Between Axis and Comintern: Romanian Survival (During Action Report)

[Alex Kernel]

There is some time since my last historical post, but these days I prepared the historical background for Romania's alternative reality. Every few years there will be an immersive description of the new evolution in international politics. The scenario will keep as close as possible to real history. Where events differ, the story will be accordingly adapted with plausible descriptions and explanations. The first part of 1937 storyline will present the collective defence alliances Romania employed to defend its borders from the revisionist powers at the time: The Soviet Union, Hungary, and Bulgaria. The second part will be a joint Memo of the Defence Ministery, Foreign Ministry and Secret Service analysing the geopolitical situation of the country after the German remilitarisation of the Rhineland in March 1936, an essential event in the interwar period, ignored by the creators of HOI3.

Romanian Security Arrangements

Treaty of Alliance with France (Cordon Sanitaire: Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland)

The Alliance Treaty with France signed in 1926 was part of the Cordon sanitaire collective security alliances France tried do develop as replacement for the Tsarist Russia, which became a hostile communist state.

The Little Entente

The Little Entente defensive alliance in Eastern Europe includes Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, being signed and ratified by all three states between August 1920 and June 1921. (First Map shows the Little Entente, the second the territorial claims of Hungary).

The first attempts seeking a mutual defence of the successor states of Austria-Hungary took place during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The most remarkable and ardent proponent of the certain alliance binding the successor states was Edvard Beneš, the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1935. The obvious aim of his proposed alliance was to prevent the resurgence of Hungarian power and the restoration of the Habsburg Monarchy, but its real purpose followed a much broader pattern. The alliance was designed to stop any encroachments on the independence of the member states committed by any European power. It also clearly reflected the necessity to develop democracy in not only Czechoslovakia but also in other Eastern European states. In addition, the Little Entente was to strengthen the influence of its member states in international deliberations.

France has supported the creation of the Little Entente for considerations regarding the new balance of power in Europe after World War I. France planned to contain a possible German aggression by forming an arrangement with German neighbours. Before World War I, Russia had served that purpose, but after the war, France was reluctant to establish normal diplomatic ties with Soviet Russia. Therefore, France sought alternative states near Germany with close ties to France. As the Little Entente fulfilled those conditions, France strongly supported its formation.

The Treaty stated that in the event of an unprovoked attack employed by Hungary against a certain stipulator, other parties should provide mutual assistance. In addition, the treaties defined the mutual assistance via a special military convention. The member states of the Little Entente also pledged themselves to co-operation in their foreign policy towards Hungary.

All of those conventions were replaced by a comprehensive treaty of alliance between the governments of Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, signed in Štrbské Pleso (now Slovakia) on June 27, 1930. The treaty created a regular consultative structure for the Little Entente and required the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the parties to meet at least once a year. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on October 3, 1930. Further institutionalisation ensued in 1933, and since then the military and foreign ministry officials have been meeting at least three times a year to discuss changes in the international politics and coordinating foreign policy, even beyond Hungary – Bulgaria, USSR and Germany being countries of interest.

The Polish-Romanian Alliance

The Polish–Romanian Alliance was a series of treaties signed in the interwar period by the Second Polish Republic and the Kingdom of Romania. The first of them was signed in 1921 and, together, the treaties formed a basis for good foreign relations between the two countries that lasted until World War II began in 1939.

Immediately after World War I, the peace treaties recognized the reestablishment of a Polish state for the first time in over 100 years. Romania emerged from the war as a victorious nation, enlarging its territory (as Greater Romania). Both states had serious reasons to stand by these treaties.

Having established contacts with Poland in January–February 1919, Romania oriented itself towards a cordon sanitaire alliance aimed at Bolshevist Russia and the newly created Comintern. Romania’s overtures to bring Poland into the Little Entente were unsuccessful due to border disagreements between Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The Balkan Pact/Entente

The Balkan Pact, or Balkan Entente, was a treaty signed by Greece, Turkey, Romania and Yugoslavia on 9 February 1934 in Athens, aimed at maintaining the geopolitical status quo in the region following World War I. To present a united front against Bulgarian designs on their territories, the signatories agreed to suspend all disputed territorial claims against each other and their immediate neighbours, which followed in the aftermath of the war and a rise in various regional ethnic minority tensions. Other nations in the region that had been involved in related diplomacy refused to sign the document, including Italy, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Soviet Union.

The Balkan Pact helped to ensure peace between the signatory nations but failed to stop Italian and Bulgarian territorial revisionism once the Cordon Sanitaire collapsed under German and Soviet partitioning of Eastern Europe.

 

[Bullfilter]

Interesting historical background. Will you be trying to apply any diplomatic agreements in-game (by tag, mod or save game edit) that aren’t included or easily applied by the game system?

 

[Alex Kernel]

September 1937


The Geopolitical Situation of Romania in view of the Remilitarization of Rhine [Part ONE]


– Joint Report of the Defence Ministry, Foreign Ministry and the Secret Service to His Majesty, King Carol II and His Government –


Introduction

A series of events culminating with the German remilitarization of the Rhineland has led our specialists from various government branches to acknowledge that the peace and security architecture deriving from the Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the Locarno Treaty (1925) risks collapse with grave consequences for Eastern Europe and the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Romania.

As we all know, Rhineland was the heart of the steel, coal, and by extension, of the military German industry. This means any massive rearmament of Germany could only succeed under the condition of it regaining control over Rhineland. The significance of Rhineland is tremendous, this being the single most important guarantee of peace in Europe as it makes it impossible for Germany to attack its neighbours in the West and as the demilitarized zone rendered Germany defenceless in the West, impossible to attack its neighbours in the East as it left Germany open to a devastating French offensive if the Reich tried to invade any of the states guaranteed by the French alliance system in Eastern Europe, the so-called Cordon sanitaire. ["Cordon sanitaire" is a metaphor for the ideological and military containment referred to "the system of alliances instituted by France in post-World War I Europe that stretched from Finland to the Balkans" and which "completely ringed Germany and sealed off Russia from Western Europe, thereby isolating the two politically 'diseased' nations of Europe." To this end, France had signed treaties of alliance with Poland in 1921, Czechoslovakia in 1924, Romania in 1926 and Yugoslavia in 1927. The Cordon sanitaire states were intended as a collective replacement for Imperial Russia as France's chief eastern ally. The states of the cordon sanitaire emerged as an area of French political, military, economic and cultural influence.

The Locarno Treaties, signed in October 1925 by Germany, France, Italy and Britain, stated that the Rhineland should continue its demilitarized status permanently. Under the terms of Locarno, Britain and Italy guaranteed the Franco-German border and the continued demilitarized status of the Rhineland against a "flagrant violation" without however defining what constituted a "flagrant violation". Under the terms of Locarno, if Germany should attempt to attack France, then Britain and Italy were obliged to go to France's aid and likewise, if France should attack Germany, then Britain and Italy would be obliged to Germany's aid.

