Destin Oublié: The Fourth Axis Power
"Vive L’Empereur, Vive Le Dirigeant, Vive La Patrie, Vive La Louisiane !"
– Seymour Monjeau, Louisianan Minister of Propaganda
Destin Oublié is an Alternative History mod for Hearts of Iron IV which explores the question: "What could have happened if Napoleon Bonaparte hadn’t sold the Louisiana colony to the United States of America in 1803 ?" The goal of this project is to create a historically plausible, balanced, and fun to play Axis counterweight to the United States; a country which becomes an unstoppable juggernaut in almost all vanilla Hearts of Iron games.
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A condensed summary of lore goes as follows:
For whatever reason Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte decides not to sell the Louisiana colony in 1803. In the 1810’s Louisianan revolutionaries lead by Eliot du Bernard overthrow the colonial administration and declare the First Louisianan Empire with a liberal constitution that abolishes slavery. A decade later aristocrats fund an uprising which replaces the First Empire with the Louisianan Republic. This new government spends its short its life losing a war and international prestige to the nation’s main rival, the United States. Mexico continues to suffer from civil wars and the United States continues to fulfill manifest destiny just as in our timeline. In the 1850’s, inspired by the Second French Empire and resentful over the instability and military defeats of the republic, army officers in Louisiana restore the monarchy, eventually inviting the orphan son of French Emperor Napoleon III, Louis-Napoleon, to the throne.
The Second Louisianan Empire experiences unprecedented growth due to mass migration from Western Europe, the settlement of the western plains, and rapid industrialization. To modernize and placate political unrest Emperor Louis-Napoleon I creates a constitutional monarchy with a democratic parliament. This era of history would see Louisiana win a First Tejas War against Mexico in 1914, fight alongside the Allies in the Great War in 1917, and then proceed to lose a Second Tejas War against Mexico in 1924 in the wake of the Mexican Revolution.
The New York Stock Exchange Crash in 1929 plunges Louisiana into the Great Depression, which is made worse by an attempted republican coup the following year. The Louisianan royal family, paranoid of the prospect of revolution, hand control of the country to the iron grip of a megalomaniac named Henri Galarneau. Galarneau leads the fascist "Lousianan Loyalist Party" and has vowed to avenge Louisiana’s defeats, reclaim every last centimeter of territory that was once controlled by the French Empire in North America, and restore the Empire to glory.
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This timeline is now in your hands. Will you fight to achieve Galarneau’s dream of a continent dominated by Louisiana? Or will you oppose the Loyalist regime as the insomniac American Giant?
Have fun and God Bless.
-Spiney
*This mod is a work of fiction, all similarities to real life people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
