Pax's Alternate History Snippet repository.

[Imperator Pax]

Speaking of Buddhism, since I've already mentioned the 21 demands Japan is going to make, and then after that I'm probably going to veer into the whole issue of Bushido.

So technically the 21 demands itself, according to Jennings Bryan then US SoS, were considered less bad than they'd been expecting. Bryan wasn't happy with the demands, because it flew in the face of the US's supported open door policy, and Japan did moderate its demands, but they were initially put forward in January of 1915 to Yuan's Government. The general consensus was that this was a stupid move, because well world war 1 was on, but the demands would have given Japan little that they didn't already basically have. The Group Five demands however were in many respects based on the ongoing Japanese colonization of korea (which had been annexed in 1910, but had been increasingly under the Japanese sphere of influence as far as the 1870s) and Taiwan. Shinto basically has minimal footprint in China, it was exported later, but Buddhism existed, and its from China that Japan imported buddhism originally, but Shintoism pre Meiji was a completely different animal to begin with... and Buddhism in Japan underwent a lot of changes with the Meiji revolution.

Group 5 laid out that Japan would be able to set up schools, and form a buddhist society to create a coherent policy 'advising' is one translation I see a lot. Obviously Japan didn't want to export Christianity as Christianity was kind of a mess in Japan, and in particular in Korea where it was strongly tied up with Korean Nationalism. The running of schools and buddhist temple structure would have among other things given Japan a local counter to western missionary and education. The french for example during this period were the center of socialism in Europe, and would even into the thirties be involved in sheltering anarchists, socialists and communists and other various radical student groups in their concessions, as well as exporting catholicism the latter as part of official French national policy. The French position, and support for socialism, was something that the Japanese genryo didn't appreciate.... which is of course ironic since the KMT basically ran away to Japan. (Admittedly this might have contributed to the post Taisho crack down on socialist ideals in Japanese society, but thats speculative)

Anyway Japan after WW1 starts goes to throw its weight around, misjudges the situation upsets Britain and America (I can't find a Imperial Russian perspective of the whole thing, which is odd because especially the Manchurian concessions were clearly about diminishing Russian influence.) and does pretty serious financial strain to Japan's trade economy during a period where they were doing very well otherwise. Japanese exports to China drop significantly during a period where Japan is one of the few big exporters left in town. This is good for the US to an extent, but Japan really shoots itself in the foot, because this is really the period of time where Japan stops being a debtor country and is actually running a trade surpluse and loan money to other countries more than being loaned money to.

And accepting the reduced set of demands is really what sets the stage for weakening Yuan Shikai to the point where the National Protection War is set up to break open the country. Yuan declares himself emperor, and thats what sparks the NPW, and and declaration and the acceptance of hte 21 demands is enough that it sours a lot of his previously reliable allies, some of whom simply sit the war out in their new provinces and others actually side with the rebels. Its very likely that Japanese played both sides, supporting both Sun Yat-Sen as well as Yuan Shikai during the national protection war as Sun's return to Canton from Japan also coincided with material aid to rebelling southern provinces (The price of this aid was of course to be making good on concessions Sun had proffered to the Japanese during his exile, indeed the Japanese 21 demands seem to have been in some part based off of concessions they extracted from Sun in 1913).

And basically Yuan wins the National Protection War, Sun gets run out of the country again, except well despite the Beiyang army demonstrating its still the best army in China (if by decreasing margins, due to defections of various Dujun) Yuan passes away not long after, and he dies as president not as emperor. He abdicated as part of the peace process. This is important, because again we turn to John Jordan, John Jordan as a diplomat for most of his career was very pro Japanese, he was a staunch supporter of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, but he opposed, misliked heavily, the entry of Japan per that alliance into ww1 against Germany, specifically because it would in his opinion (and vindicated by history) destablize China further. It is probably for this reason that Edward Grey didn't inform Yuan of Japan's ultimatum to the German concession in August 1914, and John Jordan wasn't happy about that. [The Foreign Office supported Grey's position, and the Japanese position on Tsingtao's seizure.] Now ultimately John Jordan's mission statement, his objective, was preservation of British interests in China, and he opposed the 21 demands on those grounds, and because of British interests he wasn't supportive of Yuan's pursuit of the monarchy. He felt it would destablish the country (which apparently the Japanese agreed, citing the possibility of unrest in the south, but that JOhn Jordan didn't feel was accurate. He was basing this on Shanghai, and Canton (and this was before obviously Sun came back from Japan again). In any event at this point the Russian minister to China, joins with Jordan, and the interim Japanese charge d'affres to basically say this is a bad idea, though it seems that as with 1911 Jordan had underestimated what was going to happen (or he blatantly lied to Grey, but I doubt the latter). The regular Japanese charge d'affres takes offense at this in december of and basically gets together with his Russian, French, Italian counterparts along with Jordan and basically states that there will be a foreign intervention in China if anything happens. (Yuan delays officially citing the Chinese new Year, and I don't know what Reinsch was thinking during this period, he seems from his own statements to have been caught off guard by this whole mess, and his committment to the open door policy may be why he got left out, also his disinterest in the pursuit of the banking consortium probably also contributed.)

Whats interesting of course is that Jordan proceeds to call on his government (As well as Japan) to support Yuan in the National protection war, specifically citing apparently American intention (America as a neutral power) to support Yuan Shikai. (I can't say for sure at this juncture but I'm pretty he means the State Department under Jennings Bryan, but Reinsch doesn't seem to really be clear on what it is he wants to do about this in but he wasn't particularly thrilled by it. (In fact he doesn't suppress any kind of kind of strong emotion for the whole monarchy affair). According to Reinsch all the foreign legations in Peking seemed happy with Yuan going to a monarchy... so I get the feeling from both sides that they weren't really in frequent communication with one another. Violence ensued, with the revolt in Yuunan, which Jordan explicitly states had Japanese support (which is not a surprise because Cai E had received some of Bai Lang's rebel troops at least some of his surviving equipment from those troops who had been on campaign in the south in 1913).

[Japan over the course of this seems to flip flop back and forth, as a result of different cliques within the government taking different sides, as I said above Yuan received aid from Japan, but there was clear Japanese support to the south as well] John Jordan, Grey, the Japanese and the United states in combination with discussion with various dujun (military governors) start trying to work for a peace solution. The US advocates for the return to the status quo. The British Consul-General in Canton basically states with certainty at this point that the Japanese are financing and arming in the south, and this was reported to also be the case in Shantung.

Yuan basically breaks down, abdicates goes back to being president and then basically dies. Which is the goal of the war was Yuan doesn't get to be Emperor, then yeah victory, if Yuan's goal was to reconquer Yunnan then yeah he lost, but if the goal was to remove him from power by military victory, it failed, hostilities had ground to a halt after Yuan abdicates. This is really the point where Jordan truly sours on Japan for good, and this is really the point at which the warlord period breaks open. yunnan remains defacto independent even after Cai E's death in December.

It is here however we move to talk about Japan. A great deal is made about the japanese idea of Bushido, and that Japan is this collectivist country that is often turned into (especially in WW2 propaganda) of an insectoid hive mind of collective national will. Bushido as an ideological concept was only popularized in the 20th century. It entered the western consciousness with Inanzo Nitobe's book and from there was adopted by Japanese militarists because it was popular with westerners they were exposed to, and what I mean by this is that the meiji genryo figures like Yamagata Aritomo didn't think of Bushido in the way that Nitobe described. This is because Nitobe basically took his long time interest in western ideals and couched his description of the soul of Japan in terms of western chivalry equivalents. There was no unified concept of Bushido. The Hakagure was written by an 18th century clerk lamenting a bygone era that he'd never lived, and it specifically addresses the correct behaviors of people from his clan not as a universal this is how everyone does it. This is something that gets missed, because when the Samurai were dissolved as a class those distinctions and domains didn't vanish. Aritomo had his own ideas about what was best for the country and fought strenuously to protect the rights of the meiji elder statesmen but also of his specific domain, and this was the beginning of the cliques in Japan. Aritomo did stupid reckless shit in the Sino-Japanese war that could be described as 'bushido' but could also just as easily be explained as aggressive prussian military doctrine. Nitobe's book is basically fiction written to appeal to a western audience, it didn't sell well in Japan originally, and Hakagure in much the same fashion was basically all but forgotten.

If any true vestige of bushido as it existed in the edo existed in Japanese culture after the samurai were dissolved it was in the fractious infighting of the military cliques rather than in the national identity. The arguments ,which often disolved into assassination and murder attempted coups based on slight political differences, and regional discrimination. This ultimately probably contributed to how Japan would act in the second world war and during the interwar years, but it would be very inaccurate to say that was the only influence. Japan was heavily influence first by the French militarily and melded well with their concept of elan and the cult of the bayonet (which admittedly was also a clear part of Russian doctrine continuing into the Red Army as it was going into ww1) rhetoric to the extent that Japan was was asked as part of the Anglo-Japanese alliance to assist Britain's bayonet fencing training. (this is why the ww1 SMLE have Arisaka pattern sword bayonets). Indeed the attacks on Russian positions in the Russo Japanese war were lauded by Britain. However those bayonet charges were wasteful and reckless, and probably unnecessary. The Japanese viewed those attacks however as what had won the Russo-Japanese war because of unreliability in their ammunition supply, particularly for artillery and their lack of ability to coordinate artillery with attacks in no small part because those attacks were often ordered without input from higher command.

Ironically the Imperial Russian Army took the Japanese bayonet attacks against their fortified and seem to have have assumed the same thing as the Japanese thing. That regardless of the casualties the attack suffered a bayonet charge works. (Notably Pershing and other US observors in the RJW disagreed with this conclusion). However the following Japanese experiences at war provided confirmation bias repeatedly confirming that bayonet charges worked time and time again up until they faced prepared allied defenses, and in particular the much more reliable US coordination of machine gun and artillery (and to a lesser degree the effectiveness of semi automatic rifles). The Japanese in doctrine outright derided this thinking in the interwar years rejecting that any defensive fortification of machine gun and artillery would really stop a concerted attack because their own experience and coordination in their army was very poor. Infantry was the principle Japanese arm of battle, much like many other armies, but the Japanese army underwent much more limited specialization and had far fewer specialist roles, and those specialist roles were not treated with respect. Logistics, and artillery officers were not afforded the same degree of respect in the Japanese army and that only continued to decline in the interwar years all 'based' on the 'lessons' of the Japanese victory against Russia in the Russo Japanese war, because a key part of that mythos was that once again Japan had only lost at the negotiating table (which of course made a convenient excuse to blame the diplomats, or for that matter ignoring 'weak willed' superior officers).

