Of Poets and Supermen Volume I - The Drums of War

Persephone · Jun 1, 2020

Chapter I - The Great Expropriation of 1907

“This is not peace. This is an armistice for twenty years.”
- Ferdinand Foch

The Great War: The Long Shadow of 1914, David Reynolds

Of all the wars of the 20th century, none have had a greater impact than the Great War of 1914[1]. The Great War has cast a long shadow over the history of the world, from Europe to Africa, Asia to the Americas. The changes brought about as a result of the bloodiest conflict of the 20th century are still felt in the modern day. From the Red Biennium and the subsequent rise of Carnarism[2] in Italy, to the resounding death knells of European colonialism, and even the Warlord Decades[3] of China; All were affected by the chaos of the Great War. At the Treaty of Versailles, a pessimistic Ferdinand Foch was recorded to have declared that “This is not peace. This is an armistice for twenty years.” History would ultimately prove him to be right, although it is a testament to humanity that in spite of the bloody conflicts that would define the first half of the 20th century, there would never be a global conflict on the same scale as the Great War. Historians to this day still debate whether such a war could have occurred and if the world would’ve been in a better or worse place for it.

The Death of a Revolutionary Expropriator

June 30th, 1907. Tiflis, Tiflis Governorate, Caucasus Viceroyalty.

Mukhtarov, officer of the Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order[4], looked down at the corpse splayed out on the floor of the apartment; He had, along with his fellow officers, forced the now-dead man into the apartment. The man had been on their payroll for some time and had given Mukhtarov notification of a planned robbery in Erivansky Square, organized by the Bolsheviks. He’d promised more information at a later time, and seeing no reason not to believe him, Mukhtarov had let him go about his business. Evidently, he’d been lying, as there were now hundreds of thousands of rubles missing, rubles stolen by that very same gang of Bolshevik terrorists. Worse still were the casualties from the robbery, with forty confirmed deaths and at least fifty injured.

The authorities, led by Mukhtarov and his comrades, had sprung into action at once. They’d mobilized the army in order to close roads and surround Erivansky Square, in the hope that they’d secure the money and capture the bandits. Unfortunately, the witness accounts proved to be scattered and unreliable, and they left the authorities uncertain who was responsible for the robbery. It was then that they began to hear rumors of the Georgian being the architect of the Bolshevik plan. It made sense that the architect of such an audacious plan would be cunning enough to try and deceive their Department handlers; After all, what better way existed to draw attention away from themselves?

With that in mind, Mukhtarov and his fellow officers had whisked the Georgian away for interrogation. What had started as a routine questioning, however, would soon escalate unexpectedly. When Mukhtarov demanded to know why the Georgian hadn’t informed them of the plot, the informant stated that he’d given them more than enough information to prevent the robbery. One thing led to another and a heated argument broke out between the two men. To the utter shock of his fellow officers, Mukhtarov pulled out his service revolver and fired a single shot in a fit of rage.[5]

In an instant, time slowed to a halt, as Mukhtarov and his fellow officers were rendered silent by what had happened. Gingerly, his fellows managed to coax Mukhtarov to hand over the revolver. Now they had a body on their hands, and had to decide how to deal with it. Ultimately, they chose to display the corpse to the world as the sole mastermind of the robbery, in order to send a clear message to any of the Georgian’s compatriots. As Mukhtarov took one last look at the Georgian’s body lying on the floor, he had a single thought in mind: Who would miss this man? Who would mourn for Ioseb Djugashvili?

