The year was 1935. Remnant was in a state of peace, at the moment. Not a single large war had been fought since the 3rd Vale-Vacuo War of 1880, which saw a shockingly-victorious Vacuo take land from Vale. Business was booming. Combat against the forces of Grimm was becoming more and more efficient by the day as piston-engined airplanes and even rudimentary airships took to the skies to both spread commerce and wage war. No longer were people left stranded on the ground to fight them. All it took to possibly wipe out a whole nest was send a gang of 10 aircraft to bomb and strafe the area, though ground personnel would still be needed to guide the planes and evacuate civilians from harm.
Of the 4 Great Kingdoms, Vacuo benefited the most. Having shed its image of poor nomads who used rudimentary technology, the kingdom enjoyed a more respected image. Within the kingdom, though, tensions had built up between the city-dwellers, who had embraced modern life for the past 150+ years, and the nomads of the rural areas beyond the walls of the cities, who often resented the city-dwellers for being "immoral" and "stagnant." There were occasional riots between city-dwellers and nomads who had recently moved into the cities to find work.
None of this would be possible without 2 outside players: Vale, and the Schnee Dust Corporation. The SDC, having been founded in Vale some decades ago but also having about half of its operations in Mantle due to family ties to the kingdom, was a major player in dust mining, and its CEO at the time, Adolf Schnee III, considered expanding the SDC's reach into other industries, especially transport and weapons. They had made a contract with Vacuo's military to supply dust and design weapons for them in 1927. Vale sank billions of its own Marks into Vacuo's development, ensuring a very friendly relationship between the two kingdoms. In response, Mantle and Mistral began cooperating with each other and several lesser nations to compete with the Vacuo-Vale Alliance, which proved to be tense at times due to some issues between the two countries.
Even though this was a time of peace, tensions had begun to reach a boiling point due to the lack of war. All it would take was a single spark to ignite a ferocious war between all the kingdoms and lesser nations of Remnant. That spark turned out to be in the small Principality of Azimuth, located on the southern coast between Vacuo and Vale but backed by Mistral and Mantle.
The prince of the country, Vladimir V, was a ruthless ruler. He had brutally put down a workers' strike in the coal mining industry in 1916 in one of his first acts as prince, killing over 300 striking miners. He also regularly persecuted artists who were not on government payroll, fearing they would produce anti-government propaganda. He authorized his secret police to carry out assassinations both in the country and abroad of both suspected and confirmed anti-government artists.
One of these targeted artists was Mikhail Pavel. Having fled to Vale in 1914 to escape Vladimir V's equally ruthless father, Nikolai III, he was a vocal critic of the government abroad. Vale agreed to protect him from assassination attempts with several soldiers used as bodyguards. However, this would not be enough.
On March 1, 1935, 3 men killed the 4 soldiers assigned to protect Pavel in his apartment as he slept before assassinating him. The act was carried out at exactly midnight with silenced pistols and throwing knives to conceal their acts. They fled before police were able to arrive on scene. However, in their haste to escape, they left a detailed plan of their activities at the scene, exposing Azimuth's involvement.
Vale's parliament immediately condemned Azimuth for the killing of its soldiers the next day. Mistral decided to mobilize its army and move several army groups to the eastern coast. This angered Vale further.
On March 3, the SDC made the unprecedented decision of suspending its operations in Mantle due to its ally's actions the day before. Also, another artist was assassinated in the country of North Dragonica, also by Azimuth. On March 4, North Dragonica kicked things off by declaring war on Azimuth. This started a massive chain reaction of war declarations to due to alliance agreements put in place before.
Mistral, Mantle, Dragonica, and Hachure all declared war on North Dragonica by March 7, as per an agreement between them. On March 10, Azimuth captured the ambassador from Vale and killed him and his family as he tried to flee. On March 11, Vale and Vacuo both declared war on Azimuth. By March 15, Mistral, Mantle, Dragonica, and Hachure had done the same. Stadia, a small nation on Lindwurm, declared war on the MM Powers on March 17. Alidade, a small nation next to Mistral, joined the war on the side of the Allied Powers on March 20. On the same day, Meridia joined the MM Powers and sent troops to Mistral to assist. On March 25, Volos joined the Allied Powers.