Notes, exta, Japan's 21 demands were issued after Russia (and this is 1915) issued new demands to the Chinese government, but it the driving force for the 21 demands were within the Japanese cabinet, and seem to have been the personal project of the foreign ministry without consultation of the elder statesmen. (Again, how much of Yamagata considering it a blunder was who's idea it was we will likely never know.)

 

[Imperator Pax]

This is a follow on to the Rambly Social Science stuff, and specifically how it relates to the fictional story, but first some more historical backdrop. This is probably no more 'spoilery' than any of the Behind the scenes content over is in the misc thread under extras. So when I say 'i suspect' I mean me personally. Now what I mean by this is that there is a lot of coincidental time involved during the National Protection War, and also yes various British officials and sources say Japan is backing the rebelling southern provinces, and it is accepted that Japan provided support materially and encouraged some of Yuan's monarchial adventure. (He received money and guns). So first and foremost National Protection War is a pretty grandiose title for the conflict, and the anti monarchy movement is probably a better one, but even it or any of the anti Yuan sentiment slogans run into well... bluntly the reason a lot of scholarship says 'this is where the warlord period really started being' is because the south was not unified.

British sources plural state that Japanese material aid was supporting distinct different groups. Cai E in Yunnan, anti-Yuan force in Shantong, and Sun :Yat-sen and his movement in Canton. (and I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but Sun seems to have come into Canton from Japan, and then fled the country apparently some time in March or April of 1916, after Szechuan had fallen to the Beiyang. As it stood Sun's perennially had this problem was he never had a military to speak of, he had a very hard time getting military officials in Canton to listen to him, give him much time of day.) Now this is the thing, I would almost lay money that multiple factions in Japan were picking sides and backing different horses in this race. Hioki for example (the regular charge d'affairs for the legation) had apparently been offended by Yuan basically ignoring him and he seems to have gone out of his way to then cause trouble and stir the pot. (and in the case of John Jordan, Jordan seems to have seen this behavior as very unprofessional and it did not help Jordan's opinion despite for some of Hioki's actions Jordan being onboard with it, Hioki just keeps escalating and he was probably responsible for some of the aid, potentially what came into groups in Shantung).

So as I've stated in the RSS the British opened (much as they did in 1913, 1911) attempts to a 'peace conference' or 'congress' relatively quickly into hostilities opening. Cai E doesn't seem to have been involved in that at all. In fact most of the negotations seemed to have involved either pro Yuan Beiyang Dujun, or the Dujun who had declared neutrality. Cai E pretty much said 'I'm independent' and that was that. He didn't seem to care what the international response was. Anyway the result of this is that along with the US and the other participating countries in other capacity Yuan is talked down and into abdicating and going back to just being president... but the damage has been done. The dujun the military governors he appointed have demonstrated that they can ignore Peking's directives, and get concessions, that they are king maker in politics. Hence Warlord era.

Yuan's passing hit the international community rather suddenly, the head of state dying was not regarded as a good thing because Yuan even diminished was still viewed as having a role in holding the country together, and that was not a position that anyone was prepared to fill... and that results in a relatively well managed succession crisis in which Duan Qirui steps into being prime minister but gets Li to be the new largely toothless president. This is what leads to the foundation of what will be the Anhui, and Zhili cliques historically and is what erodes the northern military advantage further.

I've mentioned in white wolf that Yuan was trying to downsize the military that he had to upkeep, and before the 'Second revolution' had wanted to stand down tens of thousands of troops from his already reduced to half a million man army in summer 1913. Yuan had attempted to start a fresh of reforms and downsizing due to both financial concerns and loyalty concerns (well founded given defections and independence declarations from Dujun he appointed). One number suggests that at Yuan's death China had a half million men under arms, and that that would increase to 700,000 soldiers in 1917, and this number would continue to grow. And this is the important part of that, some sixty percent of that number, give or take, was thought to be in northern china. Sun Yat-sen was thought to in 1919 represent a motley collection that totally 130,000 troops who's officers demonstrated in that year that they could ignore him whenever ever they felt like it. (Best demonstrated by the warlord of Yunnan paying lip service to the KMT officially but running Yunnan independent of the 'canton based government' even basically into the second world war. He had about seventy thousand troops in 1919). This doesn't touch equipment, or training or any of that. Also it doesn't touch the various 'neutral armies'.

With that lets pivot to the store material.

Technically speaking the cadre or what will be Xian can be thought of in summer of 1916 as falling into one of two categories, either as explicitly a Zhili faction (at this point, that is in 1916) they're still headquarted in the western half of the province) or as one of the neutral armies. However in 1916 the Zhili-Anhui clique split is not fully developed, and could be considered part of the Anhui clique despite location. By 1917 its more clearly a government in itself, an independent or 'neutral' faction. Pays lip service and nominal taxes to Peking, and is loosely involved in the beiyang apparatus of status (not unusual in 1917 given that the other major northern cliques had tens of thousands of smaller neutral 'associate' troops participating in a similar manner, which is actually part of the problem.) See in summer of 1917 President Li finally manages to get enough support to force Duan to resign the premier ship.

No Li has basically no military of his own, and the south which nominally supports his presidency and is happy by Duan stepping out really isn't in any position to help him when Duan basically thats fine I'm quitting I'm going to tiestin and then walks out of the capital (well gets on a train) with his entire basically army leaving the capital, and a bunch of Duan's supports had been calling on him to ignore Li and keep the premiership so they basically start declaring independence in a measure thats quite similar to what the south had done to Yuan in the 'national protection war' except we're talking substantively larger armies than the south had. Li goes 'hold on guys' and invites Zhang Xun (the pigtail general) to come and mediate this. The guy who has never cut his queue, queue Manchu restoration.
WW1 started in summer of 1914 and it is in that period that the White Wolf Rebellion ends petering out because Bai Lang has been chased in the hinterlands (where he was far less welcome and had far less support) and killed Japan takes Shantung and the 21 demands get sprung. So the open door policy can be loosely summed up as foreign trade (or at least great power and important other european countries) were supposed to be inviolable to a degree. Extraterritoriality was a well established concept. The national protection war though doesn't really effect things. In 1915 the Cadre is making money by basically exporting food, raw materials and finished goods to allied belligerents (that it to say, the British empire and her allies, i.e. Japan and Russia, and specifically iin Russia's case small arms because they in particular are buying whatever they can get, especially if it can be built in 7.62x54R). This continues even following Yuan's passage, though by this point sale of arms has declined, and will decline, as Russia's need for emergency procurement drops through 1916 [as it did historically.]

[Now Duan Qirui starts his agitation for the 'republic of china' to enter on behalf of the entente, he wants the country to declare war on Germany and friends so he can have a seat at the peace table (this is one of the things president Li was especially thrilled with, and Sun wasn't either in 1916... by the time that Duan finally gets that war declaration in 1917 well Sun a month later in September follows suit from his 'government' in Canton).]

The Cadre keeps up business as usual, and will continue business ventures out west. In 1916 They have 3500 men under arms and is expanding from that (this is what will be standing up basically at the time of 'war were declared' in Europe, and what they will stay at until Yuan's death). [For reference when Pigtail General restores the manchu emperor to the throne in a year he has five thousand troops to fight what Duan Qirui's fifty thousand]. In 1917 when that manchu restoration happens the cadre exploits this and takes over de facto most of western Zhili, and effectively secure their western flank into Shensi, and Shanxi (Yan Xishan's province). This is done, this legitimized in the name of, because Duan Qirui goes on to claim, and provide some (possibly fabricated evidence) that Pigtail general had been paid by the German Empire to do this thing, Manchu Restoration bad, Royalist sympathizers (like the nominal civilian governor of the province, emphasis civilian) are removed from power.

[Qirui also accuses Sun Yat-sen's people of also taking money from the Germans as well basically saying thats why they don't want to declare war on Germany and it kind of works, cause Duan comes back to power in Peking throws rewards around to people who supported him, and gets his war declaration]

So now Duan is back in power, and he's on the allied side, 'hey japan, hey england, hey america (the US had entered the war in April) we're on the same side, I need to train and equip a new modern army to fight in europe' (or as was suspected by the legation, fight against the South). This is the political lead up to what will eventually be the state that will exist in 1920 when Xian basically becomes is own clique still a neutral army (that is one that isn't vying for Peking) and lets Fengtien, Zhili, and Anhui clique just do their thing.

Remember how I said that whole 21 demands thing came off as heavy handed to the British and the US didn't like it because it fucked with Open Door, and how Hioki's actions in particular but his perceptions of conduct overall during the Northern Protection war had soured John Jordan to the Japanese as an ally. This whole warlord development has a pretty big impact on the international community in China especially once ww1 ends. [Admittedly that will only be really showing up in story content once we get through 1919, and after moving to Xian.]

 

[Imperator Pax]

I will threadmark this shortly, since I might as well put it up, otherwise I may end up misplacing it again.

So this is 1916
"By 1916 however the largest provincial budgetary allocation was for the army, across all provinces. In 1916 140+ million yuan was spent on the combine budgets of the central ministry of the army as well as provincial armies. This cost, roughly a third being paid by the central government, reflected that in 1916 the peking government provided funding for 13 divisions, each requiring a budget on average of about 1.8 million yuan, and nine brigades with the provinces providing 16 divisions and 29 brigades of supposedly modern forces. Quality and equipment between provinces widely varied from the still largely standardized Beiyang divisions of Yuan Shikai's northern confederates at this point and many Beiyang aligned provinces still fielded large numbers of 'territorial defense units' with less than modern equipment much as was found in the south. Some provinces continued to support banner and green standard formations of the qing era... "
For reference a 1916 Beiyang standard division was supposed to be roughly 15k men. I say supposed to because in 1916 China had only a rough strength of about half a million men under arms and a significant number of units were under strength and some basically existed only on paper.

