Can France Withstand EVERYONE & Win WW1 In HOI4?

What if you were FORCED into being historical in Hearts of Iron 4? What if you played the Great War Redux mod in HOI4 as the French, the eternal suffers of Europe, and could only use the accurate historical designs?
For Sources, visit: / aldrahill or www.youtube.co...
Credit to Joziah for first finding the sources website!
I've been on a HOI4 binge of using only the historical presets given by Paradox, alongside accurate, historical division organization. Can I do the same as the French in the wonderful WW1 mod Great War Redux, and see if I can withstand the Germans, and not explode?
Watch the USA Lend-lease adventure: • USA, but only Historic...
Want to send me a disaster save?: [e-mail]
Support me on Patreon: / aldrahill
The addition of Historical presets into Hearts of Iron IV was an awesome thing for massive history nerds like myself. Now, I play REALLY historically, using only the stupid tanks and planes that happened in real life! I'm aiming to do this with EVERY country in the game (or at least every major) so let me know a good suggestion down in the comments for more countries to play!
My stuff: Logitech C920 HD Webcam: shorturl.at/kGMU2
Aputure AL-M9 Stream Light: shorturl.at/cCKU0
JOBY Camera Tripod: shorturl.at/mBDR0
Canon EOS M50: shorturl.at/mS258
Video title:
WW1 Ottomans, but only Historical Presets & Divisions In HOI4?
Previous video in this series:
• Can German Historical ...
Join my Discord: / discord
#heartsofiron4 #hoi4 #worldoftanks
Watch these HOI4 videos if you enjoy ISP, ISorrowProductions, AlexTheRambler, SpiffingBrit, or other great comedy HOI4 KZbinrs. I'm trying my best to make content that you guys enjoy, and that I actually LIKE to make, so comments and feedback are always appreciated!

[@Baconomics1]

FRENCH PRIME MINISTER LIST: Aristide Briande (until 1911) Ernest Monis (1911 - 1911) Joseph Caillaux (1911 - 1912) Raymond Poincare (1912 - 1913) Aristide Briande again (1913 - 1913) Louis Barthou (1913 - 1913) Gaston Doumergue (1913 - 1914) * Rene Viviani (1914 - 1915) Aristide Briande again (1915 - 1916**) Alexandre Ribot (1916** - 1917) Paul Painleve 1917 - 1917) Georges Clemenceau (1917 onwards) historical inaccuracies: * irl in 1914 Alexandre Ribot took office after Doumergue, served for five days, and was replaced by Viviani ** in the video Ribot replaces Briande in October 1916 but irl that didn't happen until March 1917

[@Aldrahill]

Bro this is incredible for getting proper data, this is awesome

[@thedead12]

Historically Accurate Division Luxemburg when

[@martimsousa2601]

Agreed

[@tylerredforge5563]

black ice historical world conquest luxemburg

[@DijonSenf]

10 squadrons of toothpick infantry

[@idontlikerome2744]

We going to unify the Benelux in no time with that

[@CEO-of-money]

@@tylerredforge5563 hell.

[@729060]

Honestly the Memories of 1870 should do the exact opposite. Even the text blurb is wrong. The French focused on aggressive action to the point of comedy. It was WWII France that was super defensive.

[@CzechMirco]

Exactly, the term "revanchism" entered the international vocabulary from the french "revanche", revenge for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. The population of France was hell bent on revenge for 1870 and definitely not defensive nor pacifist.

[@Seafish84]

Wait, are there really people who forget France was a major power in WW1?

[@TheVoodooMaker]

There are people who believe they took heavy losses in 1914 because of red trousers so I wouldn't be surprised.

[@Aldrahill]

Honestly you’d be surprised!

[@commandercorl1544]

must be a british thing, never heard anyone forget about france.

[@flyingpugs3678]

A lot of people I know forget the difference between WW1 and 2, so they assume France was a pushover in both

[@joshhudson6151]

@@commandercorl1544 no, i can say with confidence, that not one person denies their contributions in ww1, plenty forget about ww2 but not ww1

[@kittykat1371]

Fun fact about Briand, not only was he Prime Minister of France 6 times between 1909 and 1929, but he oversaw 11 governments during his cumulative ~7 years as PM. France truly was the pinacle of political stability.

