Roman Empire

When NATO intelligence officers detected and brought to the attention of the alliance’s leaders the fact that Soviets were secretly mobilizing, the Italian government refused to accept their conclusions. As the intelligence become much more certain, Prime Minister Bettino Craxi informed all other NATO members that the Italian government would not honor its treaty obligations, and, in fact, on July 17, 1985, Craxi ordered all NATO military forces to leave Italian territory or face internment until the crisis was resolved. Despite their anger over what they perceived as Italy’s trachery, NATO leaders resolved to respect Italy’s decision.

The Italians sat out the war, with both sides frantically offering deals to bring them in on their side. Craxi and his ruling Italian Socialist Party saw no advantage for Italy or themselves in joining the growing catastrophe spreading across the world. When the Soviets initiated the nuclear exchange on October 18, 1985, neither side attacked Italian targets, sparing the Italian peninsula any direct damage. Fallout was much more of a problem, especially in the more industrialized and prosperous northern region.

Italy, like the rest of the world suffered through the worst winter in its recorded history in 1985 and 1986 and the next three winters were still unusually severe, As much as one third of Italy’s population, 8 million people, died that first winter of exposure and malnutrition. Food riots, terrorist attacks, and banditry were common. Extremist groups quickly took advantage of the situation to push their agendas. On January 5, 1986 neo-facist assassins shoot and kill Prime Minister Craxi, blaming him for the disorders facing the country. Both of the shooters are killed during the attack. Gianni de Michelis steps into Craxi’s post after his death.

The Empire Strikes Back

>Over the next year and a half, Italy finds itself beset from enemies both within and abroad. On her borders, tens of thousands of people attempted to enter what appeared a paradise compared to what was turning into a howling wilderness outside Italy. Inside, leftist and rightist extremists clashed to take control of the nation’s destiny and set her course for the future. In the Spring of 1988, de Michelis and the Socialists lost a vote of no confidence. Elections were held on March 1st. Widespread voter intimidation was practiced by extremists of all orientations. To the horror of the left, and many moderates as well, Roberto Fiore’s New Force Party won enough of the votes cast to create a ruling coalition. Fiore, was a notorious figure, having been convicted in 1985 of a terrorist bombing he had ordered carried back in 1980. He escaped into Yugoslavia before the war began, and remained there until the winter of 1987, where he slipped back into Italy and openly began leading his party again. Fiore promises to rebuild the grandeur that was Italy under the Caesars and renamed his party the Fascist Party, adopting much of the iconography of the Fascist era. Early in July, Fiore called for a national plebiscite on whether or not the Roman Empire should be declared, with himself as emperor of this new Rome. Not to anyone’s surprise, in the rigged election, the vote was nearly unanimous. On July 20th, the day of the vote, Fiore proclaimed himself Emperor Augustus II of the Roman Empire. To cement his dynasty, Fiori married Princess Caroline of Monaco on August 9th, 1987, apparently very much against her will.

On November 18, Pope John Paul II was assassinated in the Vatican by Fascist goons. Augustus II was openly exasperated with the pope’s refusal to support the policies of the Roman Empire. With the pope dead, on November 29 the emperor legalized slavery throughout the empire. Tens of thousands of political prisoners are sold into slavery over the next few weeks, and slave traders were encouraged to enslave all refugees attempting to cross into the empire.

Benedetto Barbarini, the Cardinal of Milan, an adherent of the Roman nationalist position, was elected Pope Gregory XVI on December 13, 1988 by a conclave intimidated by the emperor’s Roman legionaries. The new pope wasted no time in asserting the emperor’s policies, with his issue on December 24 of what is known as “Caesar’s Bull,” legitimizing slavery throughout the Catholic world.

Military Expansion

Augustus immediately began expanding his armed forces to allow him to fulfill his ambitions to recreate the Roman world. As the only semi-intact industrial state in Europe, the Romans had a considerable technological edge over the rest of the world. Even with the loss of much of the empire’s power grid and computers from the EMP in October 1985, the Romans possessed a vast advantage in civil organization, population, and physical plant that Caesar was more than willing to exploit to Rome’s advantage. While he knew that his high tech pre-1985 weaponry was a wasting asset, he planned to exploit the advantages it gave him while he was retooling to create a vast, if much lower tech, military machine.

On June 11, 1990, the Romans began their career of conquest with the invasion of the Republic of Province in southern France. Before the end of the month, the Romans captured the Provençal capital of Grenoble. The Provençal Army continued to fight desperately as it retreated into the Alps, opening the way for the Roman mechanized forces to occupy the rest of Provence. On June 29, Roman troops expanded the war with their crossing of the border of the southern French Republic of Aquitaine. On July 13, Roman Marshal of the West Spinello Corasaniti accepts the surrender of the last pocket of Provençal troops and is rewarded with the title of the Duke of Nice. On August 24, reinforced by the victorious troops which had just defeated the Republic of Provence, the Romans defeat the main Aquitainian Army at Carcassonne. Early in September, the Romans took Bordeaux, the capital of Aquitaine and shortly thereafter the last remnants of the Aquitainian Army fled into the Basque Republic.

