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When I first tried the 1914 campaign as the Germans I got hit with a strike in Aug. Since I had no idea what I was doing in choosing the respective opening game options, I chalked it up to ignorance. Well I started a 1914 capaign as the Entente and lo and behold I got hit with a strike in France in Aug too! Don't know what I did. I stayed conservative with the historical war plan and chose "Good Morale". Could it be that I tried to call up conscripts right from the start? I noticed that Germany got hit with a strike too. Britain and Russia were not hit with strikes. What's going on?

An event played by the enemy, maybe ?

It's a random event, why not in 1914. Anyway the events scripts are moddable...

In all three games I've started as Germany, I got hit with strikes in August 1914 as well.

Calvinus,

I'm sorry but I must vehemently disagree with the way the game engine is set up for this. It's Nov-Dec 1914 and I've got strikes in France, Russia, and Germany. These are the first early months of the war - everyone's morale is still high and yet we get strikes??? I simply find this mind boggling and I must state again that I really think at this stage of the campaign that it's flat out wrong!!

Let's take the modern-day social climate, which has France have a sector on strike every day, or almost every day. Grant you it's 2010, and France has its own particular way of doing ....everything.

Strikes, general strikes and worker strikes at the outbreak of war is part of politics, and militant behaviors tend to bring militant internal reactions.

To say nothing of other belligerents spending money to contribute to social unrest.


I'm afraid it looks fine to me, personally speaking. I can (in my head) account for mass strikes occurring. My .02

The all European Socalists before the Great War were preaching Universial Brotherhood and anti-war. It is only after WW1 started that each country's nationalism overcame all this Universail Brotherhood.

All the 1914 strikes show is if this nationalism had not occured as it did historically and the Socalists Universial Brotherhood had prevaled.

I would agree with Canuck64 and Panama Red that early war strikes are not unreasonable as the international socialist labour organizations use the war to extract concessions from industry.

There is not necessarily a political component to labour unrest and what we see here could just be opportunism and not war wearyness or pacifism.

I'm the most well read regarding WWI but I've read my fair share. Nationalism was very well entrenched (pun intended) before the outbreak of the war. Along with another phenomena, militarism, the major European powers went to war rather willingly if not enthusiastically. None of the books I've read ever refer to a level of social unrest that was national in scope and scale, which is the level of this game. In fact, several books laud the French and British civilain leadership for deftly juggling the two balls of war production and civilian order. Although war weary, the populations of France and Britiain were fully preparing for the war going into the summer of 1919. We no doubt can exchange an endless series of emails regarding this subject but I still maintain that strikes on a national scale as portrasyed in this game are not accurate this early in the game. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Oops - meant say I'm not the most well read by any stretch.

Panama Red wrote:The all European Socalists before the Great War were preaching Universial Brotherhood and anti-war. It is only after WW1 started that each country's nationalism overcame all this Universail Brotherhood.

All the 1914 strikes show is if this nationalism had not occured as it did historically and the Socalists Universial Brotherhood had prevaled.

I will agree. For instance, after the Balkan Wars almost started the whole thing one year earlier, Jean Jaures tried to convince Socialists all over Europe to plan for a simultaneous general strike in the event of a crisis that showed a likely slide to war. It was to his great disappointment that the German SPD in particular, the biggest and most powerful Socialist party in Europe, meekly supported its government during the July Crisis. His assassination on virtually the last day of peace caused great anxiety to the French Government who feared that the working classes would rise in protest. They didn't, of course, but happily marched off to the slaughter instead, while the powerful SPD voted for the War Credits of its government almost unanimously.

One of the great aspects of this game is that it plays the counterfactual history card beautifully. What if the Germans went East ("Moltke plan"), or waited for the alliance system to play out instead of idiotically rushing to declare war on everybody in range? What if the Austrians accepted Serbia's response to the ultimatum, or sent all their armies against Russia instead of shuttling II Army aimlessly all over the railroads during August? And so on and so forth. So, take the 1914 strikes as another "what if"; what if Jaures (or Labour, or the SPD, or the Kadets in Russia or whoever) managed to call the big strike in protest to the crisis? Unlikely? Sure. As unlikely as Germany abandoning Schlieffen, and yet the game allows me to do THAT.

bk6583 wrote:I'm the most well read regarding WWI but I've read my fair share. Nationalism was very well entrenched (pun intended) before the outbreak of the war... I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

All that you say is accurate to a point but globalization was a huge factor in the economies of the day and the socialist movement throughout Europe was closely linked without too much regard for national borders.

Have a look at Niall Ferguson's book The Pity of War for new insights on both militarism (not as all-pervading as one might think) and the tightly entwined economies and social issues of the belligerants.

What if Juares had not been assassinated on the cusp of mobilization, an event that deprived French socialists in particular but also European socialism in general of competant and effective leadership? A very superficial article on Juares here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Jaur%C3%A8s

What if the German Social Democrats voted against war credits to force the Kaiser into much needed political reforms? In Wilhemine Germany the Reichstag controlled the Federal budget and the Social Democrats had been pushing for increased democratization for some time.

That strikes did not occur does not make them impossible or even improbable and that WW1G might impose them on you provides variety and a further degree of "what if?" to deal with.

Kudos though for a reasoned and respectable defence of your position, I am not out to try and impose an opinion, merely to explain my own take on the subject.

I thought the objection was not to strikes occurring sometimes, but that they were occurring every time the scenario was played.

gwgardner wrote:I thought the objection was not to strikes occurring sometimes, but that they were occurring every time the scenario was played.

Well, I haven't noticed this, and I'm usually very thorough in my complaints :-) (see all my other posts). I'm not disputing it, mind you, I just haven't noticed. It's true that sometimes "random" events tend to succeed always (I have never, ever, EVER failed to raise a War Loan for example) but those uber-socialists are new to me.

I have only seen 1914 strikes happen twice in all the games played to date, once by Event played on Britain by the CP AI and in my current game as France. However given the die-dice randomization system of WW1G there is no reason to doubt BK6583 is seeing a rash of them although I would not be concerned that the frequency is totally unreasonable just yet.

Besides, as Calvanus writes, the event scripts are moddable so am sure that those who find the strikes unhistorical can make them go away.