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i'am not sure about OTL ottomans but TTL ottomans would totally allow celebration (altho I don't know if they are official allowing days off for Christmas)
Well, the ITTL Empire has enough variety of religions that if every religious holiday was made a bank holiday there wouldn't be any working days left. So I'd imagine something like "everyone gets an annual allowance of Religious holiday days off to spend" might be used, once labor rights progress to a suitable level.
 
Maybe it's late, but Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it!

Not worth spending the time or PR to really ban it, given the unrest that could ensue domestically or internationally.
Agreed with this. I don't suppose religious celebrations of other religions are something to be worth banning over from Ottoman's view, considering the rather larger Christian minorities in the empire, not to mention that there are many Christians who are involved in Ottoman politics of this TL. That, and I suppose the good graces of countries such as Greece, UK, and Bulgaria are something the Ottomans want to keep.
 
Agreed with this. I don't suppose religious celebrations of other religions are something to be worth banning over from Ottoman's view, considering the rather larger Christian minorities in the empire, not to mention that there are many Christians who are involved in Ottoman politics of this TL. That, and I suppose the good graces of countries such as Greece, UK, and Bulgaria are something the Ottomans want to keep.
Hell, how do you enforce it? Kick in doors at random for any Christmas trees? Arrest anyone with Pointsettas in the windows?
 
Holidays in the Ottoman Empire
The recent comments got me thinking so I whipped this uo!

Weekly Public Holiday: Friday

Christian Holidays:-

Pascha/Easter: 17 April
Epiphany: January 6
Annunciation Day: March 25
Transfiguration Day: August 6
Nativity Day: September 8
Jonah's Feast: February 25
Feast of the Cross: March 19
Nayrouz Feast: September 11
Thomas's Sunday: May 9
Christmas: 25 December
Islamic Holidays:-
Eid al-Fitr: ~May
Eid al-Adha: ~July
Prophet's Birthday: ~September-October
Islamic New Year: ~July-August
Ashura: ~July-August
Day of Arafah: ~June-July
First Day of Ramadan: ~March-April
Laylat al-Qadr: ~March-April
Laylat al-Mir'aj: ~February
Jewish Holidays:-
Yom Kippur: ~September 14 - October 14
Sukkot: ~September 19 - October 19
Simchat Torah: ~September 26 - October 26
Hannukka: ~Nov 27 - Dec 27
Purim: ~February-March
Shavuot: ~May-June
Secular Holidays:-
29 May: Constantinople Day
Mehmed II Day: 30 March
Victory Day: May 5
Multi-Ethnic Day: August 3
Mother's Day: May 8
Father's Day: 3rd Sunday of June
Children's Day: October 1
Teacher's Day: October 5
Army Day: June 1
Navy Day: July 1
Airforce Day: August 1
Note that Islamic Holidays are not fixed due to the nature of the Islamic Calendar. The days are fixed every year by theologians in the Islamic World. The same is also the case for Judaism
Like most South East Asian Countries, the OE has a lot of holidays ittl.
Technically only the people of the religious denominations are allowed to have off-days during religious holidays, but the fairly large intermixed populace means that almost everyone gets a day off in almost every religious holiday as well.
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 82792

The recent comments got me thinking so I whipped this uo!

Weekly Public Holiday: Friday

Christian Holidays:-

Pascha/Easter: 17 April
Epiphany: January 6
Annunciation Day: March 25
Transfiguration Day: August 6
Nativity Day: September 8
Jonah's Feast: February 25
Feast of the Cross: March 19
Nayrouz Feast: September 11
Thomas's Sunday: May 9
Christmas: 25 December
Islamic Holidays:-
Eid al-Fitr: ~May
Eid al-Adha: ~July
Prophet's Birthday: ~September-October
Islamic New Year: ~July-August
Ashura: ~July-August
Day of Arafah: ~June-July
First Day of Ramadan: ~March-April
Laylat al-Qadr: ~March-April
Laylat al-Mir'aj: ~February
Jewish Holidays:-
Yom Kippur: ~September 14 - October 14
Sukkot: ~September 19 - October 19
Simchat Torah: ~September 26 - October 26
Hannukka: ~Nov 27 - Dec 27
Purim: ~February-March
Shavuot: ~May-June
Secular Holidays:-
29 May: Constantinople Day
Mehmed II Day: 30 March
Victory Day: May 5
Multi-Ethnic Day: August 3
Mother's Day: May 8
Father's Day: 3rd Sunday of June
Children's Day: October 1
Teacher's Day: October 5
Army Day: June 1
Navy Day: July 1
Note that Islamic Holidays are not fixed due to the nature of the Islamic Calendar. The days are fixed every year by theologians in the Islamic World. The same is also the case for Judaism
Like most South East Asian Countries, the OE has a lot of holidays ittl.
Technically only the people of the religious denominations are allowed to have off-days during religious holidays, but the fairly large intermixed populace means that almost everyone gets a day off in almost every religious holiday as well.
Nice work!
 