Kamo: From Robber to Revolutionary, Simon Sebag Montefiore

While the Great War has cast a long shadow over the 20th century, there is another pivotal event that must be mentioned when discussing the turmoil of the decades following the Great War. When it occurred, it was dismissed as the death of yet another revolutionary terrorist in the Russian Empire. A regrettable death caused by an impassioned argument between one Officer Mukhtarov of the Okhrana and his Georgian informant, yes, but otherwise it was nothing out of the ordinary to the Tsar’s secret police. In fact, the death of Ioseb Djugashvili, otherwise known as Koba, in an Okhrana apartment in Tiflis would play a key role in the rise of another man. This man, a politically illiterate bandit who lacked fluency in the Russian language, became galvanized by the death of his closest compatriot, and was determined to live up to his legacy. Eventually, he would rise to the heights of power and leave an indelible mark on the history of the 20th Century. To the Ohkrana, he was Simon Ter-Petrosian, but to his friends and family, he was known as Kamo.

Erivansky Square, scene of the robbery, taken in the 1870s

Kamo: A Critical Survey of Petrosianism, Boris Souvarine

In 1907, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) was split into two camps, the Mensheviks led by Julius Martov on one side, and the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin on the other. By the time of the Great Expropriation, the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party had not yet convened[6]. One of the points of contention between the two factions of the party was the use of militant action in support of the revolution, in particular the use of “expropriations”, a euphemism for robberies committed against government or private funds in order to finance revolutionary activities. The Mensheviks opposed the continued use of violence and sought a more peaceful and gradual approach to revolution, while the much more militant Bolsheviks strongly advocated for it. When the Congress finally opened in mid-July, the delegations were abuzz with news of the Great Expropriation, and some Mensheviks noted that the Bolshevik camp seemed invigorated by their success.

Lenin was, in fact, emboldened by the success of the Great Expropriation, and he was especially impressed with Kamo, who he referred to as his “Caucasian bandit”. While saddened by the death of Djugashvili, Lenin was delighted by Kamo, who would go on to spend two months, from July to August, with Lenin and Krupskaya. Later in life, Kamo would proclaim that those two months spent in Finland with Lenin and Krupskaya were “The happiest two months of my life”, and it is here where he first charmed Krupskaya, who would go on to play a key role in his rise to power following Lenin’s death. It was this triumphant attitude that Lenin brought with him to the 5th Congress, which proved to be a rousing success for the Bolsheviks, who proposed a resolution commending the use of militant action in the support of the revolution. The resolution (which also called for the continued maintenance of party militias, something that would prove invaluable during the Civil War) was passed with sixty-five percent supporting and a measly six percent opposing[7]. The resolution was supported by the entirety of the Bolsheviks, with even some Mensheviks supporting it, impressed by the success of the Great Expropriation.

Kamo, meanwhile, would be arrested in Berlin in the autumn of that year, having been directed by Lenin to receive treatment for his eye, which had been injured in an accident only weeks before the robbery[8]. Unbeknownst to Lenin, the man who he had sent Kamo to, Dr. Yakov Zhitomirsky, was a secret agent of the Okhrana under the aliases Andre and Daudet[9]. After informing his Okhrana handlers of Kamo’s arrival, Zhitomirsky alerted the Berlin police, who arrested Kamo and found a forged Austrian passport and a case filled with 200 detonators. Evidently, he was planning yet another robbery, this time in Berlin. He would spend the following years in prison, feigning insanity and only barely escaping execution on numerous occasions, before being freed as a result of the 1917 Revolution. This time spent in prison would shape him a great deal, ultimately contributing to his transition from illiterate bandit to consummate revolutionary.

