I think we really can't afford to say no to Serbia and Greece. We voted to go all in on destroying the league so we need to take the offered help to destroy the league. If nothing else, Serbia as a cobelligerent is critical because it prevents Austria from resupplying via the Danube.
Springtime of Nations II: A European Republic Quest
- Thread starter Etranger
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Yeah, we're here to prosecute a war, not pat ourselves on the back for how ideologically pure we are. Getting the Serbs and Greeks on side will stretch the league dangerously. Besides, I wouldn't be at all suprised if all the Balkan states had disproportionately big armies, in particular Serbia and Romania.
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If we accept Greece and Sorbia as co-belligerents it will serve to further legitimize plebiscites as a means of territorial transfer on the international stage. This might result in some funny fuckery in the colonies.
Historical: Wilde At War
Weygand
Trapped in Baudrillard's Nightmare
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'Wilde At War'
Extracts from article by Thomas Carlisle PhD, University of Cambridge
Though many consider the German navy to have been a secondary consideration to its robust soldier-citizenry, modern scholarship tends to stress that this is only in comparison to powers whose forces were always primarily maritime, such as the Royal Navy. Germany confronted, in 1897, a number of opponents of comparable force disposition in a heated contest for control of the Baltic. Service records from this period place Wilde on the armoured cruiser RNS Elbe, which participated respectively in the German campaign to cross the Sound, the series of pitched battles fought with the Russian Baltic Fleet for control of the east Baltic in 1898, and a number of supply missions to deny Russian blockade runners.
These facts correlate with what is widely known about Wilde's time in German service, but what is not often discussed is his own accounting of these years: Wilde kept a small, white-bound book he bought from a general supply store in Hamburg before beginning his service, which had until the declaration of war been serving as a short-hand notebook of general reminders which the notoriously scatter-brained Wilde required to cope with military routine. By 1898, his 'war journal' had, in his own words, 'supplanted the contents entirely'.
"I am at time of writing only half a German," Wilde's war diary begins, "so you must pardon any errors in my interpretation or accountings of these events which I am relating. My condition, I am reliably informed, can only be alleviated when I demonstrate monarchy makes me sufficiently bloodthirsty." Wilde's general tone throughout the war is that of a man made impatient, affecting his typical witticisms toward implicit criticisms of republican militarism. Indeed, the role of the navy in 1897 was comparatively docile, so the contents of his diary tend toward more broad discussions of the "prevailing condition of general enthusiasm for bloodshed of the most biblical proportions," among the officer corps, though Wilde writes more favourably of his fellow servicemen: "Ruprecht is from a small town on the outskirts of the Engels canal, the pronunciation or spelling of which I will not dishonour with English tongue. He and I had been part of the same draft: we played cards most every evening. I have taken to telling him he ought to stand for election as a first mate, but he only ever laughs at me. Mood is generally disposed toward tension: the waiting is gutting."
During combat service in the Sound, Wilde was twice caught out of position by his officers and reprimanded: however, he was also awarded commendation for evacuating ammunition from a nearby fire, suffering severe burns on his arms which would stay with him the rest of his life. Wilde wrote more forthrightly in wake of the German capture of Copenhagen: "The trouble with modern warfare is that everything has been made mechanical and dreadfully complicated. So much so that the very machine I am stood in the bowels of could just as easily and readily kill me as any will of the enemy outside of it."
Upon the Elbe's entry to Copenhagen's harbour, Wilde enjoyed his first real period of shore leave: "I found the city surprisingly rejoicing, with flags bearing what I was made to understand was the old Danish cross replacing the Scandinavian colours. The Danes are an amiable people, if very cloistered and restrained. At one time when I was in a public house, a fellow approached me and shyly asked if I was the 'sodomite playwright from England', with no implication of any insult. When I began to laugh, he did, too. We barely understood one another in halting German, but I informed him that I was, and we shook hands."
Wilde's service continued into 1899, which saw [...]'
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Besides declining the help of the Balkan states being generally a bad idea, I think think it's inadvisable to launch two offensives this turn. This winter is significantly worse than the last one and will explicitly degrade the effectiveness of any offensive push we try. I don't think we can count on "normal effectiveness" being enough here.
The colonies being screwed over hard is there natural state because they are a colony, it's like wondering why a duck is wet.
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Picking sides in the Balkans is just always going to inherently be pretty shitty, because if Serbia gains what it wants to gain there's going to be ethnic cleansing, and this is the case of, uh, just about every country down there.
I don't think we can afford to just wash our hands of it, though
Yes a very Balkans welcome if there ever was one.
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If they try doing that, nothing's stopping us from pressuring them to stop. Assuming we'd just be sitting there letting them do that is baffling. I'd also point out that them trying to ethnically cleanse eachover at every opportunity is a stereotype. By siding with us, they basically throw themselves into our sphere of influence, same with Greece. Russia won't help them, and I'm somewhat dubious about the entente wanting to touch anything in the balkans, lol.
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Regency
PFP by vanathema (previously yubishines)
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Disproven by the QM in Discord. I also looked in the update and nothing says its worse than in previous turns.
I do agree that we shouldn't do 2 offensives, but mainly because we don't have edit: many good options in Winter edit. Our command councils (per QM) recommend against attacking towards Kyiv & Minsk in Winter, and the only viable attacking points are AFAIK hilly (Zagreb) or heavily defended Hungarian plains. That means we should, regardless if we choose to accept the Balkan monarchies request for co-belligerence, 1)attack Konigsbeg & 2)fortify Austria or Poland
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We won't be, if for no other reason than that several Balkan states are actively involved in the war in any case. But if we handle it in this particular manner, handing over chunks of land for short-term gain, Vojvodina and Thrace may well become bleeding sores that permanently sour any attempt at Balkan peace (the way Alsace-Lorraine permanently drove a wedge between France and Germany IOTL) even in the absence of any ethnic cleansing or cultural suppression.