Chapter 66: The Swedish Republic of Ostrobothnia & Growing Disillusionment
Chapter 66: The Swedish Republic of Ostrobothnia & Growing Disillusionment




Excerpt: The Nordic Front of the Second Great War: A Background

Swedish speaking Finns have a long history throughout the entirety of Finland’s entire history. Yet after 1936, most of them are conspicuously absent from Finnish life and society, and for many reasons. This is all boils down mainly to the Swedish Republic of Ostrobothnia, which would lay down the foundations for the Nordic Front of the Second Great War. To understand the situation leading up to the rebellion, we must first travel back in time to 1809, when Finland was finally absorbed into Russia after six centuries of continued Swedish rule and authority. From 1809 to 1848, most Swedish speaking Finns found favor in the Russian court and there was little to no oppression of their ethnic group, as they formed the local elite in Finland, but the 1848 – 49 revolutions in Europe created a paranoid fear of ethnic nationalism in the Russian government, and despite the presence of pro-Russian elements in Finland, Russification was introduced as official policy in Finland. This led to the rise of the Fennoman and Swedoman conflict in Finnish society as the idea of a Finnish identity or sticking to a Swedish identity fought against one another. The Fennoman case, by virtue of the large ethnic Finnish population won out, but as the turn of the century arrived, the Swedoman case was still strong, at least within the Swedish speaking community. Yet, the first time Swedish based ethnocentrism in the Grand Duchy of Finland would take place in 1905, as the new reforms after the 1905 Russian Revolution saw several amounts of privileges of the old local elites eroded out. In Finland, this was specifically the Swedish speaking class. Yet, still, it was bearable.


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Swedish Finnish troops in the Russian Army during the 1st Great War

The great turn for most Swedish speaking Finns was the Great War (1915 – 1917/18). Fighting against the Germans and Austro-Hungarians, two countries led by Germanic leader, the Russian government began to look at its own Germanic minorities with ill-hidden suspicion. The Baltic Germans soon found themselves being stripped of most privileges other than their own lands and titular posts. The Volga Germans found themselves restricted to a certain amount of land restrictions, and more importantly, the Swedish Finns, considered Germanic by the Russian government found their lands, their posts and their power stripped away and given to the Parliament of Finland instead. Traditional posts reserved for Swedish Finns, such as the Postmaster of Sveaborg etc were handed out to ethnic Russians and Finns, instead of the Swedes, and this, coupled with the stripped privileges of the 1905 Revolution sparked great anger among the Swedish Finnish population. [1] The Great Central Asian Revolt reviving ethnic nationalism among many also aided the cause of many in the Swedish speaking population.

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Swedish Finns demonstrate in front of the Parliament of Finland

Protests took place, and petitions were sent, and all were ignored. Eric von Rettig, a Swedish speaking regionalist at heart, steered the Swedish People’s Party after the events of 1917-18 to become a firm regionalist and civil nationalist party, as a result. Ethnic Finns were unwilling to aid the Swedish Finns, as the traditional powers of the Swedish Finns were transferred to them through the Parliament of Finland, and this aided in the generation of much inter-ethnic tensions between the two communities. The July 4th Incident, which took place on the 4th of July, 1925 was the last nail in the box for the Swedish Finns, and they looked at the examples of the Estonian Finns, many of whom had fled to Sweden after the Anti-Germanic edicts of 1917-18, and decided to fight for their own ethnic cause. The Swedish Republic of Ostrobothnia was as such born as the result of Russian zealousness, Finnish indecisiveness and Swedish tactlessness.

