Great Collapse
Template:Events leading to the Great War (Kylaris)
The Great Collapse, also known as the Depression of 1913, was a significant period of worldwide economic downturn during the early 20th century, affecting most countries across all continents. The Great Collapse began in 1913 with the collapse of the Weisstadt Stock Exchange, at the time the world's largest, on October 16, 1913, which sent stock prices plummeting, particularly those in Euclea. The Sunrosian Monarchy, a quickly industrialising economy, defaulting on its debts is also considered by economists to be a major cause of the Great Collapse, particularly around the period of the Airdale War.
The quickly fluctuating prices spread to many of Euclea's largest cities, and impacted heavily industrialised countries particularly badly. The Great Collapse is generally said to have ended at the start of the Great War in 1927, although evidence of major economies recovering was observed as early as 1919. To this day, the Great Collapse is the largest depression, both by economic loss and future impact, in history.
The Great Collapse was amplified by the sharp decline in international trade experienced by most Euclean countries as goods and services began to be preserved around 1914, severely affecting countries reliant on international trade, causing worldwide tariffs to rise drastically. Due to this, many trading jobs, such as import and export-related jobs, began extremely fragile, and large amounts of unemployment were seen in these sectors. Physical labour and agricultural jobs were also hit particularly hard by the Collapse, with countries relying on large agricultural outputs, particularly Narozalica in Euclea, experiencing large amounts of economic decline.
Cause
Spread
Socio-economic effects
Euclea
Caldia
In response to the Great Collapse, the Caldish government devalued its currency and abandoned the gold standard. Taoiseach Saorla Ní Chonaill and her liberal government also implemented policies to support farmers, a result of their entrenched political importance and role in Caldia's largely agrarian economy. Protectionist agricultural policies were implemented and restrictions were placed on imports. The nation's young heavy industry experienced a period of decline. Factories closed and many industrial workers were out of work, resulting in the establishment of the Social Democratic Party. Pressure from unionized workers resulted in government intervention to support industry. By the late 1910s, the Caldish economy had mostly recovered.
Etruria
Narozalica
In 1913, Narozalica's main exports consisted of agricultural and industrial products. As such, it was hit badly by the Great Collapse, with unemployment reaching as high as 27% in 1918, including a record-high 39% in Velzemia, then a part of the empire, in the same year. Civil unrest increased within the empire throughout the 1910s and in the 1920s, with President Artyom Freček being voted out significantly by the populace for his poor policies regarding the Collapse, to be replaced with the incumbent Vladislav Pudovkin. Pudovkin created funds to help the unemployed and struggling, and employed many people in producing military equipment for the Narozalic Armed Forces, with an estimated 7% of the workforce being employed by the government's military camps in 1923. Increases in poultry and meat produce in the mid-1920s allowed the Narozalic economy to post its first positive numbers in December 1924, the first time economic growth had been witnessed since 1913.
Pudovkin's economic policies are often considered autarky due to the sharp decrease in international trade that followed, as well as the policies of self-reliance that emerged throughout Narozalica's western Euclean sphere, mainly within the empire itself, but included some other countries such as Amathia, who also experienced significant economic decline due to the Collapse.
Sunrosian Monarchy
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Prince_Felix_Yusupov.jpg/150px-Prince_Felix_Yusupov.jpg)
The Sunrosian Monarchy had been industrialising quickly under the Adalbertine Monarchy, with renewed vigour since the succession of Adalbert XX to the throne in 1905. This industrialisation was allowed thanks to the continuous contraction of loans that would be quickly reimbursed and contracted again, from both domestic and foreign (particularly Weranic) banks, with the loans considered to be safe for the lenders. The Great Collapse therefore hit Sunrosia especially hard, and most importantly almost the effects were almost felt almost immediately: widespread unemployement peaked at 29.6% by February 1915. A number of leading industrialists, crippled by debts they were unable to pay, formed the Salvation League. The Salvation League came to power in February 1915, by convincing Adalbert XX to dismiss the elected government of chancellor Manfred von Kotzau and appoint their leader Rudolph von Waldriek in his stead.
Under Waldriek and the Salvation League, the Sunrosian Monarchy followed a predominantly autarkic policy. Trade unions that were tolerated again since 1907, protested after wages were significantly cut in 1916, leading to the government to rescind the previous policy and begin repressing them again. Combined with public works spending, unemployment started falling to more reasonable levels. However, the core of the Salvation League's economic policy was an increase in military spending. Funded through deficit financing, its purpose was to enable the Sunrosian military to win wars its neighbours, from which war reparations would then be demanded and that would be used to reimburse Sunrosia's Collapse-related debts. This would be attempted in 1918 with a declaration of war on Estmere leading to the start of the Airdale War, which itself would lead to the collapse of the Sunrosian Monarchy as internal trouble partly resulting from the conflict caused a socialist revolution.
Coius
Senria
The economy of Senria was already weak in 1910. Stalled modernization efforts had left the country with a partially-restructured financial sector and a comparatively weak industrial sector, and the country's economy was largely dependent on the export of agricultural and light industrial goods to Euclean countries, leaving it vulnerable to fluctuations in Euclean markets. For nearly a decade, the country had been in a period of dull, mildly deflationary economic activity. The outbreak of the Great Collapse in Euclea, the accompanied loss of Euclean consumer confidence, and a turn towards protectionist policy in many Euclean policies, plunged Senria into severe economic turmoil, with the next four years dominated by severe deflation and the collapse of both the financial and industrial sectors. This economic turmoil exacerbated political discontent in Senria, ultimately culminating in the outbreak of the Senrian Revolution in 1918.
Asterias and Sublustria
Nuvania
The impact of the Great Collapse in Nuvania was significant, as the economy was based largely on mineral and agricultural exports with comparatively little industrialisation. Exports were primarily to Asteria Inferior and Euclea, with both markets seeing substantial declines. Total exports declined by 65% between 1914 and 1917 and did not reach pre-1913 levels until 1921. Crops such as sugarcane, coffee, and bananas saw massive declines in prices, dropping by as much as 75% by 1915. Mineral exports, particularly iron ore and precious metals, also saw massive declines.
Unemployment rose significantly during this period, with unemployment and poverty particularly affecting Asterianer farmers, who were reliant on exports to sustain their livelihoods, as well as mixed race and indigenous peoples who worked on the farms and in the mines. Poverty increased among these groups based on social and economic status. By 1917, an estimated two thirds of rural and one third of urban Asterianers were living in poverty, compared with around one fifth of the Estmerish population. At least two thirds of mixed race and virtually all indigenous families were also living in poverty.
The social and economic situation lead to significant resentment among much of Nuvania's society, in particular between the Estmerish and Asterianers, lead to outbreaks of violence, which included the Roosverbranding ("Rose Burning") in June 1914, in which significant anti-Estmerish riots took place across the country resulting in thousands of homes and businesses owned by Estmerish people being burned, and 75 deaths. Two armed insurrections, one in 1915 and the other in 1916, occurred in response to the government's imposition of austerity measures. Combined these acts cost the lives of 741 people and caused significant instability.
One of the impacts of the Great Collapse was the increase in Asterianer nationalism, particularly during the period between 1914 and 1918 which saw the government of J.P Hardy solidify support for the Estmerish population. This saw the nationalist faction of the National People's Party (NVP) win by a landslide in the 1918 general election, lead by G.B Van Deventer.