Springtime of Nations II: A European Republic Quest

Given the Entente's dovish cooing as of the update (even if it isn't loud enough yet to overwhelm the cha-ching of the cash register), I do think we're on a clock of about three turns (a year and a half, including this turn) at most, and should be looking to seize the territory we want to leverage into our political objectives at a mid-1900 peace conference. Our paramount political objectives are dissolving the Habsburg monarchy and liberating Poland, with objectives like revolutionizing Romania and liberating Lithuania being secondary. If we want to dissolve, and for the peace to confirm the dissolution of, the Habsburg monarchy, we must occupy all or substantially all of its territory, and certainly each of its constituent kingdoms' capitals (read: political and administrative centers), by the end of 1899. Likewise, if we want to liberate the entirety of Poland within the borders the post-Vienna and post-Five Weeks War settlements gave it (basically, the Congress Kingdom, plus Galicia, plus Prussia through Memel), plus Bialystok since the Russians already offered it.

Militarily, how do we do that? I don't think we can while maintaining two active fronts, seeing as we are still outnumbered in Russia and given that Russia is quickly learning the necessary lessons to make use of what advantages it has on the defensive. Which means closing out one front as quickly as possible while giving ground on the other, then once the first front is closed retaking our losses on the second front and then some with the full weight of our armies. The only power that can be knocked out of the war quickly is Austria, and only if we use the utmost of our efforts there, now.
Technically we only need to hit two more of your listed strategic objectives: Budapest and Klaipeda (Memel). We currently control three of four Austrian capitals, modern Poland, and Galicia. Budapest this season and then Klaipeda the next, starting negotiations over winter, seems like our best bet to me.
 
Klaipeda now when its warm. Budapest in winter when with some luck the river has frozen over.
 
Last edited:
Historical: Democratic Prison Camps

An Example of Experimental Projects for Prisoners of Revolutionary War

The Bastille Program

The eighteen thousand prisoners of Camp 12114 ("Coburg Camp") are to be divided in squads of ten men apiece. These will then be structured in a hundred and eighty companies, which will form eighteen brigades of a thousand men each. The squads are to be created by lot, as are the companies and brigades. Each squad is to have a sergeant, each company a colonel, and each brigade a kommisar. These positions may only be filled by universal and secret suffrage of the members. Elections must be held bimonthly, though by-elections may be called at any time if a sufficient portion of the membership feel it necessary. Furthermore, the population of Camp 12114 is to hold bimonthly elections in the same form for the Staff Assembly, a body of no more than twenty members, and for the President of the Assembly.

In order to incentivize participation in these democratic institutions, powers will be granted to the Staff Assembly to negotiate with and appeal to the local government of Coburg and the local camp Administration Assembly as regards the necessities and desires of the population they represent. The Assembly will also be granted capabilities of decision over a certain purchasing power given to them by civilian associations and the local government; they will be allowed to use those bonds to obtain the goods they wish as according to democratic will.

Moreover, the sergeants, colonels, and kommisars may petition or protest against unjust action carried out by the Staff Assembly, as well as organize opposition against it. The Staff Assembly will also be charged with distributing packages and letters sent by family and friends to prisoners. Denizens of the camp may further distribute their time in improving their livelihoods, going on trips organized jointly by the Assembly and Coburg Council, and visiting the surrounding area chaperoned by guards.

We, the Hecker Club, believe that the adoption of this system for Coburg Camp will be instructive in teaching the Russian, Ukrainian, and Latgallian prisoners of war therein the methods and benefits of democracy. It is in participating in suffrage that one learns citizenship, and in enjoying the freedoms of liberty that one becomes a republican. It would be a crime against all revolutionaries past, present, and future to have bodily freed hundreds of thousands of Tsarist subjects and yet not endeavour to free their minds as well.
 
[] Plan: Crush Croatia-Hungary
-[] Reallocate troops toward the Austrian front.
-[] Strengthen defensive positions in Poland.
-[] Initiate an offensive toward Budapest (Pink).
-[] Initiate an offensive toward Osijek (Purple).


I don't think we should move further into Russia. Taking Klaipeda will not change the strategic situation. And taking Minsk and Kiev at this move is impossible, given the distance to be covered, the prepared defence lines and the enemy's numerical advantage. Now we need to concentrate on the defeat of Austria-Hungary. For this purpose, it is even possible to remove some troops from the Russian front. Preliminarily, strengthening the defences to prepare for the Russian summer offensive. The capture of Osijek will make it possible to bypass the Franz Josef line, greatly facilitating the attack on Budapest.
 
It will if we capture it in the winter when it's the only port the Russian navy can dock at.
Can sail out of. The Russian fleet can dock in Riga or Petersburg in Autumn, it just can't leave once the ice sets in. Given that the Russians haven't been doing sallies into the Baltic Sea anyway, at least that we have heard about, they might have withdrawn significant fleet elements north on a permanent basis.
 