Footnotes
[1] The Great War ITTL is the only global war of its kind, with the 1930s and 40s being plagued by regional conflicts between various countries and ideologies rather than an all-encompassing global war.
[2] Carnarism, also known by the original Italian name of Carnarismo or even the D’Annunzian System, is TTL’s version of Fascism. More on that later.
[3] TTL’s analogue to the combined Warlord Era and the subsequent Chinese Civil War
[4] Otherwise known as the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police.
[5] IOTL, Mukhtarov only struck Djugashvili in the face before being restrained by his fellow Okhrana officers. He would later be suspended for his actions. Here, he loses his cool and ends up killing Djugashvili on the spot.
[6] IOTL, the 5th Congress took place between May and July in London, with the Tiflis expropriation taking place a few weeks after the Congress ended.
[7] IOTL, the resolution was instead put forward by the Mensheviks, calling for a condemnation of militant actions, especially expropriation. Here, the success of the Tiflis expropriation gives the Bolsheviks an opportunity to push forward their own resolution. The sixty-five percent support for the OTL resolution was all of the Mensheviks and some of the Bolsheviks.
[8] As in OTL, Kamo sustained an injury to his eye, leaving a permanent scar and confining him to his bed for a month, and wasn’t even fully recovered by the time of the robbery.
[9] As in OTL, Zhitomirsky was a prominent Bolshevik physician who operated as an Okhrana spy under those aliases. Later, he would go on to serve in the Russian Expeditionary Force in France during the Great War and report on revolutionary propaganda among Russian troops.

Persephone · Jun 24, 2020

Howdy, y'all. After a bit of time thinking on it, I've revised the previous teaser for the Battle of Parma to reflect some of the overall changes and revisions I've made to the timeline over the course of writing the rest of Chapter I, which is still diligently being worked on. In the meantime, I've whipped up another teaser for Chapter I, this time focusing on an event in the United States right at the start of the 1920s, an event that will ultimately set the tone for the rest of the decade. Enjoy!

Persephone · Jun 25, 2020

One thing I want to say is that there's a butterfly net set up around The Great War up until the *Paris Peace Conference. Now, as far as the *Paris Peace Conference goes, I've essentially glossed over the minutiae involved with it for the sake of my own sanity and in order to go forward and tell a more compelling story. If I'm being completely honest, the diplomatic quagmire that was the various peace treaties involved in ending World War One in OTL makes my brain hurt and I have no desire to write about that. I know that may come across as lazy and a turn off for some but you have to understand that this timeline will already be a daunting task for someone as obsessed with perfection as I am. If I'm being even more honest, I loathe Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations as a whole, and while as a student of history, (indeed, I'm pursuing a history degree as part of my ongoing collegiate studies) I'm well aware of the impact of the Paris Peace Conference on the conditions leading up to World War Two in OTL, I have no desire to make my own half-hearted attempt at the complex diplomatic process involved in concluding World War One.

Please try to respect my desire to not compromise my sanity by attempting to replicate that process on top of what is already a daunting task. In the future, I'll be more than willing to go into the intricacies of the peace treaties involved with various conflicts that will occur in the timeline, but replicating the Paris Peace Conference is beyond my abilities as a writer and scholar. That being said, the *Paris Peace Conference will more or less converge with OTL's Peace Conference, albeit one that omits two of Wilson's Fourteen Points; Namely, the part of Point XII regarding autonomous development and all of Point XIV. I have my own reasons for this, mainly because my approach to writing PPM (Pro Patria Mori) generally follows the maxim of "Things have to get worse before they become better", which means a peace that involves a lot more of good old-fashioned European imperialism (though there will be some differences with regards to the fate of the Ottoman Middle East). I'd like to apologize for this in advance, as I'm sure some will take issue with this approach.

Well folks, it took me a few weeks of meticulous research and borderline perfectionism, but I'm proud to present Chapter II - The Birth of a Revolutionary to you, my eager audience. I'd originally planned to post this all as one big post covering all of Chapter I, but with the amount I've been writing, I figured that it would be easier to read/parse (and let me post more updates more frequently, tbh) if I decided to post it section by section. I will note that while there may be some creative liberties taken in this and with future updates for the sake of telling a better story, I still aim to be as plausible as possible. As stated in the Author's Note, there's a butterfly net over much of the Great War and there's convergence with OTL for the most part up until the *Paris Peace Conference. Feedback from readers will always be appreciated, especially with regards to recommendations on reading material for my research. With regards to the next chapter, I'll leave the poll up for about a day or two before closing it once there's some more feedback. Now, without any further ado, kick back, grab your vice of choice, turn the old radio on, and get ready for the start of the strange and beautiful ride that is Of Poets and Supermen!