Caesar Augustus II took advantage of his military success by ordering on September 15, 1990, that all government officials, educators, writers, artists, major business owners, and non-Catholic clergy, along with their families, in the newly occupied French territories, be enslaved and sold at public auction. A series of insurrections broke out in the newly occupied territories in southern France as a result of Caesar Augustus’ enslavement decrees. All are ruthlessly crushed by the Imperial Roman Army by the beginning of May 1991, leading to further mass enslavements.

On February 27, Empress Caroline gaves birth to a son and heir, Crown Prince Traiano.

The Romans renewed their career of conquest in May 1991, with the simultaneous invasions of the Basque Republic and Catalonia. Roman slave dealers followed immediately behind the advancing Roman armies. Despite tension between the Irish Catholic Church and the actions against the Vatican by the Roman government, Irish mercenary forces take part in the operations. By the end of the first week of June, Barcelona fell to the Romans, and Pamplona fell just a few days later. By June 24, Catalonia was fully occupied by the Roman legions. Alarmed by Rome’s aggression, Castile, Galicia, and Andalusia join in a mutual defense pact against the Romans. The next day, Caesar Augustus announced that any alliance against his empire would be considered hostile, and declared war on them, despite being still embroiled with the Basque Republic. On July 19, La Coruña, the Galician capital fell to the legions, and on the 21st, Roman forces launch a surprise attack on neutral and unprepared Portugal. On the 28th, Toledo, the capital of Castile fell to the Romans, and on August 17, Ronda, the capital of Andalusia was occupied. The last organized forces of Portugal, Andalusia, and Castile on the continent of Europe surrendered in southern Portugal on the 3rd of September, though Basque guerillas continue to plague the Romans for decades more. The Romans seized Gibraltar on September 11th from the tiny Spanish garrison, using poison gas.

Caesar’s Pope Gregory XVII died of natural causes on September 23, 1991, and on October 7 a conclave elected the Cardinal of Naples, Giovanni Di Conti as Pope Pius XIII. Caesar Augustus is believed to have personally chosen Di Conti for the job.

The Roman Empire invaded, conquered, and annexed the lowlands of Morocco during the summer and fall of 1993, though the empire spent the next ten years trying to defeat the Rif Berbers of the Atlas Mountains, and even then were only partially successful. Irish mercenary units are commended for their excellent service by their Roman commanders in the North African campaigns, however Irish officers began to lose their autonomous control over their units. Although formerly serving in an unofficial capacity as military advisors to the Irish mercenaries, the Romans begin taking direct control over all Irish units in Imperial Roman service. The Roman’s invasion of Morocco was poorly coordinated, with the legions being unprepared for the prolonged Moroccan resistance. While the Romans successfully occupied the country, the legions, and particularly their Irish mercenaries, suffered extremely high casualties. Following the North African Campaign, the Irish eventually regain operational control of their own units that remained in North Africa for the next decade to fight the Rif Berbers. Despite the ongoing guerilla war, the Romans invaded Algeria on May 1, 1994, completing their conquest of northern Algeria on the 23rd of July, though they decided to leave the southern deserts of that place to the control of the local tribes.

Rome’s growing power and influence as the world’s greatest, perhaps only, industrial power led Augustus to begin asserting Rome’s power as a mediator, though many claimed his interest was as much in creating discord as settlements. The first significant accord he mediated resulted in the Treaty of Castel Gandolfo, on October 9, 1994 , between the Republic of South Africa and the Kingdom of the Zulus. The treaty provisions led to South Africa recognizing the Zulus as an independent state and bringing about an end to the First Zulu – South African War.

Roman forces continued their advance in North Africa with landings on Cape Bon in Tunisia, and Benghazi and Tripoli in Libya on May 1, 1995. Fighting was sporadic as the locals put up fierce but scattered resistance to the legions. By the end of September, the coastal lands of Tunisia and Libya were under Roman control. At the same time, the Romans invaded Austria and occupied that region by the beginning of September. Early in the next year, the Romans invaded Albania, the island of Corfu, and later, the Ionian isles. The islands were secured rapidly, while fighting in Albania, made worse by Macedonian intervention, continued until the end of the year.

