<Snipped quote by Pepperm1nts> And if I just have the Central America territories, then I would get fucked by Mexico and Colombia. My claims are designed to give them pause before they decide to attack since I would be fairly powerful. Central America isn't like the United States or Europe. It doesn't have a strong economy since they have to be centered around agricultural products. Unlike the northern part of South America, they have a ton of oil. And oil produces way more money than food. That is the reason why I have taken lands from Colombia and Venezuela since it's where most of the oil is located.
If I have decided to stay in Central America, then I would be in a weak state. And that would give Mexico and/or Colombia reason to attack and take land.
And now that you've taken land, it gives Mexico, Columbia, Britain, and whoever else wants a slice of that Central American pie a reason to work together to bring you down. Not to mention rebels occupy more than half your claims, most of the infrastructure for getting that oil would've been damaged in your initial invasions, aaaand there's no way rebels would let you peacefully collect it. Central America has occupied the territories for less than ten years. Their control of the state is going to be weak, at best.
Basically, taking all that land fucks you over more than just taking Central America proper ever would.
<Snipped quote by Shyri> Oy, oy, get out of my region comrade. You've already got Poland and Lithuania, but you can't stick your fingers in every pie you find~
I mean, hey. The Kaiser has a claim on the Russian crown. I could just assert German power in Russia via that. But supporting a government run by one of his cousins seems like a better way to go about it. Hell, even his wife has a claim on the throne.
Edit: And, you know. Sticking fingers in other people's pie is kind of what the Germans have a history of doing.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Can't write an app yet but I'll probably do something centered around one of those two areas. I was just asking in case there was something established in canon. When I joined PoW back in the day Russia already had some established states so I was wondering if any remnant of that lore is being kept.
Also, if you go for a government in St. Petersburg, we can roll with saying it's funded/supported by the Germans as the "true" Russian government. Don't really have the reach if you go for a Moscow-based one though.
@The Spectre I think that, by the fifties, the British would be well off enough to retaliate in force to any attempt at their Caribbean territories.
Nation Name: The Russian Empire/Russian State/Muscovite Tsardom/Moscow
Leader: Aleksandra “Sasha” Wrangel
Location:
History:
“When the Great War began, the Russian people were an unstoppable force united behind their Tsar. When it came to it's end, however, they were nothing but wounded dogs, waiting to bite anybody who stepped to close. A wave of Red stirred upon the horizon, ready to swallow Russia and her people, drowning them in fire and blood.
The war was, to say the least, the Tsar's greatest failure. For every ten sons that left for the front lines, only four would come back. The Germans were relentless in their slaughter, and the Russian treasury could hardly keep up enough to compensate the losses. The people were made to suffer in order to fund the Tsar's war, and they soon turned against him. Eventually, the German's Western front became strained, and they stopped pushing on Russia, leaving our borders at a permanent ceasefire. Nobody dared to move.
Back in Petrograd, the Bolshevik's made their move on the capital, but could not stand against the might of the Imperial Army. With a bolstered confidence, the Tsar marched our people into the Bolshevik strongholds in the East and South. With these moves, he was able to regain the trust of his people, who were ready to feed him to the fishes just days before. This grew even more when the Tsar destroyed the Bolshevik's hiding out in the Caucasus. The Tsar's people were able to spin this in his favor.
'The losses in the war were not the Tsar's fault!' they would cry. 'The Bolshevik's took German bribes! They shot their fellow Russians in the back! They sabotaged their supplies!' they would tell the people, and the people believed them. The Tsar successfully saved his crown.
The years that followed were peaceful, at least, for those loyal to the Tsar. Anybody suspected, accused, or even, framed, to have been part of the revolution found themselves fleeing the country, unless they wished to face a fate worse than death. The people trusted in the Tsar entirely, and watched blindly as they signed away their rights, giving one man absolute power.
In my opinion, 1936 was when things began to fall apart. The Tsar did the unthinkable. In a desperate attempt to gain back some lost territories, he allied with those German hounds, who had slaughtered his people in the not-distant past. They worked hand in hand to conquer the Baltic states, Germans and Russian's blindly marching forward. Much to my Grandfather's dismay, my Father was one of those who marched with them.
