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1910s: The Great War[]

1914[]

An assasination in Sarajevo of the Austrian regent results in a diplomatic crisis between Russia and Austria, sparking off the Great War.

1915[]

Events in Oceania[]

  • A Wrong Turn. On 7 May, A sailor slips and falls when loading a torpedo on board the German submarine U-20. The following delay makes the shot miss the steamer Lusitana by a few inches.

Events in Africa[]

  • Oran Revolution. An Islamist uprising in Oran is brutally put down by French forces, but instead results in a full scale-revolt.

Events in Eastasia[]

  • A coup in China forces Dr Sun, the President of China, to leave China for Japan. Over the years, he will travel between Southeast Asia and America to spread Kuomintang ideals to overseas Chinese. Many of those Kuomintang adherents would eventually become the founders of the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (APMAJ), the precursor to the Pacific Independence and Reform Entente (PIRE). The winner of the coup is Yuan Shikai, a highly respected statesman and military officer of peerless reputation.
  • Yuan Shikai becomes emperor of China. Eager to restore China's glory, he signs secret treaties of non-intervention with Germany, and becomes rich smuggling war goods and commodities to German colonies in Papua and throughout the Pacific.

1916[]

Events in Eurasia[]

  • French lose Verdun. General Pétain, incapacitated by renal colic in February, is unable to assume command of French forces near Verdun, and is replaced by General Nivelle. France loses the Battle of Verdun one month later.
  • Isle of Wight Treaty. Britain withdraws from the Great War in July, following the Somme massacre. Peace is signed 12 July. Known as the Isle of Wight Treaty, it is dubbed the "Treaty of Shame" by Winston Churchill and Georges Clémenceau.

Events in Africa[]

  • Wafa's disease pandemic. In Africa, Entente and German servicemen die from contracting a contagious disease later known to be called Wafa's disease. Spreading from Africa to Portugal and the Middle East, Wafa's diseases kills an estimated 5 million as it travels around the globe in sporadic outbreaks well until the 1930s.

1917[]

Trotsky

Leo Trotsky, co-founder of the Vidalist movement and later organiser of the Workers' Armed Forces

  • French lose face. Despite the desperate requests of the French government, the United States remains neutral. President Taft recalls the American embassy to France in September, and advises American residents in France to return back to America.
  • Bolshevik uprising. A coup is launched against the Russian Imperial government in October by a group called the Bolsheviks, but is put down. As the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin seeks asylum in Western Europe, Leon Trotsky, a Bolshevik, joins a Bolshevik splinter group, known as the Vidalist movement.
  • Vidalist uprising. The Vidalists organise a revolution which is successful on 8 December. The Imperial household flees St Petersburg and are never seen again.
  • Treaty of Taoyuan. Signed in secret between the German Empire and Japan, the treaty stipulated that Germany cede its Asian possessions to Japan in return for Japanese guarantees not to supply France or Italy and non-intervention in the (primarily) European conflict.
    At this time, there were rumours that the Black Dragons, a Japanese secret society, were active in India, Siberia, Southeast Asia, China and North America.
  • Rise of the Ajamid Empire. In Africa, a French colonel, Hassan Moudalla el-Ajami launches a coup against the weak sultan Yusef, which succeeds in him taking the throne and the Sultan's daughter as his second wife. Anti-European sentiment eventually results in race riots throughout Morocco which sees a general slaughter of French citizens.

1918[]

Events in Eurasia[]

  • Brest-Litovsk Treaty. Having signed a non-aggression pact with Vidalist Russia in January, Germany continues the war on the Western Front, and successfully dominates the field in March at the battles of Épinal and Château-Thierry.
    Map

    Changes in territory post Brest-Litovsk Treaty, signed between Germany and Vidalist Russia. Max gains by Central Powers are delineated in pink.

