[Vic2 LP] How Bismarck got his herring - game thread

[Thanas]

Germany faces trouble, starts peeking towards France... What could go wrong?

What, you haven't heard that joke about why the French planted trees along the major roads into Paris?

Everybody has heard that one.

Very considerate people, the French.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Then it would be rude of us not to accept such courtesy and consideration, no?

[Bernkastel]

Certainly. Yet a visit from the German Army is quite a special honour. Even with their efforts to be good hosts, I feel that France will still be indebted to us and thus should gift us with something in return. A bit of their territory would be nice.

[Thanas]

Veronique


(watch the video before continuing. It is fantastic. Kristen Chenoweth is a national treasure.)




The Ems Dispatch. Forever cementing Bismarck's place at the head of all magnificent bastards.

After the news of the renunciation of the Prince von Hohenzollern had been communicated to the Imperial French government by the Royal Spanish government, the French Ambassador in Ems made a further demand on His Majesty the King that he should authorize him to telegraph to Paris that His Majesty the King undertook for all time never again to give his assent should the Hohenzollerns once more take up their candidature.

His Majesty the King thereupon refused to receive the Ambassador again and had the latter informed by the Adjutant of the day that His Majesty had no further communication to make to the Ambassador.

Bismarck took it upon himself to edit the report, sharpening the language. He cut out Wilhelm’s conciliatory phrases and emphasized the real issue. The French had made certain demands under threat of war; and Wilhelm had refused them. This was no forgery; it was a clear statement of the facts. Certainly the edit of the telegram, released on the evening of the same day (13 July) to the media and foreign embassies, gave the impression both that Benedetti was rather more demanding and that the King was exceedingly abrupt. It was designed to give the French the impression that King Wilhelm I had insulted Count Benedetti; likewise, the Germans interpreted the modified dispatch as the Count insulting the King.

Bismarck had viewed the worsening relations with France with open satisfaction. If war had to come, now was as good a time as any. His editing, he assured his friends, "would have the effect of a red rag on the Gallic bull."
[...]
The French translation by the agency Havas altered the ambassador's demand to a question (il a exigé). It also did not translate "Adjutant", which in German refers to a high-ranked aide de camp, but in French describes only a non-commissioned officer (adjudant), so implying that the King had deliberately insulted the ambassador by choosing a low-ranked soldier to carry the message to him. This was the version published by most newspapers the following day, which happened to be July 14 (Bastille Day), setting the tone, letting the French believe that the king had insulted their ambassador, before the ambassador could tell his story.

France's mistaken attitude of her own position carried matters far beyond what was necessary, and France mobilized. Following further improper translations and misinterpretations of the dispatch in the press, excited crowds in Paris demanded war, just as Bismarck had anticipated

Well, the gallic bull took it upon himself to charge the red flag, only to gore himself on the hidden stake.


They declared war.

Too bad for them that we already had 504.000 soldiers under arms and were now mobilizing a further 162.000 from the reserves.

As predicted, the south German states had enough of what they viewed as the arrogance of the French.




I believe the reaction in Southern Germany was something like this.

As Moltke planned, we started the war with a massive strike into French territory.

Thanks to the speed of our railways, we could transport our forces faster and quicker. (In RL the concentration of all rail on Paris meant that troops had to be transported through Paris, which lead to massive traffic clogs).

The battle of Metz was a quick affair, the French being beaten before they knew it.

The French eventually counterattacked in Nancy, when we had already crossed deep into their territory.

We quickly ordered two Corps to reinforce. Notice the three corps we got in Luxemburg? These will punch through Verdun and encircle the French in Chalons and Chaumont.

And so it happened. The French only put a single brigade to guard the approaches to their most elite troops. On May 29, 1871, the Prussian Army encircled them in a ring that would not be broken.

In Nancy meanwhile, the equally matched forces were continuing their bloody Battle. But the Prussians could afford to rotate in new troops, whereas the French were deprived of support and were also attacking across a river. Only the genius of their General Canrobert made this a fair fight.

The situation got worse when the freshly-invented Bolt action rifles became standard equipment.


