World 1910-1920 (Chaos)

The world's situation in 1910
After the and the defeat and dismemberment of Socialist France in 1890, people hoped for a more peaceful time after the turbulent 19th century. However, tensions between the powers still existed, and they didn't become better:


 * The Russias had never forgotten their defeat in the anti-Russian War. South Russia had become a friend and ally of New Rome, thanks to the winning personality of the great emperor Ludovico, and even Novorossiya had come closer, but OTOH, both Russias wished for revenge against the Germans and Canadians.
 * New Rome wasn't very fond when Germany invaded Hungary in 1882, since it had belonged to New Rome's sphere of influence since it was liberated in the anti-Russian War.
 * OTOH, the Germans had decided that they definitely got the shorter end of the stick when France was divided - the protectorate of Lothringen they won paled compared to the new kingdom of Gaul, which had rounded out the New Roman empire.
 * The Germans also envied Novorossiya and New Rome for their rich conquests of North China and India respectively. Which didn't stop those two powers from becoming suspicious when the Germans claimed all of sub-Saharan Africa for themselves.
 * After slavery was abolished in Braseal, the anti-slavery groups in German Atlantis and Canada criticized New Rome louder and louder for keeping slavery.
 * Re-united China wasn't willing to tolerate Russian presence in Beijing and the rest of North China. And though it sounds unbelievable, the radical Catholic Nipponese even surpassed them in their hate for Russia.
 * The events of Kalifornien and Alyeska.

Population statistics: North Atlantis (Canada and both Northern and Southern US) is more populated than OTL North America, for being settled earlier, as are the Russian lands, where the population is 50% higher (in Siberia even more). Sub-saharan Africa (for the new crops being introduced centuries later) and South Atlantis have a lower population, however. Everything else is similar to OTL.

Development of science: Compared to OTL, the Chaos TL is ahead especially in astronomy (they already discovered Pluto and many other celestial bodies earlier than OTL, and only the lack of a relativity theory prevents them from advancing further), electricity, communication, and codebreaking. The last world-changing invention so far was the car - with a twist: While New Rome already prefers gasoline as a fuel, the Germans prefer coal and experiment with grain alcohol, and the Russians have built cars running on electricity.

This decade was overshadowed by the first World War, which went from June 14th of 1911 to July 29th of 1916. Except for a few small nations, almost every country participated in it.

Events of 1914
The many Indian soldiers who served in the different places of the New Roman empire have to put down their arms and return to India. Not all of them do, however; many stay in the breakaway states of the New Roman empire, serving for the new governments instead. The final transport will take as long as summer 1915.

The Germans and their allies start talking about how to divide the spoils of war. This proves to be very hard, however; some states have no territorial claims against New Rome, but want their fair share of the cake; and the war against the Russias is not over yet. Later, the Staatenkonferenz (conference of states) will emerge from these talks.

The German Jews who were interned during the war are released again; many however decide to leave the Germanies and emigrate to Judea, being fed up with Germany.

September: The loss of the emperor leaves the New Roman government in trouble. For a short time, the Council of Imperial provinces had hoped to keep the empire together, but now they find out that the people in the provinces think different than their representatives, who got their posts for their ability to work together with the emperor, who isn't anymore. Louisiane declares independence first; Central Atlantis and California follow, as does Algiers (still more French than Italian). Things in Europe aren't much better: The Basques declare an independent republic and topple the former grand duke. Germany, which has troops nearby, forbids to interfere.

Seeing Greece in danger being overrun by the Seljuks, the Russians and Bulgarians send troops to occupy the country.

New Roman officer Italo Malaparte flees via Greece and Bulgaria to the Russians, tells them about the importance of the German tank weapon.

Hoping to get more support from the Finns, the Germans proclaim the Finnish republic. Their Scandinavian collaborators aren't too happy about this, having hoped that they'd get Finland instead.

The Germans send their navy into the Mediterranean, occupy Greek islands, including Cyprus.

October: Catalonia (formerly part of the kingdom of Occitania and directly under the emperor) also becomes a republic; king Benedetto of Andalusia seeks his future with the Germans, also leaves the empire; in Asturia, the twelve-year-old grand duke also is toppled and has to flee; and finally, even old king Alfonso XIII of Castille can't deny the wishes of the Spaniards and declares Castille independent.

In Atlantis, California (OTL South and Central California plus Baja) declares independence; the big province of Mexico follows, as does Florida. And in Africa, Morocco and Egypt declare independence.

Central Atlantis makes a treaty with German Atlantis, renting the Atlantic-Pacific canal to the latter.

November: The Castillian break with New Rome leads to the Portuguese protectorate declaring independence too. Internal struggles between a monarchist and a republican faction follow. Castillians who dream of a stronger Spain (including the heir Juan) aren't happy about this. OTOH, Asturia declares they're willing to join Castille again.

