FRANCE — La République à l’épreuve

# The world on 28 June 1919 The First World War's armistices have stopped most fighting, but the peace settlement is not yet legally in force. The Treaty of Versailles is signed today by Germany and the Allied and Associated Powers; ratification and entry into force remain future steps. The League of Nations has been designed and its Covenant adopted, but the organisation has not begun operating. The other peace treaties with Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire remain unsettled. ## Europe The German Empire has fallen. The German Republic is governed by the coalition led by Chancellor Gustav Bauer; Friedrich Ebert is Reich President. The provisional post-war armed forces are being reorganised, and the Versailles military clauses are not yet in force. Alsace-Lorraine has been returned to French administration following the armistice and peace negotiations. Poland has re-emerged, but several frontiers remain contested. Austria and Hungary are separate successor states; Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes have been established, while their borders and internal arrangements remain unsettled. The Baltic states and Finland are newly independent or consolidating independence. The Russian Civil War continues between Bolshevik, White, regional and national forces; the USSR does not exist. Petrograd, not Leningrad, is the correct name for the former imperial capital. ## Middle East and North Africa The Ottoman Empire remains the sovereign state, though Allied occupation and the post-war settlement place its future under severe pressure. Sultan Mehmed VI reigns and Damat Ferid Paşa heads the government. Mustafa Kemal Paşa is a former Ottoman inspector organising the national movement; on 28 June he is travelling from Sivas towards Erzurum after the Amasya Circular. He is not president of Turkey, and the Republic of Turkey does not exist. The Arab administration in Damascus, the Sharifian Hejaz, the Emirate of Nejd, British occupation administrations in Mesopotamia and Palestine, and French military occupation in parts of Syria and Cilicia must be distinguished from recognised sovereignty and from the later League mandates. Egypt is under the British protectorate proclaimed in 1914, with Sultan Fuad I. Persia remains under the Qajar dynasty. Use Siam as the country's name, not Thailand. ## Asia and the wider world China is the Republic of China under the Beijing government, but effective power is divided among warlord administrations and regional armies. The Chinese Communist Party and Manchukuo do not exist. Japan is an imperial power and an Allied victor; Emperor Taishō reigns, while Crown Prince Hirohito is not emperor. Colonial and dominion statuses must be distinguished: British India, the Dutch East Indies, French Indochina, the Belgian Congo, the Union of South Africa, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are not interchangeable with sovereign states. The world map spans all inhabited continents and ocean theatres, but territorial control, legal sovereignty, colonial administration and local autonomy must remain separate concepts. ## Colonial and overseas administrations The map's controlling-authority field records the effective administration or military control of a cell; it does not automatically mean that the territory is legally an ordinary province of the controlling state. Algeria is administered as part of French Algeria, while Morocco and Tunisia remain protectorates under their own rulers. French West and Equatorial African territories are colonial possessions with distinct local administrations, not modern independent states. Former German Cameroon and Togoland are under provisional Allied occupation and French administration where shown; their League mandates have not yet been formally awarded. British-occupied Mesopotamia is not an independent Kingdom of Iraq, and Egypt remains a British protectorate under Sultan Fuad I. The same distinction between sovereignty, occupation, protectorate and mandate applies across all empires. ## France France is a victorious but exhausted parliamentary republic. Georges Clemenceau is President of the Council and Minister of War; Raymond Poincaré is President of the Republic. Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Pétain are senior military figures, not heads of government. The country must demobilise without losing security, rebuild destroyed infrastructure and housing, restore production and agriculture, manage inflation and public debt, negotiate reparations and preserve parliamentary legitimacy. Labour unrest, strikes, veterans' needs, the position of women after wartime mobilisation, political polarisation and colonial claims all create competing demands. French strength is real, but its ability to convert victory into a durable settlement is uncertain. ## Map interpretation and historical precision All 478 current cells carry an English opening-context note distinguishing geographic reference from effective authority. Metropolitan France has been divided into two broad playable regions (western/central and eastern/southern) to support local reconstruction and security decisions. Their straight-line dividing edge is an approximate gameplay partition, not a 1919 departmental or international boundary. Their stored interior points fall within their bounding boxes, and recorded neighbour links are reciprocal. These checks validate metadata, not exact polygon edges. Cell outlines remain broad playable approximations unless verified against a dated 1919 boundary source; modern province names must not be treated as proof of 1919 administrative borders. Russian Civil War control is not a single bloc: Bolshevik-held RSFSR areas, Kolchak's White Siberian authority, the White Northern Region and Don forces are distinguished where the available cell geography supports it. The world is not a scripted retelling. Every state and organised actor has independent interests and constraints. Future leaders, institutions, borders and wars must emerge only when the date and causal conditions make them possible. ## Conditional Ottoman dynasty and French Levant storyline This long-range chain begins from the 1919 Ottoman and Levant situation above; it does not change the opening date or make later outcomes inevitable. Abdülhamid II died in 1918. His 1909 deposition and temporary confinement in Salonica are background