THE ATLANTIC FEDERATION, PART 1
A BRIEF HISTORY
In the name of peace and equality, we join hands in brotherhood
To defend these ideals from evil! Will we stand and fight?
- Excerpt from the anthem of the Atlantic Federation
The Atlantic Federation is one of Europa's three great power blocs, occupying the continent's western and northern reaches as well as the vast majority of the North Vinnish continent on the other side of the ocean that gives the organization its name. As of the end of the Great War in 1942 EC, the Federation has considerably enlarged itself in central Europa at the expense of the recently collapsed East Europan Imperial Alliance, accepting several new post-Imperial states as a "quarantine cordon" around the new Levelist state of the Europan Syndicate.
The Birth of the Federation
"Liberty survives at the head of free men and women bearing arms and making sacrifices."
- Georges de Fontenoy, Consul of the Valois Republic, 1934 EC
The Federation was the natural reaction to the formation of the EEIA in the winter of 1796 EC, soon after the total collapse of absolute monarchism in the Kingdom of Valois. After the overwhelming majority of the House of Valois and its aristocratic and bourgeois backers were slaughtered en masse in "the Sanation," the central and eastern monarchies of Europa banded together to purge the Valois revolutionaries and formalized their consolidation into the EEIA. The Imperial assault into Valois territory began the following year, but soon collapsed in the face of an unexpected disaster at the Battle of Valmie, brought upon by the Valois levée en masse doctrine of mass conscription the likes of which had not been seen in Europa for a millennium and a half. It would not be professional soldiers who won Valmie but rather the mobilized and energized population who had previously never held a musket before but were willing to learn fast to die for their country.
This success proved to be a double-edged sword for the Republic's radical administration, the Directorate. While the victory at Valmie saved the Revolution and the Directorate in their darkest hour, it also brought unparalleled honor and glory to Gen. Michel Davoust and promoted him immediately to a Marshal of Valois. Davoust was no conservative, but he had lost family and friends in the Sanation and had no sympathy in the slightest for the Directorate – what he considered a pack of unrepentant murderers that ran his country. He also knew that the Directorate making the streets of Valois run red with the blood of innocents was what drove away more sympathetic nations from any sort of mutually beneficial agreements with Valois, making the Revolution's – and his men's – fight to survive that much harder. With his massive success at Valmie and one of Europa's single-largest bodies of infantry and artillery at his immediate command, Davoust moved rapidly to win the loyalty of his soldiers to the point where they trusted him more than the Directorate. After concluding another series of battles against the Latins and another invasion attempt from the Empire throughout the remainder of 1797 and most of 1798 EC, Davoust wheeled his men and women back into the capital of Fontainebleau in October 1798 EC with the excuse of throwing a parade in honor of the Revolution's survival.
What it turned out to be was more or less a repeat of what Pullo did in the ancient Latin Republic to consolidate power underneath him permanently for the good of himself and that of the Republic. Striking hard and fast at the Directorate in the Palais National, Davoust massacred the Revolution's old guard in one afternoon and immediately declared himself the Consul. He would restore order and justice to Valois and lead the Republic to victory against all those who would dare stand against the march of progress. At the same time, Davoust immediately declared to all nations of Europa that the days of wanton bloodshed at the hands of the Revolution were over and that the true fight was against the ancient tyranny and oppression that the EEIA embodied in its war against the west. Former royalists, ethnic minorities, conservatives, radicals – all would be embraced and be needed for the sake of independent Valois and mankind itself.
The timing could not have been better, as the Edinburgh Parliament had already sent envoys across the Channel to discuss tentative terms for a defensive alliance in the face of the fact that the EEIA more or less annihilated the precarious balance of power in Europa and destroyed Edinburgh's traditional foreign policy of balancing the continent against itself. What the envoys arrived to in Fontainebleau was not the unstable, unhinged Directorate that they feared but rather an orderly, relatively sensible Consulate with Davoust at its head. With a major point of contention – the Directorate's crimes and behavior – out of the way and Davoust personally swearing upon his sword to the lead Edinburgh envoy Sir William Townshend that he would purge Valois of all of the Directorate's legacy and make Valois a worthy ally for any defender of the rights of man, the two west Europan powers formally announced the creation of the new alliance called the Atlantic Federation on New Year's Day of 1799 EC.