Whilst small in size, and representing only a small population of around ~250,000 to ~300,000 in Ostrobothnia and its surroundings, alongside Aland, which had sided with the newly nascent Swedish speaking Republic, the Ostrobothnian Republic was relatively well managed and had a fully functioning government with Ernst von Born as its President.


Cabinet PositionName
President of the RepublicErnst von Born
Minister for WarCarl Gustaf Mannerheim
Foreign MinisterKurt Antell
Financial MinisterLeo Ehrnrooth
Deputy Military CommanderHjalmar Procope
Education MinisterJohn Osterholm
Business AdvisorsAugust Ramsay
Henrik Ramsay
Agrarian MinisterEric von Rettig
Director-GeneralPehr Evind Svinhufvud
Labour MinisterKarl Wiik
Communications MinisterRolf Wittig
Aland PremierCarl Bjorkman
Cabinet of the Ostrobothnian Republic © Swedish Archives

But a rebellion such as the scale of Ostrobothnia’s nascent republic was not easily made, and with the limited resources and limited population, many people immediately believed that the entire rebellion would collapse unto itself. And it probably would have, had the cabinet not been so resourceful and competent as they were. Minister for War Mannerheim, embittered by his removal from the Russian Army in 1918 over the anti-Germanic laws, began to prepare the small republic militarily. Swedish regiments defected openly to the republic, and militias and bands were reorganized on a professional and efficient basis by Mannerheim. Foreign Minister Kurt Antell secretly left Ostrobothnia into Sweden and Denmark, where he began to secretly rouse public sentiments in favor of the Republic, which was followed many thousands of aid to the Republic, which was mostly in the form of money and weapons, but sometimes also included Swedish and Scandinavian volunteers. Financial Minister Leo Ehrnrooth nationalized the local industries immediately and passed several wartime regulations to keep the production afloat for a minimal price and Education Minister John Osterholm quickly became involved in passing propaganda in favor of the new Republic. Agrarian Minister Eric von Rettig began the partial collection of agricultural goods for the militias and military whilst also introducing tax breaks to incentivize agriculture. Labour Minister Karl Wiik’s ingenious ideas of labour efficiency, which included ideas such as new macroeconomic trends allowed for a single laborer to become far more efficient than before.


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Jenny af Forselles

The new Republic was cunning as well. Von Rettig’s position as leader of the Swedish People’s Party made key members of said party and its supporters switch allegiance to the Republic, and von Born enlisted the aid of Jenny af Forselles, Annie Furunjelm and Vera Hjelt to aid their cause within the public domain. All three were prominent female activists and Swedish Finnish women in Finnish society and these three campaigned throughout the small republic, increasing morale, and bringing the majority support of the fairer sex as well. Ostrobothnia, always a hotbed of the Swedoman/Svecoman movement, even among ethnic Finns, soon found itself being firmly in favor of the Republic through the combination of these underhanded and cunning tactics employed by von Born.

A combination of all the mentioned factors resulted in a humiliating defeat when the Helsinki garrison of the Imperial Russian Army tried to restore order, only to find itself mostly defeated and captured by the Swedish Finns on the outskirts of Dagsmark on December 28, 1925.

As time gave way to 1926, the Russian government was caught on the backfoot as they tried to find a reasonable way to end the entire crisis. Prime Minister Vladimir Purishkevich was unsure on what course of action he could take with this new rebellion cropping up in Finland. Purishkevich was strange in that sense. He was a far-right politician, and held much reactionary views, such as his rapid anti-semitism, yet the man did hold some sort of respect for democratic principles, something that was not appreciated by Nicholas II when Purishkevich advised him against dissolving the Parliament of Finland to bring back order in Finland, as Purishkevich was quite sure that the exact opposite would happen. The opinions of the ethnic Finns, still in limbo during the entire crisis, would have potentially been lost to Russia if Nicholas II dissolved the Parliament of Finland within his capacity as Grand Duke of Finland. Purishkevich instead advised Purishkevich also silenced Major General Mikhail Diterikhs when it was stated that the man wanted to conduct a ‘holy war’ against the Protestant Swedes who were fighting against Orthodox Russia. Purishkevich enlisted the support of Viktor Pepelyayev, the Russian Interior Minister, and asked him to pressure the Parliament of Finland into declaring against the rebels. This demand, which was subtly broached to the Parliament in early 1926 created a minor crisis in Finland.


