Eighteen Thirty-Six - A HPM Russian Luddite AAR - Part 3

Poznen is rightfully Polish.

Poland is rightfully Russian.

Therefore, Poznen is rightfully Russian.

The illiterate armies of the Czar march forth as we go to war with the Prussians once again, for their grave crime of violating the Treaty of Amsterdam.

Though some mock us for our traditionalist ways, we have shown the might of Russia, without surrendering our traditions to the West. We can crush anybody - so long as we are fighting on one front, that is.

Our armies swing into Ostpreussen, with several armies led by the famed Russian Field Marshall Shuvalov marching into Memel, where he meets the esteemed German commander Helmuth von Moltke

In the south, our forces cross into Brandenburg, preparing to rush Berlin. This war, like the last, should be quick and easy. Nobody can stop the Czar's armies! Beyond this, we have support from the French, Hanoverians and others. The Prussians cannot survive a war on two fronts!

BUT THE SCREEN SAID YOU'D HEL-

The French, already concerned by our intervention in Hungary, view the aggression against Prussia highly unfavorably. They dissolve the alliance and refuse to assist.

Meanwhile, the Austrians raise concerns over the invasion of German lands, and the balance of powers in the region. They, however, are willing to concede Poznen, given that its barely German.

We meet von Roon's army in Gorlitz

Shuvalov crushes von Moltke's armies, and now the way is open for all of Ostpreussen and Westpreussen to fall.

We are victorious in Gorlitz, but haemorrhage (now I'd know how to spell this word if the Czar every gave me public education, but such is not the way of Russia) a large number of troops.

Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia, himself leads an army to meet our advance towards Berlin.

We give the order to mobilize our serfs to support the diminishing infantry regiments.

The Czar had already been warned that the infantry units were both not reinforcing, and our army compositions had largely fallen apart since the losses of the first war with Prussia.

von Moltke's presence in the north is eliminated, though he himself manages to flee to the rest of Prussia.

We re-obtain our alliance with the Ottoman Empire that was lost following the end of the Oriental Crisis. The Black Sea Fleet stations itself in Constantinople, and the Ottomans agree to not tariff all Russian goods. They are now firmly in our sphere of influence.

Otrovsky leads the Guards Cavalry Corps into the Hungarian capital of Pest to put down the revolution.

Why do we even start with a pure cav army? Oh well, what could go wrong?

The Prussians have managed to stall our summer campaign (we had anticipated to be in Berlin by now), but the defeat of von Roon's army, the last major force this side of Hanover, will spell the end of the Prussian resistance.

von Roon's army is pushed back, but inflicted heavier losses on the poorly equipped Russian troops. We push forth nonetheless, and hunt his armies down.

von der Osten-Sacken, a general well-known for his efforts in the Caucasian wars, leads the march towards Berlin.

von Roon pulls back to Prezlau, but stages a last-ditch defence to prevent the Russian army from marching on Berlin.

von Moltke magically teleports to Poznen.

As the army in Gniezo crumbles to von Moltke's advance, Fyodor Shuvalov is called over from Ostpreussen. His arrival in the battle turns it around, though Russian losses once more outweigh Prussian ones.

Thank god we have so many serfs!

The Battle of Prezlau is seemingly up in the air, with von Roon's forces putting up a very credible fight against the larger, but poorly structured and commanded Russian armies.

Meanwhile, Surkov is ordered to lead a separate assault on Berlin, meeting von Moltke's army along the way. Winter will soon set in, and the situation will likely stall unless all their armies are eradicated.

The brave Prussian resistance in spite of the much larger Russian invasion force inspires nationalists and revolutionaries in Silesia, who rise up against Russian rule.

We dispatch Grishin to deal with the Silesian rebels.

Meanwhile, von Roon is forced to retreat, whilst Surkov's army arrives to besiege Berlin.

von Roon once again stages an extraordinary defense north of Berlin, though he was unable to stop Surkov's army. Shuvalov is forced to intervene, and the remainder of our armies withdraw from the battlefield upon his arrival.

Shuvalov's arrival sounds the death knell for von Roon's army.