  • Fall of France. In France, political stability develops as France teeters on the verge of collapse. Many of the members of the Legislature, France's legislative body, sue for peace, but others still demand to continue. Others still join the Vidalist cause for pan-European revolution and call for the end of the "bourgeois militarist republic."
  • War breaks out in Western Russia in February. Organised by Leon Trotsky, the Red Army of Vidalist Workers make slow gains and eventually prevail throughout the European half in Russia, unopposed by their former foes the Germans. A Makhnovist uprising in October sees the end of Skoropadsky's Ukranian hetmanate.
  • Versailles Treaty and reestablishment of Ancien Regime. France officially capitulates on 11 November, ending her role as a belligerent in the Great War. Martial law is imposed and a Franco-German consortium of diplomats commence drafting a provisional constitution for a new French monarchy.
  • South European Famine. Due to an unsually hot year and collateral damage suffered during the past 4 years' fighting, famines strike Italy, Southern Europe and the Levant.
  • Young Turk coup fails. The Ottoman Empire is amongst the winners of the Great War. With state authority strengthened, the Attatürk coup fails, leaving Mustafa Kemal Attatürk in the hands of Turkish police. He is subsequently executed the old way: torn apart by horses in Istanbul. Subsequently, the Young Turk movement diminishes in power and religious conservatism takes hold.
  • Greek Revolution. The world's first communist state, the People's Republic of Athens, is proclaimed in the face of food riots in Greece and the Greek Royal Family are brutually executed. The Republic is all but crushed by the Ottoman Turks, who once more seize the enfeebled nation from patriot and Italian forces after a brutal 3-month campaign, until repulsed by Austria over fears of a renascent Ottoman Empire. Greece is now part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, under the name of the Helladic Despotate.
  • Fall of Italy. End of the Entente. China and Italy are the only powers opposing the hitherto successful Central Powers worldwide, but the cost of war has left their governments bankrupt and their people hungry, who consequently start uprisings against their governments. Without further opposition, all resistance in the Alps crumbles, and Austria regains control of Northern Italy and creates the Kingdom of Padania, a puppet state controlled by Vienna.

Events in Eastasia[]

  • Rise of the Bloody Baron. A deserter from the Russian White Army, General Roman Nikolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg, reaches Mongolia. He is escorted to Urga, the then capital of the Monastic State of Mongolia and is welcomed by the Bogd Khan, the leader of the Mongolians.
  • An outbreak of Wafa's disease reaches South Asia via Middle East, sowing terror and fear in the populace. In 3 major outbreaks over 7 years, Wafa's disease continues to claim lives, especially from those who travel over great distances such as the Bedouin of the desert. A revolt caused by a clampdown of industry causes bread riots in several Indian cities, leading to the overthrow of the British and the creation of the Confederated States of India, a league of Muslim rulers and their Hindu subjects. Mass conversions to Islam take place as Hindus lose faith in their religion's ability to save them.

1919[]

Events in Eurasia[]

  • Dresden Treaty. Signed in March, the Treaty stipulated that Austria-Hungary be subsequently annexed to the German Empire.
  • Kaiser Wilhelm II is assasinated during the "Unity Parade" in Vienna by Ernst Goldmann, a member of the Spartakists, a German communist movement. The movement is soon driven underground.
    The succeeding German Crown Prince proves to be an incompetent statesman, creating discontent amongst politicians and military leaders alike. His thoughtlessness particularly irritates marshalls Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who call him a "spoiled child, unable to lead an Empire".
  • Great Depression strikes. Further disaster strikes in November as the dismantling of the German war economy sees mass layoffs of arms production workers by Krupp and arms factories throughout the Ruhr valley are closed, while demobilised soldiers are left without jobs. The Crown Prince rebuffs all requests by trade unions to seek a solution. Coal miners begin a general strike in Bochum, which is then put down violently by 3 squadrons of Totenkopf hussars. The Crown Prince issues a statement denouncing the general strike as the work of "thieves, scoundrels and Vidalist cowards."
  • Russian Civil War reaches Ukraine. In Russia, Denikin's army is defeated in the summer by the Red Army. A treaty signed between the Vidalist Red Army and the local makhnovschina insurgents results in Ukraine being united with the new Vidalist State, and the captured General Denikin is executed by being hung from an apple tree.
  • Portugal falls. Spain, with the help of exiled Russian generals, annexes a weakened and war-weary Portugal, citing a need to maintain "peace and order", and establishes the Republica Galega, a semi-autonomous union of Portugal with Galicia.
    For the first time in 251 years since the Lisboa Treaty, the Iberian Peninsula is once more reunited under a single flag, but Luso-Spanish integrity will not last for long.
  • Vidalia infiltrates Asia and southern Europe. Eager to exploit the instability in former Entente regions, Vidalist intervention to create new republics only to result in the fracturing of China and Italy into several city-states ruled over by warlords, and political repression of socialist movements in Japan. The House of Savoy leaves Rome, and proclaims the establishment of the Principality of New Sardinia.