1640521629979.png

The Parliament of the Grand Duchy of Finland during the Ostrobothnian Crisis

Prime Minister Lauri Ingman, a conservative premier, was deeply nationalistic about being a Finn, and was in agreement that the Swedish Finns could not be allowed to regain their previous privileges and neither could they be allowed to gain independence. However, he was also aware of the rising ethnic tensions between ethnic Finns and ethnic Swedes in Finland since 1918, and he believed that siding openly with the Petrograd government was going to create a total situation of ethnic war in Finland. As such, at first, he gave non-committal promises to Nicholas II and Purishkevich but made no secure promises. Eventually he had to make a final decision lest he leave the entirety of Finland to the Russian wrath. This decision, instead of deciding on his own, proved to be a misjudged decision, as his conservative cabinet consisted of many peoples such as Herman Gummerus, Vilho Annala, Artturi Vuorimaa and Rafael Erich, who were all previously envious of the privileges enjoyed by the Swedish population until 1918. Some of them being extremely nationalistic, were also unwilling to hand back several amounts of parliamentary power to the Swedes and were by their nationalistic nature, against the Swedish minority of their Grand Duchy. Many in the cabinet, hoping to maintain the status quo, alongside these more radical and nationalistic members, voted in favor of accepting the Russian government’s demands. On February 12, 1926, the Finnish Parliament openly declared against the Swedish rebels in Ostrobothnia.

This declaration allowed Purishkevich to send a 40,000-man army under the command of General Anton Denikin into Finland to deal with the rebels. With the cream of the Russian Army being situated in Central Asia, dealing with the remnants of the 1924 Rebellions, this 40,000 force was the last remnants of a proper professional force in European Russia at the time. Despite the failure of the local garrisons to deal with the rebellion, Denikin hoped that his professional force would be able to defeat the rebellious republic. To an extent this was a realistic goal, as the Swedish militias only operated a total force of ~32,000 troops (a better word for most of them would be militias), and of them only a third were actual professional troops with any military experience. But under the careful leadership of the Republic, the Swedes were intent to make any military actions against them to be a costly and heavy affair whilst limiting their own casualties as well. But before military operations could continue in earnest, as Ingman had predicted, ethnic tensions reached their boiling point. Whilst Finns and Swedes within Ostrobothnia were protected, Swedes and Finns in Turku and Helsinki erupted into a fury of ethnic riots and attacks upon one another. This culminated in the Siege of the Swedish Consulate on March 3, 1926 when Swedish peoples took refuge in the Swedish consulate in Turku, and Russo-Finnish nationalists attacked it. Thankfully, after an hour or two of fighting, the guards of the consulate dispersed the attack and allowed calm to return temporarily in the city, but the event roped Sweden into the crisis as well.

Prime Minister Rickard Sandler was unwilling to involve Sweden in the Ostrobothnian Crisis, despite his personal sympathies for the nascent republic and made that policy clear to his voters and to the government. This idea did not sit well with King Gustaf V and many conservative members of Swedish society. Gustaf V was unwilling to make it seem to the public that the Kingdom of Sweden did nothing whilst Swedes were being killed in Finland. He knew that such an event would provoke elements of the far-right and far-left in Sweden into actions against the Swedish government, and he made this clear to his Prime Minister. The Riksdag of Sweden was already filled with galleries shouting and accusing each other of treason and with their prime minster unwilling to make even the most token of actions for the ethnic Swedes in Finland, the Riksdag passed a vote of no confidence against Sandler, which failed, due to the majority that the social democratic party enjoyed in the Riskdag. But coupled with massive strikes throughout Sweden, and the Riksdag devolving into chaos, whilst Gustaf V made it clear that he did not like his prime minister’s stance, it was clear to Sandler that he did not enjoy the support of the government and the nation and he tendered his resignation to Gustaf V on the 8th of March, allowing Gustaf V to appoint Felix Hamrin of the Free-Minded National Association Party to become Prime Minister of Sweden the next day.