Ostrovsky's army is annihilated in Hungary.

This is reportedly the first time in history anyone has lost an army to a Vic2 spawned rebel country.

Before the Spring of '49, the entirety of the eastern half of the Kingdom of Prussia is occupied.

Our campaigns in the Caucasus come to an end.

The British finally decide to do something about their ally being annihilated, and land forces in the Baltics in preparation for a Spring campaign.

That goddamn Chechen keeps escaping.

von Roon attacks our positions in Eastern Prussia through Saxony, which grants the Prussians access but not us.

Minor skirmishes aside, the war in the eastern half is over. We begin executing our Spring campaign to take Westfalen.

Also, yes, you can mobilize serfs.

Our mobilized serf armies are used to wipe out any Prussian resistance as our main armies leave for Westfalen.

Westfalen falls by May, and we now begin the invasion of the Rheinland. The Dutch armies arrive to stop our incursion into the Netherlands, but Shuvalov is there to face them.

Shuvalov annihilates the Dutch armies.

Meanwhile, the British expeditionary force poses a threat in Lithuania. The Czar, however, insists that the Prussians are defeated before a withdrawal to deal with the British.

By mid-summer, all of Prussia is occupied, and our forces head back east as we prepare for the final battle with the British expeditionary force.

We dispatch an army led by Gurko to attack the Netherlands to stop them from retaking the Rheinland, but a sudden liberal revolution against the monarchy means that our job has been done for us.

The serfs gather for the attack on the British armies.

With the Dutch now removed as a force of resistance, and the Russian armies heading back, the expeditionary force retreats to the coast.

The British surrender.

In the Second Treaty of Amsterdam, the Prussians and British agree to accept Russian annexation of Poznen and its incorporation into the Kingdom of Poland. A cut-down-to-size treaty, however, is not enforced, upon pressure from the Austrians and French and threats of intervention.

Greater Poland has almost been restored! With more Polish territories firmly under our grasp, we can eliminate the risk of a grand revolution.

We send the serfs back to their miserable lives.

The Czar enters a fit upon being informed that there are *craftsment* is Poznen. The factories are immediately shut down and blown up by the Russian Army. Russia will not let the scourge of industrialization touch us!

The broken remnants of the Russian army withdraw from Prussia.

Almost none of our armies are properly structured, with the occasional pure cav army mixed in with pure artillery armies (their infantry regiments were annihilated in battle).

Shuvalov obtains the Czar's approval to begin rebuilding the Russian Army.

A series of forts are constructed across our borders in Europe.

To the east we begin colonizing and establishing forts in areas that begin to concern the Japanese.

A picture of our territories in the east

Shuvalov begins the rebuilding of the Russian Army in the wake of the first two Russo-Prussian Wars.

Part of the rebuilding efforts involve conscripting Poles, which immediately trigger street protests throughout Poland. These rapidly devolve into violence, with the Russian Army briefly shelling major Polish cities in the winter of 1849. In 1850, the Russian officers are expelled from Warsaw and the Polish Congress declare their independence, triggering a revolution throughout Poland.

The Russian Army is already in place to retake parts of Poland, though local policemen and Russian bureaucrats are expelled from the major cities. Silesia and Poznen, though formally under the Kingdom of Poland, were not under the administration of the Congress and are prevented from rising up.

Several Polish regiments attempt a revolt in Greater Poland but are stopped and all conspirators are executed via firing squad.

Shuvalov leads the campaign against the Poles

Most of the Polish cities in Mazovia are back under Russian control by the end of January. Meanwhile, Nikolay Read leads an attack on Warsaw against the Polish Liberation Army.

The Polish forces are defeated and Warsaw is reconquered by March. By April all remaining Polish-controlled cities are under Russian siege.

The Poles offer to surrender in May, with no hope of foreign intervention.

Peace is restored.

Bavaria is a great power! The Czar welcomes this development and hopes that they can form an alliance with other Southern German states to serve as a bulwark against the Prussians.

The Austrians, however, now shift their entire foreign policy focus to dealing with Russian aggression against the German Confederation.

