The August crisis split Europe in two the German Empire would discover that the leader of the group that had planned and carried out the assassination of Prince Maximillian of Baden was a French national with connections to Édouard Drumont's heavily nationalistic Antisemitic League of France. The German government immediately commenced an investigation into connections if any that the Antisemitic League of France had to the government of France. When the divided French right-wing heard about it they managed to secure enough support in the French Parliament and sent an ultimatum to the German Government demanding that they cease any and all investigations into connections between the Antisemitic League of France and the French government or major political parties.

The Germans immediately rejected the ultimatum as the Grand Duchy of Baden was baying for blood and the Kaiser supported their position. The Reichstag ordered that the Heer move to Elsass-Lothringen and the Russian border the French and Russians countered. The Hochseeflotte sailed from Keil and the Marine Nationale countered sailing from both their Mediterranean and their Atlantic ports. Europe stood on the brink of war and if any nation slipped the world would be dragged down into war. The British reaction to these events at first was to urge calm but when both sides mobilised David Lloyd-George called the Cabinet into a meeting that would determine the face of Europe.

As the two armies faced each other over the border their navies stared at each other in the North Sea the ships of the Royal Navy set sail led by HMS Lionheart and her sister ship HMS Agincourt both equipped with plasma weapons to the North Sea. The standoff was tense at any point if one side fired the war would break out and kill hundreds of thousands possibly millions in the horrors of modern warfare. While the Royal Navy kept the peace in the North Sea the United Kingdom was involved in frantic negotiations with the French, Germans, and Russians in an attempt to secure the continuation of the peace that had reigned since Napoleon.

The eventual agreement was that the Antisemitic League of France would be declared an illegal terrorist group in France, Germany and the United Kingdom and the leadership would be arrested and tried by a combined jury of French and Germans. Elsass-Lothringen would be separated from Prussia and form a new bilingual Grand Duchy under Prince Oskar of Prussia the Kaiser's brother who would marry a member of the House of Orleans in order to unify the French and German people of the new Grand Duchy. The final passage would establish an economic union between France, Germany and possibly the United Kingdom if the people supported the referendum to be held in 1915 similar to the one that had united the Balkan League. The Reichstag passed the treaty of Scapa Flow quickly, but the French Parliament was divided as by allowing Prince Oskar to marry a member of the House of Orleans the monarchists within French society would see the government supporting one of the competing claims. But the large peace faction managed to secure the treaties passage especially when the United Kingdom stated that if a war broke out, they would side with Germany as they had agreed to sign the treaty and supported the attempts at peace. As Oskar was crowned Oskar I of Elsass-Lothringen the August crisis came to an end securing peace across Europe for an eternity.

-Extract from Dan Carlin's book The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Goa'uld near misses

Following the successful diffusion of tensions over the August crisis the Russian Empire realised how isolated they were diplomatically Western Europe had transformed into a black hole focused around the United Kingdom as New Windsor drew in thousands of people and released some of the largest profits ever seen by the United Kingdom. While the Tsar and the Duma made use of the allow of non-British nationals to move to New Windsor many of the more troublesome that would normally be sent to New Windsor were in fact pulled off the trains and shot in the back of the head by the Okhrana as the House of Romanov purged their many enemies.

As Moscow purged their opponents within their vast empire many of their more revolutionary citizens began to abandon the Tsardom these great 'ratlines' were divided into three major focus in the south into Rumania and from there Greece or Bulgaria. The Central ratline involved escape through Russian controlled Congress Poland into the German Empire and from there France, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The last and least used due to the location of the Okhrana headquarters in Saint Petersburg was the northern line striking through the Grand Duchy of Finland and then onto Sweden, Norway, and the United Kingdom. As many of the left-leaning Russian intellectuals fled the Empire word slowly spread across the world of how harsh the Russians were to their citizens and criticism of the Tsar began to mount even from his own cousin King George V and his first cousin once removed Kaiser Wilhelm III. The reactionary actions of the Russian government were causing growing support in the western nations to at the very least depose the Tsar and some of the more radical left wing criticizers of the actions of the Russian government supported the establishment of a Russian Republic deposing the centuries old Tsardom.

- Extract from Ayn Rand's book A thunder in the east: Russia under Nicholas II

The Plantagenet archipelago to the north-east of New Avondale early in the colonization of New Windsor was not looked at New Tasmania, New Ulster and New Ceylon all offered better areas for the British to colonise and develop for the empire. Yet many of the Anarchists in British society saw it as a chance to establish a free Commune far away from governmental oversight when news came in to the planners of the colonization of the Kingdom of the Black Hand and the other states that had been established on New Windsor the planners decided to secure governmental permission. Led by Kropotkin several major Anarchist groups entered negotiation with the British government.

The United Kingdom had long been a home of the worlds left-wing movements most notably Karl Marx and his co-author Fredrich Engels had lived in the United Kingdom but despite allowing them to live there the government wasn't fully supportive of the worlds left-wing gathering in their nation. Despite the governments distaste for the left-wingers and anarchists the idea of placing them all in one place proved very appealing to some of the more conservative members of the government and they commenced negotiations. After several days of work, it was decided that the archipelago would become the Union of Free Communes a highly autonomous region that would elect a single MP no matter how high the population grew but in return the British and later Imperial government would have to little no control over the isles.

- Extract from George Orwell's book These free isles

The Kingdom of the Arabs would have a relatively peaceful birth for the Balkan War the only battle that they had fought the Battle of Taif had been a decisive victory routing the Ottoman forces from their Arabian holdings the remainder of the war for the Arabs had been marching in and raising the flag over a city. Following the treaty of Constantinople, the new kingdom entered a period of constitutional reform and development as the now free people worked on their destiny. The treaty of Constantinople had established the nation as a federal Constitutional Monarchy under Hussein I of the house of Hashemite.

The capital of the new nation was decided to be at Damascus as it called back to the days when the Arabs where strong striding across the Mediterranean in the name of Allah and its relatively central location. The powers of the monarch were defined to be commander-in-chief of the military, they could call and dissolve parliament and veto any law that passed on their desk if they disagreed with it for any reason unless two-thirds of the upper and lower house voted to overturn the veto. The Kingdom would be divided into five major regions representing the diversity of the Middle East. The regions would be the Hejaz stretching from Aqaba to Yemen with a capital in Medina. To the North of the Hejaz was Jordan stretching from British controlled Judea to Arar and from the southern Golan heights to the border with Hejaz with a capital in Amman. The province to the north of Jordan was Syria sharing their capital of Damascus with the national government they stretched from Jordan to the Assyrian-Kurdish Free Union and from the city of Homs to the Iranian border. The province of Iraq starched from the Persian Gulf to the town of Kirkuk with a capital in the city of Baghdad, while the last remaining province of Lebanon stretched across the entire Mediterranean coast with the capital in the city of Latakia.

The nations parliament would be divided into two houses an elected lower house the House of Representatives and a half elected upper house the House of Emirs with the other half made up of both the leaders of the major Arab and Bedouin tribes and the Imams of major cities or towns within the nation. Hussein I would call the first elections the year after the treaty of Constantinople to the House of Emirs and the House of Representatives. Two major parties would emerge the left-wing people's party under the Syrian Ali Rikabi and the right-wing independence party under Abd Al-Rahman Al-Gillani. The people's party managed to secure a slim majority and entered government as the first Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Arabs.

-Extract from Thomas Edward Laurence's book The Lion's Eagle: The Kingdom of the Arabs