1640521728157.png

Prime Minister Felix Hamrin of Sweden

The former Minister of Trade turned Prime Minister of Sweden also made it clear that any ideas of military intervention was not going to stay on the proverbial table. The idea of Sweden challenging Russia militarily was an idea that belonged in the 1600s and no longer in the 1900s. Despite his clear stance on that issue, he did however turn a willful blind eye towards Swedish volunteers streaming towards Ostrobothnia and Swedish aid being sent to the nascent Republic. This policy of ignoring indirect Swedish aid to the fighting was an open secret, as Hamrin needed to maintain the support of even the nationalist Swedes, if he wanted his government to survive through the crisis. But more publically and directly, he began to open talks with Petrograd regarding the diplomatic intervention of Sweden in the entirety of the crisis. Hamrin positioned his government as the mediator between the rebels and the Russian government, and even arranged a meeting between Ostrobothnian Foreign Minister Kurt Antell and Russian Ambassador to Sweden, Vladimir Morkov. This meeting did not last long, and neither was anything firm established between the two warring sides, but Antell did hint that Ostrobothnia would accept renewed Russian rule if provisions for the Swedish Finns were made accordingly.

This idea was seized upon by Purishkevich, who wanted to avoid a long and strung out crisis for far too long. Though he would be the first person in Russia to be called a Slavic-ultranationalist, he was pragmatic when the times called for it, and asked Tsar Nicholas II if the anti-Germanic laws could be repealed in Finland, and that the pre-1905 privileges be restored. Nicholas II was at first adamant in his stance against repealing the laws and the giving the Swedes their previous privileges, which was ironic, considering the ethnicity of his wife, but Purishkevich managed to convince Nicholas II in a roundabout way that restoring the Swedish privileges was going to strengthen the power of the aristocracy in Russia, which Nicholas II so desired. Certainly this was partially true, as many of the backers of the Ostrobothnian Republic were Swedish Finnish Noble Families, who had lost their lands, titles, business’s and influence as a result of 1905 and 1918. But when this offer was transmitted to the Republic via Sweden, the President, von Born rejected the idea, stating that whilst it had been a good idea, and a good start, the Swedes needed a failsafe, something that was not being offered to them. This was understandable, and Purishkevich starting to formulate new ideas regarding the issue. Whilst he was doing this, Denikin managed to secure a temporary truce with Mannerheim on May 16, 1926 for a two-month period so that the Ostrobothnian and Russian governments could negotiate with one another without being disturbed by military actions. Both the governments of Vaasa and Petrograd were unwilling to have more blood spilt.


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Vladimir Purishkevich
The Russian Prime Minister (1924 - 1928)

That didn’t stop the ethnic riots however. Dastardly pogroms against the Swedish population broke out in Helsinki, Turku, Tampere etc under the auspices of the Russian government, despite the efforts of many Finnish officials to stop them. The more nationalist and ferocious members of the Russian Army sponsored these pogroms and saw to it that around 1000 Swedish Finns living outside of the seceded regions were killed and several thousands more were internally displaced. Ingman personally protested against these pogroms and legislated against them, but even within his own cabinet, more radical and nationalistic members, such as Gummerus and Vilho, both of whom were noted for their anti-Swedish attitudes began to support punitive measures against the Swedish population. Ethnic riots escalated in the following months, to the point that foreign governments, such as Germany, Danubia, Denmark, and Britain began to put pressure on Russia diplomatically to end the crisis quickly, as the Baltic sea trade was suffering as a result of the entire crisis. The ethnically motivated murder of Bishop Gustaf Johansson in Turku certainly appalled the Lutheran and Protestant world.

Purishkevich and the Russian government came up with a remarkably short sighted solution in order to bring the crisis to an end.