New Rome tries to re-occupy Egypt from the Cyrenaica, but Germany forbids it; when they feel the Italians don't comply, their battleships bombard Tobruq and Benghazi.

A German newspaper uses the term of "Southern Chaos" for the first time.

December: Castille and Portugal start a war.

In Nouvelle Orleans, the Socialist harbor workers rise against the government, which has to flee the city. Due to the breakdown of the New Roman empire, trade in the city is down, and the workers are unemployed. It takes some time until order is restored.

Events of 1915
General: The post-war economical crisis and the unclear future of the new countries leads to many unrests. Often, this causes anti-semite reactions. Jews start leaving their countries for Judea.

The Italians, who until now were a privileged minority in the areas which became independent after the war (every Italian starting a plantage there was made "Padrone" by the empire, which was the lowest noble rank - under the baron), start leaving said areas for Italy proper, Italia Nuova or Italian North Africa (OTL Tunisia and Libya).

January: Uprisings in OTL Yucatan force the Mexican government to react.

February: Until now, the New Roman province of Caroline (OTL Carolinas and Georgia) has stayed loyal to the government. Now however, clashes between Italian- and French-descended people lead to uprisings of the latter. When the central government tries to put them down, German troops occupy Roma Nuova (OTL Richmond) and Charlesbourg (OTL Charleston), make sure Caroline becomes independent. This leads to even more bad blood.

March: In Besancon, the capital of Lothringen / Lorraine, the old and respected politician Daniel Legrand makes a speech in parliament (first in French, then in German). He speaks about how the people of Lorraine have fought at Germany's side; he also admits that the French occupation of Germany in the 18th and early 19th century was wrong; but finally, he points out that this was the 20th century, and asks the German governments for nothing but a reunification with France proper. The Germans don't want such trouble, try to get more time. But the French understood him, and from now on, in the (still German-occupied) French cities demonstrations for a united France start.

April: Castille and Portugal make peace, giving Galicia back to Castille.

May: Young state of Syria (which also has Palestine) feels threatened by the growing Jewish population in Judea. The Jewish-Syrian war starts. Many Jews who stayed in the diaspora until now go to Judea, to fight against the Syrians.

June: After long and hard negotiations, the Bündnis powers make a peace treaty with the sad rest of New Rome, which is more of a multi-continental Italy now. Braseal takes the conquered areas in OTL Venezuela and Guayana; German Atlantis keeps occupied Caribbean, Texas and Montana, which are supposed to become settling grounds for German surplus population; European Germany claims Slovenia; Persia moves its border with India to the Indus valley; Argentinien, Siam and Canada, plus other minor powers, only take money as spoils; China takes OTL North Birma; the Seljuks get Cilicia back; finally, there's the question about what to do with India. Finally the Germanies decide to keep the northern half and to administrate it together, while the South stays with New Rome. In addition, slavery in the New Roman empire is declared void.

Another point that enrages the French is that Normandy is supposed to become a Dutch satellite, and Brittany a German one. The demonstrations become uprisings; the puppet government of Normandy is unable to do anything.

July: In Algiers, French and Berbs clash for several months.

August: After long discussions, Morocco proclaims the republic of the Cortes.

September: After hard fights in French cities, the French resistance against the dismemberment is broken. Instead, they act passive resistance against the Germans. Preoccupied in the East, the German leadership is happy that the west is quiet again.

October: Castille attacks Andalusia, aiming at a reunification of old Spain.

November: Andalusia asks Germany for help, offering harbors for the new German Mediterranean navy. Germany accepts, sends troops.

December: When the coming winter leads to shortages in food, new uprisings in Normandy start again. For a while the situation is undecided, but at Christmas, a new player enters the scene: After the fled French Socialists in Britain made propaganda for their cause, the Brits decide to send volunteers over the Channel. Their troops occupy the Channel Islands, land at the beaches and take Caen and Le Havre, where they set up a counter-government. Lots of weapons are transported to arm the French against the Germans.

Events of 1916
January: The uprisings throughout France start again. In Lorraine, the government declares its break with Germany and the reunification with France. Socialists reach Rouen.

Jews conquer Jerusalem.

February: Socialist pirates help capturing Brest, while French-British troops coming from Normandy take Rennes. At the outskirts of Paris, Socialist and Germans battle. In Paris, the German occupation troops are bound in an unwinnable guerilla war.

March: French-British troops defeat a Dutch army near Amiens, later that month reach the important industrial city of Lille. German and Breton troops in Brittany have to capitulate; Paris is liberated by the Socialists.

April: Socialists have reached the Loire in the South and Reims in the East. Britain and Socialist French government make an "everlasting alliance".

