The Free Society of the British Isles
Saor an-asgaidh Comann na h-Eileanan Breatannach
Cumann Saor na Oileáin na Breataine
The Invasion of Britain, or as it is more commonly known, Boney's Great Gambit, followed after the Russian Vanishing, in which the Russian Army and their Tzar were lost in an avalanche, and the Peace of Frankfurt, which essentially saw the Coalition abandon the United Kingdom, allowing Caesar Napoleon I to move on towards militarily destroying the British. His invasion was to be two pronged, with a large coalitioned force set to take Ireland, while a second force would swing around the Emerald Isle to to perform a surprise strike at England. Napoleon was already known for forging nations on his whim as the Rheinbund, Duchy of Warsaw, Grand Duchy of Finland, and the Baltic League illustrated, and was now ready to do so again, dismantling the British Empire, with Wales as his first target. Agents spread rumors not of invasion, but that a Welsh State would be created alongside an Irish and Scottish one, and Welsh nationalists quickly began plotting how they might support France if and when an invasion came, assuming a French force would go to Ireland or straight into Dover. Instead, Napoleon's second, larger force landed in Anglesey, and began an immediate "Welsh Liberation" in hopes that the Corsican Emperor could quickly gain a local militia to bolster his forces and offer him supplies as they began the long journey across England. Truthfully, Napoleon hoped to use this as yet another diversion, with a smaller but elite group of soldiers set to land in Medway from Holland once the majority of British troops had moved to defend the Western Front. It was to be quick, clean, and easy. One of Napoleon's officer is said to have coined a popular phrase when the plan was finalized: "Sir, nothing is ever easy with the damn f--king British."
It was an act of God that several British vessels had been on their way back from India when a storm forced them to dock in Cork. Departing to make for England, they saw the French forces, and preceded to signal the shore. Irish garrisons promptly fired on the initial French fleet before word reached the Irish nationalists, who overran the garrison to allow the French safe passage, but the damage was done; over half of the invasion force was in some way damaged, and the ensuing Invasion of Ireland failed after several bloody battles. Still, the landing in Wales was successful, and the establishment of the Free Welsh Republic was done with surprising ease. However, an error made by the navigators for the French Invasion of England resulted in the elite forces ending up near Yarmouth, then resulting in their defeat when they finally arrived near London, with Scottish units coming in to fend off the "Welsh Prong", allowing English troops to defend London. Thus, Boney's Great Gambit failed, and it garnered Britain enough sway to gain the allegiance of the Prussians (later the Prusso-Hungarians) for decades to come, and while the ensuing war would not dethrone Napoleon, it would allow for a few losses for the bloated French Empire, and made treaty negotiations far more balanced. However, it is from these events that the ethnic tensions that would come to plague Britain truly evolved: in the eyes of the English, the Scots had defended Britain valiantly, but the Welsh and Irish had betrayed them.
The beginnings of the Free Society are often traced back to two pieces of legislation. The first is the Act Concerning Irish Industry, enacted by Parliament early on during industrialization in Ireland following the population boom of the Emerald Isle. Simply put, it allowed "Crown-approved corporations" to take control of Irish factories. As said owners began to use non-Irish labor for management and imposing harsh rules and punishment on Irish workers, various socialist movements began to spread across the island, and numerous riots and protests raged across cities. However, what may have once created an Irish communist state, instead spread across the United Kingdom, leading to its unified liberation. This is mainly due to the fact that, seeing the efficiency of Irish factories, factory owners began employing similar barbarism in their shops across the isles. The second act that contributed to the Free Society was the Welsh Assimilation Act. Seeing the Welsh as a greater threat than the Irish (for the seas acted as a defense if "the Perfidious Paddies" ever turned on the Crown again), Parliament began a systematic erasure of Welsh culture on a scale unseen up until that point. The language was banned, being a fine-able offense, with execution for treason in some cities if one was a three-time offender; the military governors organizing rebuilding efforts were all English, and almost all ended up as lords as "treasonous" Welsh nobles were stripped of titles; public education demonized Welsh culture, and taught that the "Counties of Monmouth, Morgan, Carmeth, Pembrooke, Cardigan, Breckneck, Radner, Montgomery, Denbick, Flint, Merion, Careniff, and Anglesey" were "historical and integral components" of the "Nation of England." Within a generation, the term "Welsh" was a nasty slur used to decry a lack of etiquette or civility.
