On January 12, 1938, the People's Democratic Republic of Azimuth was proclaimed. It rigidly enforced its neutrality, capturing downed pilots on both sides. What was once a way for the Allies to knock the main cause of the war out of it had now become a thorn on the sides of both the Vacuouan Powers and the Allied Powers, and would remain so until the end of the war in 1940.
From February 25 to May 8, the Allied Powers launched the Xuanqiu River offensive. 750,000 Allied troops faced a Vacuouan force of 500,000 along the banks of the river. The main target was the Valeanian border city of Xianqiu. On May 8, the offensive was called off, with Xianqiu liberated from Vacuouan control and the Allies making a gain of just 17 miles of territory, at the cost of 100,000 Allied dead, 125,000 Vacuouan dead, and 55,000 civilian deaths.
On May 19, Mantle renamed itself Atlas, after its most populous ethnic group, and moved its capital to the City of Atlas. On May 27, the former royal family of Mantle was united with the Atlesian dynasty when the daughter of the last Mantillian king, his oldest child, married the Crown Prince, settling various disputes between the two royal families.
On the Alidade-Mistral front, the Allies were much more successful. On May 5, the Hundred Days Offensive was launched. Mistralian forces were crushed and completely pushed out of Alidade and well into their own kingdom. Finally, on August 12, with Allied forces now 77 miles into Mistral, they surrendered and exited the war. Meridia exited soon afterwards on August 18.
On the continent of Lindwurm, Atlas pushed forward with its local allies. North Dragonica was liberated by December 12, 1938, and Volos was liberated by January 18, 1939. On February 25, 1939, Hachure surrendered after being completely taken over by Atlesian forces. This was followed by Dragonica on May 1, 1939. Now all of Lindwurm had been liberated and was now under Allied control.
Vacuo was finally alone in the war, but it kept fighting on. On September 12, 1939, Vacuouan forces attempted to launch a final offensive. It lasted until October 31, and it ended with a decisive defeat for Vacuo and Allied forces now 22 miles deeper into Vacuouan territory at the cost of 85,000 Allied dead, 100,000 Vacuouan dead, and 35,000 civilian deaths.
On December 1, 1939, the Winter Offensive was launched. Badly demoralized, Vacuouan forces collapsed at all fronts. By April 22, 1940, Allied forces were just 85 miles away from the capital of the kingdom.
On April 28, 1940, facing widespread anti-war protests in the capital, the King of Vacuo telephoned the King of Vale and pleaded to surrender, saying he could not let his people be killed anymore in the war. His request was accepted.
On May 12, 1940, Vacuo formally surrendered, and all fighting ceased.
The Great War was finally over.
The Han ethnic group played a large role in the Great War on both sides. First born in the region that now consists of the Vale-Vacuo border, they were initially migrants before they settled down. Of course, as with many ethnic groups, they soon became far-flung due to the ever present threat of Grimm. By the 1000s, some tribes of the Han had made their way to Mistral, where they were welcomed by the Mistralians with open arms due to their wildly successful agricultural methods and war tactics.
In Vacuo, they generally got along and frequently intermarried with the Vacuouans, producing many biracial persons. The Oasis of Tongmen was the center of Han civilization in Vacuo, and was the capital of Vacuo from its proclamation of existence in 344 A.D. to 1552, when it was moved to the city of Port Vacuo. Even today, Tongmen is still the fourth-largest city in Vacuo, followed by Alenroux as the 3rd, Wukesong as the 2nd, and Port Vacuo as the 1st.
In Mistral, by the 1700s, the Han were a force to be reckoned with. They were the 2nd largest ethnic group in Mistral, and they dominated the northwest of the country, with the Mistralians dominating the southern end due to their seafaring culture that enabled them to also eventually settle in southern Vale in the same century. 6 monarchs have been biracial Han and Mistralian in Mistral's long history out of 9 biracial monarchs.
The naming conventions of the Han depend on the area you reside in. While legally all names in Remnant are recorded in Western naming order, with personal name first and family name last, culturally, Han will go by Eastern naming order, with the family name first. However, in Vale and to a lesser extent in Vacuo, since the 1800s, many Han have begun to refer to themselves with Western naming order in all cases (e.g. Yang Xiao Long and Sun Wukong instead of Xiaolong Yang and Wukong Sun). In Mistral, the Han still often go by the traditional Eastern naming order (e.g. Lie Ren instead of Ren Lie).
The war, however, would not prove to be the true end.
On October 22, 1940, the Treaty of Vytal was signed. It has since been lauded for the creation of modern anti-Grimm combat and the Vytal Festival. Its conditions for Vacuo, however, were embarrassing, and directly contributed to the start of the Faunus War 46 years later.
Vacuo was stripped of a majority of its military and economic power. It also lost several large islands off of its coast to Vale. When the Vacuouan negotiators saw the conditions, they were appalled, but they were more or less forced to sign due to the fact that if they did not, the war would start again.
Many extreme Vacuouan nationalists seized on the embarrassing conditions and the ensuing economic depression in Vacuo to gain power and attack faunus, including a then-unknown Great War veteran named Gris Manchette. In time, he would gain more and more power through his fiery and often incendiary speeches until he finally became Chancellor of Vacuo in 1968. What followed was 27 years of bloodshed, hatred, and unspeakably horrid atrocities against the faunus of Vacuo, as well as the war that managed to eclipse the Great War in terms of its death toll and destruction, the Faunus War.