Axis & Allies on the 8th Continent

[Trenacker]

What's the big idea?
I'm designing a home-brew map for the old Milton Bradley (now Hasbro) board game Axis & Allies. It incorporates both an alternate history and an eighth continent of my own design.

Here's the map. The southern-most continent (yes, it's all supposed to be connected) is still incomplete. Enjoy!

I'm looking for help building on two fronts:

1. Building out the alternate history necessary to "produce" the borders one sees on the map
2. Exploring how warfare on the eighth continent, called Shamash, might be different from that in both the Old World and the New

Tell me a bit more about the inspirations for your world.
About twenty years ago, while poking around the Warships1 web forums, I ran across some historical fiction produced by a fellow named Grey Wolf. The name of this story was A Feast of Eagles. The story was inspired by the question, "What if 1848 had gone awry and France was still the dominant power in Europe going into the Great War?" Germany, Italy, and Spain had never achieved unification. The Great War had been fought between the Entente of France and Russia against the Alliance of Britain and Northern Germany. The Alliance won: France was laid low and Russia plunged into Civil War. The Bonaparte Dynasty was unseated and replaced. Much of the action of the story focused on the division of spoils between the victors, the spreading fires in Eastern Europe, and the intensifying strategic competition between the world's two largest economies, the British and the American. On my map, both the Italian and Spanish peninsulas are disputed by rival claimants.

One of my favorite alternate history books is Harry Turtledove's How Few Remain. The idea of a Second (or Third) Civil War dovetails with one of my map design philosophies: create more opportunities for play in areas of the map that are typically out-of-focus, specifically the Americas and southern Africa. The Confederate States of America are represented, and at the apogee of their power.

I was one of a regrettably very few fans of the short-lived NBC television series Kings, starring Ian McShane. The show was a modern treatment of the Biblical story of King David. Many of the characters, storylines, and place names I've incorporated into Shamash are borrowed from Kings.

Another of the influences on my thinking is the short story The Cherry Trees Spared, which looks at the consequences of a very different outcome to the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet at the end of the First World War.

Dr. Mike Bennighoff's discussion of the fulfillment of Greek irredentist ambitions in the 1920s influenced by decision-making on the map as it pertains to Anataloia and the Crimea.

Sketch out your vision for the alternate history.
Germany and Austria-Hungary concentrate on Russia at the outset of war in 1914, inflicting a series of defeats that not only collapse the Tsardom but give the Whites enough of a leg up to endure in Northern Russia, the Caucasus, and the Far East well into the mid-1920s, with little danger of being dislodged by the Reds, who retain control of most of the population centers.

Germany swings wide through the United Netherlands, which does nothing to stop them. The House of Savoy, which is also ruling in Aragon, decides to jump on the bandwagon and finally honors its commitment to the Triple Alliance. France and Britain receive a drubbing before a U.S.-brokered peace in late 1916 spares Paris from likely occupation, just as all sides run out of credit.

The war only seems to stimulate, not discourage, similar adventurism by those who had lingered on the sidelines. Most notably, Greece leaps on the collapsing Ottoman Empire. The Swedish Empire makes undeclared war on Soviet Russia to expand its territory along the Baltic's eastern shoreline.

So what are the great powers doing circa 1925?
For Germany, the Great War was both triumph and calamity. On both fronts, German Armies ran wild. The Tsarist enemy was utterly laid waste. In France, Germany came close to repeating the incredible successes of 1870. Both the vaunted British Army and the Royal Navy were well and truly humbled. But what did it profit Germany, this display of unmatched prowess? On the Western Front, there was a return to the status quo antebellum. In Africa and China, the Entente powers and their allies overran German colonies that they did not later relinquish at the Peace of Washington. Traditional German ally Austria-Hungary was revealed to the world as a serious liability. To the east, neighbors Sweden and Poland, not Germany, are the ones growing fat on the Russian kill. Once home, many German soldiers refused to settle down, and an alarming number answers the bugle call of International Socialism. Months of rioting nearly brought down the German government. Germany's chief interests are as follows: to sustain the Austro-Hungarians, to woo the United Netherlands as an ally, to incite Shamash against the British, and to equip Poland to frustrate both the Russians and the Swedes.