Our French allies from Deuxième Bureau (French Secret Service) have informed us a few years ago about Germany secretly remilitarizing with the covert support of the Soviet Union (on the latter’s territory) between 1921 and 1933. In March 1935 Germany has officially denounced the parts of the Treaty of Versailles forbidding the militarization of its forces, without a strong reaction from the international community, especially France, England, Belgium and Italy, the guarantors of the actual international order. One year later, on March 1936, Nazi Germany invaded Rhineland, without triggering a declaration of war from the other signatories, especially France, who was directly interested in keeping any German threat at bay.

In order to understand how the invasion of Rhineland without a gunshot was possible, one has to take a look at the bigger geopolitical picture.

I Goals of Major Powers

According to our diplomats in Italy, the Fascist government of Mussolini, as the previous governments, is very disappointed of the results of the WWI, where Italy was among the victorious allies after a costly war, but it gained little in Versailles. Mussolini speaks in public of the grandeur of the New Roman Empire, which would be revived under the banner of the Fascist leadership. In fact, despite being ideologically similar to the National Socialist regime in Berlin, Italy and Germany are at loggerheads over whose sphere of influence does Austria belong.

The foreign policy of Fascist Italy is mainly opportunistic. They are seeking to maintain an equidistant stance from all the major powers in order to exercise "determinant weight", which by whatever power Italy chose to align with would decisively change the balance of power in Europe, and the price of such an alignment would be support for Italian ambitions in Europe and Africa.

The foreign policy goal of the Soviet Union was described by Joseph Stalin in a speech on 19 January 1925, according to one of our communist spies in Moscow. If another world war broke out between the capitalist states, Stalin maintained, "We will enter the fray at the end, throwing our critical weight onto the scale, a weight that should prove to be decisive". We have sufficient reasons to credit the respective source.

To promote this goal, which would lead to the global triumph of Communism, the Soviet Union tended to support German efforts to challenge the Versailles system by assisting German secret rearmament (until a few years ago), a policy that caused much tension with France. An additional problem in Franco-Soviet relations was the Russian debt issue. Before 1917, the French had been by far the largest investors in Imperial Russia, and the largest buyers of Russian debt, so the decision by Lenin in 1918 to repudiate all debts and to confiscate all private property, whether it be owned by Russians or by foreigners, had hurt the world of French business and finance quite badly. The question of the Russian debt repudiation and compensation for French businesses affected by Soviet nationalisation policies poisons Franco-Soviet relations until today.

The Centrepieces of interwar French diplomacy are (1) the Cordon Sanitaire in Eastern Europe, which is intended to keep both the Soviet Union and Germany out of Eastern Europe, and (2) the demilitarization of Rhineland. Regarding Germany, we have until recently assumed that if Germany should attack any of the member states of the Cordon Sanitaire, France would respond by beginning an offensive into western Germany.

Long before Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, German military and diplomatic elites had regarded the Rhineland's demilitarized status as only temporary, and planned to remilitarize the Rhineland at the first favourable diplomatic opportunity, with the aim of re-establishing the country’s world power status, after the humiliation following WWI, when Germany was forced to cede 13% of its national territory and to pay extremely high war reparations despite the total economic collapse. In our opinion, Germany is preparing to openly ask for the revision of its Eastern borders stipulated by the Treaty of Versailles and guaranteed by the victorious Entente (Alas, the US has retreated from the European collective security system), which poses grave immediate dangers for the future of Poland and Czechoslovakia, but indirectly for the other France allies as well, namely Romania and Yugoslavia.

As a consequence of the terrible human losses of the British Empire during 1914-1918, the English public opinion is very adverse to any continental commitment of their country, should a conflagration involving Germany rage anew in Europe. No wonder that amongst British decision-makers, the commitment of the "continental commitment" of sending a large army to fight on the European mainland against Germany, though explicitly not rejected, is being carefully avoided. Indeed, many see the "continental commitment" of 1914 as a serious mistake. The British are extremely reluctant to make security commitments in Eastern Europe, regarding the region as too unstable and likely to embroil Britain in unwanted wars. Especially Poland (and Czechoslovakia) intensely sought to sign a mutual defence treaty, to no avail. At most, Britain seems willing to make only limited security commitments in Western Europe, if anything at all. More worrying though, is the prevailing understanding within the British elites, that German territorial revanchism in Eastern Europe is to a certain degree legitimate, due to the losses of Eastern territories where German ethnics were in majority.

As such, Chamberlain declared that Britain would not guarantee the German-Polish border on the grounds that the Polish Corridor should be returned to Germany. It is questionable if the British are even going to respect their Locarno commitments, which tended to guarantee Germany’s western borders with France and Belgium at the cost of the recognition that Eastern borders might need to be revised in favour of Germany. British foreign policy is based upon appeasement, under which the international system established by Versailles would be revised in Germany's favour, within limits in order to win German acceptance of that international order, and thereby ensure the peace. One of the main British aims at Locarno is to create a situation where Germany could pursue territorial revisionism in Eastern Europe peacefully. The British viewpoint, as mentioned by an English politician to a Romanian diplomat is that if Franco-German relations improved, France would gradually abandon the Cordon sanitaire (!). Once France had abandoned its allies in Eastern Europe as the price of better relations with the Reich, the Poles and Czechoslovaks would be forced to adjust to German demands, and would peacefully hand over the territories claimed by Germany such as the Sudetenland, the Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig (modern Gdańsk, Poland).

II Problems of the Collective Security System

At this point we are witnessing a weakening of the Versailles collective security system from various directions.

First of all, Germany has covertly militarised even without the Rhineland region. The annexation of Rhineland will free ample resources, speeding up the militarization of Germany.

In late 1918, American, Belgian, British, and French troops entered the Rhineland to enforce the German capitulation. Following the signing of the Versailles peace treaty, the numbers of the Entente occupation troops drastically decreased by 1926. As part of the 1929 negotiations that would become the Young Plan, Stresemann and Aristide Briand negotiated the early withdrawal of Allied forces from the Rhineland. On 30 June 1930 the last troops of the Anglo-French-Belgian occupation force withdrew from Germany.

A demilitarised Rhineland was the main hindrance to eventual German expansionist policies, and the English acceptance of German territorial claims on Poland and Czechoslovakia, as well as of the remilitarization of Rhineland is in clear violation of the Versailles Treaty, and a very bad signal for the international order. Moreover, given the centuries old competition between Britain and France for dominance in Europe and beyond, British policy-makers still tend to exaggerate French power. Sir Robert Van Vansittart, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office wrote a few years ago in 1931 that Britain was faced with an "unbearable" French domination of Europe, and what was needed was a revival of German power to counterbalance French power.

Romanian agents in France are painting a quite different image of the local situation. The Western front during the Great War ran through the most economically advanced and industrialised part of France. As a result of the hostilities the whole zone was effectively razed, and France was not able to fully recover from this blow. At the same time, although severely affected by the war effort, German territory and industrial capacity remained mostly intact, which was a strong base for the present German economic might. The German population is also 50% bigger, than the one of France.

