particularly after Petain's forces finally took the city of Toulouse where Socialist forces had fought a bloody and firm guerilla defence against his advancing forces who had grown over-confident following their ease of success in Aquitaine. At Toulouse, hundreds died in street battles that would last well into early August. Yet, after the fall of the city, and the capture of one of the early hubs of rebellion at Avignon, Marty's revolutionary army all but disintegrated. Marty himself would hike over the Alps and arrive in Turin in late September where he would be welcomed privately but sidelined by Revolutionary leaders there out of fear of alienating the French Government further than they had done already. France, thus, on August 30th would be totally secured by Republican forces, to the celebration of the cabinet and Prime Minister Briand - who would immediately call elections in a radio address to the nation for September. With peace having been signed in July and his Government remaining extremely unpopular among most circles, he knew his political future was at its end - though he appreciated the entertaining irony that his administration he had long thought about would be dominated by a conflict against people of his ideological persuasion, and his name celebrated by those on the Right for having defeated a Revolution. He announced his intention not to seek re-election, and subsequently retired in the aftermath of the vote on September the 14th and subsequent runoff vote on the 28th - arguably the saviour of the Republic, and yet also the man who signed it's surrender in the war. In Italy however, things had taken a different turn.
You are quite the mapmaker. Much better than I ever could.
(EDIT: Removed self-advertisement)
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So France not only ends up losing the war, they need to put down internal revolts as well. Not a good time to be them.
Actually, now is not a good time to be Entente in general. Britain can forget about France, Italy or Serbia paying back their loans, which in turn means they're in serious trouble with their own debt to the United States. If the OTL interwar period was troubled, it's going to be many times worse now.
Actually, now is not a good time to be Entente in general. Britain can forget about France, Italy or Serbia paying back their loans, which in turn means they're in serious trouble with their own debt to the United States. If the OTL interwar period was troubled, it's going to be many times worse now.
I guess, by that point there is still no butterflies on how Russian Civil War is going on, compared to OTL?
There will be a future update on this, no changes yet - but soon!
Update Schedule
Update Schedule
-- Chapter One: The Summer Anarchy --
The Summer Anarchy Begins
The Immediate Consequences of War
Peace in Our Time?
The Treaty of Brussels
The Summer Crisis
Völkermanifest
Austria Hungary, Bulgaria & Germany in 1918
Peace with Honour?
Turkey, Japan, Britain and her Empire in 1918
Out on the Fringe
Russia and the United States in 1918
The New Order
The end of the Summer Anarchy in Europe
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Britain can not push any forces from Thrace. They were supported by French and Serbian troops, and France with Serbia already bowed out. This cuts Allied Thrace Front by numbers more than in half, even if we assume that those 70k Serbian soldiers will not recognize the Armstice and keep fighting as Army in Exile.
In story it stated that the British were focusing on bringing down the Ottomans for more gains. Germany's already out of the fight having gain it's desire, Austria-Hungary cannot go on anymore so it evens out.