Events in Africa[]

  • Angola revolts. With Portugal's overseas empire in disarray, one general of Portuguese native forces in Angola revolts and styles himself as Emperor Mobutu I and establishes the Empire of Angola.

Events in Eastasia[]

  • Japan purchases French Indochina. After many bidders, including the United States of America and the fledgling Chinese Empire, cash-strapped France cedes her Asian holdings to the Rising Sun. Many French, wary of reprisal, stay back in Japan and declare their allegiance to the Empire, their former ally and also move to Japanese holdings throughout Asia seeking new jobs and lives.

1920s: "When Nemesis rears her ugly head"[]

1920[]

Events in Eastasia[]

  • China is restored. Yuan Shikai claims Beiping and declares the creation of the Eternal Celestial Empire in China. Raising 3 "French battalions" from French deserters from the East Indies, he subsequently retakes the Chinese Coast, and annexes Hong Kong, Shanghai and Macao.

Events in Africa[]

  • End of French Africa. The wily sultan of Morocco, Hassan Moudalla el-Ajami annexes French-held West Africa, declaring the establishment of the Ajamid Empire, with forced conversion of French pieds-noirs and detention of anti-German dissidents in secret holdings throughout the Atlas Mountains.

Events in Eurasia[]

  • European economic chaos. A financial scandal results in several British banks subsequently being nationalised at great expense by the Exchecquer's Office on 3 February. British trade interests in Europe are all but finished.
  • The Holy See relocates to Ticino in Switzerland on Easter Day, due to the increasing chaos in Italy. Few listen to the Pope's seminal address in Switzerland urging the need for Christians to remain united and to help each other in the face of increasing social and economic pressures, and even fewer are in the mood to heed the Holy See.

1921[]

Events in Eurasia[]

  • Potsdam Revolution. On 6 January, a crowd gathers in Potsdam (now in the present-day Warsaw cantonment) and attempts to demolish the palace along with the German Royal Family in it. The revolt is inconclusive, but sufficient to force Marshalls Hindenburg and Ludendorff to seize power and stage a coup against the German monarchy on 13 January. Unfortunately, the attempt is bungled, costing the lives of 21 people, including (to Ludendorff's horror) Marshall Hindenburg and the Crown Prince along with the entire Royal Family.
  • "Red Christmas of Perekop". From midnight 6 January, the Vidalist Red Army launches a putsch against the Makhnovists. Few Makhovists, including Nestor Makhno who flees to France, survive the putsch.
  • Ludendorff becomes Regent, despite his being branded as a "regicide", and is given one last chance to restore order throughout Germany. He takes on the title of Regent of Germany, but eventually fails to gain support of key ministers and armies, and is forced to step down.
  • Communist activity in Eurasia reaches a peak. In the wake of the proclamation of the Workers' Republic of Vidalia (ROV), Karl Liebknecht issues the December 8th Declaration: "Given the vacancy of bourgeoise power, the workers can and must impose themselves in the cities. What succeeded in Russia will succeed in Europe!" A general insurrection in all European capitals takes place, the town halls of Budapest and Prague are taken by communists, while the Paris Treasury is ransacked. Military forces merely stand about while the top brass is reluctant to intervene. Communist power is at its peak, with East European nationalists seeing it as the means to break German domination of the whole of Europe.

