I'm finding it hard to believe that Secularism would pass in a more successful Ottoman Empire. What's the rationale or roleplay reasons here?
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Most successful European states were secularising pretty intensely around this period? What makes you think that the Ottomans would be different?
Fairly easy. The great wars made them more secular, as did the general trend of Western European society which they have heavily bought into. That tied with leaders determined to make the place secular, huge populations of differing religions chaffing under religious law, and the leader of the Islamic faith in support kind of makes it a dine deal.
I don't see how European states enacting secularization policies or undergoing secularism would mean that all states must also go through a period of secularization. A lot of these same European states also experienced great religious conflicts or had established Churches where the State *was* the Church. The Ottomans, as far as I recall, did not undergo the same level of religious conflict that plagued Europe and the Ottoman state was not synonymous with the religious establishments of Sunni-Islam.
I didn't see the same kind of push occurring within the Ottoman state. There was no major religious conflict that threatened to drag the Ottoman Empire into an all-out civil war, and there was not an Ottoman attempt at creating a unified, centralized, top-down religious institutions that might have alienated its Muslim population that would've driven them to push for secularisation.
How? How did the Great Wars make them more secular?
I understand that the Ottomans at first were dependent on Western experts, but as the narrative moved forward and the Ottoman Empire turned its fortune around it seemed like it was creating its own ideas and experts and calling on Ottoman self-made men for support. I also didn't get the vibe that Ottoman leaders were determined to make the place secular. I got the vibe that they wished to combat the Communists and avoid further uprisings, but not the total dismantling of Islamic law.
I also didn't see huge populations chaffing under religious law. I can understand non-Muslims not wishing to be ruled under Islamic states, but that's not enough to push the Ottoman state to dismantle its foundations.
No disrespect to the author, but I felt short-changed. I would've wanted to see more of the internal struggle and ideological discourse sweeping the Ottoman Empire. It would've been nice seeing the establishment of European educational institutions geared towards creating a modern armed force and how that was resisted by the religious establishment. Or the Caliph turning from the endowment of mosques to the construction of more secular structures like palaces, gardens and entertainment venues.
I felt like the introduction of Mustafa Kamel was kind of forced. Like the only reason, he's here is because he was here in the OTL and that his role is to push the plot forward to the secularism chapter of the Ottoman Empire. It would've been cooler to this internal struggle happening in the parliament itself.
To the author:
I look forward to seeing what happens next. Specifically, I'm interested in seeing what happens with Ottomanism. In the OTL the dismantling of the millet system and the introduction of Ottomanism angered a lot of non-Muslims who felt like this was some covert attempt at converting them. The Arab populations were also non-too-pleased since Ottomanism quickly gave way to Turkishifaction policies.
What will happen now? What will Ottomanism come to mean in this timeline? It's clear that the CUP have lost (or at least I hope so), so who will decide what Ottomanism entails?
What about the various major cities of the Ottoman Empire? What's going on with them? Is Baghdad still undergo urbanization? What's happening in Jerusalem? Anything stirring in Mount Lebanon? Will there be a major religious shift in Iraq?
the ITC already was running the empire on its last decade or so. The sultan had nearly no power from 1909 on. Islam was being used through the title of caliphate only because it was one of the few convenient leverage points they had both to unify the empire with regards to its sunni inhabitants (most of whom still rebelled during the great war) and to use as a weapon against the British / Russian / French since they had a lot of muslim inhabitants in their colonies. It was not successful but that was why there wasn't secularization. If the triumvirate decided to go nation state way, they could've secularized. what i'm trying to say is, there wasn't a big structural obstacle to secularization.
in this alternate world, there was a longer time period with successive elections and no coups or countercoups. the populace were in favor of secularization and there war modernization / reform of many other aspects of the state anyway. it had just been a natural development of things in my opinion.
in this alternate world, there was a longer time period with successive elections and no coups or countercoups. the populace were in favor of secularization and there war modernization / reform of many other aspects of the state anyway. it had just been a natural development of things in my opinion.
That was in the 17th century, and it resulted in religious tolerance, not secularisation. Secularisation came only after 1850-ish, at various speed in various countries, and more or less unrelated to religious conflict. In fact, I would hazard a guess that religious conflicts actually slowed secularisation where they occurred (Ireland, the Netherlands, Southern Germany), as it strengthened the role of religion in one's identity - but I can't support that with historical sources.
