Part 31: End of Our Africa

A note: I've grown tired of posting what I am researching every time. Thus, the "now I'm researching advanced crap!" bits are henceforth gone, only to appear when they are actually interesting.


Chapter 21: End of Our Africa



One of the things observed in the Franco-Texan War is that we need a navy. But we are cheap and don't really think a navy is worth the cost and time it takes to build a sizeable one. The only nations that have large navies currently are the USA, UK, Germany, France, and Russia; Italy and Japan have smaller navies but are probably building more ships as time goes on. We do not plan to go to war with any of these nations any time soon, and it would be incredibly expensive to match the navies of any of those nations. So we are going to settle for having the second best navy of American nations (the current 2nd best is Mexico, who has a handful of commerce raiders). 6-8 naval divisions should be enough to fight off Mexico's navy or distract a greater nation's navy long enough to land transports somewhere.

Our first warships will be ironclads, largely because our navy research is way behind the curve and we like the sound of the word "ironclad".



With the help of many boxes of tophats and pocketwatches and a pile of money, we now have capitalists in the populous state of Nueva Leon.



We're studying Revolution & Counterrevolution now, because the possible effects of this research sound pretty awesome and because our traditional acedemic structure demands equal study in all areas.



We give the order for some of our new transports (replacing the ones sunk by France) to make their way to the other side of the Republic, and we notice that they ships' captains chart a path through the Panama isthmus. Apparently a canal has been built linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through Columbian Panama a few years ago, presumably by a private entity since no nation had risen to take credit for it. (the event should show in the event log but it doesn't; I think the game bugged and opened the canal on its own)



Before, when we had only one or two capitalist pops, we didn't factories nearly this fast, since there was still much rail to put down. Now that our railroad is largely done until the next technological leap forward, our new capitalists and the ones in California will be putting up factories one after the other. Our capitalists in Matamoros look to be utilizing the timber produced in Texan Cameroon.



We begin construction on four divisions of commerce raiders. These, with the ironclads, will be the bulk of our navy for a little while, serving as transport escorts.



The Hawaiian capitalists have begun work on a luxury clothing factory, capitalizing on a new style of shirt coming out of the islands that the upper classes have taken a liking to, involving intricate flowery patterns and bright colors. These "Hawaiian shirts" are sure to fetch a high price on the world market.



Nothing to get our spirits back up like freedom.



The Nationalists have lost some voters since the last election, but still hold a sizeable plurality. An ideology new to the Republic has appeared and is slowly gaining members: Reactionaries. The polar opposites of the anarcho-liberals, the reactionaries blames our problems on everyone else, claiming even the conservatives are too liberal. (Reactionaries are cool cause if they cause a successful revolution they will institute a monarchy)



France, still thinking they're hot shit for taking our colonial possessions, declares war on Germany. We hope Germany utterly crushes them.



Hah! Italy, being not quite as idiotic as the damn Frenchmen, ally with Germany and declare war on the French. This is going be great.



France must have left all those troops they used to take our colonies in Africa or something, because the Germans are just waltzing across the border.



The capitalists in Los Angeles announce the construction of a regular clothes factory in California. Regular clothes fetches a good price on the market and is also needed to make luxury clothes. The complete Cotton->Fabric->Reg Clothes->Lux. Clothes line should prove very profitable.



Its only a month into the 2nd Franco-German War and the Germans are within sight of Paris. Go Germany!



Some more colonial claims finish building and we are able to claim a large stretch of territory that greatly expands Texan Cameroon. The grey province we border is, unfortunately, a French possession.



Some time later and half of France has fallen to the German and Italian forces. The Germans have almost encircled Paris in preperation for a likely massive assault on the French capital, and the Italians are looking to be at the Spanish border soon.




The 2nd Franco-German War ends with French surrender. Germany and Italy take a handful of provinces each on the way out.



The Nationalists win the elections. They had been slowly falling in the polls but the rest of the vote was still split between the Socialists and the Democrats. The new Texan President is John Henry Kirby. Very popular with the upper class, President Kirby is owner of the new lumber mill in Nueva Leon and recently acquired the lumber mill in Hawaii. The so-called "Prince of the Pines" represents the "big business" Nationalists, and his insistence on not ceding the timber-rich Cameroon is why we still have it, but probably also why the Franco-Texan War lastest long enough for France to attempt its invasion of California.



We claim more African territory, the two provinces of Middle Congo, pushing our border there further southeast.



Argentina wants their land back so much they've forgotten what happened the during our last two wars and have gone and saved us the trouble of starting the third.



We decided to go ahead and call on our ally the United States to come help give Argentina a good old-fashioned beating. They accepted our invitation.



