https://tyrelius.github.io/Rise-of-an-Empire/
- Version 0.1.0
- Vichy Edition
- Version 0.2.0
- CSA Edition
- Version 0.3.0
- Red Edition
- Version 0.4.0
- Pre-Legacy Edition
- Version 0.5.0
- Legacy Edition
| Nations | Free at Start | Can Be Freed |
|---|---|---|
| Vichy France | X | |
| Socialist Italy | X | |
| Confederate States | X | |
| Quebec | X | |
| Newfoundland | X | |
| Abyssinia | X | |
| Palestine | X | |
| Israel | X | |
| Jordan | X | |
| Lebanon | X |
In the closing days of 1860, South Carolina secedes from the United States after Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th President of the United States. As compromises continue to fail, the early days of 1861 sees Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas also leave the Union, and together with South Carolina, they form the Confederate States of America. In response, the U.S. government quickly granted Kansas statehood and admitted it to the Union. After hostilities break out at Fort Sumter in April, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina also leave the Union to join the Confederacy. In late 1861, 50 counties in northwest Virginia form a breakaway government, and in early 1862, they form the new state of West Virginia, thus splitting Virginia between the two American nations.
Queen Victoria issues a declaration of neutrality in May, 1861, that serves as recognition of Southern belligerency, a status that provides Confederate ships the same privileges in foreign ports that U.S. ships receive. During a tour of the United States in the Summer of 1861, Prince Napoleon, the cousin of Emperor Napoleon III, meets with Lincoln at a disastrous dinner party, speaks with Union and Confederate generals, and visits the Western campaign’s battle for Missouri, The Prince is highly impressed with the Confederate Army. Despite the poor impression of the Union and the prospect of Confederate aid in France’s Imperial ambitions for Mexico, France maintains an official stance of neutrality.
In November 1861, two Confederate diplomats are illegally seized from a British ship en route to the UK and France. The situation provides the Southerners with leverage to push for full recognition of the Confederate States, and in February, 1862, they successfully petition for joint French-British diplomatic recognition of the C.S.A. With Anglo-American relations already strained, and not wanting to risk war with the European powers while the South was in open rebellion, in addition to the economic risks associated with such a war, Lincoln has the captured diplomats freed and issues a formal apology to the British.
In Europe, the British are also against the idea of war. The ambitions of Napoleon III and the rise of Bismarck in Prussia are enough to keep watch over; however, a weakened United States would provide economic and strategic opportunities in Central America that could be beneficial to British power in Europe. Though officially maintaining a policy of neutrality in the war, the United Kingdom and France begin to provide unofficial help to the Confederates in the form of financing and covert naval operations to allow trade to continue through the Northern blockade of Southern ports, keeping the Southern economy strong enough to maintain the war effort.
Realizing that Washington could not intervene in Mexico as long as the Confederacy controlled Texas, France invaded Mexico in December, 1861. With the aid of the French and Spanish, the French take initial control of the main Mexican port of Veracruz, but when the Spanish and British realize that the French ambition is to conquer Mexico, they withdraw their forces. In the ensuing war, the United States declares support for the democratically elected government of the Mexican Republic, and the Confederate States offers support to the French cause of establishing the Second Mexican Empire as a monarchist ally in the Western Hemisphere. Mexico is drawn into the larger conflict of the American Civil War, with conservatives in Mexico supporting the French forces, while liberals support the republican government-in-exile. With the inability to maintain a policy of neutrality between the U.S.A. and C.S.A. while waging open war in Mexico against forces supported by the U.S. government, the French send forces to aid the Confederates in breaking the Northern blockade. When the Northern blockade is broken in late 1862, the British begin shipping humanitarian aid to both of the American governments, and with the aid of the French, begin negotiations for a ceasefire. French forces take control of Mexico City in the Summer of 1863 and proclaim a Catholic Empire, offering the crown to the Austrian Prince Maximilian, the younger brother of Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph I. Maximilian I of Mexico is crowned in the Spring of 1864, and the Mexican government-in-exile is disbanded.
With negotiations opened between the U.S. and C.S. governments, and fears of the war spreading into other parts of the Western Hemisphere, threatening the security of not only the remaining territorial claims of European powers, but the balance of power in Europe itself, the remaining European powers declare diplomatic recognition of the Confederate States and find a de facto establishment of independence, eliminating the U.S. position that the Southern states are nothing more than rebels. A ceasefire is declared in July of 1863, a week after French forces capture Mexico City. Official hostilities are resolved with the Treaty of Mexico City in the Summer of 1864, ending the war and opening diplomatic relations between the U.S. and C.S. governments. All seceded states will remain a part of the C.S.A.; the U.S.A. is allowed to admit West Virginia as a state; the Indian territory is granted to the C.S.A. due to support of the Confederacy by the natives living there; the New Mexico Territory is split between both nations, with the western half becoming the Union territory of Arizona; the remaining border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri are to hold public referendums within one year to decide whether to join the Union or the Confederacy. Maryland and Kentucky join the Confederacy in 1865, while Delaware votes overwhelmingly to remain in the Union, as did Missouri, though by a narrow margin. Everything else north of the 37th Latitude would remain U.S. territory. The treaty also stipulated that the Confederacy must abolish slavery within 25 years; failure to do so would result in the immediate termination of trade agreements between the C.S.A. and European nations, who were quickly finding other places to source cotton from, such as Egypt. To assist in the effort, the Treaty of Monrovia was signed in 1867 between the C.S.A. and Liberia to provide a new home for formerly disenfranchised people as the abolition of slavery was phased in.