The Davoustic War
"En joue!" (Make ready!)
- Motto of the Valois Army, from the line infantry command to prepare a volley
Initially just the four states of the United Kingdom of Edinburgh, the Valois Republic, the Frisian Union, and the Kingdom of Lusatia (being automatically included at Edinburgh's insistence due to its long history as an ally of Edinburgh), the Federation engaged in a series of shock offensives that undermined the Empire's own plans against the west. Shortly after the birth of the Federation, Davoust personally led a campaign into the Latin Peninsula and completely dismantled the recovering Latin army within the space of a year; meanwhile, the Edinburghers established an unquestionable naval domination in the North Sea and the Mediterranean in coordination with the Frisian, Lusatian, and the newly resurrected Valois navies to harass major Imperial and Latin coastal cities. By 1801 EC, the so-called Davoustic War was in full swing with several major Valois corps storming the Duchy of Burgon and entering Prutenia proper to finally bring conflict and bloodshed into the Empire's own borders. At the same time, Edinburgh fully funded a growing democratic movement within the autocratic Nord Kingdom, successfully launching a coup against the formerly hostile state and turning it into the Nord Republic. The forward momentum of the Federate armies convinced other smaller neutral democracies to join, such as the Arvorigan Republic and the Republic of Massalie.
The Federation was ultimately unable to destroy the EEIA through sheer military might during this decade-long war, even if it caused considerable havoc to the Empire as a whole. Davoust and his generals organized a massive Grande Armée to strike deep into the heart of the Empire in an attempt to dissolve it from inside out. Despite striking massive blows against the Imperials in multiple pitched battles, the Federation realized that the Empire always had land and lives to trade away to whittle down the Grande Armée. It also realized that forcing democratic governments onto people who did not want it in the first place was a recipe for instability, which it experienced firsthand with the collapse of the Confederation of the Ofenrohr that was established within occupied Prutenic lands and the resulting economic damage that lasted for decades.
Neither was the Federation entirely successful at guaranteeing the liberty of all nations that it helped break away from the Empire. While the Imperials were permanently driven out of the former Kingdom of Gallia (by which point it chose to remain a Principality almost to the present day) and the Nord Republic was ultimately able to hold its own against the Imperials' northern strikes through its exceptionally tenacious Ulrikean infantry, the Federation was unable in the end to stop the Imperials from reclaiming the aforementioned Ofenrohr region and the entirety of Viszevary. In recognition of the nigh-fanatical service Viszevaric volunteers provided for the Grande Armée, Davoust himself allegedly proudly proclaiming that there was nothing on Earth impossible for his Viszevars (except, as dryly noted by his biographer, actually liberating their homeland), the Federation took with it as many Viszevaric subjects of the Empire as it could and relocated them to various locales in Valois, where they endured and nurtured their hatred for all things Imperial all the way to their homeland's final liberation at the end of the Great War. The Nord Republic also permanently lost its traditional eastern half, reorganized into the Imperial vassal state of the Grand Duchy of Karjala.
Even still, the Federation achieved one of its primary objectives for the war – the Empire was militarily stalled and left the conflict with less land and fewer allies than it started with. The Duchy of Burgon was forcibly joined to the Federation, albeit under surprisingly favorable conditions that will be illustrated in another section, and the Nord Republic and the Principality of Gallia maintained their independence from Schwartzgrad. The Nord Republic in fact joined the Federation shortly after the Treaty of Randgriz of 1811 EC that formally put the Davoustic War to an end. The Federation proved to the Empire that democracy could and would fight for its survival, and that the Empire had to treat the western Europans with the proper diplomatic respect they earned.