Caesar Augustus then cast his eyes upon Switzerland. In May of 1997, he launched a massive assault from Italy and the former Austria. Fighting against the well equipped Swiss over rugged Alpine terrain proved to be far more difficult than invading nuclear-ravaged countries like France and Spain. By June , the Swiss had fought the Romans to a stand still. Caesar’s forces expended a disturbingly large amount of their carefully horded pre-1985 munitions, and still failed to win a victory. On the 24th of June, the Romans and Swiss signed an armistice. Talks between the two warring parties resulted in the Treaty of Basel, acknowledging Switzerland's independence, and providing for Roman arms sales to the Swiss in return for Swiss mercenaries serving in the Roman Imperial army.

Caesar realized that the period of easy conquest was drawing to a close. Clearly, it was time to move into a new era. His Italian soldiery had proven far less then enthusiastic when fighting a tenacious foe like the Swiss, while his Irish and German mercenaries had proven to be far more effective. Henceforth, the Romans concentrated on recruiting mercenaries both from their occupied lands and abroad. Irishmen, Germans, Hungarians, Serbs, Arabs, and Turks were particularly favored for their ferocity, but men from all nations were accepted. Officers tended to be mainly Italian, and senior officers even more so. Italian divisions already had been renamed legions, now they would be organized in a pattern strongly reminiscent of the first Century Roman army. Enlistments would be for twenty years, and the men in the ranks rewarded with high pay, loot, and slave women. At the same time, a massive naval building program was instituted to ensure Rome’s command of the Mediterranean Sea. Unlike the army, the great majority of personnel in the Navy and air forces would remain Italian.

Even while reorganizing his army and navy, Caesar continued building his reputation as the great diplomat of the new Europe. In October 1999 he negotiated the end of the Great Northern War between the Swedish alliance and Irish, leading to the creation of the Kingdoms of the Isles and of Scotland, both of whom become Irish protectorates.

On July 10, 2000, Pope Pius XIII died of natural causes. The College of Cardinals elected Angelico Della Genga, Cardinal of Bologna, to become the new Pope John XXIV.

Fighting along the Albanian frontier continued in a desultory fashion from the winter of 1995 until a combined Serbian, Macedonian, and Russian mercenary army invaded Albania again in March 2001 before the passes were clear of snow. The new Legions IV Martia Victrix and XXI Rapax shattered the invaders in a month of brutal fighting amid the snow and mud of the Albanian mountains. In June, Augustus ordered his reinforced army in Albania to invade Macedonia. Roman units pushed the Macedonians back methodically, using their superior firepower and better discipline to minimize their own losses. Serbian forces launched major counter attacks from the north which were contained by Roman reserve forces in the Battles of Gostivar and of the Upper Vardar. Most of the Macedonia troops ended up besieged in the city of Skopje, where they were starved into surrender on October 4. The Romans halted offensive operations for the year after the fall of Skopje, and dug in, controlling the northern half of Macedonia to the line of the Vardar.

The Serbs resumed their offensive in the spring of 2002. The Second Battle of the Vardar began on March 16 with a Serbs attack across the line of the upper Vardar River. The Serbs object was to defeat the Romans before they are ready to launch their own offensive. The Serbs attacked savagely, and initially took the Romans by surprise, crossing the river in a half dozen places, but the legionaries methodically crushed each bridgehead in turn, swamping them under a hail of heavy artillery. The last Serbs were dead, captured, or back across the river by May 13. The Romans then went on the defensive in order to prepare for resuming their own offensive.

This Roman offensive, known as the Third Battle of the Vardar, began on June 20. The Romans crossed the upper Vardar along a broad front. After nine days of desperate combat, the Serbs, already decimated by their losses from the Second Battle of the Vardar, disintegrated and fled north with a large, well supplied Roman army at their heels. Many Serb soldiers deserted during the retreat. The Romans took the badly damaged city of Belgrade on September 8, and on the 23rd they reached the old Hungarian border. On October 2, the last organized forces of the Serb Republic were destroyed in the Banat north of Belgrade. Over 70,000 Serb soldiers are sold into slavery after the final battle.

Caesar August decided to compel Hungary to join his empire as a vassal state. On May 27, 2003, the First Hungarian War begins with a Roman invasion to put a pro-Roman duke on the throne of the Duchy of Hungary, with support from the pro-Roman Slovaks. The Hungarians abandoned the Danube plains and retreated into the Carpathian Mountains, where they had many large caches of supplies in place for that very purpose. The Romans were reluctant to attack the Hungarians in the rugged terrain, and the Slovaks proved almost useless in combat. For the next year, the war ground on in a stalemate.

The Church continued its trend toward subordination to the Roman emperor when, on February 18, 2004, Pope John XXIV issued the Imperial Bull which declares the Roman Catholic Church subordinate to the Emperor of Rome. This declaration, not surprisingly, infuriated many non-Roman Roman Catholics and weakened the authority of the pope outside Roman territory.