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Story: 1861, South Carolina and other states cede from the United States. By 1863, the South convinces Britain and France that cotton is king, and receive minimal support from British and French forces under condition of the end of slavery by 1885. The CSA won the American Civil War, and successfully ceded from the USA. They chose not to occupy the North, nor bring the North under their control, as they were only fighting for their freedom, from the industrialist way of life that had overcome Washington and the North, in stark contrast to the agriculturalist ideals of the South and a different way of life. The CSA expands to the west, and through their own manifest destiny draw up plans for war with Mexico in order to claim its north regions as their own. Tijuana becomes their port on the Pacific after the successful triumph over Mexican forces south of Texas and the Arizona territory. In 1875, the CSA begins the integration of slaves into normal society, but restricting their freedom through the use of Jim Crow laws. Many chose to defect to Spanish controlled Cuba or Puerto Rico. Come 1898, the CSS Arkansas blows up in Havana, causing the CSA to declare war on Spain. The CSA takes control of Spanish Caribbean holdings, and wins key battles against the Spanish navy. Having no presence in the Pacific to matter, the Philippines remain under Spanish control. The Spanish offer peace to the CSA, which is accepted under condition that half of the remaining Spanish navy gets turned over to the CSA so that it can protect its new Caribbean holdings. The turn of the century brings upon the Panama Canal project from the United States in order to link the east coast to the west coast, far reducing sailing times, but bringing Northern shipping through Southern controlled waters. 1912 sees Cuba admitted to the CSA as a state, and 1913 sees Puerto Rico join them. The First World War breaks out in Europe, and eventually the Zimmerman Note makes its way into Confederate hands. When the CSA sees the Entente's plans to bring Mexico into the war to stop American goods from reaching the Allied powers (long time customers of Southern goods and Northern weapons) and bring historical lands back under Mexican control from the western CSA, the CSA declares war on the Entente, joining their former Civil War allies in a fight against Germany. The United States, seeing their Southern brethren building a grand army and navy decide to join the war effort as well, and try to reduce the tensions the two nations have had since the 1860's by fighting side by side once again. The Allied powers win the war in Europe as more than a million American soldiers join the front lines, mostly Negro soldiers from the South. After the war, the United States goes into a state of relative economic growth as it generates strong trade ties with the South. Racial issues in the South begin to take over politics throughout the late 1920's, and by the time the US stock market crashes in 1929, bringing down the CS market with it, a fascist revolution takes over the South. Negros become second class citizens by Constitutional amendment, soon expanded to Mexican and Latin American descendants. The South gives rise to the idea of a Master Race similar to the ideas of the rising National Socialist Workers' Party in Germany. Tensions with the US have risen to heights last seen right after the Civil War as trade with the US in the midst of depression has all but ceased, as well as the promotion that all men are equal in the United States. To try to bring balance back to the US economy, the US institutes new socialist measures to help realize the dream of equality and bread on the table for all. The newly elected Roosevelt brings with him a new socialist government under the Communist Party to address the social unrest within the USA. Wrought with internal struggles, relations with European nations begin to fade for the CSA, while the USA finds a new ally in Moscow and the Red goverment of Stalin. How will the American nations handle a Second World War, one in which their own ideals are being fought for across the European landscape?
As democracies struggle to recover from economic depression, leaders in Germany, Italy, and Japan have begun expanding their powers. Will their actions destroy the world's fragile peace? Japan has occupied Chinese Manchuria since 1931. Italy recently conquered Ethiopia. Nazi Germany has resumed military expansion and marched into the Rhineland, officially a demilitarized zone. Focused on economic troubles, Britain, France, and the United States have done little to protest these aggressions. Formerly shunned as a Communist threat, the USSR has grown popular as a potential counterweight to German power. In Spain, the Nationalists have attacked the Republican government. How will the world respond to this civil war?
The world struggles in the grip of a global depression. The 19th century empires of Europe have disintegrated, and the power vacuum they left behind has given rise to new, radical ideologies that threaten to destabilize all of Europe. The UK struggles to maintain its dispersed colonies, the United States and France turn inwards to restructure their economies, and the Soviet Union consolidates its internal power though ruthless oppression and widespread famine. Meanwhile, a new leader comes to power in Germany. Eager to reverse a decade of deprivation, and determined to vacate the Treaty of Versailles, Germany is poised to remilitarize and expand its borders. Who will fall victim to its quest for empire?
In the 1930s, conflicts separated the world's major nations into three camps. 1) Germany, Italy, Japan, and Nationalist Spain wanted to overthrow the world order using diplomacy, threats, and/or force. 2) The USSR, China, and Republican Spain strove to preserve the status quo through the same means. 3) Britain, France, and the US objected to the aggressiveness of the first group, but resisted alignment with the second. Only the USSR helped the Spanish Republican government in its civil war. Britain and France stayed neutral. Their citizens did not want bloodshed, while their governments did not want alliance with the Soviets. Germany and Italy sent "volunteer" brigades to test military technologies and tactics. On March 28 1939, victorious Nationalist forces entered Madrid. Germany's swift occupation of Austria on March 12, 1938, shocked the West. This Anschluss was justified by the rhetoric of self-determination; ethnic Germans had the right to unite under the Nazi flag. Western statesmen sought to appease Germany through diplomacy. These efforts culminated at the Munich Conference of September 1938, when Britain, France, and Italy transferred the Sudetenland--an ethnically German region in Czechoslovakia--to Germany, despite Czechoslovakian and Soviet opposition. Britain announced that the Sudetenland transfer would bring peace to Europe. This idealism shattered in March 1939, when Germany annexed half of Czechoslovakia and turned the other half into a puppet state. Japan's territorial aggressions proved equally blatant. Chinese patriotism pushed the unwilling Nationalist government into battle. In July 1937, a skirmish set off the Sino-Japanese War. By the spring of 1939, the world has seen Fascist victories in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Spain, and Japanese successes in China. Totalitarian states are on the march; the balance of global power has shifted into their hands.