The Vinnish Affair
"The Federation will dirty its hands to fight for all mankind. We've done it before many times. Honor doesn't count for much if we get wiped from the face of the Earth."
- Adm. Sir William Victor, Royal Edinburgh Navy, 1930 EC
Despite the various conflicts in Europa during the 1800s EC such as the Haemusian War of the 1830s involving the Ellasic Hegemony in the eastern Mediterranean and the Eastern Succession War of the 1890s, the Federation grew considerably more powerful in the 19th century EC with unwilling Imperial assistance. The Vinnish States' War of the 1850s EC in theory should have remained entirely a New World affair, with generals from both sides of the Europan political divide commenting disdainfully on the war as being little else but two unruly mobs of men and women taking potshots at each other. The United States of Vinland had begun life as a nation very unwilling to become entangled in foreign alliances and virtually anything related to military matters, meaning that it had repeatedly rejected Federate overtures to join the western Europans in the fight for liberty and maintained a tiny army that did not match Europan standing armies in quality or quantity. However, the seemingly sudden division in 1852 EC of the USV between the legitimate government at Morganston, D.E. and the rebellious Independent States of Vinland (ISV) centered around the city of Atlas provided the opportunity of a lifetime for the Federation to bring the Vinns voluntarily into the alliance.
Combined with this desire to finally bring the Vinns into the fold was the desire to drive the Empire out of the New World completely. In the wake of the ruling House of Trastamar of the Aztecan Empire going extinct in 1838 EC with no clear heirs, the Aztecan royal council declared that the von Reginrave dynasty of the EEIA would be the new rulers of the country through its direct familial connections with the extinct Castrian-Aztecan dynasty. However, the people of Azteca refused in large part to accept a foreigner as their monarch, leading to a situation where the Imperials had a valuable staging area for expanding their influence in North and even South Vinland but had to actively struggle to keep it.
What followed was one of the most skillful acts of diplomatic maneuvering in Federate history.
From the outset, the Federation Combined War Ministry and Foreign Ministry independently came to the conclusion that given the USV's domination in population, raw resources, manufacturing, and even agriculture, the Federation was best served supporting Morganston if it absolutely had to pick a side in the States' War. Both ministries maintained this position even after the surprising Independent victories in the first six months of the war that quashed any hopes of a swift end to the conflict. Because of this, the FC Foreign Ministry proposed a foreign policy tailored to maximizing Federate support behind the scenes for the USV while enticing the Imperials to openly back the ISV or at least openly move men and materiel to Azteca to antagonize the USV through the violation of its Rawick Doctrine. To achieve the latter, it massively ramped up financial and military support for anti-Reginrave political movements and insurgents in Azteca to turn up the heat in the country and create more of a need for Schwartzgrad to intervene with force. To this day, dinero federado (Federate money) is a tongue-in-cheek phrase in the Aztecan heartland used for any case of plausible deniability no matter how obvious the source.
The Imperials, as the Federation had hoped, took the simpler brute-force method of resolving situations. To bolster the cadet branch of the von Reginrave dynasty in Azteca, Schwartzgrad immediately authorized the redeployment of a squadron from its premier Crystal Sea Fleet with an augmented naval infantry force to the major Aztecan port of Veralanza. Additional arms and ammunition were sent over as part of this show of force for the beleaguered Imperial Aztecan Army in order to augment its capabilities in the face of insurgents and anti-Reginrave demonstrations. And as the Federation had hoped for, the USV immediately lodged a diplomatic protest against the Empire not even a week after the news broke of the redeployment for another violation of the Rawick Doctrine by enforcing Europan rule on an independent New World nation nominally under the USV's protection.