The strategical situation on June 12th. The French troops in Nancy have abandoned the attack and are now defending against an ever growing number of Prussian troops. Meanwhile, the last professional standing forces of France are mounting a counterattack against Epinal, trying to break the encirclement.

Hey.We made the front page.

The situation a week later.

A french attempt to besiege Southern Germany is getting smashed by a combined Prussian-Bavarian army. Mobilized reserves are arriving from the North to help out in Epinal. The battle of Nancy is drawing to a close, with the French having lost two thirds of their force.
Another week later:

The French in Southern Germany are dying and we are moving our most elite force to Epinal to force a conclusion there. This force is none other than the new 1. Gardearmee:

Comprised of the Guard units of the various Principalities and Kingdoms in our realm.

As predicted, the battle is quickly won as the Guards charge and collapse the French lines.


A few days later, on July 3. 1871, a day that will always be remembered in German History as Sedantag the French Army suffered their greatest defeat in history in the Battle of Sedan Nancy. With the corresponding losses in Southern Germany and Epinal the French Army had ceased to exist. In Nancy alone, 46 French brigades had surrendered.


A bit of humiliation was in order. Maybe a few parades in Paris? Or the use of Versailles? Why not.

The French could now only rely on the shambles of their army and their mobilized reserves. These were little thread and were defeated peacemeal.
On

merely a month after Nancy,

Paris fell.


One month later, France, demoralized and without an army, surrendered.


We quickly made sure to rename the liberated territories. They would get back their German names they had until the French took them under Louis XIV.

What beautiful and sweet-sounding names.

Yes, much better.

And given how we have troops quartered in Versailles, why not do something else there?



(btw, love how the painting makes no effort to hide who really calls the shots and is in the centre of all action)

SILENCE. ALL RAISE FOR THE NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM, TOTALLY NOT COPIED FROM THE BRITISH.

Heil dir im Siegerkranz,
Herrscher des Vaterlands!
Heil, Kaiser, dir!
Fühl in des Thrones Glanz
Die hohe Wonne ganz,
Liebling des Volks zu sein!
Heil Kaiser, dir!

(Hail to thee in victor's crown,
Ruler of the fatherland!
Hail to thee, emperor!
Feel in the throne's splendor
The high ecstasy in full
To be darling of thy people!
Hail to thee, emperor!)

(I strongly advice you to read the remainder of the....quite interesting...lyrics here)


What's this? An island populated by Germans but under the thumb of the British? Why I never....


HELGOLAND RIGHTFUL GERMAN TERRITORY.

But the British could wait. Now it was time to celebrate.

LONG LIVE THE GERMAN EMPIRE.

[end of this update]

[Eternal_Freedom]

Nancy cost you each over a hundred thousand men? Mein Gott.

Also, it occurs to me from observing the end-of-update status that you appear to have two large salients of Austrian territory neatly surrounded. And we haven't picked on Austria for a while.

[LaCroix]

And we haven't picked on Austria for a while.

I do believe it would be more prudent to pick on the British... Or the French, once more... Or the Danish? Beligum?

The Netherlands are also there and claimed they are better in football than the Germans!

Also, the Americas are said to be beautiful in this time of the year.

Or mybe a bit of time in the sun? Africa has lovely beaches, I heard...

*sigh*

[Thanas]

Austria just allied with France. That makes things...interesting.

[phred]

Start trying to pick up allies, and annoy France and Austria. See if you can kick off the great war before machine guns can turn it into a total clusterfuck.

[Coop D'etat]

Nancy cost you each over a hundred thousand men? Mein Gott.

Also, it occurs to me from observing the end-of-update status that you appear to have two large salients of Austrian territory neatly surrounded. And we haven't picked on Austria for a while.

I think they can be straight up annexed peacefully by event if the German Empire creates a Hungarian state and puts Austria-Hungary into their sphere.

[Thanas]

Well, they are currently ranked 6th among the great powers so that will not be an option for the foreseeable future.

[Purple]

You should conquer the Swiss.

[InsaneTD]

But where would I then do my banking?

