Kingdom of Bosnia

The Kingdom of Bosnia is a nation spanning from Northern Italy to the Anatolian Peninsula. They also possessed colonies in Africa, Germany, and the Americas. They are the successor of the Greater Bosnian Empire, and precursor to the Republic of Bosnia.

The New Kingdom
Starting in 1889, the king of Bosnia, Peter VI, revoked his title as supreme ruler over the Empire. His son, Bogdan I, announced that the Empire was dissolved and the new Kingdom of Bosnia was formed.

Disputes over Colonies
In 1890, Bosnian forces started to enforce their claim over Africa. Laws of the European land were enforced from Bosnian Egypt down to Bosnian Kenya. Most of their claims were peaceful, except for Bosnian Uganda, where they got into a major conflict with the British Empire. Due to poorly defined borders, the first Lake Victoria War started in 1894.

Bosnian forces marched along the shores of Lake Victoria into British Uganda, and British forces landed in Bosnian Germany. After almost 10 years of fighting, the two nations decided to stop the war, with Hamburg and Bremen joining Prussia, but the conflict remained unresolved.

In 1903, a second territorial conflict started against the Italians this time. The Bosna-Italian war lasted until 1907, and resulted in a Bosnian victory. Bosnian forces took Italian Somalia and took a portion of Italian Sahara’s coast. They also invaded the Italian Peninsula and gained the Venice area.

First World War
In Europe, tensions had been rising between various nations. Bavaria and Prussia were about to go to war over a border dispute, and Bosnia was still sore about losing Austria to Bavaria. Italy felt like it had been cheated out of good colonies in Africa and wanted to expand their borders. The British Empire still wanted revenge on Bosnia for the Lake Victoria War. Spain felt sandwiched between the stronger empires of France and Portugal. Denmark wanted more control in Iceland, which they had split with Norway, and the Ottomans had recently fought Russia for control of the Caucasus. On January 1st, 1912, this is what the world map looked like:

The War in Europe Begins
The First World War (although that wouldn’t be its name until a decade later) officially began when Bavaria-backed forces assassinated the heir to the Prussia-Lithuanian throne in Berlin and captured two high-ranking generals in the Prussian army. The Bavarians along with their victims escaped into Denmark by train, and on January 21, 1912, Prussia declared war on Denmark and Bavaria. To protect Prussia, Bosnia and the Netherlands declared war on Bavaria and Norway declared war on Denmark.

France declared war on the Netherlands to protect Bavaria, and Spain and Italy declared war on France. The Ottoman Empire launched invasions of Bosnia and Russia, as well as British India. Russia also began invasions of Sweden and Prussia. Sweden joined the war on Bavaria’s side, and Portuguese soldiers invaded Spain. Britain originally planned to stay neutral, but with the inclusion of the other two members of the Pact of Barcelona, they were forced to join the war against Bavaria.

If that confused you, just remember WW1 in OTL.

The Prussia-Lithuanian army, highly regarded for well-trained and armed soldiers, pushed into Denmark while the Norwegian army surrounded Danish Iceland. The small country quickly capitulated, and the Prussian navy began carrying soldiers over into Sweden. Meanwhile, Bavarian troops began marching towards the Prussian city of Leipzig. French and Dutch troops exchanged shots from across the Rhine river, and the British became the first to use planes for war when they used them to drop bombs on the French cities of Calais and Dunkirk.

Spain had been in decline for decades, and its civilian army no match for the professional Portuguese military. The Portuguese army had recently begun using new machine guns in their army, and the Spanish were defeated again and again. Along the border with France, the Spanish were unable to advance and were forced to dig holes to hide in for defense. The French army’s powerful artillery and long-range cannons were difficult to move along with the army, and both sides dug in for one of the first recorded uses of trench warfare. Trench Warfare was also used between France and Italy, who had quickly invaded the narrow strip of French land along the Italian coast and captured the city of Monaco. The Italian army used the city as a base and mass hospital as they moved forwards. The Italians collided with the French at Marseille, and soon trenches and hastily built fortifications dotted the countryside.

The War in Africa
Although the war began in Europe, it quickly spread to the colonies of world powers. The Spanish war with Portugal and France took nearly all of Spain’s resources, so the only thing preventing Spanish Sahara from falling was the Spanish Navy. By causing mayhem along the Portuguese coast and preventing French reinforcements from reaching their colony in Northern Africa, the Spanish Sahara had a fighting chance.

Further south in British Gambia and Guinea, the French forces were rapidly retreating. The British colonies connected their armies and encircled French troops near Spanish Guinea, where they would be held captive for much of the war. On the other side of Africa, Ottoman forces were pushing forwards into Bosnia. The Ottoman puppet state of Abyssinia amassed their armies at Sudan, where they charged straight through the Bosnian and British colonies and connected with their ally, Bavarian Congo. This split the colonies in half and allowed for an easy invasion of Bosnian Somalia, Kenya, and British North Tanganyika (Northern Tanzania).

Both Bavarian Congo and Dutch East Africa found themselves surrounded by enemies, and both colonies struggled to survive. Dutch East Africa, split in half by French Gabon, suffered invasions from the French, Swedish, and Bavarian colonies. The southern portion of the colony, comprising of modern-day southern Congo, was quickly overrun by the French military. The Dutch were also pushed back in the north by the French and Swedish, but their main struggles were with Bavarian Congo. Exchanging shots from across the Congo River eventually escalated into the first record of African trench warfare. Thousands and thousands of African natives were thrown at the opposing armies in hopes of breaking the stalemate.

In Portuguese Angola, the north was protected by their ally Bavaria, and the dry, desert climate in the south helped prevent a Dutch or British Invasion, but the Eastern border was open to invasion by the Prussia-Lithuanians.