A major windfall for Federate fortunes came in the form of the Travefrau. The Travefrau was a privately owned Imperial merchant ship, owned by the Förster trading family that enjoyed close relations with the Imperial court until the fall of the EEIA in 1942 EC. According to Federate industrial spies, the Travefrau had a secondary mission after its cross-Atlantic journey to Azteca to make a call at the ISV port city of Carlton and discretely transport a pair of Independent emissaries back to Schwartzgrad. The Federation Combined Foreign Ministry privately alerted its counterpart in Morganston, and the USV Navy soon intercepted the Travefrau to haul off the Independent envoys in what came to be immortalized as the Travefrau Affair of 1853 EC. Pressured by the infuriated Försters, the Imperial court demanded the immediate release of the envoys and received this supplication within the quarter.
Where the Empire made arguably its most fatal mistake of its entire existence in retrospect was its subsequent increase in support for the ISV. Internal Imperial calculations must have dictated that now that the USV had cause for nursing an active desire for revenge against the Empire, the security of Azteca could not stop at Aztecan borders. Rather, the Empire was now better off supplying the Independents with ammunition and arms – either the Imperials won a sympathetic buffer state in North Vinland, or at the very least inflicted significant damage to a country that would almost be certain to join the Federation. In a historical irony, the USV was now having to fight a collection of rebellious secessionists who were being supplied by a Europan absolute monarchy.
As Independent armies began to display increasingly Imperial military structures, training, and combat doctrines even as they were being gradually worn down on the battlefield, the USV finally broke from its long-held policy of refusing alliances with foreign powers. By 1854 EC, with the danger of imminent military defeat evaporating with the rout of the ISV's Army of Greater Elizia in the Union state of Silvana, Morganston officially applied for entry into the Atlantic Federation and was fast-tracked with the promise of full membership once the war was concluded. While the USV ultimately did suffer horrific losses in unifying the nation and would require many years engaging in its policy of conciliatory reunification to fully recover, and while Azteca would remain out of reach of the Federation until after EWI, the Empire would come to regret its decisions during the Vinnish States' War. By 1900 EC, the newly invigorated USV helped negate by itself the industrial inferiority of the Europan half of the Federation and put the alliance in almost an equal footing with the Empire. The Empire's industrial and military might were still unparalleled in Europa proper by the time of the outbreak of the Great War in January 1935 EC, but the Federation in turn enjoyed a virtually untouchable war factory and horn of plenty that balanced out the Empire's immediate regional advantages.
The Long 19th Century
"Keep knocking on Hel's door, and it may actually open."
- Vinnish proverb
Outside of the Vinnish States' War, the Federation engaged in many conflicts in Europa and abroad for all of the 19th century – much of it dovetailed with the increasingly bitter battle over control of the valuable ragnite that powers much of modern civilization. The first major post-Davoustic War test of Federate resolve was the Haemusian War that broke out in the northern territories of the Ellasic Hegemony in 1830 EC. The coronation of the new Basileus Herakleios II sparked outrage among the northern themes of Ellas, which had long resisted neo-Ellasinization policies of cultural assimilation and reduction of political autonomy. In 1830 EC, a Haemusian coalition of separatist themes (equivalent to provinces in other countries) led by the newly declared Despotate of Cer finally declared a war of independence from Filipposoupolis after the Ellasenes declared their intention to put the region's ragnite mines – and by extension the entire regional economy – under the direct control of the Hegemony.
The Empire naturally saw a great chance to expand its sphere at the cost of a weakened Ellasic Hegemony, which at this time was undergoing belated reforms to overhaul its old military system of thematic recruitment and supply – the themata system was good for engaging in multiple, smaller, localized wars, but not one against a coherent, centralized, and powerful state like the EEIA. The Federation soon declared its support for Ellas alongside the Latin Republic and the Kingdom of Kemat, all three parties sharing the fear that an expanded Empire would not merely stop at the Haemusians. Both sides naturally also harbored an intense desire to secure the region's strategic resources, with ragnite even in those days feared to be exhausted soon. After initial victories by the Haemusians, the Empire finally intervened to press the advantage, and the Federates, Latins, and Kematians immediately countered with their own forces.
