The First World War Mod: Rethinking The Balkan Wars
The 1st Balkan War begins with Serbia and Bulgaria setting aside historic animosity (each was a claimant of the Turkish-controlled Macedonia, where Bulgarian, Serbia, and other identities overlapped). Their alliance – the Balkan League – was brokered with the blessing of Russia (who considered each a client-state or ‘slavic little brother’).
With the addition of Montenegro and Greece (the latter admitted on British request), the League invaded the Ottomans in Autumn 1912, with the aim of pushing Turkey out of Europe and liberating their unredeemed conationals.
The League is a major game-beat, akin to the Spanish Civil War in vanilla. It was one of the first bits of content that I added to the First World War mod.
Entice Montenegro gives Montenegro claims on Scutari and Ipek, and brings them into the League.
Strike a Deal With Bulgaria does a similar thing with Bulgaria, but with a twist. Serbia may select an arbitrator (Russia or Austria). Of Bulgaria and Serbia, whoever the arbitrator has a higher opinion of will have reduced annexation cost against Turkey.
Historically, it was this arbitration agreement that allowed Bulgaria and Serbia to cooperate (and as we’ll see, it’s what later lead to their turning on one another).
Greece currently joins via event. The plan was to give Britain a focus to bring them into the League, though that might change.
War With the Ottomans gets the 1st Balkan War going.
If the Balkan League wins this war (they should, as they outnumber the Ottomans), then things get complicated.
The Second Balkan War
What followed the 1st war historically was a rapid breakdown in relations between Serbia and Bulgaria.
The two states had tenuously agreed on the division of Macedonia, with the oversight of the aforementioned arbitrator (cannonically Russia). This all changed when Albania – with Austrian support – declared independence.
Serbia had been planning on taking Albania for itself – the territory would provide vital Adriatic access, finally breaking the landlocked nation’s geographic vulnerability to Austrian influence. So devoted was Belgrade (and Cetinje) to this claim that they almost went to war with Austria over a refusal to vacate Albania. This was the Scutari Crisis.
After much brinkmanship, the Serbs and Montenegrins did eventually vacate Albania. But Serbia now felt that its agreements with Bulgaria were null and void. They instead sought to keep Vardar Macedonia – land which was unequivocally intended for Bulgaria by the League, but which Serbia de-facto occupied due to the Bulgar army’s preoccupation with Salonika and Istanbul.
It was the refusal of Serbia to surrender Vardar – a direct result of its loss of Albania – which drove Bulgaria to turn on the Balkan League. This was the Second Balkan War.
Making Bulgaria Do Something Stupid
The most important thing to know about the 2nd war is that it was a Bulgarian dogpile:
The Balkan League sided with Serbia – Montenegro was a historic Serb ally, and Greece had more animosity to Bulgaria (over the north coast of the Aegean) than to Serbia.
Against these three, Bulgaria (the ‘Balkan Prussia’ was known for its large army) may have stood a chance. But Bulgaria’s diplomatic isolation left it vulnerable: it was Romania’s entry into the 2nd Balkan War that doomed Sofia.
And while the Romanians marched on Silistria, even the defeated Ottomans saw their chance to undo some of the losses of the 1st war.
In short: the 2nd Balkan War did not go well for Bulgaria, which lost most of its winningsfrom 1912. This poses an issue for my mod: how do you make Bulgaria start the 2nd war, when doing so was historically disastrous?
Until recently, this was done with an event:
Following the 1st war, whoever the Arbitrator likes better gets any Macedonian states which they don’t yet own, but which they border.
The loser of these states gets the option to declare war.
If the instigator declares war, any neighbors of that instigator with claims held by the instigator (Romania wanted Sillistria, Turkey wanted Edirne) may attack.
The problem being: who in their right mind would take the option to declare war.
I could see two ways to fix this:
Don’t give Bulgaria a choice. Their people are mad and they have to attack.
Give Bulgaria big maluses for declining to attack – a shock to national prestige, political turmoil, etc. This would have to be a huge malus to compare to the territory Bulgaria actually lost.
Make the 2nd Balkan War a hot potato that Balkan League members throw from one to the next before it explodes.
I went with the 3rd option.
The Balkan Hot Potato
Once the Balkan War is over, the Balkan League Disputes decision system becomes active:
All states claimed by more than one League member are marked as disputed.
If someone else holds one of your disputed states, your dispute number goes up.
The country with the most disuptes will be forced to declare the 2nd Balkan War in 90 days.
This gets the 2nd war going. But is there anything you can do to stop it?
All disputed states have two actions:
Intensify presence: At the cost of Command Power, you can take control of the state. This reduces your dispute count by 1, and gives you more land. If Bulgaria did this action to Salonika in the above image, they’d lose a dispute, and Greece would gain a dispute. Greece now has the hot potato.
Resolve: For political points, you can resolve a dispute. The state is no longer considered disputed. The countries that were disputing it, however, get to take one of your civ or mil factories as compensation.
Resolving also adds a bit of time to the hot potato, delaying the 2nd Balkan War.
If you resolve all states, the 2nd Balkan War is avoided entirely.
If you don’t, then the Balkan War dissolves when then 2nd War fires (this means there won’t be a faction to defend Serbia when Franz Ferdinand is eventually shot).
Finally, when the Balkan War fires, we still allow Romania and Turkey to jump in.
This system took a lot of scripting effort with endless headaches. But I’m quite happy with it.
The Balkan War will probably be declared by Bulgaria (who claims a lot of states, which tend to be taken by other allies). But it could be anyone!
With enough command power, you have the chance to ensure it isn’t declared by you, and to ensure that you come out of the 2nd war with more territory.
And if you want the Balkan League to survive, serving as a third faction in the inevitable Entente-Central Powers clash, you can work to resolve all disputes.
I even made it so this event congratulates the diplomacy of whoever resolved the most disputes (in this case Serbia) :)
That’s all for now. I’ll be continuing work on the buildup to the war, including my plans for the land doctrine tree and its relationship to Trench Warfare, which I may post about soon.