Anyway to the important things
The Yuan Shikai government (Army Ministry) in 1916 was responsible for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 20 Division. As well as 1st 2nd 7th 8th 13th 14th Mixed Brigades, a 1st and 2nd Capital Brigade, the 2nd cav brigade, and the 1st and 2nd Temporary Regiments. the respective provinces were responsible for the following: (Note that traditional Qing organization used the battalion as the primary unit hence why TDs are given in that unit, the first column after a province is modern forces, the second are its TD units if any are recorded or other late qing style second line units)

Zhili	2 Modern Battalions	82 Territorial Defense Battalions	Fengtien	2 Modern Divisions 1 Battalion and 1 Platoon	27 Territorial Defense Battalions	Heliojiang	1 division 2 machine gun platoons
Shandong	1 division 1 brigade 3 platoons	38 Territorial defense battalions	Henan	2 mixed brigades,	35 Hongwei Army battalions 13 TD battalions	Shanxi	1 brigade, 3 regiments, 1battalion
Jiangsu	2 divisions 4 brigades 1 battalion		Anhui	3 battalions 3 platoons	37 battalions Anwu Army (Late Qing)	Jiangxi	2 brigades 1 regiment 1 platoon
Fujian	2 brigades		Zhejiang	1 Division 1 brigade	6 battalions of territorial defense battalions	Hubei	2 divisions 2 brigades 1 regiment 1 battalion
Hunan	1 brigade 1 regiment 2 battalions	? Yes.	Shaanxi	4 Brigades 1 Battalion		Gansu	13 battalions	37 Territorial defense battalions
Xinjiang	29 battalions	46 Territorial Defense battalions	Sichuan	2 divisions 2 mixed brigades 1 battalion	46 battalions Han Army (traditional)	Guangdong	1 Division 2 mixed brigades 1 battalion
Guangxi	2 divisions 26 battalions		Yunnan	2 divisions		Guizhou	6 regiments 19 battalions 2 platoons
Rehe	2 Regiments, and 20 Battalions		Suiyan	1 brigade		Chahar	1 brigade

I'm skipping some provinces some of them just aren't important, I do wish I had a good map of 1916 to put up, and I have the budgets and they don't add up. Corruption is an understatment relative to paper strength, and also provincial troops who were deemed modern often still had less in the way of weapons... and Qing era TDs in some cases still had flintlocks, but were non smokeless powder rifles, and I doubt many of these units were at full strength in 1916

 

[Imperator Pax]

Notes
Linguistics.


Firstly, these days we make something of a big deal of being multilingual and frankly that's a relatively recent sociocultural shift, that really wouldn't apply to a lot of people in the upper middle classes.

To use as an example, we have Vladimir Lenin, even though this is likely never going to show up on screen. He was fluent in English, and even after the revolution often spoke both English and German over Russian at least to foreigners. (As in he would carry conversations with American journalists in English, and this was true of both his time in Austria, and Switzerland as well as after he returned to Russia. Some people have suggested that Lenin disliked speaking Russian for one reason or another, but that's neither here nor there). The simple reality is that during the period of long 19th century large volumes of the upper middle class and aristocracy spoke more than one language and read and wrote more than one language.

Similarly prior to the emergence of modern nationalism and the proliferation of national centric education curriculum and educational reforms that occurred outside of that polyglots were relatively more common in vernacular use, spoken word.

[Aritomo Yamagata was embarrassed that he never had a strong grasp on English literacy, he asked his friends to translate written English to Japanese for him, particularly foreign news articles. This is also true of Yuan Shikai, who is deceased by this point in the story, his strongest western foreign language was German.]


Basically literacy in most countries prior to nationalism as a modern concept tended to be low, (Sweden is the only European country to attain majority literacy in the 17th​ century... and that was mostly the monarchy moving from German as the language of state to vernacular swedish and using the printing pressed to standardize Swedish into the language spoken today via the printing press, and this was also done in cooperation with the Swedish Lutheran church). The Netherlands followed in the 1700s, but England took quite a long time to achieve majority literacy compared to popular impression it wouldn't be until Queen Victoria that most people could read and right (men and women, and this is largely a result of compulsorily urban education).

So in this time frame you have quite a large volume of people who speak four and five languages to one degree or another. English, French, Spanish, German were all major trade languages, Greek and Latin were still frequently taught to children of the upper classes as part of a classical education. Russian asserted itself over French in terms of language briefly during the concert of Europe period because of geopolitics and emergent Russian nationalism. (Though this was short lived.) So in this we have lots of characters who at the very least speak several languages apiece including various local regional or creole dialects in the case of some persons.

Also prior to WW1 the US was still highly multilingual, German was very common across the US, Spanish was very common, Greek (Vulgar, not classical) was common, as was Italian, Swedish was still somewhat common even outside of the midwest. And world war 1 basically killed all of that, it even did a massive cleaning out of French. Within a generation or two non english speaking just craters, and post world war 2 its even more obvious, and this is a direct outgrowth of emergent American national identity after 1870 but especially of the US agitation to become involved more in international affairs and then the subsequent backlash.


So to that, and all of that needed to be covered, cause I'm sure my all of probably twenty or so regular readers for this story are probably like huh sure are a lot of people who speak more than one language, and that's why. After 1920 multilingualism becomes less necessary (France goes to great efforts to standardize on Parisian dialect french as the national language, and represses any other usage, Japan undertakes the same thing after the Meiji with compulsory education settling on the Edo dialect, the list goes on.)

--

Ironically in the long term this also shapes Xian as a polity, Xian's german dialect is based American Southern German dialects like you would find from West Texas (or Louisiana), and this is not because they're the largest German speaking expatriate communities its because they're the earliest and its of the dialects already used to be intermingled with American English because after 1920 it has government support for a few thousand people who live there, and then you have an influx of Austrians, Czechs (and Slovaks, who speak German as a second language because the dual empire), Germans and the Germans who come in later whose subsequent children grow up in academic exposure speaking either this americanized German or American English in conjunction with a north Chinese dialect for basically literary purposes.

But thats in the future... Tomorrow we will begin spring of 1917, but this stick will probably be editted somewhat as I deal with some of the other data points relating to 1916.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Organizational details (Continuous).​

So as referenced in White Wolf, and remarked on in 1916 and after, Yuan Shikai as a military reformer basically spent a significant amount of his time getting promoted and then trying to clean house to get rid of inefficent corrupt money sinks in the military apparatus of the Qing dynasty, and this continued into his tenure as President. This contributed to his unpopularity. The Chinese Army in 1912 was about ~600k men and Yuan Shikai attempted to cut that down to half a million or even less for a variety of cost reasons as well as to make the army more politically reliable by disarming revolutionary southern units and separating them from the army. This led to the need to recruit more soldiers during the second revolution to address manpower needs, and then in late 1914 to try and downsize the military again, as well as institute other reforms, even though political pressure forced him to keep some Qing era hereditary units or traditional units on the books in some provinces, hence the British estimation based on Beiyang financials that China had about half a million men under arms in 1916. After 1916 this number increases (reaching an estimated 700k in 1917, and approximately a million in 1919 (out of that million number approximately 840k comprising the known major armies some 536k were in the north china area) reaching 1.404 Million in fall of 1924) as provincial military forces begin to increasingly recruit based on rallying cries provincial nationalism, 'hunan for hunanese' 'szechwan for szechwanese', etc, but these in practice just meant, particularly for the two aforementioned provinces was an excuse for two or more regional warlords to fight among themselves to be top dog. This wore down social integration, and diminished the quality of officers (particularly in fields like literacy) as ranks swelled. Indeed records show that part of the KMT's success in getting Soviet assistance was contingent on Chiang basically bullshitting Moscow that the KMT had the loyalty and the support of a much larger northern army (in manchuria) than just the army they actually had in Canton (who weren't a particularly reliable lot at that point in time either, so the whole trip was basically a huge gamble and a lot of lying on both sides).

--
White Wolf Era Rifle 1st Battalion c. July 1914 [Standard, post Bai Lang's Death.]
Battalion [Placeholder]
3 Companies + Batt HQ + Machine Gun Company, attached Artillery. *
4 Platoons + Company HQ
4 Rifle Squads (13 men squads) + Platoon HQ (13 Men)
* Note that before Bai Lang's death 1st Battalion followed a British model of 4 Companies increasing it well above the previous standard of 750 Riflemen, and bringing it more inline with a British Rifle Battalion in strength.

--
Pre Xian Experimental Machine Gun Platoon (Mechanized) [1917]
Vehicles: 1 Armored Car with Machine gun, 1 Supply Truck, 3 Fulton Nash Quads
Headquarters Squad
Comprising: Platoon Commander, 1 Machine Gunner (Vehicle Gunner), 2 Driver, 2 Mechanics, 2 aid men, 5 rifle men / runners

3x Motorized Rifle Squads*

1 Sergeant [Commanding]
1 Corporal
1 Driver
1 Mechanic
2 Machine Gunners
2 Machine Gun Assistant Gunners
5 Riflemen​

* As a note, this is not a typo, because this is an experimental unit, it is only three squads as opposed to Leg Infantry being Four Rifle Squads, and then later 3 Rifles, and a specialist squad.
[Placeholder]

For comparison

A breakdown of the ranks of a Standard Rifle Squad c.1917
13 Men
1 Sergeant [Commanding]
1 Corporal
3 PFCs / Specialists
8 Privates

These would divide into two sections under the sergeant and the corporal, and in later eras the standard rifle squad would have two to three light machine guns available with PFCs ussually serving as either Machine Gunners or as aid men. In the event of a sergeants incapaciation or seperation the corporal takes over and a pfc moves up to assistant, and the PFCs are intended to fill junior NCO roles in emergency hence are generally responsible for operating a complex weapon like a machine gun.

Pre Xian c. 1918 Gendarmes Commando Squad
13 men
1 Lieutenant, commanding
1 sergeant,
4 Riflemen scouts, rated Corporal or PFC
7 Privates, or PFCs

Distinct from but clearly based on Xian's regular army Commando Squads of the Gendarmes are elite Rifle infantry with a minimum of two years of experience and by 1918 are still in the process of transitioning away from 7mm Mauser rifles. As with normal Rifle squads they're intended to divide into two sections, a breach and suppression team. Typically with the sergeant commanding an actual assault detachment sometimes comprising all seven privates for close order. What would occur in 1918 is the adoption of Lewis's Machine Pistol Caliber 45 for Commando evaluation squads that would eventually be supplemented with the MP18 and later the MP18M with a redesigned magazine distinct from the luger.

