Alliances and Agreements

[StephenT]

I propose using this thread for information on what alliances existed in the period and how to implement them.

I'm thiking this is a fairly complex question because unlike in Europa Universalis where you could have multiple alliance groups, in HoI there are only three possible alliances to join. Also, I suspect that Britain being leader of the Allies will be hard-coded - can anyone confirm this? That means that some alliances which existed in real life may have to be represented by events rather than by actual alliances in game-terms.

 

[StephenT]

To start off, which countries should have military access to each others' territory?

Germany and Austria should have this from the beginning, I believe (there were German ships based in Austrian ports, and Austrian ships at German ports (in the Far East).

Possibly Britain and France, since the plans for a BEF were already in place before war broke out.

Germany and the Ottomans (note - these countries were not allied before August 1914)

Italy and Albania (possibly also Serbia and Albania)

China - all the major powers should have access to Chinese territory, mostly because the Chinese weren't in any position to stop them. There were British, French and Japanese expeditionary forces wandering about fairly freely through northern China.

 

[Johan Elisson]

If you are in the same alliance, you'll get access.

Someone with good knowledge in this matter could maybe post dates of DOWs for countries?

This is how far I've thought:

Alliance (Central Powers is to long to look good in-game ) consists of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy at the start of the game.
Entente consists of France and Russia.

When the Sarajevo shooting occurs, A-H will declare war on Serbia which in most cases (an event may cause Russia not to support them) will join the Entente (together with Montenegro?). This will also make Italy leave the Alliance in most cases (another event). Another event will make UK join the Entente if Belgium or France is attacked.

/Johan

 

[brandnew70x7]

The alliances should be:

Germany, Austria, Italy (Italy leaves), Ottoman

Russia, Serbia (Maybe more)

and

France, UK, Belgium.

 

[Johan Elisson]

Eh?

The Ottoman Empire was certainly not allied to Germany, A-H and Italy in january 1914, Serbia wasn't allied to Russia either, and France, UK and Belgium wasn't either, Russia and France was allied, with UK joining in when Belgium was attacked. Russia supported Serbia at the outbreak of the war, but there was no alliance in january 1914.

/Johan

 

[StephenT]

That (Johan's previous post) sounds great - the only problems might be:

Can the Entente be France and Russia, with Britain possibly joining later? Or (as I said upthread) is it hard-coded that Britain leads the democratic alliance? In which case the "Entente" would have to be just Britain, Japan, Portugal and any British puppets, and the France-Russia alliance represented by an event sequence.

Once you're in an alliance in the game, is it actually possible to leave it again (Italy)?

Dates of war declaration are as follows:

A-H v Serbia 28-Jul-14
Germany v Russia 1-Aug-14
Germany v Luxemburg 2-Aug-14 (just an occupation, no formal declaration of war)
Germany v France 3-Aug-14
Germany v Belgium 4-Aug-14
Britain v Germany 4-Aug-14 ("Britain" includes the Empire and Dominions)
Russia v Austria 6-Aug-14
Portugal v Germany 7-Aug-14 (not a formal declaration of war, but fighting in the colonies began soon after)
Montenegro v A-H 7-Aug-14 (tremble, Austria!)
Britain v A-H 12-Aug-14
Japan v Germany 23-Aug-14

Turkey v Russia 29-Oct-14 (actually an attack without a declaration of war)
Britain and France v Turkey 31-Oct-14

Italy v A-H 24-May-15 (note, Italy was not at war with Germany until the following year, and I don't know when/if they went to war with Turkey)

Bulgaria v Serbia 5-Oct-15 (attack without formal declaration)
Britain v Bulgaria 15-Oct-15
France and Italy v Bulgaria 20-Oct-15

Rumania v the Central Powers 27-Aug-16

Italy v Germany 28-Aug-16

USA v Germany 6-Apr-17
Cuba v Germany 7-Apr-17
Panama v Germany 8-Apr-17
Guatemala v Germany 27-Apr-17
Nicaragua v Germany 8-May-17

Greece v the Central Powers 29-Jun-17 (and that's a long story...)

Siam v the Central Powers 22-Jul-17
Liberia v Germany 4-Aug-17
China v Germany 14-Aug-17
Brazil v Germany 26-Oct-17
USA v A-H 7-Dec-17
Costa Rica v Germany 23-May-18
Haiti v Germany 12-Jul-18
Honduras v Germany 19-Jul-18

I don't know the dates of the German declaration of war on Serbia and the French on Austria-Hungary, but they presumably did occur. Of course, in HoI it may not be worthwhile attempting to model split declarations of war.

 

[Johan Elisson]

Yes, thank god, it is possible to have another country lead an alliance (France is in our scenario) and to leave an alliance. I had a working sequence for the whole war breaking out with Italy leaving the alliance, but patch 1.04 somehow managed to make it not only work as designed, but also cause my game to freeze after a while... This should be fixable though.