The war against the Hungarians took a turn for the worse when, despite fighting on two fronts, the Hungarians forced the Slovaks to sue for peace, thus freeing a large force of Hungarian troops to face the Romans. On June 9, 2004, the Hungarian counterattacked against the Romans and annihilated the Legio XLVI Augusta Victrix in the Carpathian passes. Seeing no hope of victory at a reasonable cost, the Romans agreed to an armistice four days later. Duke Matthias of Hungary sent a diplomatic mission to negotiate with Caesar’s envoys at Graz, leading to the signing of the Treaty of Graz on September 7. Signatories included Hungary, Slovakia, and the Roman Empire. The Slovaks ceded key Carpathian passes to the Hungarians and agreed to the future marriage of the infant heirs of the two realms. Caesar Augustus emperor agreed to pay gold and manufactured items as reparations to the Hungarians, in return for free recruiting of Hungarian mercenaries on Hungarian soil.

Pope John XXIV was poisoned by a Hungarian priest in retaliation for the Imperial Bull on July 10, 2005. The College of Cardinals elected Annebale Otteboni, Cardinal of Ferrara, as Pope Clement XV. On October 25, Pope Clement XV began a thorough purge of non-Roman subjects serving as Roman Catholic senior clergy, in what came to be known as the Great Cleansing. Dozens of bishops and archbishops were sacked and the Roman authorities, on papal orders, imprisoned many priests. For the next four decades, the Church hierarchy ruthlessly crushed any anti-Roman dissent. Some Catholic states, notably Ireland, resisted the new policy, but most of the Roman Catholic hierarchy was rabidly pro-Roman Empire by the end of 2006, at least outwardly, if not in their hearts.

The Romans invaded Rumania on April 15, 2006, from Serbia and northern Macedonia. The Romans advanced slowly and cautiously, one line of trenches at a time. The Rumanians, whose Communist government under Nicholae Ceausescu had maintained a secret stockpile of advanced pre-1985 weaponry, put up a spirited defense along the frontier, inflicting terrible casualties on the legionaries. Roman morale plummeted over the summer, and the fighting stagnated for over a year, with the Romans simply waiting on the defensive for the Rumanians to run out of their advanced weaponry. During 2007, the Romans resumed their methodical advance, simply smothering the Rumanians under a blizzard of artillery shells.

On March 25, 2007 Pope Clement XV died of natural causes and the College of Cardinals elected Camillo Corsini, Cardinal of Bari, as Pope John XXV. The new pope promised to uphold his predecessor’s policies in every detail and he did so, being a rabid supporter of the emperor and his policies.

Finally, in July 2008, the Rumanian army, tired of Nicholae Ceausescu’s uninspired leadership, mutinied and murdered him. Marshal Codrescu, the senior Rumanian commander, agreed to join the Roman empire, as long as he and his troops were guaranteed a place in the Imperial Roman Army at the same rank as they held in Rumanian service.

Exhausted from the Rumanian War, Caesar Augustus abandoned plans for further conquest for the time being, and set about expanding his air force and navy, while rebuilding stocks of armored vehicles and artillery. A large cash donative was granted to the troops on December 1, 2009.

On August 3, 2011 the Second Hungarian War began with a Hungarian assault on the Roman-held Danube Plain. Large numbers of Irish and Swiss mercenary units were promptly hired to supplement the Roman Imperial Army during the war. Although encountering heavy resistance, the Imperial, Irish and Swiss troops quickly overran most of lowland Hungary within months but the Ducal Hungarian Army managed to hold out in the mountains as violent fighting would continue for more then a year.

Roman forces, particularly the Alpine Legions, and Irish and Swiss troops well versed in mountain warfare, finally crushed the Hungarian Army at the Battle of Pecs between February 16 and July 30, 2012. However tensions arise as Irish and Swiss soldiers were insulted when Pope John XXV personally gives the Roman allies a long, pompous speech on the divine rights of the Roman Empire to rule all mankind. Duke Matthias II Klapka agreed to permit unlimited voluntary recruitment by the Roman Empire on his territory and accepted restrictions on what sort of armaments Hungary could possess.

A small Roman army invaded Bulgaria on April 18, 2012, despite the ongoing fighting in Hungary. The invasion turned out to be a mistake as the Bulgarians fought back desperately, leading to the destruction of the entire Legio XXIX Augusta Pia Fidelis on May 23rd. The Romans fought many bitter delaying actions to buy time for reinforcements to arrive. Not until August could the Romans assemble enough troops to resume the offensive, after the end of the Hungarian War. The vastly larger Imperial Army, with massive air support quickly broke the Bulgarians. By the end of October, the legions had exterminated the last organized Bulgarian resistance. Augustus is so infuriated with the Bulgarians he orders that a large percentage of the Bulgarian population either enslaved or deported. A dynamic guerilla leader named Yavor Khullar incites a revolt that will last over a decade.