At any rate, by the 19th century the big religious wars in Europe were solidly a thing of the past, and secularisation was yet to come.
Well it certainly made the European soldiers on the western front grow quite distant with Christianity, and intellectuals after that war became anti-religious for one of the first times since the enlightenment. Then, not only did the war end poorly but even more people died of flu.
This didn't quite happen in ttl, but you can extrapolate similar effects. And with the ottoman empire being under attack from communists and a more left leaning government and poltical movements, the sultan depowered and distant, the empire becoming increasingly educated and diverse...
It all points towards secularization, whether the government decides to enforce it or not. It's certainly the pragmatic option.
- 1
This Ottoman Empire has undergone a radically different 19th century post-game start than in our timeline. But this point in time we are several generations divergent. I think, given how rapid sociological and technological (and economical) change could be in this time period that is a sufficient passage of time that our history in a somewhat poor guide as to what is plausible in this alternate history.
In this specific case though it can be argued tha the various reforms are what have help make this Ottoman Empire be more successful. Throw in a few influential people at the right (or wrong) moments. A war won here, a battle lost there, and before very long the once staid Porte of the early 19th century is replaced by the far more dynamic polity of this early 20th
Yeah we can use the otl history all we want but after a hundred years of divergence, and a lot of divergence I might add, an author can justify a lot. Especially if there were already people in otl trying to do something. You can certainly make a world where the attempt of secularising the ottoman empire is made, even if it ends in failure or goes differently than they planned.
I'm not gonna respond to people here because I'm worried I'll be derailing the entire thread, but you all made a lot of good, bad and interesting points.
To the point: Is anyone else **not** getting notified about replies or posts on this thread?
To the point: Is anyone else **not** getting notified about replies or posts on this thread?
I got a notification about your message, @BlackBarook , but I did not for several replies prior to yours (and that's not the first time that has happened). I assumed it was an issue with me, but it seems like it might be systemic in some way.
I typically add a thread to my watchlist, then use "Watched Threads" to check for updates if I want to follow it regularly. I think by default the forum has a cutoff where only a certain number of the most recent notifications come up if you have too many since the last one.
This is what I do too. Especially as you might get several alerts for the same thread.
I didn't get notifications for anything since my last reply either. It's happened before, where for some reason I just don't get notifications anymore for a certain AAR. I used to think it happened if the AAR wasn't updated for a few weeks, but apparently not...
There is a setting somewhere to automatically watch any thread into which you post. I then either (a) go through watched threads list, or (b) go through each AAR subforum and read any thread I have posted in which is marked with unread posts. I only use notifications for new threads in the AAR forums, mentions, and quotes.
Sometimes the alerts gets reset, either there is a limit and the old gets delisted before they are read or the forum (falsely) thinks we have read them, I also regularly have to go through all the forums to check that I haven't missed anything
Chapter Fifty-Three: The American Question (1924-1928)
The Alaskan Conflict of 1924 did not escalate into the global war that many had feared
The outbreak of the Alaskan Conflict was to become one of a series of events that had begun with the signing of the Treaty of Washington at the end of the Second Great War which reoriented global attention away from Europe and toward the rest of the world in the 1920s. While Germany launched a series of offensives against the French in support of their American allies, their failure to break through the French lines in Alsace-Lorraine saw their war effort quickly peter out, and the left bank of the Rhine was soon occupied by French forces for the third time in twenty years. The German military had once again proven itself inferior to the French military machine – although the impressive performance of the Luftwaffe had taken the French by surprise, and caused more than a few bloody noses in political circles in Paris after the French air force suffered huge losses in the opening weeks of the war.
Meanwhile in America, the Canadian forces launched invasions of the United States on both the east and the west coast, and defeated their American counterparts in major battles in the states of New York and Washington. With the French Navy once again blockading the American coastline, the outcome of the war was in little doubt after the German offensives failed in July 1924. The United States held out until October before President Davis capitulated to the Canadian demands and allowed Alaska to secede from the Union. While Canada did not annex Alaska – with international opinion having grown increasingly hostile toward blatant land grabs in the years since the end of the Third Great War – the Alaskan economy was closely linked with the Canadian, and by extension with the French economy.
The end of the Alaskan Conflict failed to end what was becoming known as the “American Question” in international affairs however, with the Republic of Mexico responding to the American defeat by restating its historical claim to the "Mexican Territories" lost in the Mexican-American War over half a century previously. Mexican belligerence had grown following its annexation of Texas and the Rio Grande in recent years; and while British intervention had ended a Mexican attempt to conquer the Californian Republic, the conservative Mexican government had continued its irredentist orientation.