/Johan

 

[Shadow Knight]

Elisson, are you going to have AH going to war immediately after the assassination in Sarajevo? That would be completely disregarding the actual bungling and diplomacy that went on for almost a month before AH declared war on Serbia.

The way I see it the beginning alliances should be as you stated.

Entente:
Leader: France
Other Members: Russia

Central Powers:
Leader: Germany
Other Members: Austro-Hungry, Italy

Other Alliances:
Britain and Japan?
Britain and the Belgians neutrality

As for the event chain that starts the war(here are my thoughts on the matter):

Assassination of Ferdinand

then the Austrian initial response:
option a) Seek German approval for atttack (historical path)
option b) Declare War (Non-historical path)

if b) then it should only be a local war, however if Austria occupies anything more than Belgrade then an option for Russia to enter the war:
a) We must defend our fellow Slavs
b) They brought this upon themselves
(if a) it should go back upon the historical path, if b) it should sleep the historical path)

if a) on AH initial response a serious of events fire that ask for German approval etc. that leads up to the Russian partial mobilization (say a third of the starting MP I gave in the MP thread), just follow the sequence of events that the Powers actually did at the time (I have them around here somewhere if you need them)

Then if Russia goes to war with AH France is invited, and Germany responds appropriately.

However Germany should be given the option of whether to follow the Schlieffen Plan or go East instead.
a) Follow Schlieffen
b) Go East

if a) Belgian neutrality if violated then Britain can enter the war on the side of the allies (it would also be interesting to have a similiar event for France as to whether disregard Belgian neutrality in an attempt to flank German defenses in Lorraine. Thus allowing Britain a chance to join the Central Powers if Germany chooses not to violate the neutrality of course. Hmm that could lead to a three way war if both France and Germany disregard Belgian neutrality. The British Empire vs. CP, BE vs. Entente, and CP vs. Entente!)

if b) there should be a massive penalty for choosing this option, maybe a dissent hit and having some of the better German commanders retire in protest at the disruption of thier war plans.

Well that is my thoughts on how the war should start.

 

[Allenby]

Originally posted by shdwknightx
allowing Britain a chance to join the Central Powers if Germany chooses not to violate the neutrality of course. Hmm that could lead to a three way war if both France and Germany disregard Belgian neutrality. The British Empire vs. CP, BE vs. Entente, and CP vs. Entente!)

Not sure about this one! Contractually, Britain would be obliged to declare war on the first country that violated Belgian neutrality - therefore, if that was France, the Germans would technically be entering Belgium for the good of its defence - in the same sort of way the BEF took up position around Mons.

Before the war, Belgium had two divisions on the German border, two divisions on the French border, and one division by the coast incase of a British amphbious attack.

By the way, has anyone read Thirteen Days by Clive Ponting? It's a rather interesting book revolving around the July Crisis - his basic argument being that war wasn't inevitable and that the difficulties of communication hampered the ability of diplomats in keeping up to date with events as they unfolded. I'll re-run through his conclusion and see if there's anything particularly useful that could be contributed.

One interesting, if bizarre aspect of the July Crisis is that although the beginnings of the crisis began as an essentially Austro-Russian argument, AH and Russia were amongst the last to declare war on each other. This seems to highlight one of the problems of fitting the July Crisis to the HOI model. In HOI Alliances declare war on each other en masse, while countries declared war on each other during the July Crisis over several days, and after much deliberation.

This is why I maintain that eventing the July Crisis is one of the most difficult things that could be done in scripting an HOI mod - and that makes you all very clever indeed!

 

[von Kluge]

When the Sarajevo shooting occurs, A-H will declare war on Serbia which in most cases (an event may cause Russia not to support them) will join the Entente (together with Montenegro?).

-Johan

Serbia will most definitley join the Entente, but Montenegro was not DOWed until later in the war, when The Central Powers began feeling threatened by an allied invasion through the Balkans (which did happen and opened the Salonica Front that in many cases was as bad if not worse than the Gallipoli Landings) This fear later turned into reality when the King of Greece (who was determined to stay neutral) died and was replaced by his Pro-Allied son, thus adding a new country to the Alliance.

 

[Shadow Knight]

Originally posted by Allenby
Not sure about this one! Contractually, Britain would be obliged to declare war on the first country that violated Belgian neutrality - therefore, if that was France, the Germans would technically be entering Belgium for the good of its defence - in the same sort of way the BEF took up position around Mons.

I was not too sure of it either, but it sounded like a really interesting way for the war to go. However as long as Britain declares war on the first power to declare war on Belgium then that is fine with me (I suppose it make it a requirement that they join either the Entente or the CP if they are forced to delcare war.).