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Here y'a go. As stated, this winter is going to be pretty bad. Doing any large scale offensive operations is likely to be not as effective as we'd hope, especially with us running out of shells.
Also, if we accept the Balkan offer, we're sending almost a million troops away from our front to go help in Greece. The Greek front is extremely mountainous; it seems absurd to me that we've finally broken through the mountains and now we're immediately relocating troops to try and do it again instead of hitting Russia.
Regency
PFP by vanathema (previously yubishines)
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Nope, disproven by QM in Discord. Also, that does not say anything about being worse than the previous. There ya go
camloste
Corsair
- Location
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it should be noted that the update specifically puts territorial gain behind plebiscites in the contested regions, so even if we were to agree to their joining the war, it doesn't imply simply giving them land to cleanse unopposed.
i am, however, not really sold on it regardless - a million italians going on a jaunt around greece is perhaps not the most helpful thing they can do, and we should always be very careful about how much legitimacy we give monarchies. just as with the peace offer, i'm a bit stuck in the middle here.
i am, however, not really sold on it regardless - a million italians going on a jaunt around greece is perhaps not the most helpful thing they can do, and we should always be very careful about how much legitimacy we give monarchies. just as with the peace offer, i'm a bit stuck in the middle here.
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Personally I think we should accept help of Serbia and Greece. We should use such collaboration to promote socialist agenda covertly and though electorate similar way as italy and spain. That time collaboration with monarchist italy was real politics but we were able to erode Italian monarchy and able build up current italy. Same thing apply to Serbia and Greece. After all Capitalists will provide rope to hang them in future. Pragmatic action better than any sorta ideological purity and it makes us more reasonable to British and French as well when Politics concerned.
We shouldn't accept for the following reasons.
1. They won't help us win. In fact they are relying on us to send the italian reinforcements we've been struggling to free from the alps.
2. Their governments being non-revolutionary is fishing for a way to do revanchism with us picking up the tab. Serbia in particular expects us to fight our way to them and bail them out. We even know if we refuse their dumb offer, they'll sit this one out and wait for a better time.
3. We just saw that romania is courting revolution when they jumped into this massive war. There is a very real chance that if the romanian army gets obliterated romania turns into a net positive for us because now the league has to garrison the country to prevent revolution. We've been musing on this war sparking revolutionary conditions and for Romania the time is fast approaching.
4. Greece and Serbia joining us will accelerate the entente intervention because the massive war is now spreading. We might even see the ottomans join in.
In summary, they're cringe conservative and liberal monarchies. They won't actually improve our military situation in a decisive way in fact its probably a net negative. Finally, part of slowing down an entente desire to intervene is to slow down how fast the war spreads.
1. They won't help us win. In fact they are relying on us to send the italian reinforcements we've been struggling to free from the alps.
2. Their governments being non-revolutionary is fishing for a way to do revanchism with us picking up the tab. Serbia in particular expects us to fight our way to them and bail them out. We even know if we refuse their dumb offer, they'll sit this one out and wait for a better time.
3. We just saw that romania is courting revolution when they jumped into this massive war. There is a very real chance that if the romanian army gets obliterated romania turns into a net positive for us because now the league has to garrison the country to prevent revolution. We've been musing on this war sparking revolutionary conditions and for Romania the time is fast approaching.
4. Greece and Serbia joining us will accelerate the entente intervention because the massive war is now spreading. We might even see the ottomans join in.
In summary, they're cringe conservative and liberal monarchies. They won't actually improve our military situation in a decisive way in fact its probably a net negative. Finally, part of slowing down an entente desire to intervene is to slow down how fast the war spreads.
They don't approve of what we do and stand for in the first place as well though.
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And the League bringing in Bulgaria and Romania is? Getting Serbia and Greece on our side is tit for tat. They won't give a damn.
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And not doing so, while avoiding the risk of possible Ottoman intervention down the line, gives us a way to look better then the league and extend the time before they intervene.
Considering we'd be sending a million italians to help a much lower quality and fairly small army dick around in the mountains rather then contributing to the bulk of the fighting, I'm not sure it worth the benefit.
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Regency
PFP by vanathema (previously yubishines)
- Location
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Heroic Marinewehr Sailor Oscar Wilde, will this TL's wonder ever cease.
Anyways, tentative plan
edit: plan altered.
1. Tentatively decline because rotating 2 Italian Legions out of Austria into Greece is painful for our efforts in Austria. Also,
I really suspect they'll jump in later anyways.
2. Now that the League has resolved their Austrian resupply problem attacking Lviv may be less of a priority for them over retaking Vienna.
3. Not many great options to attack in Winter. Our command councils recommend against Kyiv & Minsk this season, Zagreb is still rather hilly (AFAIK), & the Hungarian Plains while seasonally fine is heavily defended. So, Konigsberg it is, maybe if we're succesful enough we could nab all League northern ice-less ports by also taking Klaipeda.
3. The Baltic Fleet will be needed to support our attack against Konigsberg
4. Our Med fleet could R&R in Winter, I don't think the League will buy our feint in this season against the hard terrain in the Adriatic.
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I support with and strongly agree with this plan. If we can hit Konigsberg, it puts us in a good position for our summer offensive into Russia; we can then squeeze our Austria stuff in as a Spring offensive.