Chapter II - The Birth of a Revolutionary

“It is in prison that one becomes a real revolutionary.”
- Vladimir Illyich Lenin

Kamo: From Robber to Revolutionary, Simon Sebag Montefiore

For much of the period leading up to the Great War and even during it, Kamo was imprisoned, first by the Germans and later by the Russians after the Germans extradited him to Russia. Throughout this period, up until his final imprisonment in Russia, Kamo feigned insanity upon the advice of Leonid Krasin, a tactic that worked surprisingly well for the man given the difficulty involved[1] in such a feat. It was so effective that his lawyer, Oscar Kohn, told one Bolshevik leader in Berlin that “Whenever I visit him in the presence of outsiders, I feel sure that he has really lost his mind.” The extent to which Kamo played this role was extraordinary; He tore off half of his mustache to scatter the hairs on his quilt, sharpened a bone in his soup and severed an artery in his left hand, and once hung himself and nearly died[2]. For two years, he was held in German prisons and insane asylums, until the Germans decided to hand him over to the Russians in 1909. For the next two years, Russian medical officials continued to examine him as he was moved from facility to facility, before declaring him irreparably insane in 1911[3].

It was in 1911 that Kamo made his most daring action yet, a feat that he would not surpass until after the Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Russian Civil War. Imprisoned in the Mikhailov Hospital in Tiflis, Kamo befriended an attendant at the hospital, a simple-minded man known as Bragin[4]. Using his considerable charisma to win over Bragin, Kamo convinced him to aid in his escape, after which the two would flee abroad. Working in secrecy, Kamo sawed through the bars of his cell and the chains on his legs, using a paste with bread and tying his chains with wire in order to conceal his progress[5]. He did this while continuing to feign madness, further demonstrating his prowess as a master of disguise. Finally, Bragin arranged for clothes to be brought to Kamo on August 11th in preparation of his escape. Four days later, Kamo effected his escape by sliding down a rope brought to him by Bragin, before making his way to the Central Police Administration building in the heart of the city[6].

Once there, Kamo proceeded to hide in the cellars of the building, right under the noses of the authorities. It was now clear that he had been feigning insanity all these years, and the police scoured the city for him day and night. They even went as far as searching his sisters’ house, and finding nothing, arrested them instead. A month after his escape, Kamo arrived in Batum by train, staying only for a few days at the home of an associate before departing for Turkey, from whence he would eventually make his way to Paris and to Lenin[7]. It was in Paris that Lenin would take Kamo under his wing, by now viewing him as a political protégé, and would encourage him to continue his education in Marxist theory[8A]. Kamo, who had been galvanized by the death of his closest friend Djugashvili, was all too eager to be under the tutelage of Lenin, even as the nascent revolutionary grew restless with life in Paris[8B]. Eventually, it was decided that Kamo would seek treatment for his scarred eye in Belgium, before returning to the Caucasus by sea in order to further facilitate the transportation of revolutionary arms and literature to Russia[9]. While this return trip would unfortunately end with Kamo’s imprisonment, he would nevertheless heed Lenin’s advice and continue his transformation from robber to revolutionary in the years to come.

A young Kamo, as documented in a Tsarist police photograph.

Another photograph of Kamo, presumably from his time imprisoned before and during the Great War

Vladimir Lenin, Kamo's political mentor, pictured here in 1910.

After the Downfall: Early Soviet Russia and the Rise of Kamo, Harold Turtletaub

Despite the claims of Soviet propaganda, Kamo was not always a dedicated revolutionary and statesman. As Western historians have noted in the decades following his death, Kamo, while possessing a particular revolutionary spirit, was originally nothing more than a politically illiterate bandit. In fact, it was only after the death of his comrade Djugashvili and his subsequent stints in prison that Ter-Petrosian (as Kamo was originally known) became a dedicated Marxist. After his return to the Caucasus and subsequent capture by Tsarist authorities in 1913, Kamo was condemned to death, and certainly seemed resigned to it. Indeed, it was only by sheer coincidence that he was spared from death, with his sentence commuted to twenty years of hard labor as part of the Romanovs’ tricentennial celebrations. Even in the face of such a lengthy sentence, he remained devoted to Lenin and the Bolshevik cause, throwing himself into the study of Marxism encouraged by his mentor[10]. He would spend the next four years like this, until the February Revolution[11] liberated him from prison, a stalwart revolutionary ready for the conflict to come.