Events in Eastasia[]

  • Rebirth of the Golden Horde. The Bogd Khan of Mongolia grants the title of khan to Roman von Ungern-Starnberg, dubbing him Ungern Khan, but mysteriously disappears while en route to a ceremonial hunting trip. In his stead, Ungern Khan declares himself the Supreme Khan of Mongolia in May. Due to the bloody wars of unification and expansion he fought, Ungern Khan as he is called will be known as the Bloody Baron until his sudden death years later. Ungern Khan formally declares the creation of the Shinte Altan Ordu, or New Golden Horde (SAO). Great Leader Vidal dismisses the new monarchy as "a few lousy Mongols in a pathetic ice field" but otherwise not a shot is heard between SAO and Vidalian forces.
  • Yuan Shikai invades British-held Burma. With an all-new Indian Battalion made up of captured Raj soldiers as guides, the Celestial Empire bypass meagre British resistance, and personally enters Rangoon in triumph, but loses many men in the process to lack of supplies and diseases. A joint Vidalian-Japanese attempt at assasination ends in failure and lends sympathy by Chinese overseas and in China to the monarchy.
  • The Pact of Khabarovsk. The Celestial Empire, wary of Vidalist activity in Asia, signs a pact of non-aggression and co-operation with the Lamadom of Tibet and the SAO.

Events in Latin America[]

  • Japan signs a pact with the fledgling Bolivarian Republic, formed by a confederacy of Latin American states, against the Republic of Brazil, the one power thwarting Bolivarian ambitions of dominating Latin America.

1922[]

Events in Eurasia[]

  • Ludendorff acts. Fed up with the chaos and banditry, Marshall Ludendorff finally orders troops to shoot rioters. Almost 10% of the army refuses to comply; entire companies, not paid for months, refuse to carry out orders and join the protestors. More or less organised bands pillage rural areas while Free Corps and other local militia try to restore order. The entire economy of continental Western Europe collapses as industrial production is stymied.
  • Declaration of the so-called Vidal Doctrine. Comrades Vidal and Trotsky issue a joint statement on 15 April: "Worldwide revolution! the fruits are grown and must be gathered now." The First Industrial Plan is launched, kickstarting a massive reorganisation of the Red Army of Vidalist Workers into the Workers' Armed Force.

Events in Africa[]

  • Sardinia annexed to Ajamid Empire of Morocco. Taking advantage of the chaos in Europe, Morocco annexes Sardinia. House Savoy, the Italian Royal Family, flees on board an Imperial Chinese Navy steamer to Malacca in British-held Malaya. Further attempts to annex Corsica and Sicily are blocked by a joint Turco-German naval task force.
  • Triple Alliance. On Aidilfitri Day, a secret military pact is made between Morocco, the all-new Greater Reich of Germany and Brazil in Meknes, each promising to lend troops and to deny any enemies of supplies.

Events in Oceania[]

  • Ottawa Accords. Britain, wholly beleagured, escorts the Royal Family to relative safety in Ottawa, British Canada. British and American diplomats and businessmen in secret negotiations eventually come up with the Ottawa Accords, that creates 2 new entities: the Federal Alliance, a military pact which is the precursor of the Atlantic Federation, allowing Britain and America to share military resources.
  • GRO established by Ottawa Accords. Creation of the Federal Grocers' and Retailers' Organisation (GRO), established in Halifax, Canada. With meetings chaired by the British monarch, GRO is a cartel of all the world's biggest businesses outside of Reich and Vidalian lands, and would eventually become the ruling council of the Atlantic Federation. Amongst its members would be a successful lawyer called Lawrence Bananius, head of the fledgling Mtenda Merchants' Guild in Kampala, Africa's first megacorporation.

1923[]

Events in Eurasia[]