history; he returned to Istanbul in 1912. The 1919 reigning sultan is Mehmed VI Vahdeddin. If the sultanate is abolished in 1922, Vahdeddin may leave Istanbul on 17 November aboard HMS Malaya under British protection. His historical route was Malta, the Hejaz and later Italy (Genoa/San Remo), not French-mandated Syria. The wider Ottoman dynasty is exiled only after the caliphate is abolished and the 3 March 1924 law takes effect. Historically, women of the dynasty could return from 1952 and men from 1974; a divergent Turkish settlement may change these outcomes. Do not assume every family member settles in France: destinations and political activity must follow individual evidence, resources, visas and player decisions. For the French player, this creates optional decisions over asylum, transit and residence permits, surveillance, diplomatic protection, property claims, financial support or refusal. These can affect relations with Britain, Turkish authorities, other host states and Ottoman-descended networks. They do not automatically determine French policy in Syria and Lebanon. The Levant storyline is a connected but separate theatre. In June 1919, French-administered OETA West and the Arab administration in Damascus within OETA East remain distinct transitional arrangements; there is no fully established French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon at campaign start. The San Remo mandate award comes in April 1920; French military control and local resistance develop through subsequent decisions, including the historical Maysalun crisis in July 1920. Greater Lebanon and later mandate subdivisions emerge after the opening. Local Syrian, Lebanese, Turkish, British and French actors keep independent aims. Possible outcomes include accommodation, humanitarian protection, diplomatic friction, nationalist opposition, surveillance scandals, escalation or withdrawal; none is mandatory. ## Anatolia and the national movement on 28 June 1919 The Ottoman Empire remains the sovereign state in Anatolia; the Republic of Turkey does not yet exist. The map's Anatolian gameplay regions are broad strategic areas, not modern Turkish provinces and not exact 1919 administrative borders. They are divided to make the Black Sea corridor, central plateau, Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, eastern highlands and Caucasus approaches playable. City and event markers identify historically important locations; they do not imply that each city was a separate sovereign state. The national movement chronology is already under way at campaign start. Mustafa Kemal Paşa landed at Samsun on 19 May 1919; he worked from Havza from 25 May, then reached Amasya in June. The Amasya Circular was prepared and discussed on 21–22 June at Saraydüzü Barracks and announced on 22 June. Mustafa Kemal arrived in Sivas on 27 June and left for Erzurum on 28 June. Thus Samsun, Havza and Amasya are past milestones in the opening history; Sivas is the route's immediate point of departure, and the Erzurum Congress is a future event, not something already completed. The 15th Corps under Kazım Karabekir Paşa has been based at Erzurum since March 1919. Karabekir is an Ottoman corps commander and a central eastern Anatolian actor, not a Turkish marshal at this date. The Erzurum Congress is scheduled for 23 July–7 August 1919; the Sivas Congress for 4–12 September 1919. The Sivas Congress Building (the former Mekteb-i Sultani) and Erzurum Congress Building (the former Sanasarian School) are marked as historical venues. Later events must remain date-locked and conditional. The wider congress and resistance network matters beyond the Mustafa Kemal route: the Trabzon regional congress met in May; the First Balıkesir Congress opened on 27 June and continues into July; Nazilli and Alaşehir congresses follow in August. Kars had its own Muslim National Council and congress sequence in 1918, before the 1919 opening, and is a frontier under Allied pressure. Ankara becomes the movement's principal centre only after Mustafa Kemal's arrival on 27 December 1919; it must not be treated as the capital of a Turkish republic in June. The city markers also distinguish the different occupations and strategic roles: İzmir was occupied by Greek forces on 15 May 1919; Antalya was occupied by Italy on 28 March; Maraş was under British occupation in June (French takeover came later in October); Adana and Cilicia were under French military occupation; and the upper Mesopotamian and eastern Anatolian cities remained within the Ottoman imperial framework subject to local military and political pressures. Balıkesir, Alaşehir, Nazilli, Trabzon, Konya, Sivas, Amasya, Samsun, Erzurum, Kars, Ankara, Antalya, Maraş, Adana, Antep, Diyarbekir and Van are represented as strategic nodes, not as a claim that all held the same political status. ## Fevzi Çakmak and the 1920 congresses Fevzi Paşa is not an opening-date Ankara official. He served as Ottoman Minister of War in Istanbul in 1920; after the Allied occupation he reached Ankara on 27 April 1920. From 3 May 1920 he served the Ankara Government as Minister of National Defence and Deputy President of the Council of Ministers. He is absent from the map on 28 June 1919 and appears in Ankara only after the 1920 transition. The Afyon Congress opened on 2 August 1920 under Mustafa Kemal Paşa. Fevzi Paşa's documented itinerary places him travelling from Afyon with Mustafa Kemal on 3 August, so do not depict him as personally attending the 2 August congress. The historical venue is the İdare Meclisi room in Afyon Government House, not an unverified municipal building. On 5 August 1920 Mustafa Kemal Paşa and Fevzi Paşa attended the First Pozantı Congress. Adana remained occupied, so Pozantı served as a temporary administrative centre. The congress was held at Pozantı station / station area; do not invent a separate purpose-built hall. The meeting addressed Çukurova administration, local resistance and links with the Ankara Government. Fevzi's office that day was Minister of National Defence and Deputy President of the Council of Ministers, not Chief of the General Staff in his own right and not yet Marshal. Fevzi Paşa became acting Chief of the General Staff on 9 November 1920, Council President on 24 January 1921, Chief of the General Staff on 5 August 1921 and Field Marshal on 31 August 1922. These are future, date-gated milestones, not 1919 opening facts.