In Samarkand, the independence of Choresm is proclaimed.

May: Heavy battles in the Marne and Seine valleys. At the end, the Socialists win, which gives them Lorraine. They also advance into Wallonia. Swiss prepare for the defense of Alsace.

June: Socialists sweep south, take Lyon. Many Germans protest against the unnecessary engagement in little wars while the big war is still going on. The German government loses the nerves, makes an armistice with the Socialists, who now get all of France. POWs are exchanged.

July: Socialists bring Occitania under their control. Germany secretly encourages Italian volunteers to fight the Socialists in Southern France.

After the World War
Late 1916: The Germans take over most of South India, including Golkonda and Puducherry - Chandramoorthy's home.

August: Socialists clash with Basques, take Euskaria north of the Pyrenees. When the Socialists threaten the republic of Catalonia, Germany (in peace now) threatens them, so they back off.

Germany tells the Russians that a unification of their two states is forbidden.

The delayed Olympic Games are celebrated in Martinsburg. The Italians and Russians are excluded, as are the Socialist nations.

September: Socialists have brought all of Southern France under their control. The Italians have retreated, rely on their fortifications along the new border.

Arab volunteers join the Syrians, start to drive the Jews back.

Marseille conquered by Socialist troops. Many Jews flee to Greater Judea. Shayna Löwenpferd's family stays, however - her father is a radical orthodox Jew who sees the existence of a Jewish state as wrong. Soon however, he loses his shop, and the family becomes even poorer.

October: New Rome is unable to pay the quarterly rate of their reparations. The Germans decide to occupy the rest of India in retail. This is the last straw: The moderate-right government of New Rome falls, all the politicians put down their offices, not wanting to cooperate with the Germans who seem to think they could break all the rules now.

November: When the Germans see that the Italians aren't willing to negotiate anymore, they one-sidedly declare the annexation of India and the Caribbean islands. The Russians also protest.

December: In the Italian-dominated New Rome, now without government, the [i]famiglia[/i] begins to form - an "official unofficial" network based mainly on the Imperial Catholic church, the lower nobles and the owners of plantages and small firms.

Events of 1917
General events: After the defeat and the peace treaties, antisemitism in Russia lives up too. The Russian Jews flee to Judea.

Liberated and escaped slaves from Italia Nuova and other states flee to German Atlantis and Canada, soon forming a visible minority there.

January: Spaniards in Northern Mexico (OTL Arizona / New Mexico) rise up when an Aztec-descended ruler takes power in central Mexico.

February: China re-asserts its influence in the Himalaya states (Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim).

March: The new German administrators arrive in Delhi.

April: In Sicily, the first band of "Fascisti" is formed - no party, but groups of armed thugs who keep down enemies of the "new order", including former slaves.

May: The negotiations between the Germans and Russia are in deadlock: Germany's deep in debt, and the government doesn't know how to repay them to its citizens; OTOH, Russia is as broke and far from being able to pay. Finally, a compromise is found: German corporations (like Krafft, the biggest producer of arms in the Ruhr area) will pay the German debts and receive new property in the acquired lands in return.

June: Florida tries to re-introduce slavery, thinking that the abolition only was valid in New Rome, which they aren't part of anymore. After German protests, they scrap the idea.

July: The situation of the Jews is pretty awry - they lost all their conquests, even were driven behind the pre-war border, and neither Germany nor anyone else is interested in their fate. Now however, the trickle of Russian Jews becomes bigger and bigger.

August: Novorossiya signs the Treaty of Warsaw, accepting the independence of the new states (Finland-Estonia, Choresm, Azerbaijan, Kurdistan) and ceding Alyeska to Canada, its last lands in Cascadia to German Atlantis, Ezo to Nippon, North China to China, and North Persia to Persia.

September: The first dispute between the Bündnis allies: During the war, Nippon had reconquered some Canadian-owned islands in the Pacific occupied by the Russians; now, Canada wants them back, but the Nipponese deny, demand the islands for themselves.

October: "The shock of Lublin": South Russia not only has to cede Pontus to the Seljuks and let Georgia, Armenia and (Greek-speaking) Trapezunt become independent and break its ties with the Balcan states, but also leave half its territory (roughly OTL Ukraine) as a protectorate to Germany.

November: A Russian Jew (a former army officer) arriving in Judea gets the new name of Ariel Ben-David. He joins the army, helps organizing the Russian Jews willing to fight.

December: Irish-Catholic pope Patricius VI decides to send missionaries into the new countries, seeing an opportunity.

Events of 1918
General events: In occupied South Russia, people start the "secret resistance": Parts of the vast wheat, iron and coal production "disappear" during work, to be smuggled into the rest of Russia or to be consumed by the population.

