Pundit update, Spring 1903

turn information to come soon; I was too fast. Current maps here.

Europe has seen some of the most amazing development known to diplomacy this convulse season. Your trusty correspondent writes his last dispatch from London that fears becoming a provincial town of the French Empire. My next chronicle, alas, will be from the continent. On with the analysis.

The Western front: France unleashed

Developments in the Western threatre of operations have one chief master of mayhem: France. In a set of masterful moves, France has managed to lure Britain to an impossible position of lost sovereignty and defeat.

Their moves have been masterful. They read (correctly, and way better than your pundit) than Germany was doomed, and that they were not the ones to benefit for its downfall. Their brilliance, however, was realizing that luring the British to overcommitment would open them to a vicious, swift, brilliant stab. And boy, did they execute well. Baring an Italian surprise (more later), they are poised to to dismantle the British homeland in one year.

Germany, in turn, suffered from anti-French tunnel vision, and spreaded themselves too thin. The convoy attempt was brilliant (despite the failure), but the moves to Munich and Belgium were not. They probably fell in a British trap there, with France actually being the one that pulled the strings.

About England... greed and being too confident in a French backpedalling to cover the Italian excursion doomed them. I don't blame them, although leaving the North Sea open was criminal.

My take is that despite being at each other's throats, England should try to work out something with Germany the coming season. They don't have any other way out. The blue navies should survive at Belgium and Denmark while Germany fends of the attacks on their homeland with their help. Of course, it could well be that Germany is already on a deal with France, but this looks unlikely. I bet that they are the ones who leaked the German convoy to Russia, after all.

Eastern front and Italy: sharpening the knife too early

Pretty smooth sailing for the Eastern powers this season, with some major clouds in the horizon. First, Austria is getting restless, both on the board and according to some leaks from embassies. Their move to Galicia probably hints that either they distrust Russia like mad, or that they knew about the German convoy attempt. In any case, the brilliant Russian bounce and Silesia's army holding position shows that Russia is wary of any kind of foul play, and prefered to play it safe.

My take on the situation is that both countries should try to keep cooperating and stop testing each other. Both have huge open expanses of terrain to grow, without having any clear killing stab to finish each other offer. One turkish center in exchange of help in Munich, coulld be their coordinated moves, with Austria making a supported convoy to Southern Italy and Russia finishing off England now that they can.

In the medium term, my money is not on Austria, in any case. They probably though that I was wrong when I suggested they should support a German invasion and leave Italy alone harrassing France, as Russia was more likely to reap the benefits. Now they are in the situation of provoking a "slow kill" that keeps Italy alive while useful (not too long), get some centers, and after the reluctant Russian advance to Germany (due to French-induced paranoia, maybe?) grow faster than their neighbour. Their problem is that France and Russia are natural allies now in Germany, and probably elsewhere... and they have just stabbed their only natural ally left, Italy.

Russia and France should talk. A lot. They need to kill Germany as fast as possible. After that, they could be in a position to race to kill Austria as fast as possible to see who wins.