I to would like to see Austria finished but let them do the stupid thing and declare.

[Alferd Packer]

Quick question: are the armies of Vic2's Prussia as pants-shittingly dominant as they are in EU4? They certainly look good thus far, but I wonder if they're still as blatantly OP.

[Thanas]

Well, they get a bit of a boost from Moltke but that is about all. It depends on the technology researched.

No Prussian bonus per se though.

[Thanas]

A battle of songs


More technology was researched.


Next up, we started research into Biologism.


Our years of building up the industry have worked. We are now the country with the largest industry in the whole world, surpassing even Britain in production.


We decided to celebrate this by irking the French some more. The battle of songs of the 19th century has always interested me. Die Wacht am Rhein has been unfairly used as a stereotypical Nazi song in Hollywood culture, when it was a defensive song originally.

More info, including translation here. I suggest you read it.

However, the french songs of that period were no less impressive. I myself am a huge fan of "La Strasbourgeoise".

As there is no decent english translation, I have whipped one up myself:

Dear Papa is it now carneval?
For here you are disguised as a soldier
Papa please tell me are you doing this for laughs
Or to scare little children (repeat)

No my child I leave for the fatherland,
It is a duty for all dads to be leaving
Kiss me darling little girl,
I'll return soon to our home

Tell me mama what is this medal?
And this letter brought by the postman?
Tell me mama why are you crying and why you fall down?
They killed my dear beloved papa?

Yes my child they killed your father
weep with me because we hate them
these terrible wars that create crying mothers
and kill the fathers of small blond angels

Snow falls on the outskirts of the city
there sits a child of strasburg
she is there despite the cold and the wind
she is there despite the cold day

A man passes and (wants to) give alms to the girl
She recognizes the German uniform
She refuses the alms he (wants to) give her
To the enemy she says in a proud tone

Keep your gold, I keep my suffering
Prussian soldier go on your way
Me I am but only a child of France
to the enemy I do not reach out (for help)

While praying in the Cathedral,
My mother died under the collapsed porch.
Struck to death by one of your cannonballs,
Struck to death by one of your cannonballs

My father died on your battlefield,
I did not even see the shadow of his coffin.
Struck to death by one of your balls,
This is the reason for my mourning dress

You may have gotten Alsace and Lorraine
You may have gotten millions of strangers
you may have gotten Germany and Bohemia
But my little heart you shall never have
But my little heart will remain French

So you can see what a momentous task the rapprochement between Germany and France was after slaughtering each other for over 1200 years.



We of course erected the Niederwalddenkmal to commemorate our eternal superiority over the French.


Reason #146 why Steampunk tends to copy this style of architecture.
The inscription reads "To commemorate the unified victorious rise of the German People and the restoration of the German Empire 1870-71".


Meanwhile, while the French were struggling to rebuilt their shattered army, our border forces had been rebuilt completely and new innovations had been made.


Hooray.

Next research: Revolution and Counterrevolution. What could go wrong?


The serbs were engaged in wars again.

Meanwhile, we completely outlawed child labour. Finally.


Romanian agents were stirring up shit in Transsylvania. GRRR.

The study of Philosophy continues to pay off, unlike in real life.


More news, not that we care.


Instead, we extended the freedom of the union movement. Better to coopt them than to see them become anarchists.


This canal is a necessity for us.


Why, we are just too glad to think about those poor workers. *fake tear*


Yes, please.


The Austrians annexed Bosnia. England continued to subjugate India. Business as usual.


Meiji Restoration. Considering the following history, mabye clan rule would have been better for their neighbours?

In any case, they were now a secondary power.


Yeah, lets not encourage our citizens to spy on each other.


Europe. The French-Austrian alliance is poised to be a major threat.

Better to strike at them while they are still weak.

In the west, the French had not recovered from losing their entire army two years ago. They didn't put up much of a fight and we did not even need to reinforce our troops there.

Meanwhile, Austria just did not have the numbers to contest our army.

The situation three months after declaring war.


Woo, new research finished.

This allowed us to ask Greece to excavate there.

They agreed.

New research was started on Psychoanalysis.

