1) What we mean is that the industrial economy of Europe was damaged to the point that it caused a ripple effect in the world economy. Honestly, I don't think the war would remain an unmoving trench war throughout our version of the conflict, since having it last until the mid twenties is pretty extreme. After the Russians withdrew from the war in the real world, the Germans launched an offensive that nearly broke the war for the allies and very well could have ended the entire thing in favor of Germany if it wasn't for US intervention stabilizing the line. At the same time the US entered the war (again in the real world), the French military was plagued with a wave of desertions and mutinies in their military. A year later, the Germans suffered from a string of revolutions that overthrew the Kaiser's government. The point I am trying to make is that the war as we know it couldn't have lasted that long, so there must have been some evolution that changed the nature of the thing. It must have broke out of the trenches at some point, and the damage to the industrial capability of Western Europe would have been hampered.
2) Veo covered this, but it is important to remember that WW2 didn't fix the Great Depression, that was already happening. Rather, WW2 mobilized the economy in the US to a degree it had never been mobilized before and built an industry that made the earlier recovery hard to distinguish from the Depression.
3)
4) I think they would have suffered from an exaggerated version of what the Germans suffered in real life, but political collapse would have been the more dramatic issue. France at the turn of the century was a divided society, and the social strife of such an extended war would have brought those divisions to a head. You're looking at nationalists, republicans, socialists, and catholics all blaming each other for what had happened and fighting for control.

Vilage, I'd just like to add that during WWI, asides from mutinies in 1917, which were "solved" by higher salaries, a better permissions system, and better FOOD by Pétain, and low-level strikes, French society remained rather stable. The Socialists, who were the only ones who could have caused trouble, were in the government, so even though they were rather unhappy with the war, they couldn't really criticize the government. With the war lasting so long, of course, the situation would have changed, I can imagine. It's probable a more authoritarian regime would have surfaced, lead by Clémenceau, who received emergency powers in 1918. After a few years of that, I can't really tell. We would need to know more about the situation on the front.

Tempest played it briefly but he's not been around for a while. Ignore the French wiki page he wrote, you can re-write it later to fit your own canon. Just go by the stuff Vilage and Aaron have talked about in the last few pages and it should be fine.

@Pepperm1nts played it briefly, then he got bored or something and switched nations. I think this may have been after he tried to play an independent New England. Then Tempest played it before he switched to South Africa. France is one of those nations that's traded hands so much that we scrambled its background pretty hard-core. It's also traded hands most during that time where we weren't so organized with our lore and hadn't matured as writers.

Yeah, I am. But, I got more questions to ask.

1) Was the Great Depression as terrible as it was in real life or was it more terrible to the point that countries were ruined?

Even with the Great Depression being such a new thing tacked onto the RPs lore, I don't think we really explored it as much. So we don't have a snapshot on how massive it would have been. But if the Great Depression of the real-world threw a quarter of the US population into unemployment then a post-war effect tacked on over top would have had even heavier consequences, complicated by bruising population or demographic holes blown out of the structure of that nation.

2) Since a World War 2 didn't happened during the time, how did the countries recover for the depression?

Well the Second World War wasn't the only factor to end the previous depression. The US could have recovered from it over several years based on the New Deal programs and reforms of the FDR regime. War facilitated a jump-start to the economy by suddenly opening up a shit ton of jobs (soldiering) and creating a sudden jump in demand for industrial and other goods to feed the war-effort.

At the expense of mass inflation growth mobilization of a country's military can create a artificial period of demand with units in combat, or in peace-time simply being deployed or drilled. Arguably, a nation could sacrifice enormous portions of their national budget to maintain a fully mobilized army with no real combat-situation: as the US was and has been since the First World War. After the Great War, the French could simply not return to peace-time demobilization and maintain a long-term standing army, just without anyone to fight.

This might be wasteful and in a Republican context lacking any sensible enemy to fight while other government programs are sucked dry to maintain a large tumor on the national budget would galvanize austerity parties probably.

Otherwise, the other option is something akin to the New Deal: a series of state-sponsored and legislature-signed projects, subsidies, and programs designed to alleviate the stress of the nation's economic burden and to encourage money to move around the nation to keep the heart moving. It's like a pacemaker for the economy, it keeps the money - blood - moving so that it can stabilize a national economy. Tariff policies could be put into place to protect local industries so no one goes bankrupt from foreign competition that'd benefit from this sort of thing. But in all it's a complex procedure and I don't know enough about it to provide any arbitrary metric.