France never completely recovered, and by 1932, suffering from the effects of the Great Depression, defaulted on its debts made during the Great War towards the USA. Even as we’re writing this report, the French government is highly dependent on substantial loans from the London and New York financial markets, a strong financial crises hitting the country 1935-36. Consequently the French military investments have slowed down to the extent we are not sure anymore if France will be able on the long run to keep its strategic advance in the military race ensuing all over Europe. On the brink of economic recession, France cannot afford the military mobilisation needed to force Germany out of Rhineland, and possible a change of Government in Berlin, without massive financial subsidizing, which England is not willing to offer. As commented by some high-level Romanian politicians at the time, the French decision in 1929 to build the defensive the Maginot Line, when the demilitarization of Rhineland was decided, was a tacit admission that France was feeling unsure about its capacity to uphold the postwar international order, should Germany take the road of massive rearmament. From a French perspective, as long as the French continued to occupy the Rhineland, the Rhineland functioned as a form of "collateral" under which the French could respond to any German attempt at overt rearmament by annexing the Rhineland. Once the last French soldiers left the Rhineland in June 1930 (under the Locarno Treaty provisions), it could no longer play its "collateral" role, thus opening the door for German rearmament.

Another key weakness undermining the Allied international system is that the Locarno Treaty meant to secure the borders in Europe can only function if England and Italy intervene on the part of France, whenever Germany violates International Law (i.e., Versailles and Locarno Treaties), with emphasis on borders.

The United States exited during the 1920s the European international order they helped create, England doesn’t want to take significant security commitments on the Continent, even at the risk of ignoring the letter and spirit of Locarno, and we have signals that Italy is engaging in negotiations with Nazi Germany, which already had the effect of Italian neutrality when the Rhineland Crises occurred, last year.

The turning point in Italian foreign policy seems to be the Abyssinia Crisis. Italy has occupied and annexed Ethiopia after a short war between 1935 and may 1936, in complete disregards of International Law. England, who probably saw in it a threat to its colonial possessions in the region but also influenced by an appalled public reaction, made a concerted effort to condemn Italy through the League of Nations. International sanctions were imposed upon Italy with the support of France, Belgium Czechoslovakia and Romania, among other countries, which infuriated Benito Mussolini. Being afraid that Italy might pedal back from its Locarno commitments, France made sure to reduce the sanctions regime, hoping to keep England and Italy together in the security system. However, the USA and Germany were not members of the League of Nations and did not abide to the League of Nations’ sanctions, which led to a reorientation of the Italian trade towards the two large economies. When Germany remilitarised Rhineland in March 1936, Italy refused to side with France against the outright German rejection of the Versailles Treaty. The credibility of the League of Nations suffered great moral and authority damage after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and the International Institution has to date no effective response against the remilitarization of Rhineland. Since the Manchurian invasion by Japan and the subsequent retreat of Japan 1931 from the League of Nations, the international organization suffered its first major blow because the other Major powers didn’t respond appropriately to such a blatant violation of International Law.

The Italian-German alignment: an anti-Versailles alignment or a short-term intersection of interests?

For the time being we cannot assess how far the Italian-German rapprochement is going to advance, or if it will advance at all. At least until 1935 the bilateral relations were fraught by distrust and a geopolitical competition over Austria, which 1934 nearly ended in war.

Starting in the 1920s, Benito Mussolini had subsidized the right-wing Heimwehr ("Home Defense") movement in Austria, and after the ultra-conservative Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss had seized dictatorial power in March 1933, Austria had fallen within the Italian sphere of influence. The terrorist campaign mounted by Austrian Nazis with the open support of Germany against the Dollfuss regime with the aim of overthrowing Dollfuss to achieve a German Anschluss caused considerable tensions between Rome and Berlin. Mussolini had warned Hitler several times that Austria was within the Italian sphere of influence, not the German, and to cease trying to overthrow his protégé Dollfuss. On 25 July 1934 has occurred the July Putsch in Vienna that saw Dollfuss assassinated by the Austrian SS, and an announcement by the Austrian Nazis that the Anschluss was at hand. At the same time that Austrian Nazis attempted to seize power all over Austria, the SS Austrian Legion based in Bavaria began to attack frontier posts along the German-Austrian border in what looked like the beginning of an invasion. In response, Mussolini had mobilized the Italian Army, concentrated several divisions at the Brenner Pass, and warned Hitler that Italy would go to war with Germany if he tried to follow up the putsch by invading Austria. The Austrian-born Hitler, although deeply offended by Mussolini's blunt assertions that his birthplace was within the sphere of influence of any power other than Germany, nevertheless realized he was in no position to do anything except to beat a humiliating retreat. To his disgust, the German Fuhrer had to disallow the putsch he had ordered and not follow it up by invading Austria, while the Austrian government crushed the putsch attempt of the Austrian Nazis.

What we did find out though is Italy claims a whole sphere of influence in Southern Europe from Austria and Yugoslavia, to Albania and Greece, if not the whole Mediterranean region, should the conditions be appropriate. Moreover, Italy is seeking revenge against Romania for its support of the League of Nations’ anti-Italian sanctions citing the violation of Ethiopian sovereignty. On the one side, there is much reciprocal suspicion and geopolitical competition at horizon between Rome and Berlin, on the other, Italy might see a potential for superior gains in the eventuality of an alliance with Germany. If this is the case, Italy will need to make serious concessions during the negotiations, since the German economy is four times the Italian one, and similarly will look like the military ratio, if current armament trends continue.

Soviet Union – lukewarm to Versailles

The Soviet Union is not a member of the League of Nations for a few reasons:

- The League of Nations was thought as a club of Liberal Democracies, while USSR is a dictatorship with a subversive communist ideology;

- The cynical execution of the Tsarist Royal Family by the Communist authorities and the ensuing dictatorship has determined many western countries to not recognize internationally the Soviet Union.

- The Soviet Union did not recognize de Versailles Treaty, because the former claimed territories currently in Romania, Poland, and the Baltic Countries, which belonged to the Imperial Russia after conquests in the XVIIIth and the XIXth centuries (ironically, USSR claims they are not an imperialist power).

- USSR believes in a collapse of the liberal order, which should be replaced by international communism, which is a direct threat to all the European states.

Left alone by Italy and Britain, France realised it cannot restrain Germany, should it decide to challenge the post-war legal borders and order, only with the help of the Eastern European Cordon sanitaire. This is why, from what we can deduce, France signed with the Soviets the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance in May 1935. This is a bilateral treaty between France and the Soviet Union with the aim of enveloping Nazi Germany in order to reduce the threat from Central Europe. The Soviet Union became supposedly less adversarial to the Western liberal order and more reserved towards Germany after 1933, probably because of the virulent turning Anti-Communist discourse in the National-Socialist government, and due to discussions in Germany relating to Lebensraum (Vital space) – a signal of expansionist tendencies.

