From there England proposed a rather bizaare strategy of making France think that we were fighting each other and make us think we were fighting France and basically it was apparently a very complex justification for claiming to be in an alliance with me and France at the same time. I'm very curious as to which he viewed as his true ally. (Obviously, Alex has stated he thought it was him; I was under the impression it was me at the time, but am leaning towards him given how things turned out.)
Are you referring to when Britain convoyed into Holland and you moved into Belgium? I remember that when I saw that move, first I was just confused, and then I eventually concluded that you wanted 3 fleets adjacent to the English Channel so that you could force your way in even if I build a fleet. If the constant switcharoos in the low countries were supposed to look like actual combat, it wasn't very convincing.
And actually, I think that Britain was allied with you for the most part until he got discouraged by my successful defense in 1903, and switched sides in spring '04. Speaking of said successful defense, why did English Army Ruhr support the wrong unit into Burgundy in spring 1903?
That was coordinated to give me a more advantageous position from which to attack you, which would have been helpful if England had actually been willing to do any damn attacking. I have no idea why he supported the incorrect unit; I don't remember if I told him incorrectly at one point or if his finger slipped, and don't really feel like going back and checking. (...oh my god his comments about the finger slipping make so much more sense now.)
That would be somewhat congruent with his attitudes (generally losing enthusiasm over the alliance between him and me over the course of the game). I'd really like to get him to come out and settle this, though.
(A full list of game moves and commentary is available here; the game maps are available here.)
Since I was GM, I had a distinctly limited access to private communications, so I've relatively little analysis.
A brief review of the game:
Austria was the first player to get eliminated; in contrast to the sort of min-maxing I've usually seen in Diplomacy, they took a lot of big risks in the beginning, in particular leaving Trieste open to Italian attack, in favor of quick expansion to the east. Although they did manage to take Warsaw and Serbia, the Austrian forces wound up overextended and unable to hold onto their gains, and in a weak position diplomatically; the fall of Trieste didn't help matters. Nobody was willing to help Austria, and so Italy seized all of Austria, with Turkey taking the Balkans and Russia taking Rumania. After that, there was a long period of stalemate in the Balkans, as neither of the three powers was willing to divert enough troops to one front to make any offensive progress.
In the west, Germany initially faced a combined Franco-British attack; they held out surprisingly well, aided by cracks in the alliance and occasional Russian attacks on Norway. Britain was actually the first Power to fall in the West, when France piled on after the fall of Norway; the British player was forced to stop participating in the game at around that time. France wound up with all of the British Isles, and Germany was squeezed between it and Russia until it cracked. (The brief Italian occupation of Munich didn't help.) Germany did manage to hold out for most of the rest of the game; there were only a few months of inconclusive war between France and Russia before the draw proposal.
Meanwhile, in the east, Italy gradually fell back before a combined Russian-Turkish attack. After Russia seized Vienna and Budapest, and Turkey seized Trieste, Russia mostly concentrated on attacking England and Germany, leaving Turkey and Italy in a period of stalemate, broken by the advance of Turkish fleets into the Ionian Sea. Soon after, Italy's player had to drop out, and Turkey soon seized control of Italy. Then the game ended.
One thing I'm curious about is how much communication there was between the eastern and western powers. (In-game, beyond Russia fighting on both fronts and a single, chance retreat by Italy, there was little direct interaction.)