The Ottoman Military holds a series of parades celebrating secularisation in December 1924
The increasing power of the conservative right in North America was in sharp contrast to the rest of the world however. While France, Austria-Hungary, and Italy all had conservative governments in Europe only in Italy did they enjoy a strong majority, and the triumph of liberal constitutionalists throughout Europe had relegated almost all of the European monarchies to figurehead roles. Nowhere was this truer than in the Sublime Porte, where Mustafa Kemal’s victory in the Secularisation Debate had almost entirely broken the power of the conservatives at a local government level – while they had of course been exiled from national government for 24 years now. Even the Ottoman Military – once a bastion of reaction and conservatism – was now a staunch supporter of secular liberalism, and a series of Military Parades were held in Ottoman cities in December 1924 to showcase the multicultural forces, where Muslims, Jews, and Christians marched together as one in front of huge cheering crowds.
1925 was an election year in the Ottoman Empire, and all political pundits were forecasting a huge victory for Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Mustafa himself was wary of falling into the trap of complacency that his predecessor Pertev Pasha had slipped into however, and continued to use the Ottoman Foreign Office to further his personal prestige. Pertev Pasha had authorised a number of expeditions into the Andes Mountains following the discovery of Machu Picchu a decade previously, but while they had failed to make discoveries on the same level, the increasingly scientific approach had seen a number of smaller expeditions succeed. In May 1925 Mustafa Kemal met with the Peruvian President Augusto Leguia to arrange a joint exhibition team and make the Ottoman Museum the sole international leader of exhibitions in the Peruvian Andes. Coming hot on the heels of the latest Ottoman Colonial Exposition, this saw the Sublime Porte increasingly challenge the global view of Austria-Hungary being the cultural capital of the world, and cosmopolitan Constantinople was increasingly seen as a serious rival to Vienna as a result.
The Ottoman Colonial Exposition of April 1925 once more drew international attention to the triumphs of Ottoman Culture
The Ottoman Empire signs a deal with Peru for a joint archaeological expedition in the Andes (May 2nd 1925)
Mustafa Kemal’s National Arts Endowment had been extremely popular with the Ottoman populace, and his 1925 electoral campaign had leant heavily on championing Ottoman culture, while operas, plays, and radio shows with strong pro-government messages were regularly shown and broadcast. Radio was a recent technological breakthrough that had first come to widespread use in France, but which had now spread to a number of Ottoman cities. While all radios currently had to be imported from foreign companies (usually French or Austrian), there was little doubt that this medium would be of increasing importance both culturally and politically in the future.
The 1925 Election also saw the use of the Telephone taken into political consideration for the first time. Invented in the United States in the 19th century, it had only become commonplace to own one in the Ottoman Empire in the past couple of decades, and Sosyal Demokrat Interior Minister Rauf Bey had sponsored a national program linking telephone lines across the Empire after the 1921 election. The old medium of the telegram was increasingly challenged as people delighted in calling their relatives from hundreds – or even thousands – of miles away and being able to hear the voices of their loved ones. And in the electoral campaign, political parties regularly utilised this to phone party supporters and encourage them to vote.
Of course, telephones were more likely to be owned by the upper and middle classes than the working class; and thus they were of less use to the socialists than the liberals at this juncture - Naturally both the Hürriyet ve Itilâf Firkasi and the Sosyal Demokrat Firkasi were fully aware of this. The socialist Osmanli Ahali Firkasi were therefore restricted to more traditional campaign methods, much to socialist leader Husseyin Bey’s chagrin. The conservatives meanwhile, under their elderly leader Ali Riza Pasha, were increasingly out of touch and refused to countenance modifying their campaign methods to the new mediums at all. The Osmanli Demokrat Firkasi had seemed a beaten force after their defeat in the Secularisation Debate, and Riza Pasha spent most of his campaign calling for a return of the Millet System despite there being little to no popular enthusiasm for this policy.
The libertarian Ahrar Firkasi under Nurettin Ferruh Bey had been allied to the conservatives during the Secularisation Debate, but Ferruh Bey had recognised that the public were in no mood for a reversal here, and in 1925 the Ahrar Firkasi therefore backed the secularisation process, while continuing to campaign in opposition to the ‘welfare state’. Meanwhile in the rest of the opposition, Enver Pasha’s Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti were struggling to gain the traction they had in previous years since the crushing of the recent Young Turk revolt, and both the fascists and the communists were heavily on the backfoot heading into the polls.