Austria-Hungary survives to 1925, one scarcely knows how. Despite a dismal showing against Putnik in Serbia, there were minor successes on the Eastern Front against a Russian enemy who was even more inept, though Austria's every success came at thrice and quadruple the cost of those achieved by Germany. Then arose Poland, vigorous in arms and mighty in extent. Romania, too, has more than doubled in size. Aragon, a latecomer to the war, ended it in possession of not only Tunisia but much of the Rhône River Valley! The Regia Marina subsequently helped add Cilician Armenia to that already-impressive tally. Like Germany, Austria-Hungary is preoccupied by internal dissension, although more serious because it stems from ethnic as well as ideological cleavages. Austria-Hungary's objectives are as simple as they are urgent: point the Aragonese jackal westward and keep the Poles preoccupied with the Russians, both Red and White, while preparing to crush the Serbs... and probably the Romanians, when it comes down to it.

The British Empire is licking its wounds. Though he will not say so, John Bull owes much to Cousin Jonathan's timely brokerage of peace. The fruit of British manhood could not have saved France, and the whole world knows it. The Navy fared no better than the Army and the Marines, losing contests large and small. Minor powers in Shamash sank British warships and generally provided aid and succor to the German enemy—all without penalty. Amazingly, Parliament still clings to ideas of being able to shape events in far-off places. That is why British expeditionary forces still languish at Arkhangelsk and Baku and the Royal Navy did so much to guarantee Greek power on the Black Sea. It is why scarce money continues to be spent making a Shah in Iran. It is also why the British choose to turn a blind eye to scarcely-concealed Japanese designs on China and the Spanish Philippines. Germany, once thought to be a near-equal, has proven the stronger, and so Britain will seek to "accommodate the reasonable ambitions of certain Continental powers." The Opposition charges that the Government is craven, but even they can hardly argue that the Empire is well-positioned politically or financially for another general war. Not even war hawk Winston Churchill. "There is too much to defend," he laments in his diary, "and from too many, with too little and too few." But this does not mean that Britain will retreat from the world stage. "Lesser" states—Aragon, Dū'chou, and especially Fellän in Shamash—must not be allowed to forget their place in the pecking order. These attitudes have occasioned something of a crisis for those concerned with colonial defense, especially within the Commonwealth governments, which have begun loudly agitating for somebody to help them raise the ramparts.

Russia is prostrate still. Though the Soviets have mostly consolidated their control of the epicenter of Russia's population and industry, they face determined enemies on all sides. In the south, White armies are sustained from the sea, while in the North it is impossible to tell whether the enemy is a fellow Russian or in fact a Swede. The Tsar's gold made it all the way to Vladivostok, just ahead of the Red Guards. While the Polish and Finnish amputations were perhaps unavoidable, no Russian expected to lose Crimea to Greece or the Ukraine to Romanians. Even the Iranians have piled on, invading territory that was Russian for barely two generations. The situation for the Whites is pitiful, but sustainable. In the North, they are creatures of Sweden; in the Crimea, of the Entente Powers; in the Caucasus of the Germans; and in the Far East, of the Japanese.

The United Netherlands now thinks itself rather wise. For the negligible cost of credibility with a British government that they (correctly) suspected would be wholly unable to defend them, the Estates General spared their country both certain occupation and potential annexation. The result has been several years of healthful austerity: guilder that would have gone to swords went instead to ploughshares. (Years of German occupation were disruptive, but mostly profitable.) The country's leadership fully expects to follow the same path in the future should the need arise. Yet they might contemplate war on other fronts. The Anglo-Japanese threat to the East Indies is palpable. What if Whitehall decides to consider the Dutch co-beligerents the next time there is a general combustion on the Continent? And don't both Nod and Fellän overlook critical sea lanes not far from the Cape? . The solution, short of that outright alliance with Germany (which would probably provoke the dreaded British swoop) is a credible fleet on colonial station, built around hard-hitting battlecruisers like Ver Huell, that can hunt the would-be hunters.