[@Aldrahill]

Christ that’s just crazy

[@michael120.]

28:03 i would crash out if i was a french soldier finally seeing the end of the war after years of horror and pain only for to get a message from the top brass that says "full frontal assault for glory; driving casulties up"

[@Aldrahill]

Gave me a good chuckle xD yeah I felt a bit dirty after doing it. Though… it happened! Both sides did this very thing in limited fashions

[@reilerg7974]

The Saint-Chamond and the Char 2C isn't the same things. The char 2C is an after war tank who served from 1921 to 1940. It was giant with like a crew of 12.

[@Aldrahill]

Yeah I misspoke there, the equipment source I was basing it on was indeed the saint chamond though :)

[@amn0940]

I saw the thumbnail and thought this would be a BlackICE video. I'll just keep waiting then

[@Aldrahill]

If it’s BICe it’ll have the BICe logo in the Center :) more BICe coming soon! It just takes a really love time 😆 but

[@Baconomics1]

now I want to see a WW1 version of Black Ice lmao

[@LeroxYT]

@@Aldrahill can you play a black ice playthrough, with the BICE difficulty?

[@Aldrahill]

@@LeroxYT Oh god that sounds terrifying xD REALLY have to play smart to even have a chance!

[@dolgulduripostaszolgalat7010]

@@Aldrahill Man I'm blasted again xd !this the best idea mankind ever cooked up

[@isntbeautiful4950]

The Devs of the mod kind of missed out with the infantry equipment research, as the French made a Semi-automatic rifle with two models, M1917 and M1918, it was actually well liked by troops and they had only one complaint being the length of the rifle being 52inches. The rifle was no longer produced following the end of WW1, but it was the very first mass produced Semiautomatic rifle, guns called the RSC

[@Swagmaster07]

How many were made and did they have an impact? Also looking it up the M1918 was shorter so the M1917 must have been the long one.

[@Zoabdy]

So historically played that the game ended less than a month from away the end of the real Great War

[@Aldrahill]

Too beautiful right?

[@rocketroyale8593]

When Luxenburg Black Ice world conquest

[@stargamer9614]

you forgot :"Historical"

[@rocketroyale8593]

@@stargamer9614 fr

[@Aldrahill]

Monster

[@stargamer9614]

@@Aldrahill Mouahahahaha

[@vitorsoriano5440]

Expert ai

[@connortheandroidsentbycybe7740]

3:17 the french army requisitioned a shit tonne of Paris taxi cabs to transport troops to the battle of the Marne, 25 miles outside of Paris. Had the entente lost that battle, they wouldve lost the war. The Marne river is the last natural barrier before Paris is coming from the east, say, from Germany. Like I said, 25 miles outside of Paris, so if it was broken, Germans would have been walking into Paris

[@Aldrahill]

Ohhh cool so that explains the name of the focus xD thanks for the context!

[@TheVoodooMaker]

It was more of a meme tbh. Cool little story but irrelevant on the operational scale. What allowed France to secure victory on the Marne river was the huge counter-offensive initiated by Joffre on September 6th against Von Kluck's 1st Army

[@AlextheRambler]

Gigachad Aldra ❤

[@mrhonkhonk6116]

IS HERE

[@dement_tf2maybe]

bro got left on read

[@Aldrahill]

Gigagigachad Alex

[@Aldrahill]

Hey I was cooking a pizza!!

[@misterperson3469]

The ft-17 is a tank I feel doesnt get enough spotlight in mainstream pop history. Its so clearly the ancestor to most every successful tank design that came after it. Reasonably mobile, a turret with proper traverse and with a sensible size and crew. The brittish heavies may have been first but they really do not have much in common with AFVs that come 25 or 100 years later

[@evenmorecheese2785]

How DARE you not call France a Great Power of WW1! I didn't see the Anglos having their countries devastated and building the best tanks of WW1!