The 1925 Ottoman General Election Results (July 3rd 1925)
Nonetheless as results came in on July 3rd 1925, the Ottoman electorate had once again delivered a veritable earthquake in Ottoman politics. Mustafa Kemal Pasha’s Hürriyet ve Itilâf Firkasi saw triumph on a massive scale as the telephone campaign seemingly worked wonders in flipping a huge number of conservative constituencies to the liberals – giving the liberals their highest vote share since the 1906 election in the midst of the First Great War. The Hürriyet ve Itilâf Firkasi had gained a massive 96 seats for 373 MP’s out of 850 in a decisive victory. Husseyin Bey’s Osmanli Ahali Firkasi had seemingly suffered from entering government and while they remained the second largest party, they lost 41 seats to hold just 196. The other big gainers had been the Sosyal Demokrat Firkasi – with their leader Rauf Bey having been the first to see the opportunity the telephone gave – as his party gained an impressive 59 seats for their best ever performance, netting them 171 in total.
For the opposition parties however, it was a night of utter devastation. The conservative Osmanli Demokrat Firkasi suffered their worst ever result – by some margin – as they retained just 25 MP’s; a loss of 83 seats. They had in the process slumped to sixth place overall, below both the Ahrar Firkasi and the Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti – although in truth neither of those could be pleased with their performances either, as the libertarians gained just four seats for a total of 43 and the Young Turks suffered the significant loss of twenty-one constituencies for a total of 32. The reactionary Teceddüt Firkasi – hamstrung by their inability to campaign on an openly Islamist platform anymore – lost sixteen seats to return just 7 MP’s, while the communists failed to return to their old strength and gained just two new MP’s alongside their usual MP from Salonika.
The obliteration of the right in the 1925 Election ended any remaining doubts over the success of Secularisation, and Mustafa Kemal was delighted by this triumph. There were mixed feelings in the government itself though, as the socialist losses saw the resignation of leader Husseyin Bey, and the Osmanli Ahali Firkasi announced that they would return to opposition as a result. The Hürriyet ve Itilâf Firkasi therefore went back into coalition with the Sosyal Demokrat Firkasi, with the latter rewarded with a number of additional briefs such as Health, Defence, Pensions, and the Naval Ministry. Rauf Bey himself stood down from his brief as Interior Minister to take up the position of Defence Minister, overseeing all three branches of the Ottoman Military (the Osmanli Tayyare Kuvvetleri, or Ottoman Airplane Force, had been officially designated its own branch in 1923), while also being promoted to Deputy Vizier.
The Ottoman election had also once again coincided with a huge fascist uprising in neighbouring Romania, and the Ottoman military was required to intervene again – though such was the strength of the rebellion there that three full armies were sent to pacify the region, and the Ottoman Army suffered an international embarrassment when 5th Army General Cevad Pasha was killed in an ambush by fascist forces in Balti in October 1925. The Romanian rebellion eventually took a full year to completely pacify; with resistance proving highly stubborn in the mountains of Moldavia. An explosion at a fuel refinery in Silistre in January 1926 which killed seven workers saw the owners initially blame government safety inspectors, before the disaster was later blamed on Romanian sympathisers, too.
Cevad Pasha became the most senior Ottoman officer to die in action in decades during the Romanian Revolt (October 24th 1925)
An explosion at a fuel refinery is blamed on Fascist Terrorists in January 1926
1926 however was dominated once more by the “American Question”, which once again threatened to disrupt global peace. American President Davis of the Democrats had been involved in any increasingly confrontational war of words with Mexican President Leon de la Barra over the rights of descendants of Mexican settlers in the formerly Mexican states of Nevada and Utah, with Davis (correctly) surmising that the Mexicans were looking for an excuse for a war. Davis himself was already deeply unpopular for his perceived mishandling of the Alaskan Conflict, and when Mexico finally declared war on January 6th 1926 the weary American populace took to the streets in a series of anti-war protests in American cities on the East Coast. The US Army was a shadow of its former self and after suffering defeats in Louisiana and Colorado, the Americans quickly found the frontiers overrun yet again.