Greece invaded the reeling Ottoman Empire in 1917. Through deft diplomacy, King Alexander secured Allied assistance that helped Greek armies occupy Eastern Thrace, Ionia, Constantinople, and even Trabizond, though the latter two were transferred rather than won. In this way, there was virtually complete achievement of the Megali Idea by 1923... at a catastrophic cost in lives and treasure for Greece. Since that time, Greek troops, always too few in number, have struggled to stamp out Turkish resistance. The Greek economy is now in free fall, with predictable results for the country's military efforts. Many conscripts are sent up to the front with neither boots nor rifles. More than half are not Greeks at all, but Armenians, Georgians, Jews, Circassians, or Russians. Smyrna and Constantinople, two of the three most-important cities in the Greek-speaking world, have yet to be rebuilt. Greece cannot go on in this manner much longer. Either they must secure the renewed assistance of Britain and France or else conceded that their appetite has exceeded the size of their stomach.

The Kalmar Union is expanding. In 1919, when civil war came to Finland, the Whites turned to fellow Scandinavians rather than become too familiar with the Germans. "Volunteers" from the Swedish Royal Army led White forces to victory in Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. The fledgling states that emerged from this fray have hardly required the instructive example of the Polish-Soviet War to set upon a course of confederation with powerful Sweden to preserve their hard-won independence. The idea was half-good. Ongoing border disputes with Poland have now led the Union's government to consider the very cooperation with Germany that its members had previously hoped to avoid.

In Gath, these are the years of salt but no rain (shout out to Kim Stanley Robinson). Gath was one of many polities to emerge from the ashes of the shattered Carmelite Empire in 1915. What little economic activity took place there before the war with Shiloh was centered on the country's then-capital at Port Prosperity. This was the hub for Carmel's large whaling fleet as well as a center for the production of leather, meat, grain, and steel. The cattle and grain were run from the wide Gathi plains while the iron ore was brought up by rail from mines due south in Arked. Until the invasion of 1923, Silas Benjamin was revered as a founding father. To their credit, Gathi armies stopped the Shilohne advance after just four weeks of fighting--but too late to keep hold of those things most precious: their sole outlet on the sea at Port Prosperity and the all-important watershed of the Ussite River, which quenched the thirst of all Middle Gath. Shiloh dammed the headwaters, starting the clock on a long and scouring famine. Descended from eighteenth-century military colonies, the Gathi were mostly independent smallholders engaged in subsistence agriculture. Political power resided with about three dozen families that ran cattle on huge spreads in central and western ("Far") Gath. Bureaucrats, always from Selah, watchfully calibrated the cattle drives: the cattle cropped the tall grasses as they moved, fertilizing the fields in turn. Gathi cattle barons scrupulously observed the same rules even without a tyrant to enforce them, but Shiloh's successful seizure of the Ussite Hills removed a final and most essential ingredient: water. More than 600,000 Gathi died in the year after the guns fell silent. (Most died of starvation, but a very large fraction succumbed to diseases brought on by poor sanitation.) Virtually the only money coming in was from salt mining operations on the country's western border. It financed the press that told the world of Gath's plight. In July 1924, having saved the nation from Shilohne imperialism only to find that they hadn't even retained the basic means for survival, the civilian government voluntarily made way for a military junta pledged to Gath's total territorial restoration. Less than five months later, diamonds were discovered at a place called Ebenezer's Drift. Gathi purchasing agents now scour Europe's depots and marshaling yards for the weapons to help them win a war of national salvation.