Nonetheless, our neighbours from the Little Entente and we have reservations regarding the efficacy of the treaty and the Soviet true intentions. The defence pact can be implemented only if the other Locarno powers agree to it, namely Italy and England, according to its provisions. Besides French-Soviet coordination against Germany is difficult to achieve, since the USSR has no direct border to Germany. To solve this problem, the Russians asked for free passage of their troops through Poland and Romania. Neither Poland nor us can’t grant such rights, since we fear Soviet occupation and annihilation of the state. The Soviet part refused to offer any guarantees that the Red Army will leave the Polish and Romanian territory as soon as the war with Germany is over. Thus we’re asking ourselves if this Treaty is not only posturing by the Soviets, hiding other, hostile intentions. The only clear result of the French-Soviet Treaty was its use by Hitler as an excuse for the militarization of Rhineland, the German head of state openly claiming that Locarno was voided by France by aligning with a third party.

 

[Alex Kernel]

Interesting historical background. Will you be trying to apply any diplomatic agreements in-game (by tag, mod or save game edit) that aren’t included or easily applied by the game system?

Good question. Yes, but only in order to create plausible historical results, where the game offers nothing satisfactory for the contextual geopolitical situation. Any modding o diplomatic agreements will be discussed and debated in advance. My experience in editing diplomatic agreements is pretty limited, and help would be appreciated when necessary.

 

[El Pip]

If you are unable to tell the difference between a light hearted joke about an odd game mechanic and "gratuitously laughing" at a country, then I think you are correct and this is not a thread for me.

A shame as this could have been quite interesting.

 

[Alex Kernel]

If you are unable to tell the difference between a light hearted joke about an odd game mechanic and "gratuitously laughing" at a country, then I think you are correct and this is not a thread for me.

A shame as this could have been quite interesting.

Sorry If I offended you, but we had once that discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the airplane, and you brought later the subject again, which I interpreted as an attempt to derail the thread with a marginal never ending debate. You're welcome to follow the thread and bring constructive input. Everyone will surely appreciate that.

 

[stnylan]

Relying on France is never - in the 20th century at least - a comfortable position to be in.

 

[nuclearslurpee]

Sorry If I offended you, but we had once that discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the airplane, and you brought later the subject again, which I interpreted as an attempt to derail the thread with a marginal never ending debate. You're welcome to follow the thread and bring constructive input. Everyone will surely appreciate that.

You'll have to excuse Lord El Pip, as "marginal never ending debate" would be an accurate description of an El Pip AAR if you added the words "slower", "than", "real", "time", and "British" alongside. You know how it is; old dogs, new tricks, and all that.

But more seriously, I would not worry too much about anyone trying to derail the thread with OT discussion. The forum here consists largely of a pretty good band of regulars who know how to handle themselves without stirring up too much trouble all at once. It's simply the nature of AARs, what with the slow update cycle and all, that discussion amongst the readAARs meanders about into quite niche areas the authAAR may not have anticipated. However, we all do fairly well at keeping things from getting too heated about any one subject (unless, of course, we're all making fun of New Zealanders ), so as long as the authAAR (that's you!) keeps posting, we're all quite happy to snap right back on topic without a problem.

 

[Bullfilter]

Good question. Yes, but only in order to create plausible historical results, where the game offers nothing satisfactory for the contextual geopolitical situation. Any modding o diplomatic agreements will be discussed and debated in advance. My experience in editing diplomatic agreements is pretty limited, and help would be appreciated when necessary.

That all sounds very reasonable. I haven’t done too much in the way of save file tweaking myself either, but will want to with some future projects I have it mind. No full modding, per se. But happy to help figure out when the time comes.

Separately, I’d endorse what @nuclearslurpee has said. As a rule, if there’s any doubt about a commenter’s intent, probably best to give them the benefit of that doubt (tone of voice and body language being notoriously hard to read from the written word ) and maybe follow up with a Personal Message to confirm intent or seek more info.

Commenters are rather like gold on the forums, especially in the HOI3 niche, and are best nurtured unless some flagrant and intended offence is offered. Which I’m sure wasn’t the case with @El Pip.

Anyway, looking forward to discovering the game-related effects of this detailed diplomatic assessment.

 

[roverS3]

the German remilitarisation of the Rhineland in March 1936, an essential event in the interwar period, ignored by the creators of HOI3.

The remilitarisation of the Rhineland is definitely an in-game decision made by Germany. Maybe you missed the message. I'd even go as far as to speculate that the OTL remilitarisation of the Rhineland is probably one of the key events that pushed the game developers to have the game start in 1936.
It is usually triggered before it's OTL date. Playing as Germany can trigger the event as soon as you've physically moved a unit into each and every province of the, initially unoccupied, Rhineland. The impact for Germany, upon triggering the 'Reoccupation of the Rhineland' decision is 500 money, - 3 neutrality, -2 dissent, and decreased relations with France (-15), the UK (-5), Belgium (-10), and the Netherlands (-5).

Cordon sanitaire

We have that in Belgian politics, it's this unwritten rule amongst political parties, that they will never allow the hard-right, nativist, neo-national-socialist party into government, regardless of it's election results, hence, dooming it, forever, to the opposition. This cordon has never been breached since ww2.

ironically, USSR claims they are not an imperialist power

I don't see the irony, the Soviet Union's only ambition is to liberate the proletariat. Any country that becomes part of the Soviet Union, or it's sphere of influence does so purely by popular demand. Red Army? What Red Army? You mean the People's Army?... shameless plug: See my AAR for a, definitely non-Imperialist, Soviet campaign of proletarian liberation.

To address the somewhat heated exchange earlier. By the nature of the game we play, most people here aren't nationalist to the point were they are defensive, or even thin-skinned, about it. We like having fun at the expense of any country's, real and perceived, shortcomings, be it our country or another. Most of all we have fun at the expense of the game. Of course, your AAR has quite a serious tone to it, so maybe El Pip's joking remark was possibly a bit tone-deaf. No one is on this forum to single out a particular country they don't like (except for New-Zealand, but that's a bit of a running gag). I'm definitely not, and El Pip clearly isn't. Jumping to the conclusion someone has not only insulted your country, but is actively 'hating' on it, on the basis of one or two slightly derogatory comments about one aeroplane design seems a bit harsh, and your reaction honestly took me aback. (Not the clarification about the aeroplane, the other part.)

Water under the bridge.

I really like where this AAR is going, and I will continue following along. The two latest updates are definitely a step up. I love the detail of the diplomatic landscape, and I like the idea of adapting the game for it to better reflect the diplomatic reality.
On the subject of the Rhineland, I really like what you did and how you went over all the implications of every move that was made in that context.