Under Shuvalov's orders, a series of mass executions occur in Poland, and all conspirators are rooted out and killed. Bodies pile up in the streets of Warsaw, with violent looting and pillaging conducted under the eyes of Nikolay Read.

Meanwhile the Czar makes a state visit to Greece, where we affirm our closer ties.

The Toucouleur decides that now is the time to strike, apparently.

The Serbs also fall under our influence as we complete our total dominance of the Balkans. The Austrians are now highly concerned that they're being encircled - the Czar assures them that we aren't in any way threatened by *Austrians* and have no reason for war.

The current state of the centralization reforms.

All hail the Czar!

The Russian Empire has established itself, beyond a doubt, as one of the most formidable forces in all of Europe. The victories of our grand armies inspire songs and poetry-REEE KEEP THAT LITERATE STUFF OUT OF MY COUNTRY

The % of reactionaries continue to make steady gains.

The Czar learns that our academia, or what remains of it, is apparently described as an "avantgarde intelligentsia". Upon hearing the word "intelligent" he orders that this immediately be rectified.

We shoot the damn cultured folk.

A new ideology has been developed in Russia in the wake of the movements of the last two decades. "Russian Agrarianism" is an extremist reactionary ideology that favors serfdom, the return to fields over cities, and most importantly the annihilation of machinery and factories. The movement takes hold throughout Russia, and in particular among the aristocracy, who begin demanding that Russia use its armies to stop the spread of industrialism and capitalism throughout the world. This is the birth of a national revolution!

The harsh response to the Polish uprising triggers reprisal attacks in both Polish and Lithuanian cities, and things begin to heat up once more with a violent jacobinite revolution calling for the creating of a democratic, federalized state.

The Uprising of 1852 is swiftly annihilated.

Now it's confusing why the Silesians, of all people, are becoming moralist, given that they aren't Orthodox, but this means they'll support the Orthodox reactionary party that wants to annihilate their religion.

This makes sense.

Russian Agrarianism is on the march!

2 years after the end of the Second Russo-Prussian War, the Prussians re-establish defenses in Ostpreussen.

The Czar, after much badgering from Shuvalov and the State Council, roughly halves the tariffs on foreign imports to Russia.

While this triggers opposition among hardliners that he has unintentionally managed to create, this move was necessary so as to encourage pop promotion to soldiers. Serfs are not valuable troops.

By the end of 1853, the Russian Army has been both replenished and entirely standardized, thanks to Shuvalov's reforms. We should be a much more potent fighting force.

Russian Agrarianists are in uproar after it is discovered that the Prussians are building several factories in an area very close to the Russian border. There are growing calls for the Czar to invade to annihilate the industrial threat. Various strands of Russian Agrarianism begin to pop up, with "Global Agragranists" proposing that Russia invade to spread the Agrarian Revolution to the rest of Europe, and "Agrarians in One Country" rising up in opposition. Still there are "Accelerationists" who believe that they should leave capitalist and industrial societies as they are, for the inherent contradictions of industrial societies (the tendency of the rate of employment to fall, and industrial machines steal our jobs!) will lead to the collapse of those states and their replacement with agrarian societies.

Read this sentence enough times and "agrarian" stops sound like it should be a word.

DEMOCRACY IS A THREAT TO ALL CIVILIZED SOCIETIES

THE PEOPLE CANNOT BE TRUSTED TO MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS

THE CZARS WILL IS GODS WILL

The struggles that Russia faces in recruiting troops are due to the fact that so many possible eligible soldiers are serfs, and it is not lawful for the state to take them from their masters.

Some, more liberal factions within the State Council propose that the Czar conduct a major serfdom reform and emancipate the serfs, bringing great prospe-

HAHAH FUCK OFF

Serfs should be grateful that they can be serfs! Would they prefer to starve without any land to work on? The life of a serf is physically laborious, sure, but the life of freemen is mentally taxing. The serfs would not live if they were free - they would grow lazy and fat*



*Actual argument that Tolstoy wrote in War and Peace.

The British invade the USA for control over Montana, which the British claim is part of their rightful territory in the west.

This means that the British are far too distracted to assist the Prussians.

