Nice work. The only bad thing is that, at the rate you're going, the Comintern will be defeated before you develop nukes to throw at them.
Unfortunately that did turn out to be the case. The Comintern was crushed so quickly we didn't even get to use nukes.
A glorious victory over the Axis, and the comintern will not last much longer. Siam is like the regular game USA, only with Soviet style manpower on top of it, simply unstoppable at this rate.
Well annexing Britain, Germany and Russia does tend to add a ton of industry and natural resources, so yeah I guess we are like the USA and unstoppable at this point. But we had to come a long way to get to this point. Siamese starting territory was a pretty long way from USA level industry. Although we've pretty much always had piles of manpower, because southeast Asia is pretty densely populated.
Part 20: Anticlimax
"How goes the war against the Comintern?" the emperor asked
"Quite well, your majesty," the Prime Minister answered, "It was clear that due to our nearly infinite industry, mountains of manpower, and reservoir of resources, we would triumph over the Comintern eventually. However, we thought they would at least put up a decent fight at first due to the size of their army. But things turned out even easier than expected."
"Explain."
"After defeating Portugal in the Iberian campaign, a couple important things happened. First, Portugal had two puppet states, Portuguese Mexico and Portuguese Brazil, both of which defected to the Allies after their overlord was defeated. The second thing is that most of the occupied territory in Spanish North America was liberated. The result is that the Comintern forces were deep in enemy territory without any way to bring in supplies. Take a look."
"So they are basically screwed then?"
"Exactly your majesty. They were able to conduct operations for awhile, but they soon ran out of supplies and were helpless. If their forces were more heavily concentrated in the east, they might have been able to take a port and ship in supplies there, perhaps holding out for awhile and being a major nuisance. But their forces were mostly out west, far from any port."
"What a fortunate turn of events. It certainly kept our casualties a lot lower than they otherwise would have been."
"Indeed. After the fall of Portugal, we used Portuguese Mexico as a staging ground to attack Colombia from the north. They still had a few divisions left to guard their home turf, but the majority of their forces were committed to the invasion of Spanish North America. They couldn't stop the advance of our steel elephants."
"Meanwhile," the prime minister continued, "we used Portuguese Brazil as a launching point to invade Brazil, and soon secured their surrender. Finally the Axis was officially defeated."
"And the war against the Comintern?"
"it continued without any major difficulty. Although the invasion of Colombia from the north was continuing its inevitable advance, we decided to speed up our victory and struck deeper into their territory. Our forces stormed the beaches much closer to the Colombian capital and before long we had secured victory."
"So that just leaves Chile."
"Chile as well did not put up much of a fight. They had a few divisions at home, but like Colombia, they had committed a majority of their forces in North America, and left very little to defend their own turf. Our forces in Colombia began invading Chile from the North, but we realized it would take a long time to reach Chile's major cities, so we established multiple beachheads and quickly rushed towards all their major cities. Before long we had secured their surrender as well."
"So then its over. We are at peace again. Now we must build a new future and find a way to maintain the peace and stability of the world in the aftermath of this devastating war."
"Agreed your majesty. We have some ideas. While you were planning to divide up the occupied territory into states and withdraw in timely manner, we have come up with some alternative ideas. Withdrawal is probably the best for the most part, because it would be too much hassle to try and maintain control over all of it. However, we believe we should permanently annex key regions, in order to access important resources and establish military bases around the world. We have an opportunity here to establish ourselves as the unassailable economic and military super power in the world. That is how we will maintain peace."
"Actually I have another idea. International cooperation."
"Cooperation is for equals, we are the most powerful force on the planet. We can dictate, and others follow."
"I disagree. Trying to maintain peace by ourselves will be far too much work. Through cooperation we can ease our own burden, while still maintaining a leading role. I've been in talks with the Turkish and Spanish heads of state behind your back. While some of the details still have to be worked out, we are all coming to an agreement about the creation of an international organization, which will protect and promote international peace. Of course any nation can join the organization as long as they follow our rules, but our three nations, being the most powerful, will need to take a leading role in the world. As such we will have additional privileges in the organization and a greater say in how it is run."
"I'm shocked that you negotiated this without running it by your loyal ministers. However, the idea of an international organization in which we have special privileges is not a bad one. However, I'm not sure about treating Turkey and Spain as our equals. There can be no doubt we are superior to them."
"While we may be the most powerful, once we return to our old borders we will find they are very close to our equals both in military and economic measures. I can't imagine they would accept this organization without being treated as equals. In any case I've made my decision on the matter. I will be working on the final details with allied heads of state, and we hope to launch the organization before the year is out. It will then get to work on its first tasks, the joint administration of the occupied territories, the division of the occupied territories into independent states, and setting up a timetable for Allied withdrawal from the occupied territories."
"This is a grave mistake, your majesty. We are in control of nearly all of Germany, Russia, Britain, Colombia, and Chile. We alone should decide how they are administered and divided up. Giving other nations a say will only weaken our position. I won't allow you to throw away our dominant position."
"You won't allow it?"
"We'll deal with you just like we dealt with your father. Every minister, every bureaucrat, and most importantly, all the senior military leadership is loyal to the person who put them there. Me. And with the laws passed during the war, restrictions on speech and censorship of the press, it will be easier to deal with nasty rumors about your cause of death."
"You don't understand. I've been taking a pretty hands off approach to the war, because for the last few years I've been involved in a very important investigation. After appointing myself minister of security, and cleaning house within the ministry, I've been investigating the cause of my father's death. I have everything I need to convict you and many of your cronies fro his assassination and cover up. I was reluctant to expose this during the war, because as you said, most of the bureaucracy and military leadership was on your side. Such a major disruption could have cost us the war, but now that its over I see no reason not to expose you. State censorship of the press doesn't do you any good in this case, because the censorship is overseen by the Ministry of Security. I've already seen to it that this story will be run."
"You seem to be forgetting my control of the military. We'll seize every single newspaper publisher by force if that's what it takes, but we will maintain control."
"You may still be have the army leadership in your pocket, and indeed I considered replacing them, but I also decided it was a very risky move in the middle of the war, and left them alone. But early in the war, we were conducting very limited naval operations. It seemed much safer to purge the naval leadership without causing serious disruptions to the war effort. The replacements played their parts well, and made sure to appear loyal to you, but I can guarantee you they are loyal to me. You may have a tiny problem seizing control by military force, when the majority of the army is in South America. And they aren't getting back without my order. There are a few divisions in Europe, but they will have a very long trip, trying to get back here over land."
"Somehow the army will find a way back. They can force the local population to build transports for them."
"You think a bunch of transports are going to get by our navy. It ain't gonna happen."
"Well you can't just leave the army there forever, it will leave Siam open to attack. Another disruption among the east Asian states could ruin us."
"I don't think I'll need to keep them in South America for too long. Sooner or later the rank and file soldiers will hear the truth. No doubt the army leadership will take steps to prevent it, but eventually the story will slip through. Once it does, their loyalty to the emperor will overcome all else. I expect the soldiers to turn over all officers loyal to you in a few weeks. After that, we can bring our boys home. Now then, there are a couple of Imperial Security Agents waiting outside. I suggest you go with them. They will treat you a lot more kindly than the angry mob that will form when this story is made public."
The Prime Minister hung his head in defeat, and walked out to the waiting agents. He knew he had been beaten by the young emperor.
