The Great War, 1914-1918: Ros's Rise and Defeat (Full Text)
Type: Narrative — Full Text (Full Text) Era: 1910-1918 Location: Ros; Peplle; the Empire; the eastern continent
⚠️ ChatGPT export source — flagged for accuracy review. See ChatGPT Source Reliability — Review Tracker. Direct continuation of 1900-1987: Nations React, the Shapas Oil Discovery, and the Southern Lands' Fate. ✅ Major foundational lore: this is the continent's own "World War 1" — not initially named as such; the label is applied retroactively once World War 2 begins. See The Treaty of Tranchon and the Founding of the EUN and NUN for the peace settlement and postwar order this war produces.
Ros Ascendant (1910-1914)
A new Chancellor of Ros comes of age. Over the next 20 years he rebuilds the Ros military to levels outstripping any other military power on the east coast, including Peplle, Vladimery, and even Thasula in the far north. Only the Empire, far to the southwest, has a military exceeding that of Ros.
Ros is a very big country nestled against the high mountains of the interior, which bracket the Great River and where its headwaters form. Melting snows, spring rains, and glacial runoff flow into the river, which runs southward for a thousand miles before it begins its dramatic 90-degree right-hand turn in Tranchon, heading west then southwest toward the Empire.
The new Chancellor inherits a stable but stagnant state and begins an ambitious reform agenda: conscription (every able-bodied man required to serve at least two years), industrial militarization (state factories mass-producing rifles, artillery, and uniforms), and mountain training (units trained in alpine warfare along the interior highlands, giving Ros unmatched maneuverability in difficult terrain). By 1914, Ros has the most powerful army on the east coast, second only to the Empire's.
March 1914 — Ros Invades
In March 1914, Ros invades five of its neighboring countries and makes remarkable progress against all five. Vladimery declares neutrality, while Peplle — an ally of two of those nations invaded — declares war on Ros. Several Ros allies then declare war against Peplle, and the Empire, several nations to the north, and many nations around Peplle join Peplle's cause, sending troops to the lines. The whole eastern half of the continent becomes embroiled in a war that is later called World War 1 (not at first, of course — only once World War 2 begins).
Peplle is invaded in its northwest corner. Many of Peplle's industries are destroyed by Ros early in the war, but Peplle slowly beats back the invading armies. The winters that year are fierce, and even Peplle's Mediterranean climate becomes very cold, frigid even in its western highlands.
Jonesboro's "Neutrality"
Jonesboro declares neutrality at first, but then joins the war effort, sending military equipment, food, medicine, and other materials to Peplle and other nations fighting on Peplle's side. LMT builds and distributes all this equipment and material, and charges a hefty fee for it.
By mid-1915, LMT is openly supplying Peplle and the Empire with weapons, ammunition, rations, medical kits, trucks, and even experimental field radios. These shipments come at premium prices, enriching LMT while draining the coffers of warring states. LMT also leverages its railroad into Peplle, ensuring Jonesboro becomes the logistics hub for the allied war effort.
In Jonesboro itself, workers boom — factories expand and wages rise. Common people grow proud of "feeding and arming the free nations," though critics mutter that Jonesboro profits from bloodshed. Rumors spread that LMT could have joined outright and ended the war faster, but company leaders refuse, seeing greater advantage in selling to war, not fighting in it.
The Trenches of Northwest Peplle
By late 1916, trench warfare begins in Peplle's northwest, and it becomes a slugfest for nearly two years, mirroring Earth's own WW1. Casualties mount horrifically on both sides.
Collapse of Ros — March 1918
By early 1918, Ros and its allies are starving, out of ammunition, and unable to match the combined industrial might of Jonesboro and the Empire. In March 1918, the Ros army and its allies collapse, and Ros loses the war — the industrial strength of the Empire and Jonesboro turns the tide decisively in favor of Peplle and its allies.
This is a significant departure from Earth's WW1 parallel — a divergence that unsettles the scholars and academics in Jonesboro, who had been drawing (and now must abandon) uneasy comparisons to Earth's own history.
Appearances
- Creator-provided detail (ChatGPT export, "Empire history chronicle" — see RAW SOURCE, conversations-001.json #73)