Unlike with typical Infantry rifle squads, and more like the 1st regiment's wolf hunters commando squads are generally equipped with Winchester 351s or Model 8 Remingtons. Unlike Wolf Hunter Scout Platoons they do not ussually issue full size Lewis Guns, the Commando detachments reserved these at higher headquarters preferring later to replace them entirely with the automatic rifleman concept

Xian Interwar Armor Development (Early)
Experimental Armor organization c. 1922
In a break from its often infantry centric organization, the Armor / Tank ETS of post war was headed up by the Artillery Service and the Corp of Engineers. They largely received, took possession of, Renaults, and British tanks which lead to the formation of an experimental mechanized brigade. This brigade was nominal in strength, here brigade actually refers to its combined arms nature.

Among the British tanks was the protected radio carrier Mk 1, which was intended to be an effective self contained relay with Xian's burgeoning air units specifically aerial observation units. To that end these units were under the control of the Corp of Engineers however it was intended in practice that the airplanes, and mk 1 tanks would coordinate with the artillery's heavy howitzers drawn by mechanized tractors as a coherent unit. This first core tank unit was therefore under Artillery leadership and comprised these radio tanks as a platoon attachment to an otherwise typical Artillery Battalion.

Renaults FTs however were largely treated as armored cars and thus took presence in a revitalized ETS Mechanized Rifle Company following Infantry organization. 3 Mechanized Rifle Squads were intended to be supported by two Renaults Each with existing armored cars and supply trucks. This was tested along side a version that featured a radio equipped FT but the principle problem of the FT was its cramped size and limitted firepower, even with 3 Renaults the early french design still needed work.

The existing ETS Mechanized Rifle were either hard to coordinate units with additional tanks or lacked sufficient firepower so the first stage was set for the eventual changes. In 1922 attempts were made to increase the firepower of Renault FTs by replacing their existing armament this initially took the form of equipping them with a 1pdr QF gun that was still largely deemed unsatisfactory a solution. Indeed in 23 a new 37mm Vickers gun is introduced but many of the other short comings remain, a pound of high explosives is anemic by artillery standards.

However by 1922 Xian has more or less to the conclusion a tank squadron of five Renaults is useful as a supporting formation. This is in the ETS an additional separate Squad in the Mechanized Rifle proposal. The command tank under a lieutenant having a machine gun armed renault with a radio in theory. Its mostly theory, in the early interwar years radio still is not sufficient nor inexpensive enough to meaningfully make this a real operation force. The Experimental Tank Brigade continues to exist on paper and its 5 tank model continues to exist even after the FT is long retired.

1 Artillery Battalion with attached Tank (Mk1 Radio) Platoon

Mk1 Radio Tank Platoon 1922
10 Radio tanks, 3 Recovery Tractors (Pavesi, nominal), two Fulton Nash Quads Supply Trucks (Petrol, spare parts, spare crewmen).

Its 1922 composition represented a problem with both command and control as well as sustainment, and of course also being particularly vulnerable to potential attack This would be revised later, but in 1922 the intention was that the radio tanks would divide themselves and position themselves with individual batteries and at battalion headquarters. This theoretically was designed that a tank could speak to its battery, communicate with headquarters, and if needed communicate with spotter aircraft. In practice though this was a bit optimistic for artillery based tanks.

Experimental Mechanized Company's Attached FT Tank Platoon
Platoon Headquarters (Armored cars, and supply trucks)
3x Tank Squads
1x Radio / Machine Gun Command Tank, 4 FT 1PDR tanks.

The most obviously significant development to the Cadre was therefore not the FT17 but rather that it was the Mechanized Company component. 3 Platoons of Mechanized Infantry were deployed with some new support. The tank was intended as a support for the infantry, and as a result there were questions about whether or not the Mechanized Infantry couldn't be better supported a better armored car, a standard armor car that could also fulfill HQ vehicle roles, or potentially ambulatory roles, such a domestically built ford. For the presiding Artillery branch the limited legs of the Renault was a problem, but less of one compared to its anemic firepower.

The Mechanized Rifle units continued to rely on a base 13 squad, but in a break from their artillery roots tanks would settle on a five vehicle unit, and this would eventually set the way for Xian's Cavalry Scouts in the form of its armored car units of the late twenties as the ETS continued its work on the experimental tank brigade. The 1920s though even with the development of a domestic automotive industry was not sufficiently large to support this degree of mechanization at the time, and it would only reach fruition in world war 2 with the maturation of the armor division concept (the 1st Armor is converted from 12th Division in the early 30s and undergoes its own teething issues prior to the war; a nominal 41 Armor Division thus in theory should have had an equal number of Tank, MechInf, and Artillery battalions though in practice this was often not true with additional artillery and additional leg infantry due to tank and armored car shortages. This would also insure the distinction between Xian's Cavalry Scouts and its normal mechinf units in post war divisions).

 

[Imperator Pax]

AoE Timeline notes, Events 9-8-22

So as is probably, rather obvious, this is fairly British Foreign Policy 'engaged' story particularly because this story opens in the years before the Empire sustains 'its great wounds' and watches the decline of the Empire. With the death of Queen Elizabeth the Second there are certain factors I need to discuss , provide warning to. In this timeline George V, the founder of the House of Windsor (1917), is one of those figures who in this timeline dies slightly earlier. This leads to the Edwardian crisis (His son, Edward the VII) because those had been a long time concern of George V as well as the British in general, and then to a slightly earlier ascension of George VI, the father of QE II, as a result of that.

Now while I have done outlines of significant events for the cold war what has not been definitively established is the subsequent does KGVI die per OTL or does ascending earlier result in QEII Succeeding him sooner given both him and KGV suffered long term health problems compounded by stress, though the argument can be made that historically George the sixth made it through the leadership of the second world war a couple years on the throne more early shouldn't hurt him.
--
And while not definitive a couple of pieces of primarily British developments (Probably updated periodically) to reflect this, I know I have plans for late inter war aircraft that were commercially available to British partners through aircraft firms just ahead of the war breaking out, but for the moment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_8-inch_Mk_VIII_naval_gun This is a direct outgrowth of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, and makes a pretty good railway gun.

Post Chiang's (so in 29 really going into 30) marks a second phase of modernization. Leading to yes, the eight inch above, and development of late interwar tank development (Vickers introduces the 3 man turret during this period) and proceed eventually to development of things like Mk 1 Hurricanes in the mid thirties

 

[Imperator Pax]

Q&A
Part 1: The Economics​

The following is derived questes asked by unique. So before I begin summarizing that there are a couple of things probably the largest single weakness to Autumn of Empires as a broadline timeline is that the outline was originally written within the framework of an AH format timeline of events on certain days with event dates frequently between them. So Unique has asked questions, i've done my best to address them, and also how this story has changed over time. So first and foremost I work with a lot of primary sources, as well my library at the house has a signficant amount of secondary sources (or primary sources in the case of ethnographic accounts from the period). And by preference if I include something at political or economic level it generally going to be based off something that was done in the period.

So first and foremost, WW1 represents a massive political and economic shift in history. It is a very massive pivot point, in no small part because it represents a significant political change in europe and in particular the massive centralization and growth of national governments and their authorities. Now this was not created by the war, it was accelerated by the war. The British Empire had been attempting to apply greater scrutiny and oversight to its subjects (including large trading houses) for almost a century by this point and this is part of the political discourse in Europe about political organization and economics, which has begun industrializing post-Napoleon. The result of this is a pattern of compromises (made possible with increasing enfranchisment in the British political system, at least within the Isles proper) that ultimately favor stability over anything else. This leads to the gradual nationalization of the various monopolistic trade companies (India, and South Africa, come to mind though they're very different in how those proceeded even though it can boiled down to money.) So the basic summary of the 19th century is that European companies continued to operate private security, warships, armies in the field until world war 1 ended that practice or coopted it to control native populations in the colonies. In the AMericas private armies ranged from almost feudal in hierachy to very similar to their colonial european counter parts.

This was legal often in a dejure arrangement over monopolies, or simply as an accepted defacto arrangement of 'natural rights'. This was changing in opinion over the 19th century within elite social circles, but it takes quite a while for it go away... and thats in governments with strong central systems and an interest in abrogating that process at least at home. [colonies are a different story entirely, and that shapes some of what exists in the timeline].

--
So that answers the question of how is this legal? Because at the time while there were rules, they were very different than the ones we had today. It used to be that governments preferred operating arsenals but didn't so much mind companies abroad actually fielding thousands of soldiers, and now for the most part governments don't build their own cannons any more artillery is built by private corporations, but for the most part those companies don't have expeditionary forces.

In 1910 a large railway company could have everything from police powers and mail delivery responsibility (and in some cases the ability to collect taxes) as well owning armored cars machine guns, and artillery for safety reasons. Of course, the thinking within the US and UK was that a railway company isn't going to overgrow the government (and often were represented in government at all levels). As for abroad? The assumption was that these companies were (and again representation in government) part of grander national ambitions. There were certainly people who even in the 1800s disagreed with this, but really its the expense of armies, especially as European armies at home grow significantly larger than their previous iterations that is the death knell of this practice.

Speaking of other corporate interests. A lot of corporations (and some cases this continued after ww2) who were involved in complex machinery and heavy industry got involved in defense articles. Krupp was not originally a gun manufacturers but as it happens steel (or cast iron originally) gives insight into the industrial process that lets you expanded into a side business that makes a lot of money. (and Krupp got its hand swatted a couple times, so did Armstrong and Vickers)The result is that these corporations in the 19th century (and on) would liscence out patents send experts out to help set up local production like pretty much any other piece of heavy industry. Krupp sent experts to Romania (which they might have regretted later), Thailand, Japan, etc, Armstrong sent engineers to China, and Japan among others. Private Arsenals and the manufacture of artillery were not all the unusual (they're really more now the norm, just reflecting changes in what is normal), nowadays your home government cares what defense articles you sale to foreigners on intellectual property rights than anything else.