The Romans invaded Russian-controlled northern Greece on May 3, 2013. Colonel General Oleg Arsentyev was the de facto ruler of the area, which had nominally remained under Soviet military occupation since 1985. After a short defense, Colonel General Arsentyev agreed to similar terms as those enjoyed by the Rumanians, with the Soviet military units being incorporated into the Imperial Roman Army wholesale. Colonel General Arsentyev is ennobled as Duke Oleg of Salonika.

The Tide Turns

The next Roman offensive began on June 5, 2015, when a Roman Army under Marshal of the East Duke Gregorio Montefiore crossed the Libyan frontier into Egypt. Unlike the previous North African campaigns, the Egyptian Islamic Republic was well armed and had an excellent military. The Romans conducted their usual slow, methodical advance, greatly hampered by logistical constraints. By August 9, the Roman IInd Gemina and XXVIth Augusta Fortis Legions reach El Alamein, only to find it heavily fortified by the Egyptian Army. The Romans halted, and began to dig in and make preparations to bring up heavy artillery to Mersa Matruh by sea.

Unknown to the Romans, however, a UKA naval task force had contacted the Egyptians shortly after the invasion, and had offered to assist them in their defense. On August 20 , a UKA flown FB-111 acquired in Somalia dropped a nuclear bomb on the Roman Fleet, sinking many vessels. The next day, a Royal Navy team found the Roman heavy cruiser Zama adrift and abandoned, with grave future consequences for the Romans. It was taken into the Royal Navy.

At the invitation of Caesar Augustus II, Vice Admiral Josh Dolphin was sent by air as an ambassador to discuss a peaceful settlement of the war, on Roman terms of course. Dolphin's brazen insolence actually gave Augustus a heart attack as a result of his fury. Dolphin fought his way to the airport and barely escaped. For Augustus, the heart attack was fatal. He died the evening, September 5, and was succeeded by his son and heir, who takes the name Vittorio I. Augustus’ unexpected death led to a brief civil war in Italy, when Marshal of the West Benvenuto Canessa attempted, and failed, to grab the throne from the new emperor Vittorio I. with Canessa was shot by a firing squad on the morning of the 11th. During the confusion, the Zama escaped the Mediterranean with Prime Minister Cromett and Vice Admiral Dolphin on board.

Caesar Vittorio ordered a thorough reorganization of his army and navy that took several years. Numerous staff officers were assigned the task of bringing the British North American Colonies down in revenge for the attack on the Roman fleet and the death of the emperor's father. Not until May 2018, do the Romans resume their wars of aggression, with an attempted invasion of southern Greece. This turns out to be a costly failure that is abandoned before then end of the year.

Pope John XXV died of natural causes in August 2019 and was succeeded by Cardinal Chiaramonte of Turin, who choose the name Pope Alexander VIII.

Vittorio unleashed his legions on the Kingdom of the Southern Ukraine on June 22, 2020. The Ukrainians retreated before the extremely slow moving Roman invaders, avoiding contact and drawing them deeper into the steppes. Early in August, the Colombian government declared war on the UKA under the goading of the Romans, with promises of massive military aid to the Colombians, including aircraft and warships. The war began poorly for the Colombians, with the UKA Royal Navy operating with impunity off both its Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Duncan Keaton bombarded several Colombian cities and Cartegena was sacked and destroyed. Much of Colombia’s merchant shipping was taken and the Romans were unable to send any supplies there before the end of the year.

Further bad news came to Vittorio when the Ukrainians counterattacked the Romans just north of Odessa on December 2, and while the Romans initially held, they are eventually defeated and suffer terribly in a headlong retreat back to Roman Rumania, the last Romans fled across the border on February 19, 2021. The defeat led Vittorio to signing the Peace of Silistria with the Ukrainians in April 2021, agreeing to pay reparations to the Ukrainian government.

In May 2021, the UKA launched another series of raids on Colombia. Not until later in the summer does the first convoy from Europe make it through to Colombia. The Romans began to slowly build up a base at Tumaco on Colombia’s Pacific Coast, and a powerful naval task force was slowly assembled there.