January: In the Ruhrgebiet, returning German soldiers find out that their jobs have been destroyed: The German mining corporations have acquired lots of iron and coal mines in OTL Ukraine; not wanting to "spoil the prices" by exceeding supply, they decided to shut down mines in Germany and Poland. After years of fighting and other sufferings, this is the last straw. After a few days, there are uprisings in all important industrial cities in Germany.

February: The Socialists decide to help their German brothers, start a thrust into Germany coming from Liege/Lüttich, take Aachen, aim at the Ruhr. A second thrust goes into the Netherlands, towards the Rhine delta.

Ariel Ben-David defeats the Syrians in the battle of Ashkelon, starts to drive them back.

March: Despite of the measures taken by the German government, the Socialists can break through to the Ruhr. All the land west of the Rhine is under their control (except the Palatinate, and Alsace, where the Swiss troops still resist).

April: German sailors don't want to fight against the united Socialist (British-French-Dutch) fleet. More loyal troops from Atlantis have to be sent - which takes time. Meanwhile the Socialists advance in the Netherlands and north of Westphalia.

May: When the German government has managed to build up a solid front against the Socialists, another strike throws them again in confusion: The Danes, Norwegians and Swedes rise against the satellite government, and the Socialists intervene in Norway, smuggling in arms to support them.

June: Switzerland agrees to join talks about unification with Germany, after French socialists have conquered Swiss Alsace and the Palatinate. In the north, most of Norway and Sweden have been lost to the Socialists, who also have crossed the Weser near Bremen. Their leaders shout for encouragement: "If Germany falls, all the world will become Socialist!" Only Finland-Estonia stays loyal to Germany.

Ariel Ben-David retakes Jerusalem.

July: Socialists reach Hamburg, start to invade Jutland.

August: Surprisingly, the Socialists offer an armistice, if Germany leaves Scandinavia. The reason: Internal disputes between the French and the other people. Both sides want breathing time, so the armistice is signed.

September: Alfred Kleiber is re-elected chancellor in German Atlantis for his third six-year term.

October: Ariel Ben-David takes Haifa.

November: On November 8th, Germany makes peace with the Socialist nations. The border is drawn along the last front line, which goes from the Baltic (east of Lübeck) through former states Braunschweig (going west of Hannover) and Nassau to the Rhine, which becomes the border from Bonn to Basel. Now, the war is really over. And European Germany is wedged between the Socialists and equally vengeful Russia and Italy.

December: Alfred Kleiber offers the other German states the chance of the "big unification" (the "small unification" being a union between European Germany and Switzerland, maybe the Netherlands [this was what they thought about before the Socialists invaded!]): A union of all the Germans in Atlantis, Europe and Argentine.

Events of 1919
January: The German unification talks begin. European Germany isn't in the comfortable situation to disagree. The Argentinians, bauernschlau [1] as they are, demand a lot of developments for their lands from Martinsburg [2]: Railroads, roads, canals, power plants, ports and airports, colleges and universities. But they get it.

[1] lit. "smart as a peasant" - a term for a special smartness, describing someone who can't be fooled easily, even if lacking formal knowledge. [2] Capital of German Atlantis - and after the unification, of the whole Germany.

February: Ariel Ben-David starts invading the Lebanon. The Jews manage to make alliances with the local Christians against the Muslims.

March: The (European) German parliament accepts the unification with German Atlantis. The treaty includes that strong troops from Atlantis are permanently stationed in Europe. Conscription becomes also permanent throughout the German Reich (as the unified Germany is now called, even abroad).

April: Alfonso XIII of Castille dies, the throne goes to his grandnephew Juan III, who already co-governed in the last years and stands for an expansionist policy.

May: Ariel Ben-David conquers Amman.

June: The Socialist Block proudly proclaims their new invention: Workers from Britain and Scandinavia now can make holiday in France.

July: Argentinien accepts the German unification.

August: The big battle of Golan. The Jews crush the Syrian army, march on Damascus.

September: (Pan-)German chancellor Kleiber dies. The Germans mourn, the Italians and Russians celebrate, and afterwards, everyone wonders how the world will develop now.

October: After long discussions, the Socialist nations in Europe decide to form the Socialist Block: They'll have a unified foreign politics, no inner borders, a united army and navy, and a common currency, the European Pound (French: Livre; German: Pfund; Scandinavian languages: Pund; Dutch: Pond). The capital is in Brussels.

November: The Jews take Damascus. The Jewish-Syrian War is over; most of the Muslims leave the country, scatter over the Muslim world.

December: In Argentinien, the first of the public works negotiated in the unification talks is finished: The Technische Hochschule Argentinien/Neustadt für Delizierung und Eisenverarbeitung, short: T.H.A.N.D.E. (Technical university/college of Neustadt/Argentine for refining and iron processing.)