Which brings me to licensing and costs. When pming Unique this came up, on costs, and this is really the era of the gold standard and also that costs during this period were very different than they were today. That getsinto inflation. Now I do need to go back and boule check my figures, and primary sources but the technical data packages before world war 1 for artillery really weren't that expensive, and thats again a factor how things were before world war versus after. For example there is the ford deal coming up (which is based on both Ford's deal with the USSR, as well as attempts by ford to set up domestic production in other countries and the costs) which in millions of dollars total over a decade, and thats mostly a cost in tooling, but as insane as it might sound before the Model T a piece of artillery could very be cheaper than an automobile (for reference a modern piece of artillery a field gun is often over half a million dollars) and governments still complained that artillery were expensive and that they needed to be made cheaper using lower carbon steels, and less labor.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Q&A Part 2: The Political Dynamic, and whats coming in the future
Summarized​

As I've mentioned previously I make use of primary sources, of historical people and events, and in particular of agreements that individuals, corporations and governments that were entered into in order establish much of the lead up to the present in the timeline. Now this story was originally spun off from a CYOA build and from an out of universe standpoint the build up of characters and plots integrated other ideas. US corporations and their British and French, Japanese and German parts even were capable of acting abroad in frankly means and ways that we would normally associate with a state government. They exercised in the 19th century, and into the early 20th territorial rights and ambitions and were key shaping factors in national policies. That is a keystone, a fundamental building block in the cadre, because the cadre's corporate holdings operate under a notion of extraterritoriality even if during the Qing, and Yuan Shikai, and now nominally speaking Duan Qirui it is with the blessing of the hosting government [That was nominally the case of historical extraterritoriality as at least those conveyed by treaty rights were a recognition by the host country, and thats goes in 19th century treaties]. This also goes into the patronage networks and power and wealth.

Most of the cadre are west point graduates, and represent either in blood, or ties of friendship to the pseudo aristocratic families of means within the states. This directly ties them to the US of the early 20th century's political system. Does this mean Wilson likes what they're doing? No, but as long as Lansing and Colonel House cover for them, Wilson was the sort of president who could be talked around to it, and the Cadre being willing to intervene in things like missionary safety and that being able to during this period be able to reach midwestern papers by the end of the week by telegraph or telephone provides social sanction to what they're involved in. Wilson is also the sort of president who wants to violate the open door policy by treading on US corporations, even if he doesn't like bankers, because he also supports free trade, and thinks that its good for everyone.

At the same time however it is now 1917 the great powers of Europe have been at war for going on three years. That has had tremendous impact on the global trade balance. This has made producers of articles of trade being consumed by the entente very wealthy, especially as demand drives prices up particularly when supply cannot keep up. This in particular hits the French particularly hard, and effects their foreign policy and an evolution of how they interact with their allies, and WW1 is the avenue by which the modern US government centralizes from a federal perspective it is to use a very tired analogy the crucible that forges the late 19th century New America into a new nationalism it basically takes what TDR was trying to do and its under Wilson that the US evolves. This is really what splits the cadre off from the US because Wilson was fundamentally a dreamer president, and when he had his stroke his wife Edith basically seized power, she sacks Lansing (the secretary of state) and Wilsons inability to manage, to recover or even before that get the US Senate on board with his proposals really breaks the international consensus in Europe.

The French and British were planning the division of their victory spoils by 1915, and this culminates in the case of the ottomans with their dictating of Sykes Picot and informing their current cobelligerents (i.e. Imperial Russia), and the Franco-British agreement this division of spoils continues because France still diplomatically is perceived as a great power, as a very influential power. The French through out this period have been (in the early 20th century) able to talk the British around to their position for the most part. This is why the entente survives as long as it does because France takes up for Russian belligerence and keeps the alliance from breaking down by working with francophiles in the British government. France pushes for economic controls and this is in the shape of things like price controls, but more long term things that will still be in effect for the post war market.

Now once 1919 rolls around there is a political break that comes with the end of the war, where its no longer the cadre so much as a corporate entity, but a pseudo governmental one increasingly leaning towards a territorial government. Other parts of the Cadre export this to Middle America and help shape the banana wars but in China, in specifically north China, the end of the war means a change in both politics and economics. This means collecting taxes, criminal justice (no longer just referring things to Peking for review) and other parts of government oversight. That basically means keeping other foreign powers out the Soviets are thing even though the Russian civil war is ongoing. But thats also the next arc.

This arc will wrap up before we get to there, with (most probably) that next arc's opening being 1919 dealing with the restructuring that moves them from a corporation with government like features to an actual administrating government with a constitution. That will take place ahead of things in the east the ZHili and Anhui cliques conflicts, and then Fengtien under Zhang Tsolin in Manchuria becoming involved in the scuffling for who gets to rule over the nominal position of premier or president of China and hold peking.
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So at present that is to say post July 1917, political positions can be summed up in terms of each's most important goals:
Duan Qirui: Get China to pass a declaration of War on Germany. Additionally secure his present power base, and secure funding for a larger more reliable army.
The UK: Insure that there is secure rail access from Pacific ports to make sure supplies (and if necessary manpower) from pacific ports to shore up the Russian front.
The Terauchi Government: Stabilize relations with China [Yamagata Aritomo is basically chastising the Japanese government, and expressing serious concerns for whats going on with Russia at this point,] repairing and solidifying the ANglo-Japanese alliance is important, but the Japanese government wants to avoid committing troops to the territorial war.
The US: Effectively participate in the European War, in Asia this means bringing in engineers and making good de facto economic spheres of influence concessions in the Russian far east relating to the Trans Siberian, preferably without being required to land troops in the Russian far east to do so.


Feng: Preferably convince the rest of the Beiyang leadership in his role as President that the Beiyang clique needs to reunify weld over their differences and focus on local issues rather than becoming involved in a repeat of the invasions of the south that attritted the strength of Yuan Shikai's government.

Sun Yat-sen: Make whatever deals he has to in order to be recognized as in charge and secure funding for the KMT. Nominally opposes the war declaration on Germany in parliament

Spoiler: spoiler

[Changes his opinion in September in an attempt to get British recognition for his southern government a month after the declaration for war passes in the north]

 

[Imperator Pax]

Various Unit Order of Battles and Tables of Organization
Large scale units (Continuous)​

[Note: Maybe attempt to edit tables in later for Personnel, Light machine guns, HMGs, and artillery]

Unit	Personnel	Rifles [Standards]	LMG	HMG	Kr3IN	10.5cm	15cm
Regimental Level
Battalion Level
Company Level
Platoon Level

2nd Infantry Division (Triangle) [Nominal Organization 1918]​

3 Infantry Regiment Divisional Headquarters (CO Brigadier General commanding in practice, there are no major or lieutenant generals at this point) + with Divisional level supporting units
Composition of 5th and 6th Infantry Regiments
3 Infantry Battalion + Regimental Train (Organic, Quartermasters distributing ammunition and supplies within the unit) Regimental Artillery (Attached Battery) Engineer Battalion (Attached, would include the signals company as well as field works personnel) + Regimental HQ
3 Infantry Company + Machine Gun Company+ Battalion Train (Ammunition transportation organic to the unit) Artillery Battery (attached), Field Engineering Company (attached), Logistics Company (Attached, combination of Medical and transportation of personnel, actual would operate trains)+ Battalion Headquarters
4 Infantry Platoon +Machine Gun Platoon (4 Heavy Machine Guns, nominally Vickers Machine Guns in 8mm Mauser, in practice some are still Maxims) + Company Headquarters
4 Rifle Squads+ Mortar Section (4 Sykes Three Inch mortars) + Platoon Headquarters

The above is based off of a nominal arrangement that can be more or less summarized as an evolution of the organization of the US 15th Infantry Division except built on a triangular scale. It still retains a lot of pre war heavy machine guns it still operates on operational logic that dictates that officers should be fighting with rifles rather than having lower level officers commanding/leadership role. [Notably in 1920 2nd Division will be reorganized and move 3 Infantry Platoons to a company with additional newer machine guns, but that gets also into events of 1920]

2nd Division is an Infantry Division, and thus lacks the specialization for offensive action that 1st and 3rd Divisions would have (which I don't have those posted yet, but this goes more into specialist equipment and attached units). 2nd Division is also the nominal lead division of the Reserve component, which is based off of the US National Guard [and I can't say anything more about that barring spoilers until after Yan Xishan actually gets the ball rolling on that, because historically he took the US National Guard model applied it for his home province and was able to field an a hundred thousand man NG by the twenties that could be called up in emergencies as needed).

This does not include specific equipment, we will get to that later, but I will basically be dividing table updates for Regimental Brigade and Division level units here, and using the first table threadmark for Battalion and below including tallying specialist formations, which will likely include any core equipment.

And of course what follows, in how this is stood up goes back to the core of unit model. Xian's basic unit is the Regiment, so this is also why the Gendarmes are a Regimental formation on paper when in practice they are a mildly overstrength light infantry battalion. So when Xian goes to establish 2nd and 3rd Divisions they do so by splitting off the 2nd Rifle Regiment, and then a few months later 3rd Rifle Regiment to serve as the corp of these new divisions with subsequently obviously 1st Division also receives two new Rifle Regiment. [and in the future this will after 1920 change in that there is a difference in Rifle versus Infantry Regiments rather than the distinction between Division types being just what specialists are being attached, but you have to have actual division formations first]
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3rd Division (Proposed, 1918)

3rd Regiment, 7th Regiment, 8th Regiment
[Details to follow]

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Brigades versus Independent Brigades
Original Xian Brigades refer to 1st and 2nd Artillery, and the Corp of Engineers, Independent Brigades are small combined arms groups, and the distinction of independent in this case refers to their mixed combat capability not to their arm of service

 

[Imperator Pax]

Naval lore across the timelines​

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Notes: I'm going to go ahead and touch on this here... and frankly I could discourse this topic on, with Saturday's update. Naval matters across different timelines I'm going to start with the easy one first:

Freiherr von Zemo saves the Reich... Zemo hates the navy, mostly because he hates the admiralty but also for purely political measures internal and external. Imperial Germany's naval ambitions are curtailed in this timeline, and the only reason that the navy isn't completely abolished as a service is the success of this timeline's version of Albion other wise by 1918 Zemo's army faction of politics would probably try and dissolve the navy.

Now part of that is economics; the Naval expansion pre war prevented the army from having the forces on hand to execute the Schlieffen Moltke plan is the espoused reason, but it goes beyond. Naval machinery is expensive. The navy failed to win a decisive victory at Jutland (again propaganda in this timeline has the outright accusing the Navy of incompetence for failing to act during Beaty's cowardice, objectively thats not the Navy's fault, but the Army doesn't care, and that's also propaganda aimed at the British as well).

Post World War the peace treaty is designed to kickstart an EU style economic union early, or more accurately restore the pre war economic integration, and expand that to the independent countries in the east that have sloughed off the crippled russian empire (Lenin has an unfortunate run in with von Kroenen, and Trotsky stays in New York rather than return to Europe) no Red Revolution, a defeated france means no Kerensky. .