Perhaps it was the pressures of two internal rebellions, coupled with internal political and societal dissatisfaction that forced the man to make such a hasty decision, but his proposal, which won some amounts of support from Nicholas II only heightened the issues and tensions that led to the Russian Civil War four years later. In addition to restoring the pre-1905 privileges, and repealing the anti-Germanic laws in Finland, Purishkevich suggested created a devolved zone inside of the Grand Duchy of Finland for the Swedish community. Whilst nominally, this autonomous devolved zone would still be under the jurisdiction of Helsinki, for all practical purposes, it would only answer to Petrograd and no one else. It would give the Swedish Finns freedom to legislate their own laws, as long as it remained within the purview of the Russian Constitution, outside of the authority of Helsinki. Von Born accepted this offer on the 6th of August, 1926 – known as the Ostrobothnian Settlement - much to the horror of the Parliament of Finland. Finnish politicians tried to reverse this decision, but as the Russian Duma overruled the Finnish Parliament, the Autonomous Duchy of Ostrobothnia-Aland was created within the Grand Duchy of Finland with its own devolved legislature and emergency powers, under the devolved authority of the Russian Empire. The government and cabinet of the previous republic remained in power, though republican associations were removed in favor of pro-imperial associations with von Born becoming the titular Regent of the Duchy of Ostrobothnia-Aland, and thus the head of government of the new duchy in the name of Duke Nicholas I (Tsar Nicholas II) of Ostrobothnia-Aland.


1.png

The Highlighted Red Zone became the Autonomous Duchy of Ostrobothnia-Aland, containing 75% of Finland's Swedish Speaking population.

All ideas of supporting the status quo was quickly eroded in Finland as a result of the Ostrobothnian Settlement and soon enough, the third faction in the Russian Civil War – the Nationalist Separatists (Finnish, Polish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Moldavian-Romanian, Georgian, Armenian, Azeri separatist coalition) – found its establishment as resentful and disillusioned Finns began to make anti-Russian societies and political groups in secret as an aftermath of the crisis.




Excerpt: Strasserist Germany: Rise to Power

Rudolf Heinze’s time in power as the Chancellor of Germany is today considered to be the Golden Age of the German Republic for a good reason. His ideas of National Liberalism which mixed in German Nationalism with Classical Liberalism allowed him to move Germany back into a small era of growth and prosperity. The economy was consolidated under his reign, and industrialization of the state was restarted under his leadership. Though Germany was still stuck in what can be termed as a Class Division – the Aristocrats, Commercial, Urban, Rural, Agrarian classes all remained distant from one another – and this often led to petty political debates in the Reichstag, the country was stable for the first time in almost a decade. Cultural freedoms were introduced and Jews, Poles, Danes, Sorbs in the country were allowed to move around freely and work freely for the first time since 1866, which allowed for the man’s popularity to grow. The nearly destroyed German Feminist Movement – as a consequence of Rosa Luxemburg’s near disastrous premiership - was revived under Heinze’s motivations for a national liberal Germany, and received partial government funding, as the country debated on whether or not universal female suffrage could be introduced as well. Said debate became reality in early 1926 when the new electoral law was passed allowing all females above the age of 21 to vote in German elections throughout the country.


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Germany under Heinze was undergoing a resurgence

Despite his success’s in the domestic arena, Heinze’s most popular and well-remembered successes came in the diplomatic and foreign arena. He began a policy of rapprochement and despite his nationalistic desires towards many irredentist parts of central Europe, began to put forward ideas of olive branches towards Paris and Petrograd. The foreign reparations issues were dealt with the steady flow of reparations from Germany into France and Russia, and France’s new government was willing to at least hear the Germans out. A new economic compact agreed between France and Germany in 1925 allowed for the early return of the French Mandate of the Palatinate to Germany and the Russians also signed a maritime trading caucus with the Germans later in 1925 as a result of Heinze’s foreign policy. Heinze managed to secure British investments into German industries as a result of his friendly foreign outlook as well. But even more importantly, Heinze extended a policy of rapprochement to Bavaria and Danubia. The new Minister-President of Danubia, Leon Pininski (from 1922 after Prince Louis’s death in 1922) was amenable to the idea of rapprochement with Berlin, and he opened the habsburg state to renewed relations with Berlin, and economic, diplomatic and societal relations improved. This culminated in the establishment of a new railway network directly connecting Berlin, Prague and Vienna, called the Vienna-Berlin Railway.