  • Religious persecutions of Shiites in Ottoman Empire. A fatwa is issued by the ulama' of the sublime Porte against Shiites throughout the Empire. Secret negotiations continue between American and Ottoman authorities regarding the fate of the newly founded Ajamid Sultanate, which now stretches from Morocco until the Great Western Desert, and from Sardinia to Mali.
  • Vorwärts! fervour. In the Greifswald detention centre, Franz Heinrich von Salviat (a captain in the Reichswehr, descended from French Huguenots, is director of the prison camp. He sympathises with some of his prisoners: the former Italian corporal Benito Mussolini, the French sergeant André Rémoire; the Belgian private Maxime Delrouel and the Dutch sergeant Joos de Kop. Tired of the legacy of interstate war in Europe, they create the Vorwärts! movement on 30 January, aimed at creating "a great, united, prosperous and pure Europe." The detention centre is subsequently abandoned.
  • Moving Vorwärts! Von Salviat finds himself inundated with admirers and correspondents throughout Europe, including Vidkun Quisling of Norway, Ferenc Szálasi from Hungary and Jan Rys-Roszévac from the newly formed republic of Czechoslovakia. Of all the members, Rys-Roszévac is the most junior member. From June to December, the eight founding members issue the political journal Vorwärts! for the European public. Support is strong for the movement from both unemployed soldiers, blue-collar workers and industrialists alike who all fear the infiltration of godless Vidalism.
  • Vorwärts, Sturmbattalionen! The Vorwärts! movement eventually goes paramilitary with the creation of its own "people's defence brigades", the Sturmbattalionen. The Vorwärts! movement is embroiled in street battles with communists. A major success is Hamburg, where under Quisling's leadership and with modern Norwegian arms, the Sturmbattalionen sweep the city clear of its opponents and soon restores order.
  • An epidemic of Wafa's disease hits Spanish-held Portugal, inflicting more misery and fear and emboldening local Communists to act and seize power. The nation is now in total civil war, with communist guerillas looting, killing and raping in the countryside and local militia and police helplessly underfunded and undermanned to prevent them.

Events in Eastasia[]

  • Vidalian militarisation continues unchecked. Although there are no major scuffles, Vidalia is forced to endure the depredations of SAO units marauding into Vidalist Siberia, uprooting homesteads and burning crops. Vidalia is forced to abandon Siberia, along with the all-new LV-19 prototype being produced in Vidalian heavy arms development facilities throughout the Urals.

1924[]

Events in Eurasia[]

  • Europe goes Vorwärts! The Vorwärts! movement spreads throughout mainland Europe, especially in France and Padania, where Rémoire and Mussolini have prepared the ground with their parties: Victoire in France, and Avanti! in Padania, all established by 12 January.
  • Eastern European chapters of Vorwärts! movement established. The Czechoslovakian chapter of Vorwärts! is founded by Rys-Roszévac January 12; successive ones are founded in Hungary on 16 April by Szálasi, and in Poland on 6 May by Oskar Grbski.
  • Vorwärts! movement reaches the Low Countries. New chapters for the Vorwärts! movement emerge throughout the month of June, culminating in the founding of the Netherlander chapter on 17 July by Kaj Munk.
  • Vidkun Quisling goes Vorwärts!. Vidkun Quisling, a disgruntled Norwegian politician, sets up the Videresend party, ideologically congruent with the Vorwärts! movement.
  • The veinte de junio. The communist movements, seen by the Europeans as Vidalist puppets, slowly lose ground. Communist parties throughout the Iberian Peninsula commence an insurrection against authorities on 19-20 July. Subsequent insurrections break out in over Europe, but are put down as Vladimir Lenin is killed during a street brawl on 23 July.
  • November Purge. All throughout Europe, communists are being run out and hunted down, but this does not stop a purportedly terrorist attack on 11 November. A bomb explodes during the First International Congress of the Vorwärts! Movement in Geneva, killing 22 and wounding 95. Franz-Heinrich von Salviat accuses the "Vidalist communist barbarians" as being responsible for the attacks.
  • European Vidalia is miltarised. The Workers' Armed Forces gather at the border with the all-new Salviatian state, in anticipation of an invasion....

Events in Eastasia[]