So in Naval terms in this timeline the German Peace Treaty immediately leans into something to the Washington Naval Treaty of X number tonnage here based on how many oceans you border (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian) as part of the peace treaty process, with lesser tonnage allocated by Sea (north sea, baltic, sea of Japan) and this is specifically realpolitik designed to keep Germany out of a pacific war down the road while banking on that England, is not on good terms with France, and that Japan's Young Officers might still do something stupid down the road thus forcing England and the US into a war. SO in short the German Navy is small and conservative.

--
Moving on

1632. Ordinarily I would say that in such a scenario realistically the idea of a US Navy and of sweeping naval such is high fantasy, its a little more fathomable in ISOT, but with grantville its extremely fanciful. Again naval scope of things relatively conservative, part of this is both the limit of industrial ability (this will be touched on down below) but also the conditions and geography of the Baltic.

Now canonically in 1632 Grantville manages to serious magik some ships together, and that will sort of happen in the form of iron clads initially, and eventually much as in Rising Thunder (what will be touched on next) is that these are an emphasis on propulsion and seaworthiness rather than fire power. Here, there will be seaplane tenders , not true aircraft tenders but spotting planes for artillery for the most part though it is not feasible to in the time frame involved to construct a nominally swedish navy to do what could be done in Rising Thunder, or in Sharpe's Patron which is the other iron clad centric. All three at least initially rely on coal, but rely on different gun arrangements.

Here the geo strategic goal is of course sealing the baltic and then later projecting out to the opposite side of the peninsula to protect the rest of the 'neo Kalmar Union'. The goal is less about trade and maritime commerce than it is in the following two stories due to other factors in the timeframe.

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Rising Thunder

Ok so Rising Thunder takes place in a post Confederate Victory Timeline based off Grand Tactician and like the actual US Civil War leaves the US with two situations. The First Napoleon III in Mexico, the second is that the civil war has resulted in the US (and I'm using US as a shorthand rather than typing America) with a massive number of hulls.

The immediate geo strategic goal of the US here is reimplementation of the Monroe doctrine, and ideally expulsion of both France, and Spain from the new world as a long term goal. This means staying on with England. The US at this point in 1864 still needs British support as a counterweight it doesn't have the available resources to kick both spain and france out at the same time. So the strategic plan is to either convince spain to sell and get out of the new world (this was tried historically, Spain refused) and alternatively to support fillibusters and rebels to knock Spanish influence out by military force.

Again this timeline is post civil war a more nationalist and less isolationist US emerges, this means eventually more and further naval activity. In both the pacific and also in Africa, both North Africa (i.e. Morocco) as well on the western coast (i.e. Liberia). It also means a much more belligerent France, both during Napoleon III's reign, and after with regard to the revisionists. That has knock on effects on the rest of europe. A more expansionist US and a Mahan with a greater support from the Congress means a minimum of three fleets, a home waters fleet, an atlantic fleet and a pacific fleet, and that likely means an earlier canal getting built.

This means from a naval technology standpoint iron clads as a starting point but then something akin Texas, but with a greater support for building protected cruisers for commerce protection, per Mahan. Again coal power, domestic steel production eventually something along the lines of USS South Carolina as the successor to these ships with oil superseding coal from at first oil fields in Pennslyvania and then Texas, and California... and then US Mexico so a second round of naval build up in the 1890s to replace coal ships.
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Sharpe's Patron
In the short term no major changes, its only post Trafalgar that in this story there is a major shift in naval technology, and the reasoning for this is industrial. England has ready access to coal, India has ready access to coal, and iron, and so on, basically the expansion of industrial processes in the 'first british empire' early in the 1800s, and emphasis here is on patronage of at first the industries of Scotland, and then a greater settlement of Canada and Australia by Napoelonic particularly Irish veterans later.

Basically post Trafalgar there is an expansion of British industry in scotland at first in part for maritime trade, these are initially coal fired steam ships, and then coal fired steel hulled ships to further the blockade. There is an early development of triple expansion ships (basically what defines the First Generation Post Civil War Ships of the CSN of the late 1860s in Rising Thunder) allowing for much greater range with an emphasis on transatlantic trade, and also enforcement of the British blockade of continental Europe. They are primarily armed with high explosive shells, again primarily fighting french commerce raiders, they're capable of running them down against the wind, the ships of 1812 when they first arrive are unstoppable hence Dreadnought being the first warship in this class.

In this timeline it as an emphasis on this on an early exploitation of coal and triple expansion steam boilers the redirects British Interests overseas to free trade agreements with the broader english and commercial world. In this timeline there is no Washington state, the US what will be Canadian border is the Columbia river. The British build an earlier transcontinental railroad in this timeline, and in return the British Empire more authoritively forces spain to go along with the monroe doctrine. This means a loss of Cuba in this timeline much earlier, it means more British bases in the pacific it means a British fleet opens Japan to trade... or more correctly its the BIE "Hey our agreement with your ancestors is still valid right, right?"

This is very much an emphasis on maritime commerce
--
Finally for the largest of the three timeline /stories AoE... Xian does not have a port. Its carrying trade is conducted by anglo-american merchant shipping, and this is how Xian likes this before the second world war. They don't have a major port system its an infrastructure that would cost them money so it is not a priority, when their principal export across the pacific are to the British Empire, and the US. So from 1913-1937 trans pacific trade are carried by British or American ships. There are financial incentives such as avoiding tariffs for this, lobbying, so forth.

However that doesn't necessarily hold for the rest of the timeline. The MAK have ports, they have an interest in maritime commerce and also an incentive to have some naval assets, and they have the ability to through the British and US procure other vessels during this period. This even leads to largely footnote schemes to try and get around treaties the US and UK sign in the interwar period regarding ... well first...

Marine Diesels. Unlike the other timelines diesel power plants and their development are the interwar venture of note, again this is primarily driven by maritime commerce requirements predominantly influence by non military factors. This as a direct result factors into submarines, and how to counter submarines... and that will play a role. The MAK has a small navy by the time world war 2 is declared in Europe. Now from a manpower perspective the MAK has a population the equivalent of Canada? They could theoretically send troops? Right. Well yes, they could so the MAK supplies destroyers, for convoy duty it supplies pilots for fighters for the battle of britain, but its principle contribution to the allies is not an army but rather the preservation of maritime trade.

Again the middle american cadre it trades with, it exports goods to the US and to the UK. To the commonwealth nations. It cannot have a uboat threatening its trade. Xian is too busy fighting a continental land war and thinking about building a road to what will become pakistan to be worrying about the logistics of shipping let the UK figure out how its going to get stuff to Iran, or India we will figure it out once its there, until then... land wars in asia.

But the difference in the interwar is of the two cadres one has a reason to look at naval power, and one doesn't. Now post war both of them have reasons, means and opportunities to do that, but interwar thats a different story. One example of this is when Argentina goes to Great Britain for destroyers in the late twenties, the Cadre isn't in a position to act on that but it keeps it in mind, by this point well the writing is on the wall about which way things are heading.

The less conservative proposal is yeah we need destroyers, but the Australians want to build Cruisers... unfortunately cruisers are treaty limited during this period. The original plan is however to piggy back off the Australians now this is economics, this is political horse trading. Australian industry and the navy wants to build up its domestic shipbuilding in the twenties it has six major yards at this point (IIRC) and they're an important imperial trade partner, and within Imperial politics the Royal Navy wants the RAN to build up rather than eat up British yard space so everyone wins. Or everyone would win if the Australian Government wasn't staffed by idiots who don't want to actually spend money on keeping those shipyards going. So the cruiser idea for that reason, and because of treaty limitations goes no where. The MAK goes well lets build auxillaries and have our people cross over visit the yards in construction, the Australian government is still sort of hte problem.... and the end result of this is that by the thirties the MAK goes to England with the original, hey those destroyers youre building for Argentina they use british ordinance we'd like to place our own order.

HM's 1930s government is thrilled by this. This is money for the British docks that don't require expensive tooling up everything is underway. It is a cost inexpensive option for everyone that keeps yards running. The MAK is able to build up its navy during the interwar period, to where it can participate in the battle of the Atlantic.

WW2 happens. The MAK is the participant, nominally in the European theater. Xian is not. China does not symbolically declare war on Germany, Xian spends the entirety of the war from 37 to 45 fighting Japan, predominantly on land. After 45 China still is not immediately unified, Hurley tries to get the north and south to talk, Truman is president now, there is all the stuff going on with Japan, and what Roosevelt wanted with decolonization... and Hurley makes a mess of things, resigns to get out of it, and leaves Truman in a lurch in a job that he's already not prepared for.

So 'navally' Xian doesn't in the short term have a lot of options, so it follows the MAK model before the war ends. It stands up an office a bueracratic structure for its navy on the basis of supporting an invasion of japan as part of the anglo and american alliance against Japan. That never happens but the plan creates the navy. Xian goes to the Royal Navy and to Vickers and lays out a proposal as a part of the Commonwealth trade notion. Atlee is in power, he authorizes a lot of technology transfers, but he also nationalizes vickers, but the end result is that after China is reunified Xian begins the process of naval build up using at first British style ships, Anglo-Sino joint training crews, and British experts to construct yards in China.

The end result of this is eventually carrier air power. Its the broader adoption of naval airpower that in the timeline as a whole results int a much wider adoption of the F 14 as an option to replace and or complement the Phantom. This is a US aircraft, but the adoption of it in timeline is that it fills an all weather strike aircraft role. It enters service, it has teething issues, changes are made to the airframe, but eventually in this timeline the countries which adopt the Phantom, China, Australia, the UK, Korea, Iran, Indonesia and Japan go on to adopt the F 14 because it a much more widely produced airframe here.

Thats well into the future... and I need to go work on today's actual update.

So basically in summation: Zemo: Nothing major Naval wise in this timeline to comment (Not in the time frame of 1914-1925). Similarly for the main timeline of AoE, the naval side of things aren't that important, if I do go and do the Destroyermen, again that takes place in the forties, and into the fifties Xian doesn't really have a fleet (that also gets into Destroyermen as a timeline/alternate earth).