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The Vienna-Prague-Berlin Railway Line

Bavaria on the other hand, was far more unwilling for rapprochement with the Germans. Whilst King Rupprecht was willing to renew relations and have a reset with Germany, the newly elected Minister-President of Bavaria, Eugen von Knilling was very much not interested. A well-known Bavarian regionalist during the times of the German Empire, he had quickly cultivated said regionalism into nationalism after the short Bavarian War of Independence, and had grown to deeply distrust the German Republic, which he deemed to be a cheap knockoff of Prussia and filled to the brim with Prussian Supremacists. He denied all ideas of rapprochement and stood stoutly against German unity, instead looking towards other countries, such as Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Russia, Spain to gain economic incentives and investments. But this was a hard struggle. Due to the increased prosperity of Germany, and the relative stagnation of Bavaria, as the country struggled with landlocked economics after five decades of having access to the ocean, unionist sympathies in Bavaria grew and many people in Bavaria advocated for the end of the ‘temporary’ independence and return to German rule. For many people in Bavaria, on the opposite side of the political spectrum, this was impossible, for Berlin was under the control of a republican government, and since Bavaria was a monarchy, Bavaria joining Germany would mean the end of the Bavarian monarchy. In order to counter such ideas, many people brought up the idea of an ‘autonomous monarchy within a Republic’, which was a line of thought that had once been popular in the United States of America in the early 1800s. [2]

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Eugen von Knilling
Minister-President of Bavaria (1923 - 1927)

This idea was untenable, as many politicians in Germany was hesitant to such a precedent, as it could embolden the still suppressed monarchists in the country. As a result, Bavaria began to experience a lot of political polarization as Bavarian nationalists began to politically war with the German unionists within the Kingdom of Bavaria. Both sides used large measures of propaganda and mass media methods to try and sway the population for one side or the other. Personally, King Rupprecht himself was more than willing to rejoin Germany, however only under a model which would allow Bavaria to keep its native monarchy, something which seemed rather untenable due to the presence of Republican sentiments in Germany.

This was the situation in German Europe in 1926, with Germany looking economically resurgent, reconciliation happening with the Danubians and Bavaria thinking about reunification with Germany after a long time. Everything was going right for the Germans. Well, at least until Heinze was assassinated on the 23rd of July, 1926.





Footnotes:

[1] – Based on Nicholas II’s plans for the Germanic populace of Russia after WW1 otl.

[2] – mainly as an ideology to integrate natives and other local kingdoms in the region – in particular Hawaii.
 
1. Even though Finland will gain independence but their hatred against the Swedish and Swedish-speaking Finns is going to be hated since they always hated being under Sweden's control and with the Swedish and Swedish-speaking Finns returning to power... yeah.

2. I think Bavaria is gonna end up in a civil war between pro-Germany and pro-Independence.
 
1. Even though Finland will gain independence but their hatred against the Swedish and Swedish-speaking Finns is going to be hated since they always hated being under Sweden's control and with the Swedish and Swedish-speaking Finns returning to power... yeah.
the russian civil war will certainly be interesting in Finland that's for sure.
2. I think Bavaria is gonna end up in a civil war between pro-Germany and pro-Independence.
its going to be more of an internal instability than civil war.
 
Not exactly a prediction, but:
1. Umm, I think you mistyped "Estonian Finns" instead of "Estonian Swedes".
2. For some reason I can see the Ottomans or the Romanians playing some role in the future Russian Civil War, backing the Moldavians and Azeris or maybe also Armenians, respectively.
3. Are the Tatars (either in Crimea or Volga) going to play some role in the future Russian Civil War?
 
Not exactly a prediction, but:
1. Umm, I think you mistyped "Estonian Finns" instead of "Estonian Swedes".
2. For some reason I can see the Ottomans or the Romanians playing some role in the future Russian Civil War, backing the Moldavians and Azeris or maybe also Armenians, respectively.
3. Are the Tatars (either in Crimea or Volga) going to play some role in the future Russian Civil War?
Every neighbor are going to play a part in the Russian Civil War really.
The Tatars will play an indirect role in the civil war.
 
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