[@handsomecatenjoyer]

The Saint Chamond, and Schneider aren't exactly what I call great, but the Renault is goateed with the sauce and taking it home in style so meh.

[@JacobFraps]

@@evenmorecheese2785 the reason france sucked in ww2 was their great sacrifice in ww1! They single handly won the western front

[@jonathanbatz3183]

A travesty to not call them a great power in 1914, reasonable to not call them that in 1940.

[@MilenaSrbova]

so the rumors were true, the only way to spot a frenchie is to see that they have a cheese profile picture

[@colisaacs7672]

@@handsomecatenjoyer he's talking about the FT-17

[@connortheandroidsentbycybe7740]

Anyone that doesn't recognise the French contribution to both wars frankly, but *especially* the first, is a fool. Especially as they are partially directly responsible to the state the ME is in (can anyone say Sykes-Picot?)

[@gaboreszes4395]

i just had a stroke reading this

[@Swagmaster07]

@@gaboreszes4395 not enough dots? Cry about it, who even tries reading out English the way it is written, he did the opposite though of writing it like how it should sound like in person without any obviously noticeable dots.

[@connortheandroidsentbycybe7740]

@@gaboreszes4395 it's really not that hard, babes

[@Residentbonus]

France black ice with historical divisions

[@Aldrahill]

It’s definitely coming!!

[@mttokrnk]

This sounds like hell😭

[@loco4loco]

The video will be 2 seconds long

[@Picklesthedonutfrog]

Historically accurate byzantium awaits

[@Aldrahill]

Ohhh I want it

[@ixarys8102]

Appreciate you didn’t make fun of my country in an HoI4 video (yeah the bar is that low on english speaking KZbin lol). Personal rant but the "Memories of 1870" maluses in the early game is such absolute bullshit. Casualties were way WAY lower in 1870 than in WW1, not mentioning the country had 40 years to recover instead of 20. And if anything it made France seething for a rematch to take back Alsace-Lorraine (illustrated in the incredibly low rates of desertion during the general mobilization). Good video anyway, at least poor Belgium didn’t get stomp this time.

[@Aldrahill]

No worries I always respect Frances contribution to both wars - they suffered extremely! Yeah that malus doesn’t really make any sense :P

[@grumpychiken2261]

I’m studying military history (specifically the world wars) in university and can I saw these videos are like crack from nerd brain keep up the amazing videos!

[@Aldrahill]

Dude SAME it is so satisfying to make these and nerd out over the sources :D glad you enjoy!

[@kickassgreek]

HON HON. OUI. OUI. OMELETTE DU FROMAGE!

[@Aldrahill]

Literally all that went through my head while making this :P

[@Sarre_Casme]

Omelette AU fromage stupide suceur de thé

[@mrhonkhonk6116]

d'accord faisons comme ca

[@PolishGuy54]

Vive La France

[@imperatorcarolusmagnus]

C'est franchement fatiguant

[@TheGrandeCapo]

Is Briand secretly a necromancer? He's coming back again and again.

[@Delbro850]

0:47 Spoiler it never be

[@nightspawnson-of-luna4936]

You Know I actually remember hearing about how even though the war was going to be ending, and they knew the armistace was coming, some officers sent their men out anyway... so 28:08 is technically historically accurate

[@Aldrahill]

Exactly! It’s horrifyingly accurate :(

[@xanthespace5141]

It's interesting to see how the AI experience varies in this mod, since some aspects of it are scripted to be historical (like the 1914 Western Front being balanced to have fairly accurate frontlines by the time it settles, for example). And the way forces end up being distributed, I've seen AI Russia push into Galicia as they did IRL as well, but just as in this video, they sometimes eat shit everywhere immediately.

[@Aldrahill]

Yeah it’s so weird how the ai will sometimes do according to history, and other times totally shit the bed and die :P

[@Sarre_Casme]

You can click in the focus tree up to highlight the historical focus by the way as a french speaker I'm gonna complain fir st Champagne is a region of France not the alcohol drink

[@DijonSenf]

I'm out of ideas, pretend this comment was smart and funny

[@Aldrahill]

Holy shit that’s the great thing I’ve ever heard. You are a true genius sir.