In June 2022, the Imperial Roman Pacific Fleet entered UKA waters in support of the Colombians. UKA recon aircraft sighted the Roman squadron off Northern California. The Romans radioed the UKA authorities, demanding a surrender by the UKA government under threat of the nuclear destruction of Portland. King Josh called the Roma’s bluff, refusing to consider any sort of capitulation and ordered Rear Admiral Keaton to sortie with the Royal Navy’s best warships. On June 25, the Imperial Roman squadron nuked Coos Bay Naval Air Station with a pre-1985 U.S.-made cruise missile, as a demonstration of what they could do to Portland, but Vice Admiral Michele Cigala is extremely reluctant to use his second missile. An attack by Rear Admiral Keaton on June 28 with the Zama on the Italian/Colombian replenishment squadron results in the Italian squadron being isolated on the west coast of Baja California without fuel. Vice Admiral Cigala waited for another fuel convoy to arrive, but on July 6th, the Italian squadron is attacked at anchor by a special attack force led by UKA Royal Navy SEAL Captain Scott U. B. Abbott. The entire Italian force was captured or sunk in the shallow waters. The future HMS Invincible, HMS Pharsalus, and four destroyers are acquired for use by the Royal Navy. Cowed by the disaster to their powerful allies, the Colombians agreed to an armistice. On August 29th, negotiations in Chile led to the signing of the Treaty of Valdavia on November 26th. The treaty banned the Colombians from sending armed vessels into the Pacific, and required them to hand over a nearly complete heavy cruiser, the future HMS Simon Bolivar as reparations for Coos Bay. The Romans would remain in a state of war with the UKA for the next twenty years and this would lead to the destruction of the Roman Empire as a world power.

Years of Peace, years of Stagnation

The emperor decided that wars of expansion were no longer feasible He ordered a continued expansion of the navy, with a major building program of newer classes of battleships and no less than ten aircraft carriers laid down. The ruling class began to give themselves over to enjoying the benefis of their power and wealth rather than thinking long term about the cnsequences of their actions.

Renewed Aggression and Disaster

Pope Paul VII died of natural causes on February 27, 2032. The College of Cardinals elected Cesare Giampietro, Cardinal of Pisa as Pope Urban IX on March 6th. Vittorio decided to actively renew his attempt to break the power of the UKA. With his greatly augmented fleet, he launched a series of attacks on the holdings of the UKA and its allies in the Caribbean on May 6, 2032. On the 12th, a squadron of twenty Italian warships confronted a combined UKA-Chilean fleet in the Battle of the Yucatan Straits. Admiral of the Fleet Duncan Keaton lead his vessels to a spectacular and decisive victory, sinking the entire Italian flotilla. Keaton is killed on the bridge of the HMS Invincible. On May 13, an Italian carrier strike sank the badly damaged Chilean battleship Almirante Latorre, while the Italians lost a Falco class carrier sunk and another badly damaged in the repost by UKA and allied aircraft. The next day, a newly completed Italian Traiano class battleship was severely damaged and steamed north to Savannah for repairs. Attempts by the Romans to invade Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico failed miserably. On the 15th, the Irish Navy belatedly arrived in the Caribbean in support of the Romans. Despite its outdated equipment and lack of supplies, Irish forces perform valiantly during the Caribbean offensive. This will be the last time the Royal Irish Navy, once one of the most powerful in Europe, will be involved in a major action. Nine of the ten steam frigates sent across the Atlantic are destroyed within a week.

At the end of May, UKA Lieutenant General Brett A. Henrionnet invaded Cape Canavaral, Florida, which had provided basing for Roman recon aircraft. On June 4, Henrionnet invaded and captured the city state of Savannah, in the former U.S. state of Georgia, where his forces captured the Roman battleship Traiano, still in dry-dock.

Emperor Vittorio I died of a stroke on September 6, 2032 and was succeeded by his nephew Vittorio II. The new emperor and his Imperial General Staff are stunned by the failure of the Great Caribbean Offensive. The emperor orders his fleet to replace his losses and ready itself for another attempt on the UKA national interest. Before the Romans can carry out their plan, King Josh orders the invasion of the Azores to gain a forward base to threaten Rome’s African coastal trade. On August 6, 2034 the UKA Royal Navy invaded Tenerife in the Azores. The Roman fleet sortied from Rota, Spain and three Roman carriers were sunk in a series of savage air/naval battles. The Roman Marine Legio XIV Adiutrix is wiped out in a fruitless, but fanatical defense of Tenerife along with many Irish and Swiss mercenaries. The last Roman troops surrendered on August 21, 2034. Determined to avenge this disaster, Vittorio II ordered yet another massive expansion of the Imperial Navy.