The Women's suffrage movement formed. Quite frankly, this is a dark history. The treatment of those women was shameful and unworthy of any civilization. I won't link to any of that, but if you look it up on wikipedia it is enough to make one think very darkly of the police, especially of the British one. Seriously, torturing women because they dare to demand a vote? Not cool.



....ahem. The German Empire would obviously never use any underhanded tactics to keep the Poles down. What do you mean, intercepting letters is a bad thing? If they got nothing to hide, why are they concerned about us looking? Why are you flinging insults at me? I only want to keep you safe. Here, come into this secret location and we can discuss things.


Meanwhile, regarding the war...

On the fifth of May, less than four months after the war had started, the last Austrian Field Army was caught and annihilated.


The Austrian-French alliance had lost the war and surrendered. Hopefully that'll teach them.

(to be continued below)

[Thanas]

(continued from above)


We finally bribed enough people in Zanzibar that we could add them to our sphere of influence.


We chose to change our national value from Might to Glory. This gave us another military tech bonus and a closer leaning to the values of democracy.


Ah, another major contribution by philosophy to modern culture.


Universal voting for all (men).


Oh, of course. As soon as you get the vote, you communists view this as weakness and react with bomb throwers. Ugh.
Historically, anarchists were a major thread, probably the first real dangerous terrorists. Compared to them modern Al-quida is a bunch of pussies. Anarchists - and other movements - took out major heads of states. See Alexander II or the popular figure of Sissi. In one famous incident, Bismarck was shot by one, then proceeded to batter his attacker into submission.

When Bismarck was close to the Russian Embassy, Cohen-Blind took aim and fired twice from behind; Bismarck spun around and grabbed his attacker, who was able to fire three more shots before soldiers from the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Guards rushed up and took him into custody. Bismarck continued on his way home. Later that night, he allowed the King's physician, Gustav von Lauer, to examine him. Lauer noted that the first three bullets had only grazed Bismarck's body and the last two had ricocheted off the ribs and had caused no major injuries.

Badass.


A look at Bosnia, under firm Austrian control (for now).


Strikes. A bloody affair - quite literally, because certain states (USA. USA. USA.) wasn't above machine-gunning and gassing strikers.


Ever wonder why nearly every cow is black and white? Because of this. The victory of the Holstein cow (In Germany, even the cows are superior to foreign cows) is now assured.


This is what turned Paris into the marvel it is today. I cannot praise this programm enough, truly worthy of a glorious nation. Sometimes I wish we had the funds to do something like this today in most German cities who really need a fix of all those concrete jungles.


Proving that their military was recovering, the French beat up on Italy in a very short war.


Austria abandoned all pretence of multi-culturalism and went back to their old flags and laws. Also, they are now number 8....maybe a good target to be softened up and thrown out of the 8 great powers completely?


Also know as:



Well, turns out the Zanzibari don't like our influence very much. Unlike the British, we decided not to invade them in retaliation. This of course had nothing to do with our complete and utter lack of a fleet.


Unions for everybody.


...maybe this wasn't such a good idea.


YAY.


Aah, Wagner, another person whose music is almost universally misunderstood. Case in point: Idiots who think the Ride of the Valkyries is supposed to be rousing and kick-ass.


Hagenbeck. Famous even today, most famous for providing the glorious mascot to our state television.


More artifacts for our museums.


Definitely not to be used for some racial superiority thingy, right?

I SAID DEFINITELY NOT TO BE USED FOR SOME RACIAL SUPERIORITY THINGY, RIGHT?

...I give up.


Market regulation seems like a good thing.


*starts scheming on how to get it out of Washington*


"Is of problem with Papa and Penis"

Lets take a look at the interesting parts of the world:

Our bulge is getting bigger.


Aside from the Russian conquests nothing much has changed here.


The British are taking more and more direct control of India.
The other parts of the world haven't changed much.

(end of this update)

[The Vortex Empire]

Do not resist the glorious march of communism, comrade, it is a historical inevitability. Allow the Soviet Socialist Republic of Germany to be birthed!