  • Qajar dynasty falls. Abandoned by an increasingly frail British Empire and hated for not preventing the massacres of Shiites in Ottoman lands, the Qajar dynasty is toppled in a popular uprising. The Republic of Iran is born and immediately launches a war against Ottomans, in an effort to force the Ottomans to cease persecution of their brethren, but a stalemate immediately is reached, but not before mosques and cities throughout Iraq, Armenia and Syria are razed and flattened.
  • Second Sino-Japanese War. All aflush with euphoria, the Celestial Empire sends troops into Manchuria, intent on taking Japanese Korea and restoring the borders of the Han dynasty. An outbreak of Wafa's disease in Northern China weakens both the SAO and the Celestial Empire, killing Emperor Yuan in the process. It is at this point that Japan acts, and invades Northern China after 9 months of gruelling battles, seizing the crown jewels and regalia of Emperor Yuan. The Emperor of Japan (by proxy) proclaims the abolition of the Empire of Japan, and the creation of the Celestial Empire of the Eternal Rising Sun (ESL).
  • Edo razed by earthquake. Victory is short-lived as the Japanese Emperor is killed in a vicious earthquake. With no male heirs left, a shogun is married to his only-begotten daughter, and is proclaimed the next Emperor, moving the capital to Honshu at Tentai-Zu while a cleanup takes place. While most of Northern China remains in ESL hands, the SAO is quick to declare its ruler Ungern Khan as emperor of China.
  • China is now split between Tibetan, SAO, ESL and patriot forces, with Tibet claiming a sphere of influence around Xizang; the ESL in control of Beiping and many provinces throughout Manchuria; Sichuan and Xinjiang's warlords swearing fealty to the Horde. The rest is in patriot hands, but they are dominated by cliques of military officers vying for control over the remnants of the Celestial Empire of China.
  • Chinese patriot capital moved to Shanghai. Much of China's industrial heartland still remains in Chinese hands, but the Chinese patriots are too fractured by Yuan's death to do anything.

1925[]

Events in Eurasia[]

  • Worldwide condemnation of the Geneva bombing comes from all corners of the earth, save from the communists and the Bolivarians, who remain neutral.
  • Outbreak of the Fourth Great Northern War:
    • Vidalian forces launch Operation Red Dawn and capture Chisinau, Warsaw, Bucharest and Krakow in the space of just 11 days, resulting in the massacre of "incurable obscurantist reactionary elements" in Polish society by the Red Army at the Lublin Massacre on 22 April. Sofia falls on 6 May.
    • Vidalist resurgence in Europe. As Vidalist forces pound European troops throughout Southern Germany, Austria and the Danube, Vidalist political agitation in Denmark and Scandinavia increases.
    • Creation of the Community of the Free Nations of Europe as the Scandinavian nations join the federation between France, the Reich, Padania, Eastern Europe and the Low Countries.
    • "Das Wunder von Steyr". In a pincer move, Bavarian, Swiss and Padanian troops rout the Vidalian advance into Europe, saving the Federation on 10 October and preserving the integrity of the European forces.
    • Vienna is liberated by European forces on 17 October, galvanising their allies. Vidalist forces in full withdrawal in Eastern Europe.
    • Sweden and Denmark declare war and subsequently bombard Vidalist installations throughout the Baltic, but the Norwegian fleet is captured at Parnu by the Vidalist Red Fleet.

Events in Latin America[]

  • Brazil falls. After a massive, shot for shot battle that cost 100,000 lives in just 3 months, Brazil capitulates and is divided into several cantonments. Brazilian place names are Hispanicised, Portuguese is banned, and there is a migration of Brazilians from Brazil to North America and Australia, fearing persecution. As part of the agreement with Japan, Bolivarian Latin America grants access to oil and other resources in newly conquered Brazil to Imperial factions. Worries about the new power developing in the Atlantic Ocean force Vidalians, Europeans and Americans to the table at the Glasgow Conference, with nothing conclusive due to the conflict going on between the former two, but some détente is reached between the Americans, British and the Europeans.

Events in Eastasia[]

  • Ungern Khan raids Vidalian-held Central Asia. Throughout the period of the Fourth Great Northern War and thereafter, SAO forces under the banner of Ungern Khan would kill and pillage ROV agricultural assets in raids for many years across Siberia.
  • America prepares for war. The USA and the GRO issue an ultimatum to the Empire and the Horde to immediately hand over China to patriot forces and to withdraw to Korea, but the Empire withdraws its merchants from the GRO, while it is said that the consul sent to the Horde was captured and eaten alive by starving Horde troops.
  • ESL seeks ties with Vidalia. In response to an anticipated American attack, Imperial diplomats personally meet with Grand Leader Vidal and propose an alliance: this alliance would ensure Vidalia was safe from SAO intervention, while Vidalia would provide manpower and other resources in the event of an attack by either the USA or the SAO.