[@DijonSenf]

​@Aldrahill appreciate it man 🙏

[@santiagoperez3024]

I’m died laughing I’m dead

[@mikhailkerman8323]

LMAO

[@DijonSenf]

​@@santiagoperez3024I appreciate the charity 🙏

[@sombertownds149]

Holy crap, its finally happening

[@dode3614]

So glad that peace was achieved after one big war and nothing bad ever happened in Europe ever again, France has a bright future

[@Okuu__Gaming_1]

Bright blue and red gotta be the greatest camouflage

[@Alex3f4]

Insane game. If only there was a game made by Paradox that would let you play the second world war.

[@Aldrahill]

Maybe one day!!

[@european_mapper-FR]

The research for this video is incredible

[@Aldrahill]

Oh damn thank you so much

[@homefront1999]

Now do " Can America withstand Everyone & win WW1 with modern tank tactics?"

[@Swagmaster07]

Honest reaction when I saw the American Divs coming : "Over there, over there, Send the word, send the word over there- That the Yanks are coming, The Yanks are coming, The drums rum-tumming Everywhere. So prepare, say a prayer, Send the word, send the word to beware. We’ll be over, we’re coming over, And we won’t come back till it’s over Over there!" Also, perhaps you should like consider continuing this game, you can go past WW1 here that may be interesting.

[@ietesg131]

It might be hard to find sources for this,but could you do a realistic WW1 Bulgaria video?They're one of the most fun countries in TGWR imo

[@thevampirematrix816]

I like the idea of historical battle plans

[@Aldrahill]

Me too! Just sometimes they’re a bit limiting

[@thevampirematrix816]

@@Aldrahill yeah that makes sense. especially because due to hindsight most of them were quite dumb

[@generaltom6850]

9:37. Don’t be too happy, I heard of one division that had 130+% casualties in a single battle.

[@Aldrahill]

It’s like that lichentestein army, had a -50% casualty rate - they all survived and brought home a friend! :D

[@generaltom6850]

@@Aldrahill That's a funny story, although what actually happened was that they didn't see any action and returned home with a military escort consisting of three Austrian officers. No no I'm talking like a regiment of 3000 men took 4500 casualties, cause battles lasted for months. They for example got pummeled by an artillery barrage, lost 1500 men, got reinforced and were then wiped out. So they technically had 1500+3000 casualties. Add to that the fact that casualties doesn't means just dead and you get units with over 100% casualties.

[@blossomhaven2]

Can you play bulgaria ww1 and reform the Byzantine empire and if possible historic division

[@martinkurucz4701]

Hungary historical please, it would be funny because it was super trash

[@surjackeroff]

Aldrahill may not be pregnant but he never fails to deliver

[@Aldrahill]

That quote going up on my wall

[@Shermanlover1944]

You forgot to add the anti-tank bagguette launcher

[@Aldrahill]

Dammit, I’m dumb :(

[@sprintfoxy1240]

Very cool video about the motherland ! And yeah its sad that today France is considered the pushover of the world when we won the most battles out of any countries, defeated multiple times great powers (sometimes at the same time), and nearly became the first world power (i dream of French victory in the Seven year war...). Its actually very interesting to learn why this BS reputation came to be, its also very tied as too how the US and UK treated poorly Free France for most of the second world war, only according Charles "Based" De Gaulle a chair on the winners table thanks to the French invasion of Provence and liberation of South France + Soviet push to add France as the fifth permanent security council member of the UN. (like the US had proposed to Britain to treat France in the peace conference like GERMANY, luckly UK pushed back on that but they werent exactly nice to the Free French either...)

[@megalordsk8042]

Play as Serbia , with historical division and try to survive WW1

[@TheOFNgeneral]

11:56 reminds me of a very familiar Austrian man, but if he was old

[@thatponybro6940]

oh hey, we're in Great War Redux, i wondet when Aldra's gonna get to the Ottomans

[@Aldrahill]

Hey, I already did! Did it about 6 week me ago :) check my videos page!