What's known for sure (because it's fathered in by now) is that Spain's inaction in the war and programs kept its economy stable and then the most healthy in Europe post-war. When it comes to economic investment and practice, it seems a stable economy is favored by businesses.

3) How does a country get out of a depression? Do they try to control the unemployment rate, increase tariffs, and enact domestic programs so the people could get back to work?

See above.

I suppose another strategy would be rather fierce and strict policies of economic isolation so the state and people can become reliant on itself long enough that it can rebuild itself before exerting itself outwardly. This can be seen as an argument the Chinese might make to defend its twenty-year history of absolute economic isolation and trading only with its allies in the Comintern.

The others being anti-European xenophobia and "fuck the bourgeois".

And thinking about the current economy of China in that context is pretty interesting, since a few of the older high-ranking officials are western-educated. But they came back to China cynical of the international economy which also explains their isolationism: they just don't want to risk drowning any pretense of revolutionary rewards by trading outwardly when being inward is much more stable.

4) Is it realistic to make France's economy collapse for this roleplay? Since, France had the most damage out of any other country after the Great War.

I don't see any reason why not. It can surely recover but maybe not to the degree that it was before. If the Spanish are going to assume the sort of economic strength comparable to the US but in Europe then a lot of the economic opportunities that may have been reserved to the old powers of Europe would have been denied because of Spain. And there'd be competition among the rest to assume the highly-competitive ranks of a rich economy like Spain.

And in PoW's pattern of Europe back-peddling a lot of the non-traditional powers in foreign economics can or have risen to assume some status as an economic competitor to the European markets. But this can be discussed.

Vilage, I'd just like to add that during WWI, asides from mutinies in 1917, which were "solved" by higher salaries, a better permissions system, and better FOOD by Pétain, and low-level strikes, French society remained rather stable. The Socialists, who were the only ones who could have caused trouble, were in the government, so even though they were rather unhappy with the war, they couldn't really criticize the government. With the war lasting so long, of course, the situation would have changed, I can imagine. It's probable a more authoritarian regime would have surfaced, lead by Clémenceau, who received emergency powers in 1918. After a few years of that, I can't really tell. We would need to know more about the situation on the front.

Oh yeh, I am aware, Germany faced trouble quicker due to the blockade. But the fact that there were cracks showing in the military shows that the pressure of the war was having an effect. I mean, our version of the war lasts more than twice as long as the real deal.

Also, wouldn't the communists also be a potential threat? They were always a wild card in European politics. I can imagine a potential situation where food shortages and resource depletion causes a desperate population tired of war turning to extremist causes.

<Snipped quote by Veoline>

Oh yeh, I am aware, Germany faced trouble quicker due to the blockade. But the fact that there were cracks showing in the military shows that the pressure of the war was having an effect. I mean, our version of the war lasts more than twice as long as the real deal.

Also, wouldn't the communists also be a potential threat? They were always a wild card in European politics. I can imagine a potential situation where food shortages and resource depletion causes a desperate population tired of war turning to extremist causes.

Anarchists too. Unless the Anarchists were a done-deal by the 20th century.

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

Anarchists too. Unless the Anarchists were a done-deal by the 20th century.

Anarchists of that time period are sort of like Communists in the US during the fifties. I mean sure, they were around, but a lot of what people blamed on anarchists were something else entirely. A lot of times they were communists or break-away nationalists.

Isn't it a bit unreasonable to think that over 50 years after the end of the war, even with a terrible economic depression, European countries would not have recovered fully? Germany recovered from WWII pretty speedily, so if that is possible, anything is, really. Given, it had the Marshall plan and a debt erasure, but still.

Communists appeared in Europe only after the Russian Revolution, so I have no idea how things shaped out in PoW. In France, the Communist Party seceded from the SFIO (Socialist Party) in 1920. Without the Russian Revolution, it would probably have taken longer.

Anarchists were done with by the early 1900s. State repression in the last decade of the 19th century had seriously affected them.

We never wanted them to not recover. Hell, the entire point of the RP was that the US wasn't involved in the war and it ended differently, we didn't actually mean for Europe to be weak. Like, if I knew in the beginning where it would got and what part I would play, I probably would have picked a European nation to cover the bases.