Shiloh is the nation that made war on three fronts and won each time. It was a race. Silas Benjamin's adopted domain was almost entirely alluvial floodplain, gently sloping to meet the continent's huge inland sea. Large-scale cultivation of sub-tropical cash crops and, to a lesser extent, aquaculture sustained a small elite presiding over nearly a million serfs. No sooner was the House of Benjamin enthroned than King Silas was beset by trouble. The famed treasure houses of Carmel's last king, Vesper Abaddon, were empty. Shiloh's water flowed from Gath, which also supplied beef and grains. (Shiloh was a net importer of foodstuffs.) Old fuels, too, came from Gath in the form of whale oil, while petroleum to grease the cogs of modern industry had to be piped from Dan. Engineers and agronomists crucial to the proper functioning of the Shilohne economy could be made only at the monastic universities of Selah. Iron ingots were brought in by train from Arked or Ermar, gems from Vesesh, and weapons from the arsenals of Fellän. What Shiloh did have was the larger part of the Royal Carmelite Army.

What's up with Shamash (eighth continent)?
Shamash was never colonized by the Europeans despite a brisk trade with, and considerable immigration from, the Old World, and as such was not very susceptible to entreaties to spend blood or treasure far from home. The powers of Shamash played only a small role in the so-called "Tragedy of 1914." None sent troops to fight in Europe, although nearly all militaries sent observers. A handful of naval battles broke out as footnotes to the broader conflict between the British Royal and German Imperial Navies. Mostly the Royal Navy's cruisers got the short end of the stick far from home as they chased or harassed Triple Alliance traders and raiders--kind of a "stay-off-our-lawn" initiative on the part of some of the bigger powers of Shamash.

Shamash's great problem is the secession conflict caused by a recent change of government. Silas Benjamin, previously a general in service to the despotic Vesper Abaddon, ruler of the Empire of Carmel, mounted the "Parlor Coup," arresting his master while the latter was at a game of billiards. Benjamin dissolved the empire and had himself crowned king in Shiloh, one of Carmel's half-dozen constituent nation-states. He then proceeded to launch a three-front war against as many enemies. Shiloh won all of these contests, two of them handily. Now, Shiloh's old enemy, Gath, licks its wounds and rearms for a new reckoning.

In what ways is Shamash unique?
Inspired by the Purelake in The Stormlight Archive, the eighth continent's key feature is arguably the shallow inland sea that fills its center. This body of water, which has a maximum depth of ten feet, is often beset by severe storms. In Shamash, the "Lake Battleship" concept has emerged--a heavily armored warship of enormous size, possessed almost entirely of guns between 4" and 6", designed to duke it out at extreme close range.

Shamash is sparsely-settled and generally agrarian. Industrialization has been slow. Roads, rails, and telegraphy rarely penetrate very far inland. On the other hand, the continent's river systems are extremely well-developed for purposes of trade and irrigation: hydraulic engineering has been a historical preoccupation of multiple Shamash civilizations.

The huge size and relative under-development of Shamash mean that the horse is still very prominent in war. Shamashi armies have adopted the machine gun and the modern breach-loading cannon, but the mounted trooper's charge is still reckoned the decisive factor in battle. From the standpoint of modern transportation, the armored train, motorcycle, aeroplane, and rigid airship are all of greater interest to Shamashi militaries than to those elsewhere in the world.

Mercenarism continues to be a significant aspect of warfare in Shamash. Both Shiloh and Gath have spent heavily to lure whole divisions worth of Freikorps to make up their own deep losses. Foreign technicians are prominent in the support branches of all Shamash militaries, especially from countries upended by the Great War. Immigrants also hold many top posts in governments and militaries.

A note on the artwork.
The original map of the world was created by a fellow named Canomer on the Paradox Games forums, as the credit indicates. I've added the new continent.

I am finishing this project in MS Paint. I own vector graphics programs, including Adobe Illustrator, and plan to make the switch, but I'm completely hopeless when it comes to using anything but MS Paint, so if you've got any map-making skills, I'd be grateful for shared advice, especially about how to faithfully transform this map into a vectored format without losing anything.