Collapse

By early 2037, the Roman Empire was tottering on the verge of bankruptcy. Small scale uprisings by slaves and subject peoples were becoming a daily occurence. Vittorio decided that the best solution for the crisis in Imperial morale was a major military success against the annoying UKA. Virtually the entire Roman High Seas Fleet sortied from bases all around the Mediterranean basin, escorting nearly one thousand transports for an attempt against the UKA p[positions on the Azores. The Second Battle of the Azores began on the morning of March 13, 2037 when a land-based UKA recon plane sighted the Roman fleet. The UKA fleet set up an ambush, remaining south west of the Azores. The fighting began with land-based strikes against the Roman carriers, followed by a perfectly timed carrier strike to follow up. The Romans lost three more fleet carriers and a battleship that day without doing significant damage in return. The next day, the UKA carrier aircraft, land based aircraft, and surface ships smashed the Roman troop convoys who continued to proceed to the Azores at Vittorio's command. Without adequate escort, the convoys were nearly destroyed, with the lost of almost three entire legions drowned, at the cost of the battleship HMS Queen Maureen I scuttled.

on the evening of March 14, 2037, a major mutiny breaks out when word of the disaster spreads through the military communication system. Emperor Vittorio II, following the progress of the battle at the Imperial Navy's communication center at the naval base at Taranto, is shot while trying to quell the mutiny. A civil war ensues and the empire breaks up. In the early hours of the 15th, angry Praetorian Guards murder the late emperor's wife and seven children. On March 18, Marshal Giovanni Pigafetta captured Rome and was crowned Emperor Vittorio III by Pope Urban IX. Vittorio only controls central Italy and the islands of the western Mediterranean. Regional army commanders in Spain, Portugal, France, Algeria, and Tunisia claim the throne. None are strong enough to defeat the others unless they risk alliances between themselves. Unable to trust each other, they turn to outside help. On June 23, Alfonso, the claimant ruling Spain, foolishly decided to grant the UKA ownership Gibraltar in return for an alliance against the other Caesars. In only a few weeks, Alfonso finds himself threatened by his own military for this action and compounds his error by to shelling the new UKA enclave on the 16th of July. Three days later, UKA troops seize Cadiz and invade southern Spain. The demoralized ex-Roman Spanish Army collapsed in short order. Alfonso signs a treaty on September 4th, giving up the southern half of Spain to the UKA. Alfonso is murdered on September 22 and his replacement, Cosimo makes threatening noises, but does not dare break the armistice. The Spaniards in the newly liberated area formed a national government under the protection of the UKA.

On February 11, 2038, Emperor Vittorio III invaded southern France, trying to defeat the rebel Caesar Claudio. Irish forces supported Vittorio III's invasion of southern France. His troops took Toulouse on April 26, but then launched an invasion of Spain over the Pyrenees. Caesar Cosimo, now entitled Trajan II, repulses the attack with heavy losses in the passes. Vittorio is forced to concede Trajan's independence on August 24. An uneasy peace settled over Europe.

Seeing an opportunity to destroy the newly-born Spanish Republic, Caesar Marco of Portugal invaded Andalusia on June 8, 2039, but got only a few kilometers when he realized that the Spaniards, backed up by the UKA, would make a fight of it. The UKA units go over to a counter attack it what is know as the "Battle of the Frontiers." By the 13th of June, the best former Roman unit in the Portuguese Army, Legio X Gemina, had disintegrated and the UKA and Spanish forces conducted a steady advance northward. The last ex-Roman troops fled across the border into northern Spain on July 29th. On August 2, 2039, the Kingdom of Portugal was recreated, with King Patrick's foster brother Max Cromett II as king.

On September 23, 2039, Hungary declared war on the Eastern Roman Empire when the duke decided that the Romans were too crippled to fight effectively. Vittorio III transferred the bulk of his forces to the Austrian frontier to deal with the incursions. The war grinds on in stalemate for the next year.

Tensions between the UKA and its Spanish Republican allies and Trajan II's northern Spain continued. King Patrick decided to launch a sneak attack on Trajan's mini-empire before the Romans could attack him. The UKA and Republican ripped through the line of frontier fortifications, supported by an airborne drop south of Toledo. The brittle Roman defenses crumble on contact and the KA and Commonwealth forces overrun all of northern Spain very rapidly. The last remnants of the Romano-Spanish Army fled into France on September 18th. On November 1, 2040., King Patrick signed a bill that transferred all former Spanish territory on the mainland and the Balearic Islands to the Republic of Spain, which is officially recognized as a Class I Commonwealth state.

Peace in Western Europe was again shattered when, on July 8, 2041, the UKA again launched a surprise attack, this time on the Eastern Roman Empire, with UKA and Spanish forces pouring over the Pyrenees passes into southern France. Faced with the new threat, Caesar Vittorio III agreed to an immediate peace with Hungary, with no substantial victory to either side, though the Romans agree to provide 500 45mm mortars and 100,000 rounds ammunition as a payment for the peace. The forces engaged on the Hungarian frontier are rushed to France. That day, King Patrick is shot down over Italy while flying a fighter escort mission. The Imperial Romans capture him and threaten to execute him as a war criminal. On the 13th, Queen Margaret threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on a Roman city if Patrick is harmed. On the 15th, Vittorio announced his plans to go ahead for the trial and burning at the stake of King Patrick. When Queen Margaret's threats are ignored by the emperor, she ordered a bomb dropped on the most important Roman supply center, about ten kilometers west of Turn, and then suggested that the next one will fall on Rome. The Romans promptly announced that Patrick will be well treated as a prisoner of war. By the evening of the 16th, the Roman Army High Command found that the loss of the railroad junction nuked at the queen’s orders had halted supplies and reinforcements for the French front. UKA and Commonwealth forces moved rapidly. On the 20th of July, Army Group A took Toulouse and a week later, Bordeaux fell to the Guard Armored Division. The demoralized Roman army fell back in utter disorder, shedding thousands of stragglers. Two days later Vittorio III agreed to an armistice with the UKA, giving up all of France west of the Rhone. King Patrick created the Empire of France is created out of the southern French lands occupied by the UKA, with Charlemagne Harbuck, eldest surviving son of Vice Admiral Harbuck, as emperor.