The Free Society began initially as just that: a political society, officially the Society for Free Thought and Political Discourse, a gentleman's club in the growing city of Leicester for innovative thinkers of the late 19th Century, which opened to include gentry and merchants before eventually allowing any man who could "dust up" to be welcome in its halls; it only took a few nagging wives after that before they would come along as well, and soon an egalitarian club for political philosophy was born, with the predominant ideology (following the allowance of the working class) soon becoming Anarcho-Nationalism, or Drommundism as it was known for Arthur Drommund, the Scottish-English author who penned
The Path to Freedom, which was much like the Communist Manifesto, but instead exposed the straight movement to a stateless society ruled by a coalition of labor unions in various regions that in turn sent representatives to negotiate with a national-level coalition (for Drommund believed the nation-state to be the only true border or boundary that could be used, comparing ethnic lines to the range of species of animals), with a multinational coalition being formed from representatives of the national ones should they so choose (creating a
polynation in Drommund's words). Of course, should every nation come under the ideology, a
weltnation would then be formed, unifying mankind. Other clubs opened up across Britain, especially in Ireland, taking in many Marxists, as the brutal communist uprisings in the Alpine-Sava Federal Kingdom began a disillusion and decline in the ideology's membership. Eventually a crackdown on the Society came with ascension of King Adolphus II, or "Fat King Al", who was notoriously more conservative than his mother Queen Charlotte II, ending the Charlottian Era, and who began a series of Crown-approved monopolies, essentially extending the Irish Industry Act to the Isles as a whole, creating a quickly growing corporate oligarchy. The revolution came when the Great Famine did, caused by a combination of over-intensive farming, a lack of crop diversity, and pollution that caused both soil acidifcation and eutrification. With political oppression rife and starvation found everywhere from Inverness to Devon, the Society acted, having radicalized as they went underground. The Glorious Liberation was bloody and violent, but from the political instability of the United Kingdom, rose the nation known today as the Free Society of the British Isles.
As an avowed anarchist state, there is no true central government, instead the Polynational Coalition of Syndicates, with the three constituent nations each having their own National Coalitions, and from there are shire-level, county-level, and municipal-level Coalitions, with a Syndicate for each major form of industry and services. One of the most powerful syndicates is the Bankers' Syndicate, which maintains a central bank with one currency, the Freepence or Free Pence, (
fP as the abbreviation). The Head of Government is technically the Chairman of the Polynational Coalition, with the Head of State being the Chief Emissary of the Diplomatic Delegation, a body maintained by various legal and political syndicates to keep the FSB (as it is commonly shortened) relevant and represented on the international level. Finally, the Commander-in-Chief is the Supreme Marshal of the Defensive Forces, who is in effect the highest ranking officer promoted by the Soldiers' Syndicate, itself a coalition of the Navy, Army, Marines', Aviators', and Submariners' Syndicates.
Furthermore, of course, being anarchists, there
is no official flag for the Free Society. However, the Diplomatic Delegation, for purposes of diplomacy and for use in legitimizing their country, has created a
de facto flag of sorts, which has been recognized in some capacity by most other nations. While two separate pieces, the flags are always flown together by the FSB diplomats. The bottom flag represents the three Nations of the FSB; Red for England, Blue for Scotland, and Green for Ireland (some nations recognize this as the national flag, sometimes with and sometimes without the white between the tricolor, and the same variance is found with the tongued-swallowtailing). The top flag represents how all three rally together under the banner of Anarchism, with the
de facto national motto and revolutionary battle cry "Freedom Or Death!" written in Latin. This upper banner is popular in the Isles, flown and worn as armbands by many, with the three Nation-colors used mostly for sporting events or by the Polynational Coalition, and even then are mostly for recognition of who is representing where during hectic debates and negotiations.
