WWI Simulation Student Journal: France

The Point of View of France’s Foreign Minister  

WWI JOURNAL  

A TIME OF TOTAL WAR  

France 8  

YEAR 1913  

To start the year of 1913, it is no surprise that it will be a  challenging war. As Foreign Minister of France, I know how  important each and every decision the President and I make is. Our  alliance made with Belgium today was the start to WWI for us. This  ensures that we will send defense if Belgium is attacked. Once we  mobilize our troops tomorrow I will feel much more secure when it  comes to Germany taking action against us. The President and I plan  to keep close with our alliances and make decisions as a team to be  successful. We know that we can’t win the war without the help of  our allies. Today was a surplus of thinking ahead and making sure  we will be as prepared as possible for the next war years coming.  This will be no easy challenge for us, but we strongly believe that  with smart movement of our troops and with helping each and every  one of our allies, we will be able to make an impact. The allied  powers have high hopes for WW1.

France 8  

YEAR 1914  

The start of 1914 was slow moving. This was a bit nerve  wracking for us Allies, because we had no clue what the Central  powers had up their sleeves. The first few battles did not affect us,  so we choose to highlight our own country and securing it for safety.  We chose to move troops inward and way from the coastlines to  protect our borders. Our reasoning behind this was because we do  not feel threatened by our coastlines. We feel more danger by the  borders because we have Germany and Austria-Hungary that could  come for us. As an alliance we came up with and strategized for our  first battle. It was a little defeating seeing Russia lose to the first  battle in the war so easily. But I think our alliance did and  outstanding job making a comeback. As a group we started to plan  for the attack on the Ottoman Empire. We began to prepare troops to  travel by sea over to began the attack. Both the President and I were  very eager to see Italy join our alliance. We feel they have a lot to  offer, including a shared border with Austria-Hungary. This will  help us attack them in the future. They also have an inside look on  the Central Powers motives and strategies as the Central Powers  were working to get Italy in with them. I see success in the years  coming.

France 8  

YEAR 1915  

1915 was the most eventful year yet. Here we saw every country  in the Allied powers getting involved in battles and helping each  other out. To start off, we were more focused on helping other  countries defend from invasions and planning for attack. We did not  worry about defense for France, as we feel the entire country is off  the Radar of the Central Powers. We moved troops into another  allied country for the first time, which was a huge stepping stone for  us. This felt like a true start to the war for France. We moved over  troops to Italy as backup as we were suspecting an invasion from  Austria-Hungary. We were indeed correct. This battle we were  successful, managing to hold off the central powers. The year 1915  was a successful year for us Allied Powers. We also developed  poison gas, which was a game changer for battle. We helped Serbia  hold off Austria-Hungary yet again. I feel it was our luck though as  they chose to not use poison gas. It was a close battle. Finally our  biggest success was winning part of the Ottoman Empire. This was  the battle that we had been preparing for, for 2 years. We were  successful in doing so and managed to get Bulgaria too. I am proud  to be an Allied Power, and feel we have conquered so much, and are  still not finished. 

France 8  

YEAR 1916  

This year was something else, to say the least. As soon as we  started this year, The President and I were bombarded by the rest of  our group to sign this treaty. The treaty was to make peace with  Germany. We as leaders of France were extremely hesitant and  knew that this HAD to be violating more than just our objectives.  After talking things over and deeply thinking about this, we chose to  agree. Our reasoning behind this was because we were the last  country in the Allied Powers to sign and without our signature, we  were afraid to cause conflict with the rest of the alliance. If we chose  to decline the treaty, we were potentially risking loosing 3 of our  objectives. Plus we just straight up knew that isn’t what we were to  be doing in the first place. It was a tough decision for us, but we  chose to sign. It ended up throwing Germany out of the game, which  I guess was a bonus for us. Later that year we were victorious with  the Russians as the Central powers attacked us in Russia. That  whole year kind of honestly through us off, but we came to  realization that we needed to focus on our original country, before  we put the alliance first. So that is what we plan to do for the years  coming.

France 8  

YEAR 1917  

This year, France decided we shall focus on our individual  country. We focused on how we were going to achieve each and  every one of our objectives. We got in touch with the United  States, and learned that they wanted to take a part of Germany  too. We formed a secret alliance with the US and it was this year,  1917, that it officially became one of us. We are gaining many  countries that benefit France and we all are plotting something  big. This year overall was a year of preparation and placement.  We prepared our troops to go after Germany and Austria Hungary. We have troops waiting in Russia, Romania, Italy and  France. The Unites States and us have come to an agreement to  go after the same place, G2. With this we can finally achieve our  5th and final objective. All of the allied power troops are patiently  but also eagerly ready to take on war. We have completely  surrounded the Central Powers. We are ready for year 1918.

France 8  

YEAR 1918  

And just like that, WWI is over. As foreign minister of France  I am more than impressed with how both the President and I went  through this war. To end things off, both the United states and I  had plotted a huge, game changing attack. Unfortunately we lost  time within the snap of a finger. We managed to get our troops  moved and planned to carry out our attack on Germany. We were  devastated to learn we would no longer receive an offensive turn.  We were forced to make quick thoughtless decisions. This put our  countries leaders, including myself into a quick panic and we  made decisions that was going to help us in the next turn, little  did we know it would end shortly after. The allied powers as a  whole worked tremendously together and there are was nobody  else both the President and I would want to work with. Although  the war did not end that way would have liked to, looking back  we were more than happy with our success. We managed to  achieve 5 of the 6 objectives. We will call this a win for France.