The Haemusian War was a surprisingly limited one from the perspective of outside powers. Due to the extremely hilly and rough terrain of the Haemusians and the Ellasic heartlands, the Ellasenes and Haemusians ultimately matched each other in battle. The Imperials were forced to rely heavily on their hastily organized Gebirgstruppen mountain infantry to navigate the region, and the pro-Ellasic coalition made do with Edinburgh's Gallowglass (many of them from the Edinburgh highlands) and Latium's Raetian infantry. Furthermore, both sides still had the memories of the Davoustic War fresh in their minds, and wished to avoid fighting a total war over the Haemusians. In the end, the Ellasenes won a costly victory, maintaining suzerainty over the Haemusians but the Haemusian coalition in turn receiving total freedom from the neo-Ellasinization policies that caused the war in the first place. The Empire also received special trading privileges with the entire region, especially involving its ragnite, but the Federation gained a new – if discomfortingly autocratic – ally to help counterbalance the EEIA.
After the Haemusian War, the nature of the Federation dramatically changed. While the Federation began life as mainly as an alliance, it began to morph into something resembling a superstate by the end of the Scramble for Nubia in the 1880s EC. A more centralized institute in the form of the Federate Council was established along with the General Assembly, with states able to vote for the highest representatives of the alliance. While many conservative political movements in Federate countries protested this change and entered into an unholy alliance with the Tarraconese anarchists in doing so, the march of Federate centralization won out in the face of the autocratic Empire to the east. While the Federation still officially styles itself as an alliance and many contemporary observers take care to call it as such on account of each member state's ultimate sovereignty, to deny its metamorphosis into a functional superstate is to ignore geopolitical realities.
Until the short but bloody Eastern Succession War, the Federation performed relatively admirably in avoiding outright military confrontation with the Empire. If anything, it had to deal with internal matters more so than it did external ones. The mad scramble for Nubian lands and resources led to some of the Federation's most difficult periods in its history, as every Federate participant in the wave of colonization inevitably had some bitter words to say about every other Federate colonial power as they competed for the most valuable plots of Nubian land (and coincidentally, people). Unlike with the original wave of Europan colonization from the 1500s EC, the Federation declined to resettle Europans in Nubia to an extensive degree, officially citing a desire to avoid unnecessary ethnic confrontation – in reality, it was because of a lack of willing colonists and the desire to optimize profits from Nubia's wealth of strategic and luxury goods.
After the near-miss conflict between Edinburgh and Valois colonial expeditions somewhere to the south of Kemat in 1884 EC that caused incredible nationalist furor in both countries, the Federate Council forced through a convention at the Arvorigan capital city of Condate to finally sort out colonial borders once and for all and declare a general stop to Nubian colonization. While the Scramble for Nubia had undoubtedly enriched the Federation to a great degree, it had also come with devastating side effects. Edinburgh's (and the Federation's) reputation took a brief but significant nosedive in 1883 EC over its unilateral conquest of the Gallian and Frisian expatriate republics in southern Nubia, with their homelands each lodging strong protests against Castleton for waging an unjustified war of conquest against unaggressive democracies. This in turn helped push the ancient Empire of Debirhan in east Nubia closer toward the Empire to secure some help in protecting its sovereignty – a colossal miscalculation for the Federation given that Debirhan was right next to the Horn of Nubia and Edinburgh's incredibly vital lifeline to its mega-colony of Bharat. In another round of historical and political irony, the EEIA would dominate international geopolitics as one of the loudest anti-colonial voices on the planet until its collapse.