Last edited:
We could theoretically go all-in on a push to Kiev, to seize Russia's breadbasket and cut it back off from Austria. It even has the advantage of being unexpected! :V

(no, seriously:
[7:03 PM]Sabrina:
> [] Plan: When I Cut You Off, You Stay Cut Off, Bitches
> -[] Prepare for an offensive on the Polish front.
> -[] Initiate an offensive toward Kiev (Red).
Cut Russia back off from Austria.
[7:06 PM]Etranger: a dedicated push on Kiev would have the advantage of sheer novelty
[7:06 PM]Etranger: that isn't even a joke
[7:07 PM]Marxist-Irrigationist: Talk about damning with faint praise.
[7:07 PM]Etranger: no I'm serious, sometimes it's useful to attack where they can't conceive of it happening
)
Now I want this to happen, if only to see everyone else's reaction.

Entente: "Those Germans must be crazy! Well, I mean... Even crazier than we already knew them to be!"
 
We have the River Bug and the Bug-Dneiper canal. I wonder if we can use our riverine navy to support an assault on Kyiv? It'd be unexpected if nothing else.
 
[] Plan: Supply Lines
-[] Strengthen defensive positions in Poland.
-[] Initiate an offensive toward Klaipeda (Gold).
-[] Initiate an offensive toward Osijek (Purple).
 
Okay, new idea.

This turn, we take Belarus. We might not get to Minsk, but it doesn't matter as long as we get to the Dniepr-Bug Canal.

Next turn, we send our brown-water navy down the Dniepr for Admiral Fischer's Sail to the Sea and tear a swath through Russia via boat on our way to Kyiv.

This war started over river gunboats and by god they'll end it.

Edit:
[] Plan: Oscar Wilde's Wild Ride
-[] Do not reallocate troops.
-[] Strengthen defensive positions in Austria.
-[] Prepare for an offensive on the Polish front.
-[] Initiate an offensive toward Minsk (Green).
 
Last edited:
I have to vote for this boat plan. It's probably a bad idea rather than a mere not-good one, but it's simply too powerful a play to not do it.
 
As important as Ukraine is agriculturally, I'm not sure this holds true in 1898 given Russia's geographic size and propensity for subsistence farming. I'd still expect them to run out of bullets before they run out of food.

We might not starve out their subsidence farms (well, the ones who didn't send the men to the front and find themselves unable to harvest), but those also don't feed their soldiers or cities because you need surplus for that. So it could easily still create large food issues in Russia.
 
Isn't selling grain in exchange for industrial goods part of how the Soviets funded their industrialisation? Taking the grain away could be a powerful way of keeping Russia down post-war, denying them the ability to (re)industrialise.
 
[] Plan: Oscar Wilde's Wild Ride
-[] Do not reallocate troops.
-[] Strengthen defensive positions in Austria.
-[] Prepare for an offensive on the Polish front.
-[] Initiate an offensive toward Minsk (Green).
Extremely, overly cautious plan IMO, you should have both

[] Initiate an offensive toward Minsk (Green).
and
[] Initiate an offensive toward Osijek (Purple).
plus
[] Prepare for an offensive on the Polish front.

We've blown past the FJ Line's south, and could wreak havok towards Osijek to bypass it in an eventual attack against Budapest. Then the Minsk + offensive prep options are sufficient for that particular offensive.
 
The Dniepr-Bug Canal is over two hundred years old. Will our riverine fleet be able to operate effectively in it?
 
Isn't selling grain in exchange for industrial goods part of how the Soviets funded their industrialisation? Taking the grain away could be a powerful way of keeping Russia down post-war, denying them the ability to (re)industrialise.
They did this because they did not have good access to domestic (due to the circumstances of the civil war) or international (due to having repudiated the Empire's debts) credit. A Mikhailist Russian Empire aligned with the Entente would not have either problem. It could take out loans from French, British, and Russian banks (at whatever level of usuriousness), or what is the same thing sell Russian government bonds to French, British, and Russian bourgeois, rather than having to pay as it went either in kind or in cash.
 
Last edited:
The Dniepr-Bug Canal is over two hundred years old. Will our riverine fleet be able to operate effectively in it?
Unfortunately we forgot that our riverine fleet is basically entirely on the Danube, and whilst there is technically a canal (The Ludwig Canal, finished 1846) connecting the Danube and Rhine, it's only a few meters wide



As for Bug-Dneiper itself, it'd probably be a squeeze, but maybe it'd work?
 
[] Plan: Crush Croatia-Hungary
-[] Reallocate troops toward the Austrian front.
-[] Strengthen defensive positions in Poland.
-[] Initiate an offensive toward Budapest (Pink).
-[] Initiate an offensive toward Osijek (Purple).
Hm...I think this is the best plan if we want to focus on Hungary-Croatia in Spring/Summer campaigning season.

I trust our command councils to do Osijek in Spring. Then, after further flanking the FJ Line, strike Budapest in the Summer.
 
Back
Top