Ten years later, the Tsar died. You should have seen the look on my Grandfather's face. He was both sad, of course, because he was fiercely loyal to this man, but... he was also at peace. The way he saw it, the Tsar's mind must have gone first, which is why he would do something so stupid as work with the Germans. For the next two years, my grandfather would no longer read the news, he would no longer speak to old friends from the war. He lived, alone, in a house in the country, until his neighbor found him dead one morning. My father petitioned the state to have a memorial raised of him, to which they agreed. The Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel memorial was erected in the center of Moscow by the Autumn of 1948.
In the following years, my father followed the new Tsar, Alexandre IV, blindly. He served as one of his generals, ordering the death's of many traitors, and turning a blind eye whenever the Tsar asked him to. I would come home from school to stories of how my father killed this many traitors today! Or, how he managed to catch a Bolshevik in the middle of his lunch! He was such a damnably proud man. He didn't deserve his fate.
After returning from Finland in 1951, my Father got to enjoy a lengthy vacation. We went to France, Italy, and Spain, and truly enjoyed ourselves. Upon returning, it seemed something had changed. My father was always away from the house, and when he was home, he was never truly there. It seemed like something was going on, that me, my brother, and our mother were not allowed to know about. He was stressed beyond belief, and what hair he had left had gone grey by Autumn.
Then, it finally happened. The news spread over Russia like wildfire. The Tsar was dead, along with his entire family, and a handful of his greatest generals. Among those, my father was included. I still don't know if he knew it was coming, or if something else was going on. I never got the chance to ask.
The country quickly fell into chaos. My older brother was quickly raised to a position of power, as the son of Lev Wrangel, grandson of Pyotr Wrangel, a former soldier, an active member in the government of Moscow, he found himself standing among some of Russia's greatest generals, as part of a military faction that was focused on maintaining order in Moscow as the rest of the state fell apart.
Eventually, there was a split in the leadership. Half of the men in Moscow ran to Petrograd, while the other half remained. My brother fled to Petrograd, chasing stories of a new Tsar. The men who remained begrudgingly asked me to aid them, as my family name carried weight, and if it was learned that my brother was off chasing a Phantom Tsar, we would surely lose numbers. I begrudgingly accepted the role, but slowly grew to like it. I was raised as somebody who would never leave the house, and would serve my husband effortlessly. Suddenly, I was in a position of power. My advice was trusted by men who would never even look my way before.
As time went on, I proved my worth as a leader in this faction. Slowly, the surrounding areas came to kneel before me, even with the rumour of a new Tsar in Petrograd confirmed. Some of the others wanted to, and did, leave for this Tsar, but I was not so easily swayed. This boy-Tsar looked more fit to sweep the floors of some shop, let alone run a nation. Apparently royal blood carries more weight than logic, though. The greatest and oldest of Moscow's leadership had left, leaving me at the top of the food chain all of a sudden.
That's when the idea came to me. If being a Tsar hold so much weight, then why don't I just become one? After all, if this child could do it, why should I not be able to? People, of course, didn't take too kindly to the change. Not only was I not noble, they said I was hardly Russian, because by grandfather had Germanic blood, and, of course, the horrible fact that I was a woman.
It was easy enough to bring them to heel, just as it will be easy enough to bring all of Russia to heel. First things first, though. We have to kill the Tsar in Petrograd.”
- Tsar Aleksandra “Sasha” Wrangel of the Muscovite Tsardom
Along with Japan, Crimea, and Central America, I believe. (Though I might have missed/be forgetting 1 or 2.)
EDIT: For clarity, on that map, Romania, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg are marked as grey just to clarify borders, but are NPC's. Then Poland and Lithuania are available, but are German puppets.
The German Empire was one of very few to make it through the Great War having gained something. The Russian Surrender in 1917 saw Eastern Poland and the Baltic shift into German control, and allowed Germany to throw everything at the Western front. However, nearly 6 months later, Austria started to lose traction, and Kaiser Wilhelm feared they would capitulate if something wasn't done. 1/3 of the German Army in Belgium was redirected South, to aid the Austrian army, and provide them with proper leadership. The strain on the Western front caused by the shift in the army eventually led to the French managing a successful push into Belgium in 1918, where the trenches would sit until the end of the war. Many Germans blamed the weak Austrian army for their failure to win the war, which is a sentiment that many still hold to this day.
Once the war was over, Germany was in shambles. The only thing that kept it's economy from collapsing in on itself was the sale of stockpiled military equipment and lease of mercenary forces to the White Army in Russia, to aid them in their civil war.