It was in the context of the Scramble for Nubia that the two "Wings" of the Federation (discounting the third "Quarantine Cordon" faction created in 1942 EC) arose, each supporting a general direction for the Federation moving forward. The Continental Wing, as its name suggested, proposed that the Federation primarily focus its attention on the Europan continent and cultivate working relationships with the newly forged Aegean League and other neutral states to more reliably block Imperial ambitions to dominate Europa. Any other power wishing to challenge the Federation beyond Europa, such as the rising Diarchy of Kokuria-Yamatai, were simply secondary when compared to the Victor's Throne. As the self-designated shield of Europa, Valois took Arvorig, Frisia, Burgon, Massalie, Tarracon, and the Nord Republic under its wing to form a reinforced front against Schwartzgrad, broadly sharing and standardizing small arms and artillery (with the exception of the Nord Republic, which held steadfast to the war gear produced by the all-Skaneyan Oxenstierna Arms) to simplify production and logistics in the face of the industrially superior Empire.
The Oceanic Wing comprises Edinburgh, the USV, Lusatia, the Arcadian Commonwealth, the Republic of Riodoro to the USV's southwest, and the autonomous Transblue Dominion located at the southern tip of Nubia. The Oceanic Wing argued that while defending the Federation's claims in Europa were important, it was much more efficient to build power outside Europa to deny the Empire and any other power that happened to be aligned with them (the Diarchy again being raised as a possible example) easy opportunities to expand. By dominating the waves and cultivating strong relations with overseas nations to deny them to the Imperial sphere, the Federation could call upon far more resources to fight the Empire wherever it tried to gain a foothold – not only in Europa, but the entire world. And if the worst came to pass and the Federation was overrun in Europa, having these friendly territories and allies beyond the continent would allow the Federation to regroup and strike back from virtually bulletproof rally points.
The Eastern Succession War was the Continental Wing's first opportunity to prove the validity of its position, and it arguably failed and succeeded at the same time. As the Empire descended from dynastic infighting with the sudden demise of the childless Segimer VI in 1892 EC and into open street battles, and ultimately into organized private dynastic armies to fight for the control of the Victor's Throne, the Continental Wing immediately argued for a limited intervention to kick the Empire while it was down. While Valois initially planned for a dual strike, one into the Raetian Mountains region along the Imperial border with Latium to deny the Imperials their access to the Mediterranean and another strike into the Crystal Sea's scattered islands off the eastern Skaneyan coast to improve the Federation's unsteady hold in the north, only the latter actually succeeded. The Latins and the wider League unexpectedly got cold feet and refused at the last minute to join the proposed joint attack at the Raetians, citing insufficient military force and economic strength to support the strike and insufficient benefits for the League in committing to such a gamble. The Valois government ultimately scaled down its intervention plans massively, occupying the Ofenrohr Valley region again for a short period but not able to push any further due to concerns that the Empire would pull itself together temporarily to fight the Federation in a new mechanized war that the latter was not quite yet ready for. By the time the Alexandrian faction won in early 1895 EC, Valois quietly pulled out of the Ofenrohr under the threat of the new rudimentary Imperial tanks, and the new Kaiser Alexander II declined to pursue the Federation into its own lands on account of the war exhaustion.
On the other hand, the strikes on the Crystal Sea islands went exactly as hoped, their scant garrisons being swept away on contact with the Federate navies and their marines. As the Crystal Sea Fleet was trapped in port for the duration of the war on account of the bitter conflicts of loyalty within the Reichsmarine as a whole, the Empire failed to retake these islands before a joint Edinburgh-Valois-Nord combined garrison force dug in with heavy artillery. The last Federate-Imperial engagement of the Eastern Succession War took place at these islands just before the thaw season in the Crystal Sea in 1894 EC, the Imperials being drowned and scattered through the Federation's unusual superiority in artillery but not before seeing the Federate garrison experience heavy attrition through Imperial artillery fire and the biting cold of the far north. Alexander II was forced to give up these small dots in the sea, although the official Imperial position was that the islands would be "leased" to the Nord Republic for "fifty years."