1926[]

Events in Eastasia[]

  • The rise of Corporal al-Assad. After two years of protracted trench warfare, corporal Khaled Saïd Nasr Al-Assad, a combat engineer from the Imperial Ottoman Army's Arab Pioneers, is hit in the head by shrapnel on 8 September. Given only weeks to live, he regains consciousness in 4 days in front of his stupefied doctors, claiming he had had visions of the Prophet and Archangel Gabriel. Proclaiming himself an imam, he preaches of the end of the "war between the brothers" and warns of a coming "holy war against western pagans and infidels".

Events in Eurasia[]

  • Treaty of Bratislava ends the Fourth Great Northern War. Eastern Europe, from the Baltic down to the Black Sea is now Vidalian territory, and Poland is cut in half and demilitarised. The peace is also kept simply by the appearance of yet another epidemic of Wafa's disease, claiming many lives on both sides of the Bratislava line. In some areas of Poland and the Balkans, whole Vidalist facilities are depopulated and completely forgotten.
  • Trotsky is murdered by a disgruntled Pole with an icepick on 19 October, and is replaced by his aide de camp, General Voroshilov during the Fourth Great Northern War, which lasts for almost a year.
  • Rise of the CFNE. For its 30th birthday, Vorwärts! organises a huge international gathering in Vienna. Franz-Heinrich von Salviat offers "to upgrade the Community of the Free Nations of Europe from an empty shell to a great united European nation, able to make peace prevail."
  • Many Vidalians and Poles disenchanted and weary of war eventually form resistance groups in the Polish wilderness. Known as the Forestiery, they would be the forerunners of the Fraternité Éuropéenne pour la Solidarité known as the European Brotherhood or the FEpS, a resistance movement inimical to the aspirations of both the Vidalist and the Vorwärts! movement.

1927[]

Events in Eastasia[]

  • Sunnis and Muslims unite. Preaching throughout the Arab peninsula and Iraq, the new imam al-Assad happens to be a very convincing orator, and his sermons and debates go right to the hearts of both the exhausted crowds and the deeply religious governments. On 23 October the Baghdad Treaty puts an end to the war and declares that "All Muslims must live in eternal peace and harmony, and not shed each others' blood". There are spontaneous fraternisations aall along the front line, and demonstrations of joy in all the major cities. For the first time since the Battle of Karbala, Muslims are now a brotherhood united.

Events in Eurasia[]

  • 2nd Armenian Genocide. A fire devastates the Hagia Sofia, killing 430 and setting a good quarter of Istanbul ablaze. After a short inquiry, the Armenian activist Naïman Karaboudjian is found guilty. Popular unrest and religious intolerance feed the Second Armenian Genocide against Al-Assad's advice, sealing the reconciliation of the former enemies. While many die, some do make it to former East Russia, where they are treated to Ungern Khan's usual welcome to refugees: hearty welcomes, rusty rifles and marching orders.
  • Outbreak of Salviatian War. A cholera pandemic hits southern Italy, sending refugees from the already war-torn south running towards the Italian Social Republic. Mussolini's minister for health, Gastone Gianmanfredo, orders the detention of the so-called "Southern refugees" in Modena and the islands of Poveglia and Elba to avert any possibility of a pandemic.

1928[]

Events in Eastasia[]

  • Ottoman Empire dissolves. Under popular pressure, the Ottoman Empire and the Iranian Islamic Republic are both dissolved in favour of Al-Assad, who is also supported by generals of both armies. Fearing for his life, the Ottoman sultan embarks a boat for India and has never been heard of again since. Al-Assad proclaims the establishment of the Jihadian Caliphate, and takes the title of Grand Caliph. For the first time in years, Muslims are a people reunited.
  • Al-Assad declares the creation of the Deir el-Hikmeh, the main assembly of the people. Jihadia is now a sovereign democracy, proclaiming that all people irrespective of gender or race are equal before Allah. A record harvest is gathered throughout the Caliphate that year, with sufficient excess to be traded to Western Europe for Salviatian and Vidalian equipment and counsellors.