The Mexican successes were relatively well received in the Sublime Porte – Relations with the Americans had dropped significantly since the end of the First Great War, and the instability in the United States saw the international markets in many ways prefer the stability of Canada, Mexico, and New England. Ottoman archaeologists were also operating in Mexico, and in September 1926 discovered an impressive Mayan Pyramid in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula. The Porte therefore provided tacit support to the Mexicans in their war efforts in the form of both arms and loans, with the ultimate aim of wresting Mexico out of the French Sphere of Influence and into our own.
The Second Mexican-American War breaks out with huge early success for the Mexicans (February 1926)
Ottoman Archaeologists discover a great Mayan pyramid deep in the jungles of the Yucatan (September 1926)
The East Borneo Crisis briefly threatened to spiral into a global conflict before the Habsburg's backed down (January - July 1927)
International attention was once more diverted in early 1927 however with the outbreak of the East Borneo Crisis, where the Habsburg Empire had made the decision to support Bornean rebels against their Dutch overlords, before the French came in to back the Dutch position. The Sublime Porte was quick to declare support for the French, and the British too backed the French. The Italian government then made the surprise decision to back their arch-rivals in Austria-Hungary - with the Italian government looking to end its self-imposed isolation of the past two decades - and the Italians now harbouring fresh irredentist claims against both France in Savoy & Corsica and the Ottoman Empire over the Dalmatian Coastline. Fears that the East Borneo Crisis might lead to another general European war ended in July 1927 with the backing down of the Habsburg government after the Russians had made it clear they would not support them, though.
And so with this crisis averted, the Sublime Porte once more focused on domestic affairs in 1927. The Ottoman shipyards had launched the steamer SS Azam in February 1927 which was the largest passenger ship ever built: Quickly being dubbed the “Titanic” by the international media. Azam could take over 3000 passengers on transatlantic journeys from Constantinople to Sao Paulo, and was a symbol of the rapidly growing Ottoman shipyards. The Sosyal Demokrat Firkasi running the naval ministry had finally ordered the first Ottoman dreadnoughts in the aftermath of the 1921 election, and the first – the Turgut Reis – had been launched in 1925, as the Ottoman Navy’s long awaited modernisation program was finally completed. Alongside the new dreadnoughts, a number of battlecruisers and heavy cruisers were also ordered in 1925 and began entering service in 1927.
Ottoman Shipyards launch the largest passenger ship in history: The SS Azam (February 10th 1927)
Meanwhile history was made in the Ottoman Empire on September 11th 1927 as Mustafa Kemal Pasha gave the first live-to-radio political speech in the Empire's history, following the death of the legendary former Grand Vizier Pertev Pasha. Mustafa Kemal’s speech evoked many of the greatest moments of Pertev’s career and declared a national day of mourning the following week, as Pertev received a full state funeral – the largest and most elaborate ever given to someone outside the royal family in the Ottoman Empire. Dignitaries from all over the world attended – including former French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré and the new French King Jean III, German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann (and also the deposed German Kaiser Wilhelm II, though the two studiously avoided each other), Brazilian Emperor Pedro III, King Albert I of Belgium, King Jaime III of Spain, and even the foreign ministers from Russia and Austria-Hungary.
The Sublime Porte also passed a law banning the practice of “Union Busting” in September 1927 after a series of businesses in the vilayet of Transjordan had succeeded in infiltrating unions and disrupting strike plans there. But industrial problems aside, the mid 1920s had become very much a golden age in the Ottoman Empire, with the continuingly booming economy matching the continual growth of Ottoman prestige and culture on the international arena. The Ottoman Colonial Museum of Natural History was opened in Baliksehir in May 1928, looking to rival those of London and Paris with its collection of flora and fauna. Mustafa Kemal Pasha personally opened the museum, and the Grand Vizier was extremely proud of the vast collection it contained – vindication, he believed, for his strong support for the arts throughout his time in the Porte. The future therefore looked bright, both for the Empire and for the Grand Vizier himself.
The Ottoman Natural History Museum is founded in Balikesir (May 24th 1928)
- 2
The specific reason why I chose to include Mustafa Kemal Pasha was the fact that I got the "Great Reformer" vizier after the 1921 Election - which seemed like too good an opportunity to miss, but I was certainly prepared to include him - and he got a brief mention in his diary excerpt that I made in the First Great War. As I linked to in the Secularisation chapter, the process was very much linked to and inspired by "Laicite" in France, which occurred in the late 19th century in OTL and in TTL too (The July Monarchy may have survived here, but France is still very much a democratic nation and I don't believe there would be a huge difference in its internal politics as a result). That we had just allied with the French (something which I also developed in detail) only further added to the links between France and the Empire here.
