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alternatehistory.com
War, Peace, and Disease
Chapter 3
The Populists gravitated towards Daglish at first, but Leake promised to include a bill of rights in the Western Australian constitution. They refused to join Leake's government, though, and were only willing to sign a confidence and supply. When Barnett proposed a minimum wage in 1911, Leake tried to shoot it down, but Gregory voted for it as did several other Conservative members. While the Populist Party did follow the terms of the confidence and supply agreement, Gregory voted to bring down the government when Leake issued a motion of confidence. This, in addition with the Labor members, was enough to force a new election. Gregory and his fellow rebels were promptly drummed out, and formed the Liberal Party in response.
The 1911 election was surprisingly civilized despite it being a four-way election. No rallies were held; instead the primary method of campaigning was by posters and brochures. The high point of the campaign was when a small biplane took off from a makeshift aerodrome in Perth towing a banner reading "VOTE LABOR" and dropped 1,000 pamphlets over the unsuspecting town of Mandurah. Members of the Liberals attempted to reply by mounting a gramophone upon a telephone pole that would play a vinyl record that said "VOTE LIBERAL" over and over again, but a sudden downpour destroyed it.
As expected, no party won a majority. The Conservatives won the rural areas, but the mining areas were bitterly divided between Daglish and Gregory supporters. Gregory was ousted from his seat by a few votes, and would never regain parliamentary status. The Populists spread to Bunbury, and had enough seats to form a majority government with Labor.
Barnett and Daglish formed a coalition government, which finally put a bill of rights into the constitution. The governor had power to veto laws if he believed they violated it, which could be overturned by a two-thirds vote of both houses. It was not enforceable in court, and existing laws did not need to conform to it. The first bill vetoed, ironically, was one of their few pet projects: the minimum wage bill was rejected as a violation of freedom of contract, and enough votes could not be mustered to overturn the determination.
In 1914, a group of Bulgarian soldiers mistakenly crossed the border into Romania, and tried to force a whole hamlet full of Romanians out of what they thought was Bulgaria through force of arms. The Bulgarian soldiers then torched the hamlet after looting it of all its valuables. The Romanian press reported the story of a 14-year-old girl who had seen Bulgarian soldiers rampaging through the surrounding countryside, engaging in unspeakable cruelties. Austria-Hungary threatened to invade Romania if it mobilized, and demanded Romania pay Bulgaria compensation for "slander of its honorable army". This drove Romanians in Transylvania to begin a rebellion. Russia proceeded to come to the aid of the Romanians. Germany and Italy proceeded to support Austria-Hungary. France threatened to invade Germany unless it ceased fighting Romania. Germany then, rolling through the Low Countries, attacked France.
Dutch protests to Britain led to its declaration of war against the "Triple Alliance". Western Australian troops, working with Australasian and Dutch overseas soldiers, began to invade New Guinea. The small garrison in New Guinea surrendered rather than face killing by the rumored savage headhunters in the woods. Western Australia and Australasia also cooperated in taking German Samoa. Finally, in 1915, conscription was implemented, freeing up the volunteer soldiers to fight in Europe. With 10,000 new soldiers, a new offensive could be launched in the southern theater of the Western Front, with the objective of taking Turin and Milan. While the Lombard Offensive made good gains in its first two months, Turin and Milan were successfully held, and Italy stayed on the side of the Alliance.
As conscripted men were gradually being sent to the trenches of Europe, a daring plan was hatched. Early in 1916, amidst heavy rain, 20,000 Australasians and Western Australians landed in the small town of Ladispoli only a short distance from Rome. They managed to achieve a successful bridgehead relying on the fact that this area had not been guarded. Italian regulars swiftly returned to repel this invasion, killing over a thousand of this invading corps at the cost of three times that number to themselves. Entente forces moved in swiftly to the pocket: once L'Aquila fell, Italy was in danger of being cut in half, and surrendered.
The performance of the Australasians, especially at the Battle of Valcanneto, when they fought on despite being outnumbered and encircled, earned the respect of nearly all involved. When the United States entered on the side of the Entente, it was all over for the three remaining Alliance powers, and they were forced to sign a treaty in October 1917. Poland was made an independent country, and Romania's borders would be expanded. However the demands of the multiple nationalities for their own state were not answered. Austria-Hungary remained a multinational empire, and Russia an oppressive autocracy.
Peace brought new changes: the "flu". A deadly strain of influenza was observed circulating among Italian prisoners of war captured by the Australasians, who caught it. An attempt by the Western Australian government to impose a quarantine on returning soldiers was swiftly negatived by a nearly unanimous legislative assembly. Three months after the pandemic was first noticed, Barnett, Leake, and Gregory were dead, and Daglish was dying.