I recently learned that the Weimar government was paying workers in the Rhineland a living wage, for them to be on strike indefinitely, in protest of the post-ww1 Franco-Belgian occupation of the area. That made the area largely unproductive, save for a few mines for which Belgian (and possibly French) miners were brought in so that they could remain operational. AFAIK there wasn't anything about this eventuality in the Versailles treaty, so it wasn't exactly against the law, and it was seriously undermining domestic French and Belgian support for the occupation. The 'collateral', as you so eloquently described it, was costing both countries a lot, both in taxpayer money, and in men away from home, while it produced very little in the way of economic benefits due to the near constant worker strikes. It was only a matter of time before both governments caved to domestic pressure and pulled out of the Rhineland, leaving the door open for March 1936. I sadly don't remember where I read that, and I haven't delved any deeper on the subject, but it's an interesting contributing factor, don't you think?

 

[Alex Kernel]

September 1937


The Geopolitical Situation of Romania in view of the Remilitarization of Rhine [Part TWO]


– Joint Report of the Defence Ministry, Foreign Ministry and the Secret Service to His Majesty, King Carol II and His Government –
III Eastern Europe at Crossroads

Between the 15–20 June 1936, the chiefs of staff of the Little Entente of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia met to discuss the changed international situation. They decided to maintain their present plans for a war with Hungary, if the country actively tries to rectify the borders of any neighbour, but concluded that, with the Rhineland now remilitarized, there was little hope of effective French action in the event of a war with Germany. The meeting ended with the conclusion that there now were only two great powers in Eastern Europe, namely Germany and the Soviet Union, and the best that could be hoped for was to avoid another war that would almost certainly mean the loss of their nations' independence, regardless of who won.

We strongly support that conclusion, adding that at the time being Germany is planning to reinforce the common border with France with its own defensive barrier, called “Siegfried Line”. This makes any French operation against Germany in case of conflict with a Cordon sanitair state very unpromising.

One cannot stress enough how much the remilitarization changes the balance of power in Europe decisively in favour of the Reich. French military strategy looks entirely defensive (the Maginot line), and it has no intention whatsoever of invading Germany. Its failure to send even a single unit into Rhineland signals that strategy to all of Europe. Indeed, potential allies in Eastern Europe can no longer trust in an alliance with a France to deter Germany through threat of an invasion. Alarmingly enough, some Belgian politicians are talking openly about dropping the alliance with France in favour of a statute of neutrality. England, deeply entrenched in its conciliatory policy towards Germany, has started in 1934 its rearmament programme, whereby the Naval and Air force receive the most modernization resources, while the land army remains reduced and underfunded. This says much about England’s priorities of keeping its Colonial Empire intact, while looking for a modus vivendi with Germany, irrespective of the German behaviour in Eastern Europe.

On the Eastern side of our borders, sources confirm the Soviet Union remains essentially hostile to both Romania, and Poland, waiting for a favourable occasion to threaten our territorial integrity, despite the Russian government showing uneasiness with the increasingly virulent Anti-Communist discourse in Germany. And we still don’t have a peace Treaty with the Soviets, who refuse to recognize our historical rights on Bessarabia.

The assessment of our political analysts from different governmental branches is that de facto Romania, along with the Eastern European states defending the international status quo, have insufficient to quasi-inexistent security guarantees from one or more Major Powers to deter potentially expansionist states like Germany and the Soviet Union.

In this context it becomes urgent for the Romanian Government to change the unidirectional national foreign policy, opening new diplomatic possibilities. Given our geographical position, and the Soviet continuous enmity, the only counterbalancing power against the Russian threat is the National-Socialist Germany, even if the same state questions the Treaty of Versailles on which the Stability of Eastern Europe relies.


Significant is the discussion the National Liberal Party (PNL) leader, Mr. Gheorghe Bratianu held with Chancellor Hitler on 16 Nov. 1936. Visiting the German Führer of his own initiative, he enquired him about his view on Romania. As Mr. Bratianu reported to His Majesty Carol II, to the Prime Minister, and to the Heads of the parliamentary political parties, Adolf Hitler mentioned it would be “in the interest of the Reich to see in this part of Europe an independent and strong Romania”. Asked if a Romania endorsing growing economic relations with the Reich would determine Germany to support Romania “against the revisionist territorial claims of Hungary”, Hitler responded he would “go a long way [to support the territorial integrity of Romania] and make his position clear and public both in Rome and in Budapest, particularly in Budapest”. At this discussion also participated a state secretary, whom Mr. Hitler asked to write his words down, for an eventual protocol to be kept at the Reich’s Chancellery. Furthermore, he asked Mr. Bratianu to inform King Carol II that “he hasn’t the slightest intention to endorse Hungary in its revisionist actions”.

Following consultations with the Allied Governments in Paris and London, the Romanian Foreign Minister at the time, Mr. Victor Antonescu reaffirmed Romania’s firm commitment to its Allied alliances. Our Ambassador to Berlin noted shortly after that Romania’s public dismissal of the German proposal of implicit prospective security guarantees, was badly received in Berlin, and, should the international situation deteriorate in favour of Germany, Romania risks serious consequences.

Obviously, we don’t know if the German Chancellor was serious about his offer, or just wanted to test the Romanian response for his own purposes, but provoking a power like Germany is certainly not in Romania’s national interest.

Letting aside for a moment the Great Power competition threatening peace and security in Europe, one has to pay attention to the deterioration of the security situation in South-Eastern Europe itself.

Yugoslavia – the Sick Man of the Little Entente

Yugoslavia’s foreign policy was until 1934 in the steady hands of the King Alexander I of Yugoslavia (head of state between 1914-1934), a very respected figure at home and a resolute ally of France and Great Britain. In 1922 he married the Princess of Romania, a daughter of King Ferdinand I of Romania, which presumably helped the two countries overcome small territorial disputes and cement their long-term alliances.

However, Yugoslavia is a tensioned multi-ethnic and multi-religion (50% Christian Orthodox, 40% Catholic, and 10% Muslim) state propped by the most numerous minority, the Serbs (circa 44%), but undermined by the strong desire of the other ethnicities for independence. Besides, the predominantly agrarian country, one of the most devastated in Europe during the Great War, and gravely hit by the Great Depression, hasn’t found a away to economic growth, rendering the peasantry almost bankrupt and resentful. Our reports indicate that the Yugoslav army is in a dire state, with no prospects of modernization funding in the years to come. This leaves Yugoslavia very exposed to hostile foreign policies of its revanchist expansionist neighbours, namely Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Albania. The defensive alliances, the Balkan Pact and the Little Entente, are sufficient to deter autonomous Bulgarian, and or Hungarian adventurism, but unfit to oppose an Italian invasion, especially with German support, or absent French and British clear commitments.

(Ethnic composition of Yugoslavia)
The emergence of a multi-ethnic opposition movement embracing the non-Serb peoples threatened to break the country apart since 1930. In Macedonia, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation was continuing its long-running guerrilla struggle, while in Croatia the security situation had further deteriorated by November 1932. By the end of 1932, the Ustashe (a Croatian extreme right paramilitary organization seeking Croatian independence from Yugoslavia) had blown up hundreds of trains while assassinating hundreds of government officials. The often violent response of the mainly Serb gendarmes to Ustashe terrorism fuelled more support for the Ustashe.