The impression that they never recovered is incidental, caused by the fact we never got much in the way of consistent European posters. What we have to make up for now is the absence of these European powers in the RP so far. It is difficult for somebody to join and say France was always important, when they have had nothing to do with anything that has happened in the RP so far.

Communists appeared in Europe only after the Russian Revolution, so I have no idea how things shaped out in PoW. In France, the Communist Party seceded from the SFIO (Socialist Party) in 1920. Without the Russian Revolution, it would probably have taken longer.

This is not quite true. There had been a hard-line communist faction in most European countries since Marx, but it had always been in competition with the Social Democrats. All the Russian Revolution did was give the Communists a unified leadership in Europe, which did more harm than good in the end. Moscow's orders often contradicted the political realities of Europe, so the Communist parties were stuck between disobeying Moscow and losing international support, or hamstringing themselves and losing political maneuverability.

In Precipice, Moscow never takes control of the Communist movement in Europe, so they remain more competitive.

Isn't it a bit unreasonable to think that over 50 years after the end of the war, even with a terrible economic depression, European countries would not have recovered fully? Germany recovered from WWII pretty speedily, so if that is possible, anything is, really. Given, it had the Marshall plan and a debt erasure, but still.

Communists appeared in Europe only after the Russian Revolution, so I have no idea how things shaped out in PoW. In France, the Communist Party seceded from the SFIO (Socialist Party) in 1920. Without the Russian Revolution, it would probably have taken longer.

Anarchists were done with by the early 1900s. State repression in the last decade of the 19th century had seriously affected them.

Post WW2 Germany is a special case because it saw the US and friends mediating the forgiving of a lot of post-war debt. In the instance of France for example it was to get snuggy with America so they can get support to protect themselves from Communism. And repairing Germany was considered priority to create a bullwark against the Soviet Union, which had extensive control and influence over Eastern Europe. Likewise was Japan.

In this pretense we have a party providing a great deal of mediation in the post-war effects of war since dictating who and who should not get repaid after the war for the severe debts owed to them and general debt forgiveness. It also has an additional party willing to pay off at least some if not most of the war damages in that nation to some degree, accelerating that country's rebound post-war.

True it could be exaggerated to run it over fifties years, but I don't think I or Vilage have said for certain that the Depression itself ran for fifty years. But what we would be looking at are sort of long-term effects of it and arguably a stunting or reorganization of money in Europe that changes the dynamic on the continent.

EDIT - also what Vilage said. Assuming there's been long-reaching effects of the war that's still an effect today also helps to lend explanation as to why France has been so negligent to everything over-all. The only thing they have any likely, reasonable authority over still is Madagascar, and that may still be very iffy.

I agree with all you say, and I am certainly not saying the European powers are in any way as influential as in the age of imperialism, as they certainly have not appeared to be so, but in economic terms at least, the main Western European countries should not and could not have become total backwaters. After the depression, they would have at least moderately grown, not as fast as during the actual postwar period, but at least at the rhythm which prevailed before the Great War, that is, 1-2% yearly.

I agree. France should be recovered by now economically, and they should have some political clout. It is just that these things need to be weighed with the current balance of power so that Grey's France can grow into the RP organically.

Definitely.
I was just advocating for France to have survived somewhat. (hardly a surprise)

I would like to see another European power become a regular fixture in the storyline.

I would also like to see Feo and Hugs post something. Together holding hands if need be.

I got a question for you all then. What would you put on a nation sheet if you were playing as France? I just want to see your guys' answers to that question.

Nation: France
Leader: Zobi le negresse Vertes
History:

France got fucking got in WW1, son. They became fascist because PoW has too many communists already and sold all of North Africa to Spain because Googer said so. Now, they're sitting in Europe being all French and pissing people off and shit.

Seriously, though, that North African purchase was some booshit.

I got a question for you all then. What would you put on a nation sheet if you were playing as France? I just want to see your guys' answers to that question.

That France was fucked politically after the war. That they rebuilt but the regime was cautious about their international relations due to fear about another war. Then I would transition into setting up your story so you can roll right in

Lads, it's an important day in Ireland today.

Words 3830
Characters (with spaces)20693
Characters (without spaces) 16747
Sentences 339
Paragraphs 83

Current status of the Cape Town post. It's about 7 1/2 pages in so far. So... I am working on it! I just have a bad habit of hating my own writing, and putting off writing more because of it. But I'm gonna force myself to write more tomorrow, so if it goes well, the post will be out tomorrow. If not then... Maybe in a week?