Back at home, soldiers had returned to their homes, only to be drafted into work at factories, farms, and construction. The state promised that once the economy stabilized, all veterans would be compensated for everything they went through in the last years of the war. That promise was enough motivation to keep them all hard at work for a good while, while the state frantically tried to find a way to keep their promise. Around this time, revolts started to appear in the larger German colonies due to lack of support from home. The most notable was that of Paul von Letow-Vorbeck in Tanganyika, who, with nearly the whole of the colonial army at his back, overthrew the colonial governor and titled himself “The Kaiser in Africa.”
The German state tried it's best to keep news of Vorbeck turning traitor out of the public eye, but it, of course, eventually made it's way to them. At nearly the same time, the mercenaries from Russia returned home, refusing to keep dying for another country. They also brought word with them that their side was losing, and the Russian money was no longer coming in. The flood of all this information at once led the populace to the same conclusion: Nobody was getting their compensation. They fought, died, and were now slaving away for nothing. The state lied. The Kaiser lied. At this point, they turned to a man who was speaking out against the state, and who had never failed them during the war. August von Mackensen. As more and more people rallied behind him, the Kaiser feared the worst, and ordered the assassination of von Mackensen in 1931. The assassin failed, however, and was captured. After a brief interrogation, he outed the Kaiser. The following year, the Kaiser was found dead in his office, rifle wound in his back, and the window shattered. Despite never finding the shooter, Mackensen was blamed, and, two days later, the German Civil War began.
Many regard the German Civil War as being even more horrendous than the Great War, as it pitted Germans who were tired of fighting against each other. It was a necessary war, that forced men to do many, many unnecessary things. To make matters worse, about four months in, the Poles and Lithuanians rebelled, demanding independence from the broken German state. The Empire nearly buckled, but a successful guerrilla operation in Bavaria lead by Wilhelm IV resulted in the death of von Mackensen. The Prince was captured, but managed to escape a couple months later during a raid staged by his brother. With their figurehead dead, and their last chance at victory at the negotiating table freed, the disorganized rebels quickly fell apart and surrendered, ending the Civil War on October 1935. The Germans took back Poland the following Summer, but found they reached their limit and had to stop their advance before they got around to the Baltic. Poland was designated a protectorate of the Empire, allowed mostly full autonomy so as to prevent another rebellion form emerging.
Between 1937 and 1956, Germany was focused solely on recovering from nearly 20 years of devastation. It holed up, and shut itself away from the world for the most part, only really interacting with essential trade partners, and it's neighbors. It wasn't until the death of Wilhelm III, and the ascension of Wilhelm IV that the empire truly saw life breathed into it again.
In 1957, on the 20th anniversary of the German Recovery period, Wilhelm marched German troops into Lithuania, aiming to reassert German hegemony over the territory. The Lithuanians fell within a week, and the Kaiser ordered the troops to continue North until they found the coast, taking Kurland from a broken Latvia as well. With his show of force accomplished, Wilhelm named the Baltic State a client state of the Empire. New flags were drawn up for both the Baltic and Poland, representing both their subservience to the German Empire, and their autonomous nature.
The fall of Russia has reigned in a whole new set of problems for Germany. Large amounts of Russian nationals enter Poland and the Baltic every day, searching for refuge and stability away from the horrors of their home. The visage of order that is the German state serves as a stark contrast to the lawless waste sitting at it's Eastern border. That same visage, however, also draws in a variety of criminals who simply want to take from the German territories, before escaping back home and disappearing into the lawless wastes. Because of this, Wilhelm IV has started plotting ways to bring order back to the East, however long it may take, for the security, and prosperity, of the German people.
That being said, Aaron's suggestion is probably most accurate considering the post-Russian chaos.
I mean, it's the territory Poland held between 1922 and 1939. Without WW2, it's understandable it would still hold those territories, regarded as "Eastern Poland" throughout this period of history. Especially since it existed as an entity before the Russian-explosion. With no Russia invading it to take that land, either, in 1960 it would thoroughly be a Polish territory. Even if it's had to deal with a refugee crisis for 5 years. Russia exploding doesn't suddenly make it no longer Poland's border.
I always knew, deep in my kokoro, that I was a big baka. I, of course, place the blame on kami-sama for not giving me a good senpai.
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;">I always knew, deep in my kokoro, that I was a big baka. I, of course, place the blame on kami-sama for not giving me a good senpai. </div>
Chapatrap
