Francois Republic

Francois Republic (フランソワ共和国) is one of the major powers allied against the Empire. Their Capital is Parisii. After June, 1925, the mainland of Francois has been captured by the Empire while some troops raise resistance against the Empire in their colonies.

International Relations
Commonwealth (連合王国) - They are not allies at the start of the Great War. The Commonwealth only sent limited support to the Republic at first.

Empire (帝国) - They recognize each other as the traditional enemy. The border disputes and territorial issues between the two have erupted into localized conflicts on multiple occasions in the past.

Legadonia Entente Alliance (レガドニア協商連合) - Although as an ally, the Entente Alliance's heedless invasion to the Empire raised hostility between two allies. The Republic stepped in the war, fearing the collapse of Empire's encirclement following the Entente Alliance's reckless move, but between the stalemated front and a huge number of casualties, its attitude rapidly soured to the point that the Republic barely even gave the Entente Alliance the time of day after Dacia got involved, addressing them with openly cold contempt.

Russy Federation (ルーシー連邦) - The Federation's ex-government was a long-standing ally with Francois. However, because of the difference of ideologies, the Federation ruptured with Francois and signed a nonaggression pact with the Empire.

National Defense
Since Francois is weaker than the Empire, its defense strategy focuses tightly on how to defeat the interior lines of the Empire. To the east and the south, the Union and the Kingdom had left the encirclement against the Empire. They couldn't expect the Exterior Lines will work without their participation. At this rate, they came up with a solution. Before the Empire completes its large-scale mobilization, the Republic's core standing army would storm and subdue the Empire's western region, the source of a great deal of its industry and military power. It also works if the Empire invades a third nation. The effectiveness of this strategy has to be ensured by going on the offensive as fast as possible once the Empire takes action. If the Republic just sits watching the Empire mobilizing the Great Army and achieving their war goal, they would definitely have to face a more powerful potential enemy in future.

Their national defense plan finally came in handy when the Empire mobilized the whole Great Army to the north. Once the Great Army was tied up on the north, it gave the Republic an opportunity to break through the Imperial defense lines. The offensive was executed as the Republican Army began general mobilization. The Republican Army defeated Imperial Western Army Group in the early battles, pushing the front line deep into the Imperial lands. However, its offensive was stuck before they captured Imperial Western Industry District, which meant the fail of its national defense strategy. A series of massive positional battles brook out along the Rhine.

See also The Francois invasion of the Empire (1923).

Army
The Republic's army was advanced, and thus recognized as the main threat posed by them against the Empire. It proved itself more than capable of breaking through the defensive lines of the Imperial Western Army Group, an assault which was only halted once the Great Army arrived to shore-up the defenses on the western front - a stalemate ensued which ended up lasting for 2 years.

They opted to using mage units mainly as special strike forces.

Navy
Compared to the Empire, who only had to defend one coastline to the north, the Republic was forced to split their navy as they had both northern and southern coastlines to worry about. This was not a problem at first as the Strait Fleet only had to contend with the Imperial High Seas Fleet. However, once Legendonia was forced to surrender, the Empire could move their North Sea Fleet to support the High Seas Fleet and thus ended up outnumbering the Republic in the northern seas.

Airforce
Its airforce fought hard against the Empire during the Rhine campaign, which was for a long time the most intense theater of the war. Both sides suffered heavy casualties trying to defend their borders.

Trivia

 * The Francois Republic shares the same style of uniform, helmets and weaponry as the French army used in WW1.
 * On the maps that show up in the background of the anime, the country's name shows up as "François Republic" in a highly stylized font.
 * While in our world, the German Empire army attacked through Belgium and went into the French Third Republic, in this world, the Francois Republic attacked the Imperial Lowland Industrial Area, and intended to capture the Western Industrial District.
 * The name of its capital, Parisii, is the Latin name of a Gallic tribe which lived in and around the area of what is now modern day Paris.

República de Francois