[@thatponybro6940]

@@Aldrahill well yes, but i saw a distinct lack of armored car only in that video

[@piotrszuryn3372]

Black ice Poland/finland

[@mttokrnk]

Historical WW2 Romania in BICE maybe? Might be able to find information but it could be interesting

[@basedman66868]

Could you do the ultra historical mod? I think doing a historical run using historical infantry squads (what the mod is specialized for) would be cool

[@Aldrahill]

Ohhhh what there are specialised squad dynamics?! XD I’ll check it out

[@Swinox]

When belgium with historical division

[@Aldrahill]

Nice short video ;)

[@donnym3415]

Is anyone gonna tell him thr st challmond had the 75mm gun while the Schneider only had machine guns?

[@Aldrahill]

I have… made a mistake :(

[@donnym3415]

@@Aldrahill all good lol

[@totalwar1793]

Random question, have you tried HoI 3

[@Aldrahill]

I haven’t! Really need to try it sometime :)

[@totalwar1793]

@@Aldrahill I'd love to see you try HoI 3 BlackIce historical! It would be a lot easier to recreate a lot of the divs

[@NovaRoma-l]

I like comments which have 0 likes so they have one and it seems like those people liked their own comment

[@NovaRoma-l]

I don't like my own comments 🤫🤫🤫

[@Dalix2137]

Maybe ww2 historical presets and division templates poland?

[@Thomas_from_roblox]

VIVA La France.

[@pollball598]

What do you think about playing ww1 games with "chemical warfare" Submod?

[@Aldrahill]

I do want to check it out!!

[@Comerade_Daniel]

soooo... i know you are planning to do historical norway already.... but if dont ask every vid... what is the meaning to my exsistance... so... Historical Norway When?

[@Heiwa_No_Shori]

Calling Joffre a "morron" lmao

[@Zeguyez]

finallllllly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@etruskeks7518]

Historical Mongolia innww2

[@ShadowDragon1848]

How does the peace deal thing work? It is a series of events? Because it´s obviously not otl Versailles.

[@matrice0-0-07]

it is otl versailles

[@Aldrahill]

Yeah it’s scripted from the mod

[@Gymnastian]

Does the disjointed government spirit still apply to modern day france?

[@GeneralGrievousCIS]

I mean given that the current government of France is ostensibly a caretaker government, held over from the previous government, which got decimated in the last two elections (EU and National Assembly) but is being held in place indefinitely anyway by Macron to avoid letting leftists into power, after he inadvertently got them the most votes by participating in a second round mass drop out play to keep right wingers out of power... I'd say yes 😂

[@Aldrahill]

Probably xD

[@justtoasty979]

That’s all cool and all but where is black ice Poland,

[@HerrLindstrom]

I subbed a while ago for the HON HON HON 😂

[@Aldrahill]

Ayyy appreciate you

[@DumbCup]

Portugal historical pls

[@melony1685]

Belgium next?

[@lefthand4943]

Can you do a ragnarok as france 1936?

[@Sanerre]

Pls respect the pronunciation of Clemenceau 😭

[@Aldrahill]

Clementine? Clemalina? Cleopatra?

[@pollball598]

What do you think about doing videos about ww1 with chemical warfare submod?

[@Aldrahill]

Oh dear god xD I’ll need to look that up!

[@pollball598]

​@@AldrahillName of the submod: "Great war redux chemical warfare "

[@DumbCup]

Uh oh

[@keanariestalandron4252]

This guy is a better general than the french army command in 1915 ngl. Like how the french didnt took the opportunity to push to the west of the Rhine like this in the video, its just the incompetence of the command to do such things

[@mc-struglehd4362]

What mod is this?

[@martimsousa2601]

GG

[@sigitastubure5409]

Siuuuuu

[@Leatly]

Hello

[@martimsousa2601]

Gg

[@olsterman937]

Why do you keep fluctuating between an American and British accent?

[@Aldrahill]

I’m British! Just moved around a lot so have a weird accent :P

[@FanaticalLurker]

Comment

[@zeahmed]

furreriech XD