These internal centrifugal forces, appeared to slide the country into the civil war ever since, the problem being compounded by Italy funding the Ustashe, training and protecting hundreds members of the terrorist organization on its own territory, together with Hungary.

Starting in 1933, Alexander had become worried about Germany as well, suspecting an Austrian Anschluss that Mussolini, prevented in extremis one year later. In March 1933, the French minister in Belgrade, Paul-Émile Naggiar, told Alexander that France was seriously worried about the stability of Yugoslavia. Naggiar predicated the new regime in Germany was going to challenge the international order created by the Treaty of Versailles sooner or later, and France needed Yugoslavia to be stable and strong. Despite his distaste for communism, the King gave support, albeit in a very cautious and hesitant way, to the plans of the French foreign minister Louis Barthou to bring the Soviet Union into a front meant to contain Germany. In 1933-34, Alexander become the proponent of a Balkan Pact. The French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou had attempted in 1934 to build an alliance meant to contain Germany consisting of France's allies in Eastern Europe like Yugoslavia together with Italy and the Soviet Union. The long-standing rivalry between Benito Mussolini and King Alexander had complicated Barthou's work as Alexander complained about Italian claims against his country together with support for Hungarian revisionism and the Croat Ustaše terrorist group. As long as France's ally Yugoslavia continued to have disputes with Italy, Barthou's plans for an Italo-French rapprochement would be stillborn. During a visit to Belgrade in June 1934, Barthou promised the King that France would pressure Mussolini into signing a treaty under which he would renounce his claims against Yugoslavia. Alexander was skeptical of Barthou's plan, noting that there were hundreds of Ustašhi being sheltered in Italy and it was rumoured that Mussolini had financed an unsuccessful attempt by the Ustaše to assassinate him in December 1933.[ Mussolini had come to believe that it was only the personality of Alexander that was holding Yugoslavia together and if the King were assassinated, then Yugoslavia would descend into civil war, thus allowing Italy to annex certain regions of Yugoslavia without the fear of France. However, France was Yugoslavia's closest ally and Barthou invited Alexander for a visit to France to sign a Franco-Yugoslav agreement that would allow Barthou to, in his words, "go to Rome with the certainty of success".

Coincidently or not, on 9 October 1934, the King was, along the French Foreign Minister Barthou, assassinated in Marseille, France, by the Bulgarian Veličko Kerin (also known by his revolutionary pseudonym Vlado Chernozemski), an activist of IMRO (a Bulgarian political organization in Macedonia seeking secession from Yugoslavia and allied with the Croatian Ustase), in a conspiracy with Yugoslav exiles and radical members of banned political parties in cooperation with the Croatian extreme nationalist Ustaše organisation. An investigation by the French police quickly established that the assassins had been trained and armed in Hungary, had traveled to France on forged Czechoslovak passports, and frequently telephoned Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić, who was living in Italy. An Italian diplomat named Paolo Cortese expressed in private shortly after the event Italy’s hope that the assassination will lead to civil strife and the breakup of Yugoslavia. The undertone was that Italy would swiftly use such an opportunity to annex large Yugoslav territories long claimed by Rome. In other words, Italy and Hungary seem intimately involved in the regicide, actively seeking to destabilize Yugoslavia in order to dismember it and annex some or all of its territories, whenever the occasion arises.

Our analyses show, France is gradually less able or prone to save such a weak state, seen by official circles more as a liability than an asset, while Britain signalled since the Abyssinian crisis (Ethiopian annexation) no appetite to engage Italy militarily, and decided (An act of appeasement in line with the Rhineland incident reaction?) to retreat much of its navy outside of Mediterranean, leaving a maritime vacuum soon to be filled by Mussolini’s navy.

Pierre Laval, who succeeded Barthou as foreign minister, wished to continue the rapprochement with Rome, and saw the assassinations in Marseille as an inconvenience that was best forgotten. Both London and Paris made it clear that they regarded Mussolini as a responsible European statesman and in private told Belgrade that under no circumstances would they allow Il Duce to be blamed. Laval cynically told a French journalist "off-the-record" in 1935 that the French press should stop going on about the assassinations in Marseille because France would never go to war to defend the honour of a weak country like Yugoslavia. It is clear that France and England prefer to keep Italy aligned with them, no matter what happens with Yugoslavia. This might be yet another clue, this time right at our borders that the Cordon sanitair is on the verge of losing its strategic value, being abandoned by its Western guarantors.

Because Alexander's eldest son, prince Peter II, was a minor, a regency council of three, specified in Alexander's will, took over the new king's royal powers and duties. The council is currently dominated by the 11-year old king's first cousin, Prince Paul. Probably in order to the Italian support for the Croat, and Ustase insurrection, Prince Paul changed the political course of his country, seeking for closer relations with the far right regimes in Rome and Berlin. Since Germany is not a direct neighbour of Yugoslavia, at least as long as Austria stays independent, Berlin is relatively indifferent to the fate of Yugoslavia, but Benito Mussolini is trying at rapid pace to bring Belgrade into the Italian sphere of influence. Particularly worrying for us is the Italian-Hungarian growing diplomatic tied and the Italian position of supporting Hungary’s territorial enormous claims against Romania as “payment” for the sanctions against Rome voted among others by us as well in the Leagues of Nations last year for the annexation of Ethiopia.

After the coming to power of the new prime minister Milan Stojadinović, the relationship between the two kingdoms improved. A trade agreement was signed on 1 October 1936. This is already leading to a rapid reorientation of the Yugoslav trade toward Italy and German, meaning the country is moving away from our alliance system: The Little Entente, The Balkan Pact, and the French Cordon Sanitaire. Additionally, following renewed negotiations with the revanchist powers looking to reverse the Versailles borders/order Yugoslavia signed a few months ago, friendship treaties on March 1937 with Italy and Bulgaria, without consulting its partners in the Little Entente and the Balkan Pact. A further agreement was also signed settling all border issues, while Italy provided information to Yugoslavia about the identities and place of residence for 510 Ustase members. Mussolini imprisoned some of their leaders and temporarily withdrew financial support for the secessionist movement. The implication is that Italy can blackmail Yugoslavia as soon as it will refuse to follow Rome’s will.

Our legitimate concern is: Is Yugoslavia trying to improve its security situation at the cost of its allied neighbours? What if Yugoslavia enters an Italian-Bulgarian-Hungarian alliance under the German benevolence against Romania and Czechoslovakia? Should that happen, will be Greece and Turkey willing to fulfil their treaty obligations and declare war on Bulgaria and Italy? No one knows for sure, but the answers we would predict are not promising for Romania’s security, whether Yugoslavia will disintegrate or not. The burning question is, under which conditions could one reverse Yugoslavia’s drifting towards the fascist Italy (and indirectly Germany) before it’s too late. Our only hope is that a good part of the Serbian population is Francophile or Allies friendly, though not as much as in Romania.