Rising Thunder is more focused on a period style distinction between ship patterns. There is a ship design break down between your battle fleet and your patrol fleet. Where as in 1632 (Dominion of the Baltic Sea) and in Sharpe's patron the major iron and steel warships are primarily focused on seaworthiness rather than raw firepower, for similar reasons.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Minor short Fragment Notes

This is a kind of distinction between European politics in Zemo, Distant Thunder, and AoE

In Zemo WW1 basically starts as scheduled. Zemo doesn't have the time or ability to get away from it. In Thunder there is a large european war there is an equivalency to WW1 but it s actually more messy in the current draft (We will get to that when I eventually get around to start posting more of that content here it is being brought up because of the Naval and industrial repercussions it has on the timeline). In AoE (the primary timeline of this thread since I don't update 1632 as frequently as I had planned to originally) WW1 unfolds and opens much as per history with the cadre being economically invested in an entente victory.

So from the top Zemo is Central Powers victory, AoE is historical Entente Victory. Thunder is a fractricidal mess because not only does it start earlier its multipolar because the short answer is Blame Russia, but also its the naval race that takes place in that timeline, its the integration of the anglo-american industry and the Japanese relations in the pacific basically here the Russo-Japanese war and the moroccan crisis come too close together on top of other events in the early 20th century so you get a naval shooting fight in the med that no one wanted and no one wants to back down from and thats the short answer. Zemo is the least naval timeline and the most compact in its current form but also because Zemo is a combination of working from geographic realities of the conflict, having both Marvel Zemo supervillian abilities and 21st century back knowledge of the conflict prosecutes the war differently. AoE is mostly economic involvement, Xian is not a full fledged government until 1920, and its latin american counter part doesn't fully stand up until later than that.

So Zemo first foremost is the intelligence / psychological operations of the war, I've already teased part of this portion of the timeline with the reference to cartoons, and propaganda but among other things Zemo has agents in the United states public, particularly in the midwest and in the south arguments for things like Cash and Carry, statements about which ships historically are not only carrying arms and ammunition but also carrying more than they are declaring they're carrying (shipping companies were for insurance reasons supposed to declare for safety reasons these things, because its a hazard especially in port), but also commenting on the war effort, on how American loans are being used for France to buy up wheat futures and that is driving up the price of grain and thus effecting Chicago's bread prices for example and a host of other multi pronged psychological operations aimed through US media through different agents but also for dropping large bombshells like revealing sykes picot, banging on about '17 french war plans', slandering Edward Gray with rumors. At the same time German operations for the intelligence war are aimed at portraying the french negatively again targeting the reputations of people like Edward Gray, hitting Lloyd George in certain circles, but also on the front lines by emphasizing a focus on the French forces.

Now on that Zemo has limits to what he can do. Falkenhyn sends him east but still plans Verdun, and that sucks in the majority of the French Reserve while Zemo is in the east, and that culminates in the eastern front Zemo relying on both foreknowledge of strategy and the geography for example galicia to wipe out planned concentric offenses and carry out things like Albion that directly threaten the Russian capital. In the grand scope of the timeline thats really what secures Zemo's political leadership in the wake of Romania jumping into the war is Wilhelm II loses his nerve when Romania jumps in and then the Russians surrender shortly thereafter (lenin is dead by that point, von Kroenen goes to Geneva and takes care of that problem on Zemo's behalf, Trotsky is still around and Stalin but thats for later) and Zemo pretty heavily relies on the political frontage of the Catholic Center Party to feel out political considerations with the United States and leveraging motions to get Wilson to cut the tap of war efforts

So by the time the Somme offensive is brought forward Zemo comes back to the west, blunts the offensive, by taking most of the troops who were in the east leaving that side pretty wide open, but then encircles and destroys the majority of the French army that is already over committed by that point, and thats the war because he is defacto in charge of the German Army and the German state, and with France broken as an army he has hollweg publicize a German interest in a white peace along wilson's lines. Not because he expects the french and british to accept that but because the British have six weeks left of liquid cash reserves to run operations on, and no significant reserves (because the Russians never sent there gold reserves). The end result is that Russia basically loses pretty much all of their non core. Baltics, Finland, Poland regain independence, Japan gets a telegram saying "If you want Tsingtao thats fine, but you know Siberia is open now if you want it." its a political divide and conquer strategy based around taking individual forces off the field, but its also neo realpolitik because Zemo wants his NATO/EU equivalent to insure Russia doesn't get back up again as well as rebuild europe as a reintegrated economy but with Russia out of the war and no US intervention forthcoming the CP wins. Thats anabridged summary as I said early its the least naval of the timelines, Zemo is very distrustful of the navy and so is the political faction that grows up around him. That includes a non neutral Belgium, it includes a belgium that has a walloon speaking government in the German sphere of influence with German troops and a german alliance post war.

Thunder as a timeline. France and America spend the last half of the 19th century dickering over colonies. Imperial America also gets into it with Spain, there is an off an on Spanish-French entente but the result is that there are a handful of political partnerships. France loses to Prussia in short order, but Napoleon III frames it as a Protestant versus Catholic war in rhetoric. the north German confederation has to back off from including Bavaria, there is a more divided central Europe as a result there is a greater german movement within prussia aimed at denmark and the baltics which creates tensions with Russia. Also Franco-Russian relations are friendly this reduces the ability of a three empires or four kingdoms alliance further. Italy and Austria are in a constant struggle, Italy and France are still in a constant problem. The Med is uncomfortably tense by the time ships likes Dreadnought and South Carolina hit the water in the current draft they're going directly into a war.

This effects how the multi pronged fight goes. French versus US, Anglo versus Russian, Japanese versus Russian. Italian and German wildcards and this is initially just a naval conflict and its largely based overseas the flash points are from the central centers of power but the rhetoric escalates and eventually in 06 and 07 mobilization begins of land armies. Central Europe is a powder keg with no real strong central governments so there is a lot of maneuver warfare that follows. Thats not a war plan that the Americans or the British were prepared for, and that means the bulk of the fighting on the continent starts with their mobilization, and it takes everyone else to catch up.

AoE politically we're moving into the conclusion of the war. Xian is fast approaching where it is going to have to start addressing the victor's peace, because its known about sykes picot for a while. Its known about the backroom negotations of the French and English and their double dealing over the division of territory, and when Versailles is dropped there is unrest, and there is also the 1920 depression that begins and that forces political and economic changes but also forces XIan to start contending with the reality that Peking no longer is the de facto able to organize everyone. Fengtien Zhili, Anhui are all vying among Beiyang affiliated forces to be in charge but its just continuing to divide the north and expend resources and that forces change. Xian as a result begins a process of distilling down lessons learned from WW1 Xian's universal short rifle is a mauser action but its along the lines in the 1920 configuration of the patern 1914 or the model 1917 just in 8mm this is about economic production of the rifle at scale because Xian is still growing its army as the warlord era intensifies there is a necessity to increase troop numbers but at the same time XIan as a government policy is to produce more consumer goods, to expand housing and education domestically now part of that is to get around the trade war that France starts in the 20s with all of the form Entente and everyone then proceeds to respond tit for tat and the result is no one wins that one.

But in AoE ww1 is the opportunity that facilitates the growth of business and manufacturing both for domestic needs and for export because all of Europe's collective production is getting redirected towards the war effort and its still not enough.
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And since we're on the subject of primary service rifles if only briefly even by 1917 the German Army in Zemo's timeline is still largely fielding 8mm Mausers this is despite the mass adoption of submachine guns, and intermediary caliber rifles in this timeline because masses of the army in Jan 17 are the land reserve forces. In Thunder America and the Japanese, and the British are all running initially variations of the Remington-Lee Rifle with England, and the America adopting versions of what might be recognized as the Pattern 1913 as a war simplification . Xian is using a heavier 200gr 8mm Mauser, and will make the jump from a 98 pattern variant to shorter barrel Pattern 1914 / model 1917 style rifle as again a cost expediency

 

[Imperator Pax]

The 14 Points Link:
https://www.theworldwar.org/learn/peace/fourteen-points

This is important because a lot of people have misconceptions about the 14 points and especially misconceptions that derive the cold war, but also because of propaganda. I don't mean to beat a dead a horse, but neither world war (

Spoiler: digression

and frankly I really ww2 should be treated as a continuation of the first world war ala the 30 years war is, and I think in the long term historical context I think that will win out as we move increasingly farther away in time... assuming that that increase in time does not reduce the perceived importance of the conflicts (which I very much do not want to see because of how important the first world war is to establishing modern national governments in their practice I digress..)

was fault for the purpose of democracy. WW1 and WW2 were not struggles over democracy, and the cold war was more an argument over economics than anything else, and I would argue that it was economics that determined the wars various outcomes

But thats not sexy and that doesn't convince the corner boy to join the army and march to a foreign land with the army or the buying of war bonds to support the government so Democracy rather was the rally cry that Wilson and Lloyd George used, but interestingly Wilson absolutely makes no mention of democracy in the 14 points, or self determination (and I've seen arguments put forward that the 14 points was written (and with some objections from lansing at state) in such a way to avoid upsetting the French)

 

[Imperator Pax]

Courtesy of C&Rsenal


Now this long recoil system is in the long term (no pun intended) effectively a dead end.

ANd in this timeline what will replace it is a lewis style long stroke gas piston (thereby significantly reducing, relatively to the weight of the gun, both the number of moving parts as well as to a less extent the weight). This is not done to facilitate full auto fire but rather to reduce cost and improve usability. Also it neatly sidesteps any potential issues with Remington over Browning patents post war (Xian has the TDPs through an agreement with FN after the fall of belgium) and Xian's production 35 Remingtons are more like FN 1900 due to the pistol grip stock, but thats not meaningfully changing the action of the firearm (and this is relevant later on post war because Xian starts selling guns on contract to Nicaruaga to the cadre there, which Remington isn't happy about because their agreement with FN precludes FN's action onthe patents in certain countries, and post well Remington wants the business)

 

[Imperator Pax]

Ian does a video on the Madsen in its continued service.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Minute of Mae short from youtube, there is a full length documentary, and as she says here in both reference to the straight wrist of the original american Model 8, and that they'll cover the FN (European market) model at a later, this is not one to one to what is frequently in this story referred to as the Model 8 the cadre and then Xian's military call it remington but they're building them off the FN patent but you know americansims.

EDIT: Huh you can't embed shorts wtf

 

[Imperator Pax]

Alright first and foremost this is an Alternate History scenario that I consider broadly plausible, its outside of my specific wheelhouse and tis a new video so I can't say I've had much time to consider. It is unlikely to effect the broad timeline course.... probably at least not a significant impact

But in summary Whittle was a british engineer and due to Air Ministry (UK) Shenanigans was more or less ignored due to political queue system that the UK worked under, but hypothetically his work if funded could have resulted in early gas turbine for both jet aircraft and destroyers/ships.

