Posts made by UN Spacy

@calvinhobbesliker:

@maverick_76:

Vee aaar Quebec! And vee are Fhhrecchhh Canaiiidion!

Nous sommes Québec. Et nous sommes canadiens français.

Je suis déçu à la fois de votre français.

@gtg21:

If this set up is indeed correct - so much for the much vaunted Luftwaffe!   I count just 4 fighters and what appears to be a tactical bomber (though maybe its a bomber?).   That can’t possibly be right considering what Japan alone starts with.

That’s because the Luftwaffe was not as big as the Japanese Air Force. Plus, if the Germans had as much aircraft as Japan had, well, I know I would not play Global.

And hey, so much for the French Navy! With only two cruisers and two destroyers it is very under-represented. But, like the reduction of the Luftwaffe, I believe this was for balance reasons than anything else.

@calvinhobbesliker:

@UN:

@calvinhobbesliker:

I think we’re assuming that there is no conflict, so perhaps France paid money to get its territory back.

I think he meant they will become second class. For example, look at the UK. In 1922 they had the largest empire in history. Now they just have Britain, Northern Ireland, and some small islands in the Caribbean, Southern Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the Pacific.

Alsace-Lorraine has been contested between France and German powers for centuries, and in the Franco-Prussian War the territory was annexed directly into the Reich in a humiliating and stinging fashion. If the Germans would simply let the French buy it, then they must be led by an incompetent fool. That’s like saying Argentina can simply buy the Falkland Islands from the UK.

Become? How? Their military prescense in all their colonies is strong, and as you said, if there was apparently no massive WWI or WWII, it would not be so easy for colonial uprisings to succeed.

Okay. Say they keep their colonies. France in 1914 was already behind the US and UK. Japan at this point was drastically increasing the size of its navy. By world war 2, it had the 2nd largest in the world. Germany will also keep increasing its army and navy. Germany was the 2nd largest economy of the world, after the US. France will fall behind all these powers. That was his main point.

I’m curious as to what will make them fall behind? What quality do we have that makes us lag behind others? I mean, if we never fought WWI, the French people wouldn’t be as horrified of war, and the military would most likely only get bigger since we would not suffer the millions of casualties. In real life, after WWI, even with the nation very anti-war, and with the military insisting on relying on 1918 tactics, certain parts of the military still improved, particularly the Navy. Although built in limited quantities, we built modern airplanes, artillery, tanks.

Imagine if the military command wasn’t so shocked into a defensive state of mind, and at the same time was at the forefront of military technology as France always has been. I doubt the French Empire would lag behind the other imperial powers if it did not suffer as much as it did in the Great War. In which if that was the case, there would almost bound to be a World War II, although in a much different form, and with one of the major motivations of France fighting will certainly be Alsace-Lorraine.

I know I’m gonna have fun with playing as France. Based on the setup I’ve seen the British fleet near Gibraltar is perfectly able to move up with the French cruiser and destroyer, and according to GenCon plays the French Med fleet can actually be a useful tool against the Italians. Yes, the British objective might be to pull everything back to the UK and simply try to survive, but once they do, what next? With the Med cleared of Allied warships the Italians will have a much easier time conquering Africa and the Middle East.

SO! UK player–-I think you should try and salvage the French Med fleet. I think in the long term it will pay off.

@calvinhobbesliker:

I think we’re assuming that there is no conflict, so perhaps France paid money to get its territory back.

I think he meant they will become second class. For example, look at the UK. In 1922 they had the largest empire in history. Now they just have Britain, Northern Ireland, and some small islands in the Caribbean, Southern Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the Pacific.

Alsace-Lorraine has been contested between France and German powers for centuries, and in the Franco-Prussian War the territory was annexed directly into the Reich in a humiliating and stinging fashion. If the Germans would simply let the French buy it, then they must be led by an incompetent fool. That’s like saying Argentina can simply buy the Falkland Islands from the UK.

Become? How? Their military prescense in all their colonies is strong, and as you said, if there was apparently no massive WWI or WWII, it would not be so easy for colonial uprisings to succeed.

@221B:

@calvinhobbesliker:

@221B:

I can’t really put a specific timeframe here.  As others have already said, the answer depends both on the specific country and the unforeseeable conditions that would have happened in place of WWI.

Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman empires would have dissolved in 10-20 years I think.  The Russian empire I think is a coin toss between 30 years and lasting indefinitely (to at least this day).  The British and Germans would have lasted to the present.

It would be an interesting political situation today with the economic, political, and military power divided between the UK, US, Germany, and Japan (and I think the relative strengths would be in that order).

What about France?

Good question.  Probably the French (and the Russians) would have continued, but I think their relative power to the UK, US, Germany, and Japan would have diminished to the point where France would be really a second class power.  This is because the French had neither the economic and population growth present in the USA, Germany and Japan nor the initial empire size that the UK had.

French power should not affect how they feel about Alsace-Lorraine being under German control. If, at the end of this reduced WWI, Alsace-Lorraine is still in German hands I doubt very much France will simply drop the matter. In fact I’m sure armed conflict will follow very soon.

Second-class? It had the second largest empire in the world, one of the best navies, the largest army in Europe by the end of WWI. Although its tactics in WWII were still 1918 thinking I wouldn’t exactly call that “second class”. If there was a reduced WWI I would think French military power would only grow due to determination to get French territory back from Germany.

@i:

@UN:

Calvin, if you play as the Brits, try to save the French Med fleet so I can try to help in the defeat of the Italian Navy  :cry:

say bye bye to your little navy then un spacy muhahahaha :evil:

Say goodbye to your Italian navy then.  :roll:

@calvinhobbesliker:

So what to make of http://www.livescience.com/history/080212-napoleon-not-poisoned.html then?