[Steve]

....I can't help but wish you'd just release Hungary as a satellite, because god damn that map is ugly with the way the bulge looks.

Clearly you need to conquer the rest of Austria to make it look right!

[phred]

Besides, you need a summer home somewhere near the Mediterranean.

[Purple]

At this point I think you should endeavor to rebuild the HRE.

[Thanas]

Peace, progress and prosperity


Elections were called...

Which the walrus Bismarck won with very convincing numbers.


By April, our armies were fully rebuilt. And we became #1 nation in the world.


Which was a good thing, for there was a new threat to shoot.


For the first time in history, the state would now pay for pensions. Thus we started the first of OTL Bismarck reforms to manage socialism, which resulted in Germany having the best social system in the whole world until 1918.

The real grievance of the worker is the insecurity of his existence; he is not sure that he will always have work, he is not sure that he will always be healthy, and he foresees that he will one day be old and unfit to work. If he falls into poverty, even if only through a prolonged illness, he is then completely helpless, left to his own devices, and society does not currently recognize any real obligation towards him beyond the usual help for the poor, even if he has been working all the time ever so faithfully and diligently. The usual help for the poor, however, leaves a lot to be desired, especially in large cities, where it is very much worse than in the country

- Otto von Bismarck


Of course, capitalists blamed the cooling on the socialist pension drain upon society.


Yes. We need this canal. More money was poured into it.


DAMN YOU COMMUNISTS. WE GIVE YOU PENSIONS AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY US?


Well at least research worked well.


More industry. Yes please.


Red-light the practices. The only roughing up of communists will be done by our secret police, not by independent gangs.


Oh what a lovely ideology to have. *vomit*


Russia meanwhile was once again expanding into Asia.


Our western Army and a very useful invention.


Britain is as Britain does.


Great.
But we need more industry.

And thus it shall be.


Yay us, more things to feed our people with.


MORE MONEY FOR GLORIOUS NECESSARY CANAL.


I expect these to be followed at every turn.


Zanzibar soon came to its senses and was again a member of our Sphere of influence.


For the first time, we sided with the socialists as we increased pensions.



A couple of good industrial tech innovations.


Indeed, the liberty enjoyed by all our citizens shall be most dear to us.


"It is important that every aristocrat reads everything possible, for it is best who to cane into submission".


With more industrial research completed...


...lets focus on the Army tech again. BLOOD AND IRON, remember?


Russia is expanding again...

Grabbing another large chunk of Asia.

(to be continued below)

[Thanas]

(continued from above)


Finally we can work on eradicating this deadly disease.


I am getting a bit concerned about the three small states between us and Russia, but best to leave them alone for now as our infamy counter is too damn high.


Spain, under Isabella II., attempted to get the rich silver mines of Peru back under their control and to restart their colonial empire.


If only we had some cotton fields...hmmm...


A risk-managing-army is a good army.


Time to research better logistics.


Thus French culture was born and the flourishing regional cultures were crushed.


Are you insane? We won't shoot our own workers. What do you think this is, the USA?


A drunk German is a happy German.


And a well-supplied soldier is a good soldier.


More research into business was ordered.


Meh.


Wonder how long that will last...


All this new army tech makes me feel powerful.


Meanwhile, lets take a look at Spain. A victory of them over Peru could catapult them back into the league of Great Powers.


Dried fruit. Blergh.


Now, better make sure they don't turn out like they did in the UK.


The next step on the ladder to British evil was taken.


Yes, rejoice in your freedom, good citizens.



Good, goood [/Palpatine]


High Pensions for our hard-working citizens.


*shudder*


Let's temper that with some philosophical research.

And on

old rivals discovered they would like to beat each other up again.


This raises interesting...possibilities, don't you think?

(end of this update)

[Bernkastel]

Oh, certainly. This is quite an interesting development. So, how can we best take advantage of it, I wonder?

[InsaneTD]

Work on naval power while the English are busy with the French¿

[Eternal_Freedom]

Given the very low state of German naval research, that would take too long. No this needs to be another short but decisive land war against Austria or France, or maybe both at once if we have the strength for it.