Fair warning it is a long british style lecture its like two hour video, but I figured I'd share.

 

[Imperator Pax]

Thanks for chapter !

It seems,that they try to avoid being pulled into civil war,and for time it could work.I think,that even nobody attack them now,Czang would do that later.
When it happen,your Model 1932 would be used,and,as a result, everybody in world would at least try to copy it.
It is possible,that both France and Italy would use mainly their Semovente instead of regular tanks,and all other armies would use them in smaller numbers,too.
Althought it should not change how WW2 would end.

P.S about coffea,i hear joke song : "Kawa się nadawa,lecz gorzała lepiej działa"
my translation - coffea is good,but moonshine is better !
I bet,that if they drink a little of it,they would not want sleep anymore.

Click to shrink...

So I'm gonna touch on this, cause its tangentially related (you've already beat me to bringing up the Type 4, and I'll touch on that in a minute as well) and someone else brought up a good point this morning. The contemporary culture of the time inside of inside the Army of any institution really is important because and this is especially true of doctrine set down after ww1 (I've referenced this before, but here we're talking about the British especially but also France, and the US, wrote their official histories of the war and what was to be learned) there remained a significant degree of institutional inertia. This shapes what gets adopted and when

We'll take France there are political factors which curtail the French republic from adequately preparing for WW2. France was economically broken, and politically stable, it didn't help that DeGaulle and Petain shared political talking points to the point that it worried the French establishment that there would be a right wing coup in the twenties, and I have to expect that fear was redoubled once Franco Franco-ed and started the Spanish Civil War.

Similarly Mussolini still had a parliament in Italy where he routinely had to tolerate opposition opinions, coupled with budgetary constraints. This is why both Italy and France do not successfully transition to their new modern service cartridges the new Carcano and the new 7mm MAS admittedly yes the French started sooner and made better progress the Lebel (in part due to the PF being in power) was still in use.

When we actually get to the M1932, and i've highlighted this before, the British question (and the British obviously have the most exposure to Xian's industrial and military development, largely because the US simply don't care during this period, the state department / administrations are incredibly hands off) question why it doesn't have any machine guns... and this is because Britain vis a vis Fuller and other tank proponents have laid out sweeping theoretically ideas of tank warfare and maneuver and so on but also the push back from that from Cavalry and Infantry lays down the notion that the tanks must support the infantry.

The other complaint for the 1932, and Xian's tank development late interwar, is the weight of them. Its not so much the engine, during peace time, in the interwar years the automotive industry can produce engines for the tanks, but bridging requirements and transport is a problem. So long term 1940 yeah Japan eventually does Type 4, the Ho-NI III, and similar medium tanks earlier. THe ground work that makes that possible though is the greater Japanese investment in Manchuria, and Siberia. The same for experience in 32/33 with aircraft where Japan's army aviation on the continent (this was historical) found limitations in engine power and demanded a solution, which eventualy manifested (but here will come sooner because of pressure and competition).

Having looked at French procurement while I doubt they would look at China especially the Char B1 was originally intended to be basically a semovente (short 75mm howitzer SPG) specifically because it could be done to save money, a Char SPG would have been cheaper than the actual B1 because it would be simpler to manufacture. Again the problem here with France is spinning up production and getting the budget to do it given the political and economic costs of the 1st World War and the economic hardship created by protectionism and tariffs post war. Thats a structural problem and France's colonial empire means it can't not have a navy which adds to the issue.

And the lesson from WW1 is basically a lot of people died trying shit that didn't work, which is again the IJA did not contribute troops to WW1, and the official General Staff position on the war in Europe was bayonet charges would overcome defenses. Again this goes to doctrine, this is seemingly reinforced by lessons in China, especially in South China in the interwar period against low morale units. There was a modernization faction within the army historically but they were repeatedly sidelined and in Japanese contexts the navy dominates the discussion of decisive battle (cherry pick mahan and ignore the bits that don't support the argument) but the army did believe to a limitted extent that a set piece battle was key to winning a war, now some of this was insistence on economics. Japan can't afford to mobilize for long periods of time, it would be too expensive (Yamagata Aritomo seems to have held this position, but also he was of an older generation and square divisions made more sense when he was in active command... also he dies in the early 20s) other generals continued to use that rationale but graduated from the Staff College that insisted on concealing to regular students details about the Russo-Japanese war, and to teach that doctrine of basically Japanese elan vitale

Which brings us to how Japan does eventually start to modernize after the start of WW2. Yamagata Iseburo is currently in the current period of the story serving as de facto viceroy of Japanese held Siberia. Originally the Japanese had intended for the Japanese Far East HQ would have entailed adding Japanese Siberia into managing the Kwantung Area (north china area HQ) and Iseburo would have been in charge of both. Historically he did briefly head Kwantung (much as he had previously been a manager of Korea) here the Diet basically goes ... thats a terrible idea we would be concentrating entirely too much authority in two area that have already shown they'll ignore Tokyo GHQ when they feel like it. (Tokyo GHQ ;had previously attempted to censure the Kwantung HQ on more than one occasion). Iseburo currently is the only Japanese leadership figure with a major field victory against a peer opponent that in the last ten years, and his nearest competitors for that claim are all from the Russo Japanese war.

This is why thats important, Iseburo is a modernizer, his father Aritomo was a traditionalist, but Iseburo was expressly chosen by Yamagata Aritomo as his heir and Aritomo was basically the father of the Army, and the Japanese state system. This is point one. Point two Iseburo had previously demonstrated (IIRC pre Russo-Japanese war) a willingness to collapse a government if they wouldn't support his infrastructure programs he wanted more funding for Japan's railways... then the Russo Japanese war happens, Aritomo goes to war, the IJA makes a lot of propaganda, and Iseburo gets brought in to over see in particular the build out of Korea's industries and then WW1 happens.

Here Iseburo takes command vis a vis his authority as IG in the Far East and baits the Red Army to attack Irkutsk in the battle of the Lakes which the cadre explitcly compares to one of the worst turkey shoots of the American Civil War for a reason. This is even more important, because Aritomo intentionally sent Iseburo into the bureaucracy rather than in the IJA, now did Iseburo already have supporters inside the IJA at this point yes, he had supporters from the Korea HQ, and from the North China Area HQ historically, he inherited supporters after Aritomo passed, he had ties to active generals in the IJA up until his dead.

That victory basically allows him to espouse a modernizer clique position, without anyone being allowed to contradict him. Aritomo could have, but Aritomo was rabidly anti bolshevik at the end and had been worried about Round 2 with the Tsar prior to WW1 anyway. So the IJA GHQ and IJA Staff is willing to look the other way and allow Siberia to get away with things much like they were willing to look the other way on some things for the Kwantung...

Fast forward to the late thirties. Iseburo has passed away, his modernizer clique looses some ground because of that, but there is still the prevailing consensus in the army a war with the soviet union is inevitable, but that the navy is still doggedly insisting on their rights and perogatives as well (which is what eventually gets Japan attacking Pearl, but we're not there yet). The Kwantung army is not in a position to actually try and start a fight with the Soviets because of the border division, however the leadership is of the opinion it can support Zhang and Puyi as a figurehead to basically unify China if Chiang won't a deal (a deal that would turn china into a Japanese/kwantung puppet state)

This starts the 2nd Sino Japanese war with the accept traditional orthodox doctrine of the IJA on paper. GHQ tries to reel them in, that fails. The situation escalates the North Group Army hits Zhili and gets bogged down into WW1 era fighting where as the Southern China Group Army meets the NRA at Shanghai, and the latter scores repeated mobile victories in part because of bottling up Chiangs best troops at Shanghai and because of support from the IJN, and Chiang retreats (you get Nanking and the water defense, etc) Japan uses that to justify why it should expect that the war will soon end in their favor.

The problem remains the north, which is more industrialized and had been turned into the western front ala WW1 which the IJA's square divisions are getting fed into a meat grinder over because in the name of interwar budget constraints the idea of the bayonet charge, and other dated ideas about mobility is now causing problems at home. There is only so much here that the IJA can blame on reservists (which was historically their go to explanation to any problems within the army system). Hirohito asks for explanation. The army equivocates and promises that the war won't go on much longer... but is now very much in a situation it did not want to be in to begin with. Tokyo GHQ had not supported the Kwantung Army to begin with, and the Kwantung HQ blames the GHQ for that lack of support and now there is international pressure in the system.

The war in the north and south both trade ground for time and settle into an attritional stalemate where Japan is either in active conflict across a defensive envelop in the north (trench warfare and artillery) or simply doesn't have the ability to project troops further inland due to limitted resources in the south. i.e the roads are terrible and railroads into the interior are nonexistent. Tokyo GHQ is pushed by the Emperor to find a solution because Japan is actually casualty shy at this point in time (historically casualties from China actually sparked riots in some districts) the Kwantung army blames the General Staff for not supporting them again (this is historical) you get the string of various prime ministers and the war in Europe starts. Army Group South secures political cover by eating French IndoChina. the Kwantung is pushed into a position where it has to hold ground in 1940 and the result pulls troops from Siberia under Far East HQ which insists its still in command of its own troops this means what are basically triangle divisions start appearing on the front allowing the Japanese to hold their positions.


Tokyo GHQ lets this happen, Tojo is already in the wings when barbarossa occurs, Tojo becomes PM Pearl Harbor happens. Tojo as a compromise between the modernizers and the traditionalists agrees to a 'two path solution' basically continuing Konoe's compromise solution but giving it official sanction

Now this is fairly long, I'll admit and I don't want to spoil what things look like army wise, but Far East HQ and Kwantung HQ both eventually attempt to transition to 8mm Mauser rifles for various reasons, mostly its logistics because by the time of Two Paths being accepted as doctrine the 7.7 is brand new and 6.5 Arisaka is still abundant. The result is that Mukden basically becomes the Japanese Army Tank City, transferring from making tankettes to eventually the in universe equivalent to Type4 and Ho Ni III SpGs which is great for the China campaign (for Japan) but it still runs into the limitation of supporting Japanese shipping and transport in the Pacific

and ironically this is an abridged overview of IJA development in universe
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EDIT: Addendum regarding France, and Italy, apparently both of them in the early 20s (1924) for the Italians discussed procurement of tanks as self propelled guns Semovente first appears, the Original; Char B1 concept for the French.