Vittorio lost tremendous prestige after his humiliation at the hands of the UKA. He ordered an immediate build up for a renewal of the war. The empire was put on a total war footing, a strict draft imposed on the Balkans, and a major expansion of the Roman Air Force ordered. By early February 2042, UKA External Security determined that the Romans were planning an attack on the western part of France late in the summer. Patrick ordered a pre-emptive strike. On May 1, the Royal Army and Commonwealth Forces attacked, crossing the Rhone in many places. A simultaneous airborne drop seized key Alpine passes, despite heavy losses among the troops of the 82nd Airborne Brigade. In better fighting in the Alpine passes on May 15th to 18th, the Young Guard Division was badly mauled in a successful attempt to relieve the 101st Air Landing Brigade. The 1st Armored Division and Guard Armored Division liberated Nice on May 20. The Roman Army crumbled over the next several days, with entire divisions surrendering en masse. On May 28, the Guard Armored Division entered Turin, well ahead of the rest of the Royal Army, and went into defensive positions. From June 4th to the 8th, the massed Roman Imperial Army Reserve, including no less than six tank divisions and five infantry legions, attacked Turin after isolating the Guard Armored Division. The Guards fought back desperately, inflicting horrific losses on their Roman attackers. The Romans battled their way into the heart of the city, but wrecked themselves in the process. The Guard Armored held itself together and hung on until relieved by the 1st Armored Division and the cadre of the Young Guard. By the end of June, the Royal Army overran Italy down to a line just south of Florence. On July 1, King Patrick unilaterally declared the Roman War over. He invited the pope to create a government for unoccupied Italy. A Roman state lingered in Sicily and the Balkans, where Vittorio fled after the collapse of his forces. King Patrick appointed Erich Cromett King of Northern Italy on July 2, 2042.

On February 22, 2043, Vittorio III is murdered in a palace coup. The commander of the Praetorian Guard, Marshal Emilio DaCosta, crowns himself Caesar Aurelian II. The Pope and Aurelian agree to reunite their realms on May 30, 2043.

In an attempt to normalize realtions between the Coomonwealth and the Roman Empire, King Patrick flew to Roman to open a summit conference with Caesar Aurelian I on June 2, 2045. The next day, Pope Urban IX seizes Patrick in conjunction with the emperor after a disagreement over ending the Roman slave trade. On June 4, Roman Marshal Orsini leads a coup that frees King Patrick. Orsini promptly took the throne as Emperor Vittorio IV. He and Patrick agree to demilitarize their common borders and normalize relations. Pope Urban IX is killed by rebellious Roman legionaries during King Patrick's rescue. July 19 A conclave elects Eberhard von Schwendt-Sommariva, Cardinal of Vienna, Pope John Paul III.

The Mongols, with the help of the Duke of Roumelia and connivance of the Turks, invaded the Balkans on December 14, 2045 and begin to swiftly overrun the Lower Danubian Frontier of the Roman Empire. King Erich allowed Roman troops free transit through his realm to allow them to counter this invasion. At the same time, the UKA’s 3rd Army is deployed in the Alps to prevent a Mongol breakthrough in the case of a Roman disaster. The next day, numerous Roman units in the Balkans mutinied all across the Balkans in protest of the ineptitude of the Imperial Roman High Command’s defensive planning. By December 27th, the last of the Roman mutineers in the Balkans returned to duty, but only after the Danube frontier is lost to the Mongols.

2046 January 6 Pope John Paul III revokes the Imperial Bull and calls for a new spirit of internationalism in the Roman Catholic Church.

Imperial Family

• Emperor Vittorio III
  Empress

Note: Aftermath^TM is a roleplaying game by FGU, long out of print but highly recommended. This website is my own creation, not the work of FGU's authors, and is entirely fictional and solely for the entertainment of my readers. Any characters named after any individuals, living or dead, societies, cultures, nations, or religions are fictional, set in an alternate universe, and make no pretense to the truth, even as I see it!