Hungary and the German sphere of Influence

In the 1930s, the Kingdom of Hungary relied on increased trade with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to pull itself out of the Great Depression. Hungarian politics and foreign policy had been always chauvinistic but now it becomes even more so, as they feel the International System that forced them via the Treaty of Trianon (part of the Versailles territorial arrangements) to give up acquisitions made during the Middle Ages – where they were though ethnically always in minority – could collapse under the weight of revisionist great powers.

In 1932, the regent Miklós Horthy appointed a new Prime Minister, Gyula Gömbös. Gömbös was identified with the Hungarian National Defence Association (Magyar Országos Véderő Egylet, or MOVE). He led Hungarian international policy towards closer cooperation with Germany, and started an effort to assimilate minorities in Hungary. Gömbös signed a trade agreement with Germany (21 February 1934) that led to fast expansion of the economy, drawing Hungary out of the Great Depression but making the country dependent on the German economy for both raw materials and export revenues.

Hungary has already convinced Italy to publicly support its territorial demands against all its neighbours (except Austria), and it is intensively lobbying Hitler to do the same. We don't know yet how extensive their negotiations are, nor how close Germany is to cave in to their demands. However there will be a steep price for their loyalty to the Reich. Naturally, the Reich won't be the one paying that bill, rather Hungary's neighbours... Once these negotiations will be concluded, Hungary will be completely under the German sphere of influence.

Should Italy and Germany solve the Anschluss/problem of the Austrian sphere of influence to the satisfaction of Germany (advanced negotiations despite reciprocal suspicions and the Dollfuss episode), Berlin would have direct border to Hungary and military access to Romania (and Yugoslavia). Such a scenario would take Italy completely out of the Allied camp and pave the way for a dangerous alliance. Another implication would be that in return for leaving Austria in German hands – an outcome that would ultimately happen anyway since Italy’s economy is four times smaller then the German one, and increasingly dependent on German trade, while the Italian land army is no match either – Italy will certainly require its own sphere of influence in Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, given all this Italian talk about revival of Roman greatness. As already noted, Italy is already working to subordinate Yugoslav politics, and claims the right to annex Albania. A German-Italian alliance would give the latter the occasion to extend way beyond the West Balkan region its domination policy.

In this context Hungary would serve as a German-Italian bordering sphere of influence, with German predominance. Moreover Hitler could use the Transylvanian territorial dispute to blackmail Romania for whatever scopes he has, or he could directly threaten our huge oil reserves south of Transylvania by forcing us to cede the coveted province to Budapest.

Our allies seem to have let the entire region to fend-off alone. The official line of British diplomacy since Locarno (1926) is that the Eastern borders of Germany could legitimately be subject of peaceful revision in order to repair the injustices of the Great War, and to stimulate reconciliation with Germany. In the South, despite clear evidence of Italian involvement in undermining Yugoslavian stability and fostering ethnic tensions, England refrained from offering clear security guarantees to Belgrade. France is also pedalling back from its commitments to Yugoslavia, given the unofficial positions that leaked to the countries of Little Entente.

German eastern borders early warning

Any change of borders along the Cordon Sanitaire will thus forebode the unravelling of the Anglo-French underpinned status quo.

In other words, for the first time since the birth of our state in 1859, we will stand alone, between two expansionistic Major Powers, Germany and the Soviet Union, and multiple expansionistic neighbours. Should Yugoslavia become an Italian or German satellite, Romania will be surrounded from almost all directions by enemy revanchist states: Hungary, the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia.

IV Recommendations

Under these probable, not yet desperate circumstances, it is urgent for His Majesty’s Government to take energetic measures, before our security situation slips completely out of our control. There is no way Romania, or the entire Little Entente can supplant a Great Power’s security guarantees. Any rapprochement with USSR is impossible without risking losing our state’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Italy is not able to offer security guarantees against a potential Soviet invasion, leaving us with only one viable option: Germany.

Our overconfidence in France’s (and England’s) capability to secure the post-war international order was proved unfounded, and might backfire after the November 1936 incident, when we rebuked in a vexing public manner the German rapprochement signal.

Our suggestion is to open communication channels with Germany and Italy as soon as possible, and try to commend the relations with them, given that our overconfidence in France’s (and England’s) capability to warrant the post-war international order proved not only unfounded, but recently even counterproductive.

It is imperative to start without delay comprehensive consultations with our partners from the Little Entente plus Poland, to find out if they share our concerns or not, and what solutions do they have in mind to prevent a possible crisis. Of particular interest would be to assess during these talks, how far did the Yugoslav Government drifted toward the Italian sphere of influence. Can we still rely on Yugoslavia as an ally, and if yes, for how long?

Further secret consultations with Greece and Turkey should be undertaken to explore the extent of their help as Balkan Pact allies, in the eventuality of a major power attack on Romania, or of Bulgaria and Hungary declaring war on us, while Yugoslavia leaves the defensive pact.

Our last recommendation is to bring our divisions in fighting order, reorganize the officer corps in light of a potentially soon igniting (regional or global) conflagration, and make contingency plans for army mobilization in the shortest time possible.

After putting more of this complicated puzzle of constantly moving parts together, we will hopefully be in a better position to decide the best possible Romanian foreign policy.

 

[Bullfilter]

So does this presage alignment to the Axis after all?

 

[Alex Kernel]

Hello Friends, thanks for your rich feedback. Let me take a break today after writing so much text, and tomorrow I will answer to all of you.

The following period will be less descriptive, more game technically and historical action oriented.

 

[Alex Kernel]

Ok guys, I got the critique . It feels like a forum socialisation process . @El Pip, let's forget everything and be friends again.

Relying on France is never - in the 20th century at least - a comfortable position to be in.

Yes, it isn't. Historically Romania had many reasons to be deeply filo-French:

• The country benefitted at its foundation in 1859 from en essential and unconditional French support against the neighbouring hostile Great Powers (I think the correct term at that time was "Great", not "Major"): The Tsarist Empire, The Austrian/Habsburg Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.
• France was the most glamorous and culturally popular country in Europe during the XIXth and early XXth century, which attracted the youths of the Romanian nobility to go and study in Paris, from medicine, to law, architecture, military science, etc. The rich guys came back and started to fight for Romanian statehood and to build modern institutions and infrastructure. This has strengthened durably the ties between the two countries on many levels.
• The two languages are romanic, which in the age of nationalism meant a lot culturally as politically.
• Romania entered the WWI on the side of France, despite having a German royal family at the head of the state.

