Reincarnated as Nikolai II

By November, as 1916 was drawing to a close.

Woodrow Wilson's second term, won by narrowly defeating Charles Evans Hughes with just a 3% margin, was entirely marked by the Philippines, Mexican Revolution, and World War.

War participation and anti-war.

Intervention and non-intervention.

Progressive and conservative.

Imperialism and isolationism.

Reason and desire.

This country, where diverse ethnicities and races lived together, stood before numerous binary choices, like the two-party system during election season.

Despite successfully beginning his re-election term, Wilson felt as if his administration was precariously standing on prison walls.

One misstep would lead inside the prison, or outside the wall.

While the government sometimes needed to make bold choices, Wilson had currently chosen to "do nothing."

However, this didn't mean the cup of water was in a zero-gravity state that would never spill, just that it hadn't spilled yet.

"49.2% versus 46.1%."

If he hadn't won by just 3,700 votes in California.

If the Republican Party hadn't split.

If he hadn't miraculously won in Utah and Washington where he had previously lost.

The United States would have fallen from the wall.

And Hughes would have made choices in his place here.

"Is it not enough to send troops to Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, the Philippines, and Panama, establish puppet regimes, and even control their legislation?"

His supporters say "Wilson protected America from war," but opponents say "he made America a coward."

Every time a U-boat sinks a ship in the Atlantic.

Every time they suffer hostile acts like the Black Tom explosion or the sinking of the Lusitania.

Half of America wavers.

Even though he enacted the Naval Act and Army Act of 1916 to appease the other half, it wasn't nearly enough.

Still, until now, not all of these disturbances and cracks in public opinion had led to action.

Though sympathy for the Entente rises and immigrants worry about their homelands, no volunteer armies are formed.

Though they suffer from the Alliance's hostile acts, it ends as merely diplomatic issues.

As long as the generation that remembers the Civil War exists, America won't cross the line it has drawn for itself.

At least Wilson believed so.

"...Mr. President, Germany has broken the Sussex Pledge and resumed indiscriminate submarine attacks in the aftermath of naval battles with Britain." Experience tales at My Virtual Library Empire

"They'll break the pledge I personally received from the German Foreign Ministry after just 6 months?"

However, just because America wouldn't cross that line didn't mean others wouldn't cross it.

After naval clashes with Britain, Germany broke its promise not to attack passenger ships, vessels without confirmed weapons, and commercial ships - a promise it couldn't keep for even a year.

And Russia went even further.

[Russian Emperor's Petrograd Declaration]

[Each nation has the right to determine its political destiny]

[Declaration of the end of colonial era?]

The Tsar himself declared national self-determination.

The leader of the Slavs declared national self-determination.

"...No. This, this is dangerous."

While the press seemed to interpret this as an anti-colonial declaration or a claim to moral superiority, Wilson, with experience teaching political science as a university professor, immediately recognized the danger of this declaration.

At first glance, it sounds nice about respecting each country's independence, but what needs attention here is the word "nation."

A declaration justifying political decisions that transcend national belonging or attachment.

Encouragement for colonies and weak nations?

Boosting Slavic alliance morale?

Or perhaps taking shots at colonial empires like France and Britain?

While he hadn't yet figured out the Tsar's hidden intentions.

At least as far as Wilson knew, the United States was a nation of immigrants.

[United States, the country that abandoned its brothers and sisters]

[National self-determination is imperialism of inferior empires]

[United States being excluded from the world!]

Sure enough, before 1916 even ended, America began splitting in two once again.

==

While America couldn't decide how to receive national self-determination, the impact of Nikolai II's Petrograd Declaration was not insignificant.

First, to General Mexmontan of the Grand Duchy of Finland and his staff, this was Russia's promise.

"Slavs living in the Grand Duchy don't even reach 1%. Doesn't this mean the Tsar will guarantee the Grand Duchy's autonomy?"

"There will be conditions about remaining allies, but I hear it that way too. Now that the Tsar has made an official declaration, even Prime Minister Kokovtsov won't be able to stop it."

The Grand Duchy of Finland is a country composed of pure Finns and some Swedish Finns living on the northern border.

"Sigh, now truly when the war ends..."

"It's really ending?"

"Rather, you could say it's beginning."

National self-determination. While the word 'independence' doesn't appear in the Petrograd Declaration, the phrase 'right to political determination' itself is essentially guaranteeing independence.

Meanwhile, to Balkan countries, this couldn't help but sound like an expansion pack for Pan-Slavism, an enlargement of the Slavic worldview.

"I wondered how they'd mediate Balkan conflicts, and this is it."

"At this rate, post-war Balkan conflicts will be treated as internal Slavic issues, so Russia will try to actively intervene."

"Tch, in the end this too is just the tyranny of a great power."

Anyone could see this declaration was unmistakably the Russian Tsar taking aim at the Balkans.

It couldn't be a better justification for a massive empire to intervene in the midst of small Balkan states with low ethnic solidarity who had even fought each other.

Yet differently, for non-Slavic, single-ethnicity countries, the Tsar's declaration couldn't help but sound truly moving and moral.

"Indeed, he is the Emperor of Great Russia. Telling all nations to determine their own destiny. Truly, Korea and such had no great value to this emperor."

"But this is an opportunity. Hasn't he been ignoring our assembly while keeping Russia as backing?"

"That's right. When this war ends, we too must determine the destiny of the Korean people."

A declaration truly guaranteeing Korea's independence and respecting self-governance and autonomy. The Russian Emperor couldn't help but be a sage ruler.

Of course, there are always exceptions.

"Oh, perhaps we too can be guaranteed that national political self-determination-"

"West Slavic nation."

"But we clearly have different history and religion-"

"West Slavic nation."

"Moreover, due to long history of rule we're a Central European country with mixed Jewish, Ukrainian, Turkish, Belarusian, Slavic, and Germanic lineages-"

"West Slavic! West Slavic! West Slavic natiooon!"

Poland was classified as a Slavic nation.

The whole world was Slavic.

==

[High Seas Fleet flees to port]

[Eternal master of the North Sea]

[Casualties at least triple the difference?]

[End of Royal Navy era]

The great naval battle off Jutland where both sides scattered leaflets claiming victory even mobilizing aircraft to the front lines.

While they had sunk enemy ships that invaded each other's territory before, fleets had never fought fleet-to-fleet.