The Tanzimat Reforms that began the process of "Ottomanism" were first enacted around 50 years previously however, and the constant strives of liberalism have regularly referred to these since the liberals finally swept to power in the 1900 elections - with furthering the process of Ottomanisation being a clear liberal goal throughout. The Millet System therefore now represented the final divider between the various ethno-religious groups within the Empire - with its separate laws for each religion - and therefore it would logically be the final target of Ottomanism. True equality of peoples couldn't be reached when they're all governed under separate systems of law, after all.
As for the lack of conflict over the move: The absolute dominance of the left in Ottoman politics really explains this. As the 1923 Census and now the 1925 Election have shown: There are barely any conservatives in the Empire. Ottoman politics has shifted extremely heavily to the left - and is clearly divided between the liberals and the socialists. Less than 15% of the population defined itself as Conservative, Reactionary, or Fascist in 1921 - and the three parties got less than 10% of the vote in the 1925 Election. And with the fascists themselves being much more strongly defined by ethnic nationalism in the form of Pan-Turkism than by religious law (which I hope is something I've put across quite clearly with regards to the Young Turks here), it really makes sense that what backlash there was (and there was a brief fascist uprising) would be quite limited. The conservatives simply didn't have the strength to resist the reforms.
As for Ottomanisation giving way to Turkification in OTL - that's certainly very true, but with the current liberal strangehold on power and its only threat coming from socialism, that is very unlikely to take place in the current climate (although much could yet change - it's less than three decades since the liberals had never won a single election!). As mentioned in a discussion previously, Victoria 2 doesn't do a great job simulating internal religious divides (particularly with the Sunni & Shia), so the Shia conflicts are unlikely to appear in this AAR - the only place where I have a large shia minority is in the recently acquired vilayet of Tabriz. But the question of the Jews and Jerusalem/Palestine is certainly something I am considering working in (the Balfour Declaration is a possible decision to take), and I may take a closer look into the processes of Urbanisation in future, too.
I hope that answers your queries - in addition to the points others have already made
EDIT: As for the notifications, I'm not entirely sure what's up with those. I've noticed that they sometimes don't appear for threads I follow either, and I've never been entirely sure why - I suspect it might be that if a new post is made when you're already hovering over the alerts section then it doesn't appear up there, but that's purely a guess.
Last edited:
That's still very odd to read even after decades of it being true.
Yeah, Canada!
So there we go then, they have their solid frontier to the west locked down. Now they just have to push south. Maple syrup in Maryland, no time!
The world is certainly changing. So many great powers still operating, and so many of them still right next to each other. This isn't going to end well...
Yeah, I think we can safely say that the US is going to get torn apart. Especially if some lunatic decides to declare a state of emergency, take over and become a dictator, then lose the whole country to rebellion and foreign invasions.
Oooo...that's not good. The Ottomans have always had the problem of being surrounded by enemies and any allies they have, whilst being strong, being on the other side of them. Fighting Russia, Austria and Italy all at the same time would be hard at the best of times. The latter two are the top tier powers in the world and the former will not stay dead.
a great new episode just in time
it's great to see those periods of prosperity and advancement. we are advancing not only economically but also socially. I was expecting some more reforms though.
good job with the secularization and the subsequent elections. it seems like everything will get only better from here
except france, we're now on bad terms with nearly all other great powers as I can remember, and except spain (and iraq if you count them) we're on bad terms with all our neighbors. we'll need a few more allies in case things turn south and we have to fight all our neighbours simultaneously. how are central asian nations doing? or xinjiang? is pakistan still controlled by the british? what about switzerland? they can be a thorn in the side of both italy and austria, but I guess they're sphered by the french?
it's great to see those periods of prosperity and advancement. we are advancing not only economically but also socially. I was expecting some more reforms though.
good job with the secularization and the subsequent elections. it seems like everything will get only better from here
except france, we're now on bad terms with nearly all other great powers as I can remember, and except spain (and iraq if you count them) we're on bad terms with all our neighbors. we'll need a few more allies in case things turn south and we have to fight all our neighbours simultaneously. how are central asian nations doing? or xinjiang? is pakistan still controlled by the british? what about switzerland? they can be a thorn in the side of both italy and austria, but I guess they're sphered by the french?