The problem is that since the Napoleonic wars, France was a declining power, economically as well as demographically. This aspect hasn't been noticed for a very long time not only by the Romanians, but also by other Great powers like Britain and Russia. The WWI really brought France economically at the edge of the abyss, but being in the winning team gave it an aura of strength, blinding much of Europe. Even the Germans didn't understand this reality until early 1930s, shortly after Hitler's rise to power, because of a diplomatic leak.

As for Germany, Romanians were not anti-German, rather neutral to positive. Germany's points were:

• The Hohenzollern Sigmaringen ruling family in Romania (since 1866) had played a very positive role in the socio-economic development of the country, and secured the existence of Romania in face of strong adversity of the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire during the XIXth and early XXth century. They were and are (though Romania was forced to become republic by the Soviet occupants shortly after WWII) very respected.
• the second country in Europe were the the nobility went to study was Germany.
• the German minority in Transylvania had always had good relations with the Romanians.

Germany has fought during WWI along Austria-Hungary, and therefore couldn't accept the Romanian demands for Transylvania, a medieval quasi-state conquered by Hungary from early XII century until 1526 (when Hungary ceased to exist until 1867), were the majority of the population was always Romanian. As such, after negotiating with both the Central Powers and with the Entente, Romania joined the Entente. In 1917 after the Tsarist Russia collapsed and the revolution ensued Romania was left alone on the front with Austria-Hungary and Germany and, after a seried bloody pyrrhic victories, eventually had to sign a capitulation Treaty with extreme economic exploitation conditions, which would enslave the nation for the next 100 years. Germany was ultimately defeated, but that episode soured the bilateral relations and made the country to side with France even more forcefully until the very end in 1940, after France was overrun.

 

[Alex Kernel]

I really like where this AAR is going, and I will continue following along. The two latest updates are definitely a step up. I love the detail of the diplomatic landscape, and I like the idea of adapting the game for it to better reflect the diplomatic reality.
On the subject of the Rhineland, I really like what you did and how you went over all the implications of every move that was made in that context.

The idea behind depicting the complexity of Romanian geopolitical landscape was to make the reader understand, what rather limited choices the country had, which of them would have been unrealistic (e.g. alliance with Comintern), and why history happened as it did. Secondly, I am creating here a plausible counterfactual reality starting from the true circumstances surrounding the Romanian decision makers at the time. When someone looks at the game map, it has the possibility to imagine a complex and interesting world as it was. The immersion effect is intended to make HOI3 a much nicer experience than the naked game mechanics.

It was only a matter of time before both governments caved to domestic pressure and pulled out of the Rhineland, leaving the door open for March 1936. I sadly don't remember where I read that, and I haven't delved any deeper on the subject, but it's an interesting contributing factor, don't you think?

Well, Rhineland was demilitarised to alay the German fear of Rhineland annexation by France, and this was part of the Locarno collective security Treaty. In my opinion the long term Allied occupation of Rhineland was unfeasible for a number of considerations, but demilitarisation was a good solution, if France and Britain would have been resolutely defending it. One aspect of the March 1936 events was that the French secret service wildly exaggerated the numbers of German units entering Rhineland, because it made a confusion: it added to the soldier the German police force and other similar forces, which were in fact not armed and prepared for a fight with a conventional army. Hitler took a gamble and France failed to call it. The Allies couldn't stop the German rearmament program but without the industrialised and coal rich Rhineland, Germany wouldn't have been able to speed up the process, which in turn would have made way to risky the War against the French.
A French intervention would have at least delayed for many years Hitler's expansionist aspirations, and meanwhile many factors could have derailed the road to WWII.

 

[Alex Kernel]

So does this presage alignment to the Axis after all?

Let's wait and see! The general policy of this AAR is to not disclose too much about future intentions. Though you're all free to speculate about this.

 

[Bullfilter]

Let's wait and see! The general policy of this AAR is to not disclose too much about future intentions. Though you're all free to speculate about this.

Consider that rhetorical speculation then. Though I thought you restarted to reverse an initial Axis alignment ... Go Allies!

 

[roverS3]

Secondly, I am creating here a plausible counterfactual reality starting from the true circumstances surrounding the Romanian decision makers at the time. When someone looks at the game map, it has the possibility to imagine a complex and interesting world as it was. The immersion effect is intended to make HOI3 a much nicer experience than the naked game mechanics.

That's the beauty of writing an AAR right there, starting from a historical situation, and then modifying history itself through your actions in the game. Giving the game a wider historically plausible (or sometimes implausible) context. Everyone has their own way of doing this, their own background, and their own interests, but in the end we all do this in some way.

The Allies couldn't stop the German rearmament program but without the industrialised and coal rich Rhineland, Germany wouldn't have been able to speed up the process, which in turn would have made way to risky the War against the French.
A French intervention would have at least delayed for many years Hitler's expansionist aspirations, and meanwhile many factors could have derailed the road to WWII.

It definitely could have changed the chronology. I believe it would still have happened, but it would have been significantly different. That's another what if scenario that could be explored in an AAR. What if you don't occupy the Rhineland, playing as Germany, modding the game so that you get no or little production and resources from the area, and you also don't get the downward neutrality boost. What will the game do then?

Even when you don't actively mess with the chronology, interesting things can and do happen. In my game Barbarossa was held up by a year, due to the invasion of Norway, which took over a year, because Germany lost all it's transports to the Royal Navy after the first landings. They had a single Infantry corps fighting the entire Norwegian army, it was a stalemate. The Germans only managed to take over the country once they had gotten transit rights from Sweden, and had managed to take a province on the Swedish-Norwegian border. By then, it was the middle of winter, and they then proceeded to wait till June for Barbarossa. Pearl Harbour did happen close to the historical date, and the US declared war on Germany soon thereafter, so now the US was at war with Germany before the USSR...

Let's wait and see! The general policy of this AAR is to not disclose too much about future intentions. Though you're all free to speculate about this.

Good, I like surprises.

 

[stnylan]

Put it all like that it is easy to see why Germany looks the least worst option.

 

[nuclearslurpee]

Ok guys, I got the critique . It feels like a forum socialisation process . @El Pip, let's forget everything and be friends again.

"I never thought I'd die fighting side-by-side with a Brit."
"How about side-by-side with a friend?"
"Aye, I could do that."

The idea behind depicting the complexity of Romanian geopolitical landscape was to make the reader understand, what rather limited choices the country had, which of them would have been unrealistic (e.g. alliance with Comintern), and why history happened as it did. Secondly, I am creating here a plausible counterfactual reality starting from the true circumstances surrounding the Romanian decision makers at the time. When someone looks at the game map, it has the possibility to imagine a complex and interesting world as it was. The immersion effect is intended to make HOI3 a much nicer experience than the naked game mechanics.

That's the beauty of writing an AAR right there, starting from a historical situation, and then modifying history itself through your actions in the game. Giving the game a wider historically plausible (or sometimes implausible) context. Everyone has their own way of doing this, their own background, and their own interests, but in the end we all do this in some way.

Wholeheartedly agreed. This kind of magic is IMO what AAR writing is all about!