Events in Africa[]

  • Yolanda Wafa discovers a vaccine for Wafa's disease. A researcher in the pharmaceutical labs of her husband's company, the Mtenda Merchants' Guild, Professor Yolanda Wafa finally isolates the virus of the pandemic known as Wafa's disease, and discovers a vaccine by accident. With canny business acumen, Lawrence Bananius' Mtenda Merchants' Guild buys up stocks of the raw resources required to manufacture the vaccine, and becomes a millionaire from sales of the vaccine, much to the annoyance and envy of whites and blacks worldwide.
  • Outbreak of the First Levantine War: Lured by the promises of Jihadian wealth, Lord Balcha Safo, Viceroy to Negus Haile Selassie of the Kingdom of Abysinna, organises the tribesmen of Eritrea and Somalia and invades the Middle East. He is promised Salviatian-produced material and American sponsorship, in return for securing the oilfields of the Hejaz for both sides.

1929[]

Events in Eastasia[]

  • The Jihadian Caliphate faces its first challenge. Fearful of the desecration of their shrines by the Abysinnians at the outbreak of the First Levantine War, the Caliphate orders the dismantling of the Black Stone from the Kaabah on 3 February, and orders it to be taken to Jerusalem to be interred under the Dome of the Rock. Riots break out throughout Mecca and Medina, but are successfully crushed by the Murafiqeen, Jihadia's military force, at the cost of a thousand dead in 5 weeks. Only after explaining that the entourage moving the Black Stone represented the whole of the Caliphate's population does Al-Assad narrowly escape being labelled as an infidel.
  • Tibet garrisons Xizang. Claiming a request from its own lackeys, Tibet sends an army to Xizang, awaiting a potential war with any of the Asian powers on the continent: India, China, the ESL or the SAO.

Events in Eurasia[]

  • The arms race continues. Germano-Moroccan scientists develop a new weapon at research centres in the Sahara: the artillery rocket. With help and funding by the University of Fez and the Von Salviat Institute in Bolzen, the Gallo-Moroccan engineer Haddad Messinger perfects a prototype, for which he is awarded the Iron Cross by Germany.
  • Cholera reaches France. In the summer of 1929, cases of cholera are reported by the French Secretary of Sanitisation in Toulon, Besançon and Nice.
  • Salviatian War:
    • Anger at Chancellor Mussolini’s failure to gain anything from the Fourth Great Northern War culminate with riots for better conditions at quarantine detention centres throughout Romagnol Padania. When riots at several detention centres at Modena result in the capture of the same by inmates, Mussolini orders troops to fire on protestors, but one Bersaglieri regiment disobeys and mutinies. Several more Bersaglieri units follow suit and by March the whole southern bank of the Po is ablaze. A provisional "Free Republic of Modena" is declared by rebel forces.
    • The Iberian Federation. In the Galician Republic, discontent at Spanish occupation results in the creation of the Lusitanian Brotherhood, a rebel group professing a need to "return to our Catholic roots and turn away from the sinister technocracy of Teutonism" - meaning the Vorwärts! movement. Inspired by the Italians, the Federação Iberico or Iberian Federation is created, comprising land stretching from Coruña to Coimbra in the south.
    • Southern Europe burns. In an emergency summit held in Copenhagen, it is agreed that the Galician Republic can and should put it down with help from other member-states. The insurrection in Galicia and northern Portugal is soon put down with help from volunteers from the Lusitanian Sturmbattalion, Ireland, and the de Kop Veterans' Brigade. However, this does nothing to stop the civil war in Western Europe: Spanish forces stationed in Granada begin a general insurrection, resulting in the whole of Southern Spain defecting to the Iberian Federation.
    • Mussolini and Gianmanfredo executed. On 20 November, Modenese forces capture Milan, along with Mussolini fleeing with his mistress, Margherita Sarfatti, and Gianmanfredo. Tried before a drumhead tribunal of guerillas, the trio are found guilty of several accounts of war crimes, embezzlement, and "betrayal of the Italic race" and executed by firing squad, their bodies strung up in front of the ruins of a petrol station in Piazza Loreto, Milan.
    • "Blood Pact" speech. News of the summary executions reach the rest of Europe, and Von Salviat is furious. At a press statement, he declares, to great applause: "No man who betrays Europe must be allowed to survive. We are all blood brothers, and if one of us bleeds, the rest of us do. May European lands run fertile with the bones of our enemies and the blood of traitors!" Two Franco-German armies are amassed and by December, reach Madrid and Turin for a spring offensive.

(Continues at years 1930-1939)

Trivia[]

Some of these events are covered under the mod "Rise of the Moderns".

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