That article does not explain why Napoleon’s arsenic levels showed highs and lows while he was on St. Helena. In fact it’s pretty vague, period. For example:

The other surprise was that there were no significant differences in arsenic levels between when Napoleon was a boy and during his final days in Saint Helena.

If that’s true, where’s the proof? The link I showed you had a graph, along with an official statement from the FBI saying that the hair samples are indeed from someone having died from deliberate arsenic poisoning.

According to the researchers, including toxicologists who participated in the study, it is evident that this was not a case of poisoning but instead the result of the constant absorption of arsenic.

Which is a blatant lie, otherwise the arsenic levels of the Emperor from 1816-1821 would have been constant, and they were not.

I really want to know more about the testing of these Italian scientists, but because that article is vague and broad in its findings I can only say that it was a pretty weak experiment compared to the amount of testing and research done by Dr. Sten Forshufvud and Ben Weider.

Well, for France, if Alsace-Lorraine still hadn’t been returned to France, us Frenchies would likely not drop the matter so easily. Remember Alsace-Lorraine has always been a hot spot for German-French contention for a long time, especially after the Franco-Prussian War.

You need to get a Legion of Honor, Bob.

Calvin, if you play as the Brits, try to save the French Med fleet so I can try to help in the defeat of the Italian Navy  :cry:

@calvinhobbesliker:

Could you also summarize his argument as to why he thinks Napoleon died by deliberate arsenic poisoning? I looked this up and it seems that the arsenic in his hair could have come from his wallpaper

I suggest you read this article: Here It goes into how exactly he was poisoned, who poisoned him, and disproves the theories of the arsenic coming from the walls or shaving cream.

I wish I could give you the short and sweet summary, but I’m not quite sure how to do that; if you want to understand why Ben Weider, Sten Forshufvud, me, and many others believe he died of arsenic poisoning you’ll have to get the full story. It’s not too big of a read, the page just seems big because the article is just sliced up into smaller fragments of writing. Plus, I think Weider made it as short as sweet as he could to the best of his ability.

Ignore the writing in the box, that’s just the introduction of all of the articles Weider writes. Start at “…THE PURSUIT OF FACTUAL DETAIL
IS THE RELIGION OF PERFECTION”

Based on what I saw from the pics, the French Med fleet can actually be quite useful if the UK does something to save them, whether that means trying to destroy the Italian battleship or move the carrier and destroyer near Gibraltar to the French ships.

Thanks for the summarization, it just makes me even more excited to get E1940!

@calvinhobbesliker:

None of which were against Napoleon.

True. I had thought you just asked broadly during that time.

Spain was invaded in 1805, right?

1808. Although again, it wasn’t so much “invaded” as it was the Peninsular War basically just spontaneously erupted, as the French Army was already in Spain and Portugal.

@calvinhobbesliker:

@UN:

@calvinhobbesliker:

Ah yes, its army is, as usual, way inferior to its navy.

Quite. But by 1813 and 1814 it had improved remarkably, filled with veterans of the Peninsular War. Plus, the British Army was one of the only, if not THE only, Army to have not suffered a major defeat by Napoleon.

Probably because it hadn’t fought on land yet until Waterloo? Is there any other major battle involving the British army?

Well, you had the constant rebellions and quarrels going on in India (which is actually what Wellington was doing before he got involved in Spain), you had the War of 1812, and I recall the British being expelled from Buenos Aires by the Spanish sometime in 1804 or 1805, can’t remember when specifically.

@calvinhobbesliker:

Ah yes, its army is, as usual, way inferior to its navy.

Quite. But by 1813 and 1814 it had improved remarkably, filled with veterans of the Peninsular War. Plus, the British Army was one of the only, if not THE only, Army to have not suffered a major defeat by Napoleon.

@calvinhobbesliker:

UN, I have a somewhat unrelated question. After Trafalgar, why couldn’t Britain amphibiously invade France?

Well, having failed in its attempts in 1793 and 1799, Napoleon was pretty confident they wouldn’t try to invade Holland or France anytime soon. There were 40,000 men of the 3rd and Depot battalions of the Grande Armee stationed in France, strengthened by a further 30,000 National Guards and conscripts. The British Army was spread all across the Empire; Canada, India, in Sicily as well. In 1793 its strength was barely 40,000 and by 1805 little had changed of that number (though by 1813 the Army was up to about 250,000). And on the other side of the coin the British spent much of its military spending on the Royal Navy.

Actually, if the French had successfully invaded Britain, I doubt the British Army would have been able to defeat it in an up-front battle. Sure, the Royal Navy might cut them off, but Napoleon made the necessary plans for the Grande Armee to survive independently for quite an extended period of time before it required supplies in England.

Too Long to E-Day

@cond1024:

With the neutrality rules, I don’t think I would tell anybody to invade Spain, unless they want to give the Axis a huge manpower bonus.

I’m not saying they should, I’m saying if they want to get creative or unconventional they’re free to do so.

@Imperious:

Napoleon invaded russia 23th of June, Hitler the 22th XD

That just proves they were reincarnations of each other. They make the same moves and get the same results.

Why would that prove anything about reincarnations? June is simply the best time to invade a country like Russia. Or perhaps Hitler studied Napoleon’s invasion and placed it around the same date for whatever deluded reason.

Also, the original date for Barbarossa was to be May 15, 1941. They invaded Russia for two entirely different reasons, one was right to invade, the other invading merely for “living space”.

And another thing: the French invaded on the 24th.