Now, the whole world was at war, and only those who had extensive knowledge of the technological advances in warfare could know just how awful it would become.
Vacuo has such a rather... Interesting... History that it deserves its own mention. At the time of the war beginning, it, like the other 3 kingdoms, had a royal family. Its royal family was biracial, however, unlike the other kingdoms. You see, there are two primary ethnic groups in Vacuo: The Vacuouans (Les Vacuouains), who peppered the far north of the country away from the deserts, and the Han people (漢人), who were separated from their eastern Han brethren in Vale by various natural barriers in the far southwestern part of the country, and generally had a more nomadic culture than the Han of Vale. There have been a fair share of kings and queens from both ethnic groups. As of 1935, its king was King Philippe II, and the queen was Queen Biyu, a member of a Han noble family.
The first signs of human civilization in the area date from around 2500 B.C. (Before Creation), primarily centered around the Oasis of Tongmen in the south and the port of Alenroux in the north. The modern Kingdom of Vacuo was proclaimed by the marriage of the first King, Bohai I, to Queen Veronique of Alenroux, in 344 A.D. (After Dust), making it the second oldest kingdom. Tongmen was the first capital of Vacuo, and its citizens enjoyed life away from the creatures of Grimm due to natural barriers and city walls.
The first signs of trouble came in 844 A.D., when Dragonica, a state in the continent of Lindwurm that was a dependant of Vacuo, split and declared total independence, starting a war. Though Vacuo won the war by 850, Dragonica remained separate. Additionally, the Azimuthian (Aзимуткие) tribes united into a principality in 892, causing another war. This time, Vacuo lost in 895.
In the 900s and 1000s, pirates from the tribes of Vale frequently attacked the southern coast of Vacuo. In 1077, King Jianyu I ordered Vacuouan forces to invade the eastern half of what is now Vale to try and pacify the area, fighting various Han, Valeanian, and Cymrunian (y Cymry) tribes. This proved to be a fruitless endeavour, and Vacuouan forces evacuated the area in 1131.
In 1235, Mantle and Vacuo went to war over a trade deal gone bad. Vacuo was defeated in 1242. Mantle then forced Vacuo to sign an unequal treaty that gave Mantle extensive trading rights and access to all of its ports.
In 1465, Vacuo, Mantle, and Mistral decided to invade the Valeanian region jointly and split the area between them. However, the many Valeanian, Han, and Cymrunian tribes all united under the leadership of Berwyn of Trefaldwyn, and they proceeded to defeat the combined strength of the 3 kingdoms. In 1480, Berwyn of Trefaldwyn united all of the tribes into the 4th and final Great Kingdom, the Kingdom of Vale, as Berwyn I, or Berwyn the Great.
In 1522, Vale and Vacuo went to war after King Louis III decided to try to conquer Vale again, this time by itself. Vacuo lost, again, this time in 1530. In 1534, Vacuo invaded Azimuth with the intent to conquer it. Though they held onto it for 26 years, in 1560, Vacuouan forces were forced to evacuate due to a highly organized resistance movement cutting into their forces. By now, Vacuo had become the laughing stock of Remnant's 4 Great Kingdoms.
In 1677, Vacuo suffered a coup d'etat by an army general named Henri LaFleur, who established himself as the new king. He ruled for 23 years until loyalists of the old regime overthrew and executed him. As the 1700s rolled on for Vacuo, they slowly began to modernize under the guidance of several kings and even one queen regnant.
In 1807, Vale and Vacuo went to war for a second time. This time, the war was fought to a respectable draw in 1813. A peace treaty was signed that restored the status quo before the war. Though neither side won, some began to note that Vacuo was beginning to grow stronger. In 1880, Vale and Vacuo went to war for a third time. This time, Vacuo crushed Valeanian forces and proceeded to win the war in 1883, shocking the rest of the world. Their win was credited to the well-placed use of new technology, such as machine guns and tear gas, by progressive Vacuouan forces. This pressured the rest of Remnant to quickly adopt this new technology of a much larger scale than they had adopted it before.
By 1935, Vacuo had taken its place as the second most powerful kingdom of the 4 Great Kingdoms. It seemed like nothing would stop them from rising to the top. Additionally, a peace had been reached between their former rivals in Vale.
The Great War was about to change all of that.