In early 1855, the factories in Pomerania begin operation, prompting luddite outrage. The Czar must intervene! Agrarianism cannot be left to fall!

The Czar sides with the Global Agrarians and calls for war to annihilate industrial production in Pomerania, proposing a Russian occupation (though not annexation) of the region.

This creates the seeds of the Third Russo-Prussian War, or the Luddite War.

Europe is tired of Russia's shit.

Absolutely no one buys the Russian cause for war. The Austrians are furious - Pomerania is part of the German confederation. They pledge that Russia will not be allowed to occupy Pomerania.

The French call for the formation of a coalition to annihilate the dangerous new ideology taking root in Russia.

To which the Czar replies - hah, below the infamy limit.

Atheism is nonsensical. You already have living, visible proof of a god - the Czar! How could anything but intelligent design produce such a handsome man?

We sign an alliance with the Bavarians, who are approving of our proposed occupation in order to further their own interests in the German confederation.

The Czar is told of rising militancy in the country by his State Council. He is urged to act to prevent it from rising into uproar.

Now the Czar's fundamental belief has always been that reform is wrong, but he is informed that expanding State Council privileges to Ukrainian and Belorussian aristocrats could possibly placate them and also with homogenizing the local population.

Furthermore, admitting such accepted cultures is actually quite popular among the reactionary panslavic movement. So long as the poor are kept out, this reform doesn't compromise Russia!

Ok so I need to break any character to explain what's going on here.

Restricting rights for even accepted cultures comes with a consciousness penalty for non-accepted cultures.

This is absolutely terrible, because one of biggest modifiers for pops drifting reactionary requires that they have less than 6.0 consciousness, but above 6.0 militancy. So we need to eliminate *anything* that can raise consciousness, and then bump up militancy, and that will spur reactionary growth. I'll be going through that pop screen in detail in a later episode (thanks /u/mystery_tramp for informing me about the existence of the ideology drift modifiers and UI).

So basically, by passing this reform (which isn't too out of character given that it just extends State Council representation to Ukrainians and Belorussians, which is acceptable enough, especially to the panslavic movement), my pops will end up becoming more reactionary over time.

I need it if I want to repeal "appointed" and make it "ruling party only" without a reactionary revolution (which can only be triggered through accelerationism i.e. passing reforms, which would break character even harder).

Making "ruling party only" is necessary for rolling back all other reforms (including possibly this one),

The Czar, despite no international support, refuses to listen to foreign demands that he stand down. He demands one last time for the Prussians to peacefully let Russian troops occupy Pomerania and shut down the factories.

The Prussians are outraged, and prepare for war.

The Czar issues the declaration of war. As the snow melts, our troops cross the border into Prussia.

The Hanoverians and Bavarians both support Russia and declare war on Prussia.

With the newly reformed armed forces, nothing can stop us!

Shuvalov leads an army into Memel, where he engages with von Moltke. This is a clash of titans.

The Russians suffer a severe defeat in Memel, with von Moltke pulling a miracle and defending the area despite being outnumbers. He however makes a fatal mistake and launches an aggressive attack into Lithuania.

Meanwhile, some of our troops swing into Pomerania and cut off reinforcements to Ostpreussen.

Shuvalov, not one to accept humiliation, leads a second attack on von Moltke's army in Lithuania after brief reinforcements.

von Moltke is forced to abandon his position, though Russian casualties are far greater.

Shuvalov chases von Moltke's army back into Memel, encircling them before reinforcements can arrive.

The army is utterly destroyed, and ducal Prussia is open to siege. Meanwhile another army leads a push towards Berlin. With the Russians on the verge of a rapid victory, the Austrians cry foul and demand the Russians stand down. We call their bluff - the Russian army stops for no one!

The United Kingdom declares war on Russia to stop their blatant aggression.

With von Moltke eliminated by the glorious Shuvalov, Wilhem IV leads a brave last-stand defense of Berlin. The attempt is ultimately futile, as Brandenburg is overrun. Prussia will likely fall.

Despite next to no technology or reforms, the Russian Army has crushed everything that has stood in its path. There is nothing that can stop us, except, of course a two front war.

Ahahaha fuck.