The Eastern Succession War betrayed a glaring issue with Federate political arrangements, specifically regarding the USV. As Morganston was always more concerned with New World matters when it came to fighting the Empire than it was with Europa, it took much ear-pulling by the Europan parties to convince Morganston to finally commit resources and men to the continent. As the Europans would bitterly note in the following decades, one could always count on Vinland to do the right thing once every other option and Federate member was exhausted; in the case of the Eastern Succession War, the USV only committed when it was clear that any direct actions against the Empire's heartland were doomed to fail. Despite the rising power of the EEIA, Morganston would always be sluggish in responding to events in Europa – the calculation being that in the worst case scenario, the USV would have two oceans and self-sufficiency in strategic resources to fight the Empire. It would take two cataclysmic Europan wars for the USV to finally become more proactive in entering conflicts, by which point the main threat shifted to the considerably weaker Europan Syndicate.
The Federation took three main lessons from the Eastern Succession War. The first one was that it was in fact very feasible to nibble at the Empire on its own turf and get away with limited gains. The second one was that the Federation could not necessarily rely on other great powers to collaborate with it even when the proposal was framed to highlight the mutual benefit. The third was to operate on the continent with the assumption that the USV would not be involved at the start. It was these three lessons that shadowed the Federation's entry into the 20th century and the most devastating wars of its history.
The Road to the Great War
"Mark my words, we signed not only an armistice but also a death warrant. Our children will pay for this, and we will be fortunate if they forgive us."
- Gen. Paul Lefebvre, Valois Army, 1915 EC
As the Great War has only just ended as of the time of this writing and the world is undergoing a paradigm shift the likes of which have almost never been seen before, it is perhaps more fitting to address the First Europan War and the Great War in their separate dedicated studies. However, a broad survey of Federate actions during EWI and the interwar period can still be conducted.
The 1912 EC assassination of Crown Prince Friedrich and his entire immediate family in the von Reginraves' winter lodgings in the Raetian Mountains at the hands of pro-Latin separatists sparked a continental crisis. To make matters worse, the impacts of the assassination were amplified with that year's international announcement – immortalized as simply the Ragnite Report – that world reserves of ragnite were not expected to last for long beyond the turn of the following century. Already harboring long grudges against the rest of Europa for its constant interference in Imperial interests and taking Imperial lands, the assassination of the Crown Prince and the Ragnite Report fueled the Imperial population's demand for war to avenge historical wrongs and secure their future.
The Federate Council knew that even if the entire League (Ellas, Latium, Kemat, and their immediate sphere) were to come together to fight, the war would eventually turn in favor of the Empire on account of Schwartzgrad's superiority in manpower and industrial might. Both Wings considered the collapse of the League to be unacceptable. The Continental Wing argued it was only just able to hold against the vastly empowered Reichsarmee; to have to fight a Reichsarmee reinforced with former League manpower and resources would cave in the frontlines too quickly for any sort of Federate recovery on the continent even with an early Vinnish intervention. The Oceanic Wing (except the USV, which was concerned more with increasing unrest in Azteca) viewed increased Imperial power in the eastern Mediterranean to be utterly unacceptable on account of Kemat's direct control over the Peklousma Canal that provided Edinburgh with its most direct lifeline to before the Ragnite Report's release, the Federation and the League conducted secret negotiations in the Ellasic capital city of Filipposoupolis to create a short-term defensive alliance against the Empire in case of war, to be renewed every three years.
In early November 1912 EC, the Imperials finally demanded that Latium all but give up its internal sovereignty in the name of conducting an impartial investigation into the death of Crown Prince Friedrich, which Latium and the entire League categorically rejected. Having its ultimatum rejected, the Empire declared war on the League three days later and the Federation in turn declared war on the Empire to protect its Europan interests – the First Europan War was on. Prepared for the USV Congress declining to formally authorize a declaration of war until its influential and Imperial-supported isolationist political movement that rejected automatic entry into "offensive" wars (which the Federation was accused of doing) was appeased, the Federation mainly took a defensive position within its own lands. Much of Frisia was overrun by the Imperial forces before the Edinburghers were able to help reinforce the beleaguered Frisian Army, and much of southeastern Valois met a similar fate in the face of the Empire's new generation of armored vehicles matured since the Eastern Succession War. Burgon remained mostly unoccupied for the entire war, having massively upgraded its defensive networks in the years preceding EWI; Imperial officers reportedly respected and feared Burgon as possibly having pre-sighted every last kilometer of its land for artillery and having a higher density of trenches than anywhere else in Europa. Most Federate offensive operations beyond its home territory took place in the Haemusian Peninsula and the Mediterranean to keep the League's naval supply lines to Latium open and to directly reinforce League troops in their mountainous northern regions, the Federation eager to exploit its superiority in naval arms to maximum effect.