The US gets into the spirit of things and lends us their 1st Corps, who are currently stationed in Chicago. We tried to convince the troops that there were dirty Argentinians hiding out in Canada and that they should go cross the border, but all we could get them to do was march all the way to southern Florida to keep watch for "the mighty Argentinian death-navy".



No one cares about Luxemburg.




Mexico settles for peace with the Central Americans. We did not know they were at war again; Mexico must have declared war while we were busy with France. The USCA is now reduced to three provinces; Mexico is intent on replacing lost northern provinces with conquered southern ones.



General Ellis and the two artillery-assisted divisions he commanded drove straight into Argentina from the south, and Buenos Aires falls 5 months after Argentina started this war.



The Argentinians offer a peace agreement that would grant us a large amount of land, but we decline the offer. We are not interested in anymore of their foul earth.



We present our counter-offer to the Argentinians, and they accept. Argentina has been pacified and is now a satellite of the Republic.



The capitalists in Nueva Leon are following the same path as their counterparts in Hawaii by following up their lumber mill with a steamer shipyard.



British-Texan relations have taken a sharp downturn in the last ten years due to neglect (relation with UK is 19), so we are going to attempt to build it back up.



The luxury clothes factory opens its doors in Hawaii. It is going to be a profitable factory, but until we demobilize some of the Yankee soldiers there or the population there grows more it is unlikely we will see a new factory built there.



A new political party has splintered off from the Nationalists. The Populist Party hails from the most conservative elements of the Nationalists in regards to minorities but is more liberal in the other areas. The party polls now show a 4-way split between the Democrats, Socialists, Nationalists and Populists. The next election cycle is sure to be much more exciting than the previous few.



Our peace treaty with France and Italy expires. There is not much we can do about this other than hope that France is not eager to take more land from us in Africa.



Shortly afterwards our alliance with the United States ends, and for unknown reasons they refuse to sign a new one.



Our population numbers have made a remarkable recovery since five years ago, at the end of the Franco-Texan War.



France!

It is only a colonial war, so only the defense of Cameroon is at stake. The only French province bordering our colonies is Libreville, where there is only one division stationed. We have none in Africa but should be able to rectify that shortly.



Eight native divisions are being recruited out of our colonies and should be ready in time to defend the possessions there. The lone French division has not moved from their colony, and no troops have landed so far.



They are finished and deployed to the two provinces bordering Libreville on the east. Neither army would be able to scratch the French regulars in an assault, but the sight of eighty thousand dug-in soldiers to their east should be enough to prevent them from trying an assault of their own.



The regular clothes factory had finished in California a few months ago, and now President Kirby has announced that his company is building a new lumber mill in California.



Through our growing industry, the final victory over Argentina, and the expansion of Cameroon, Texas has risen to 11th rank. Our competition for Great Power status is going to be tough, as we are competing for 8th with the Ottoman Empire, Japan and Spain.

Nothing is occuring in this colonial war against France. Our war exhaustion is going up and France will not accept a white peace or even an offer of a few provinces. We've had enough of France's bullying; if they want those provinces so much they can fight with someone else for them.



We trade three provinces to Liberia for any money they are willing to give us for them, tripling the size of the small nation.



We also give Italy five of our Cameroon provinces for whatever chump change they'll throw our way. We will probably give the rest away to Germany soon.




There has been a large scandal in Austin. President Kirby was accused of abusing his powers as President of the Republic to foward his lumber empire, was impeached and removed from office. Per the rules of the Post-Radical Constitution, an emergency election was held and the Socialist candidate James "Cyclone" Davis won. Davis has been a teacher, lawyer and politician and is well known as an astounding speaker. He carries ten volumes of the writings of Thomas Jefferson on stage every time and quotes them often, and his speeches often run around four hours.



President Davis won't have much time to get things accomplished during his term; the election cycle is not shifted for this emergency situation so they are only in power a little while before the next election campaign starts up. The Populists and Nationalists are vying for the lead in the polls, with the Socialists then Democrats following.




Nicaragua has declared independence from the USCA, which doesn't come as much of a surprise. The poor USCA now only has two provinces.



The Socialists have pushed through an economic reform, instituting unemployment subsidies for our populace. This is sure to attract more immigrants, but this more likely was done because most Socialist voters (if not most Socialists themselves) are unemployed and they figure they may as well get some money out of their 1-year term in power.



We give Upper and Middle Congo to Germany for a few hundred pounds, and the next month we let them have our last bit of territory in Africa. All we have now are a few claim buildings in the interior, and we are able to smuggle supplies to build more so we will finish claiming a few more territories later then trade them to Britain or Germany.



France accepts our offer of white peace, now that there are no more territories for them to take. They can try to take it from Italy and Germany now.