In the meantime, the Federation Combined Foreign Ministry entertained no thoughts of rest, engaging in diplomatic overtures to as many neutral parties as possible to secure a broader unified front against Schwartzgrad. However, many of its continental outreach attempts failed – the doomed Kingdom of Fhirald as an example refused out of national pride to break its neutrality policy, having been reinforced in its belief that the status quo could still work due to the Empire's early inability to break through the Fhiraldian Army. The redeployment of Gen. Berthold Gregor to this sector, however, put an end to such notions in a spectacularly brutal fashion; Gregor leveraged his sheer manpower and motor pool advantages to overrun the Fhiraldian defenses at their weakest points and massacre POWs to terminate any short-term chances for insurgency. Similarly, the close-by Principality of Gallia also refused to break from its policy of neutrality, although it faired far better in the field of battle due to the unanticipated genius of Gen. Belgen Gunther and the mobile armored warfare strategies he had derived from his predecessor Gen. Roald Kankkunen. Despite these failures, the Federation secured important successes in the East Asha region and earned the temporary collaboration of the Pacific Ashan Compact (PAC) to reassign Federate naval forces in the region to Europa. It was also able to finally break the Imperial hold on Azteca, the Aztecan Army enticed with more dinero federado to mutiny against the von Reginraves and their plans for Azteca to invade Riodoro in an attempt to draw the USV's attention away from Europa.
EWI ended in a stalemate in November 1915 EC for all parties, after at least ten million dead; the war officially never ended as there was no peace treaty signed. The Empire was able to obtain more land in Europa at the expense of Fhirald and Latium, improving the security of its Mediterranean bases. The long-time wild card state of the Shasian Empire in the Middle East, forever fought over by all Europan power blocs but harboring long grudges against the Federation and the League for their intrusions, finally took the side of the EEIA in the face of increasingly expensive Federate and League demands. The EEIA also succeeded in the short-term in collapsing the republican Latin government, although the succeeding government in Ravenna did not act any more friendly toward Schwartzgrad. Meanwhile, the Federation was able to retain all of its pre-war territories and even knock the Empire out of the New World completely, but still took severe losses in manpower due to the heavy mechanization of Imperial forces compared to only two decades prior – its military capabilities were blunted in the short-term. The League survived, but lost land and men in sufficient quantities for a new breed of radical politics to dominate local politics; the burgeoning "fascist" movement in Latium came to power in the interwar years with the promise of vengeance, rapid recovery, and true prosperity that neither liberal capitalist democracy nor East Europan autocracy could provide. The similar "phalanxist" movement in Ellas also gained some traction in its homeland during the interwar period, but was never truly able to completely topple the existing government.
To make matters worse, EWI and its horrors only accelerated the PAC's paranoia and concerns about being left in the technological dust, the PAC launching an unprecedented economic and military buildup and thereby threatening both Imperial and Federate interests in Asha. Ragnite reserves never ceased to decrease in quantity, and borders were never properly agreed upon in the wake of the ceasefire. Levelist protests became much more common in the Federation, threatening to cripple Federate rebuilding and rearmament policies in preparation for the collapse of the uncertain peace. The First Europan War may have seen the Federation survive, but few at the time were quite sure of whether the alliance would be able to withstand another body blow only two decades later.