It would be during this great period of upheaval that Kamo would first meet the man who would eventually help facilitate his rise to power in the years following Lenin’s incapacitation[12]. If Lenin is viewed as Kamo’s political mentor, then Felix Dzerzhinsky must be viewed as Kamo’s mentor in terror. Dzerzhinsky had spent much of the Great War imprisoned by the Tsarist authorities, languishing in Moscow’s Butyrka Prison[13]. Some historians speculate that it was this shared experience in Tsarist prisons that brought Dzerzhinsky and Kamo together, although others opine that the ruthless natures of the two men were what truly bound them together[14]. Regardless of the origin of their friendship, the pair made for an odd couple within the Bolsheviks[15]. After their liberation in the February Revolution, the two were appointed to prominent positions following the establishment of the Council of People's Commissars; Kamo was made the People’s Commissar of Nationalities[16], while Dzerzhinsky would end up becoming the first Chairman of the All-Russian Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage[17], which would be formed a month after the Bolsheviks seized power. These early roles of Kamo and Dzerzhinsky, along with their subsequent actions during the Russian Civil War and First Polish-Soviet War, would play a key part in the later policies adopted during the consolidation of power after Lenin’s death.

The "odd couple" of the Bolsheviks, Simon Ter-Petrosian (Kamo, picture taken in 1920) and Felix Dzerzhinsky (picture taken in 1918)

Footnotes
[1-7] All of the events mentioned here, including the quote from Oscar Kohn, the feigned insanity, the charming of Bragin, the audacity of Kamo's escape, and the final flight to Paris and Lenin all actually happened IOTL. There are plenty more details about Kamo feigning insanity that I could've put in, but it would've taken away from the narrative. This isn't me taking creative liberties or using hyperbole, the man was genuinely impressive as a bank robber and terrorist, despite being someone viewed as "politically illiterate" with a sheer love of killing.
[8A] IOTL, Kamo was torn by the rift between Lenin, Leonid Krasin, and Alexander Bogdanov, having been deeply attached to all three men. ITTL, he is instead more devoted to Lenin, owing to his success in the Great Expropriation and the praise that Lenin subsequently lavishes on him. In addition, Lenin never had much of an attachment to Kamo or viewed him as a political protégé IOTL, instead listening to the recitals of his exploits with "great pity", according to Krupskaya's memoirs. Obviously, ITTL, things develop differently.
[8B] Similarly, while Kamo did grow restless and paranoid with life in Paris IOTL, he was never much of a revolutionary scholar/student, mainly being instructed in Marxism by Stalin during their early years together. ITTL, on the other hand, he puts more effort into studying as a result of Djugashvili's death.
[9] This occurred in the same manner as IOTL, albeit without Lenin encouraging Kamo's continued studies of Marxism.
[10] IOTL, he spent most of his time plotting escape, true to his character. ITTL, he instead takes a more inward focus in order to further his political education.
[11] Actually occurred from March 8th to March 16th in accordance to the New Style, while it was instead listed as occurring from February 23rd to March 3rd in accordance to the Old Style, as IOTL.
[12] Lenin eventually meets the same fate he did IOTL, as his health declines and he suffers from a series of strokes between 1921 to his death in 1924.
[13] As IOTL, Dzerzhinsky is imprisoned in Butyrka Prison, where he is eventually freed in 1917 and subsequently joins the Bolsheviks as a result.
[14] Kamo was just as ruthless as Dzerzhinsky turned out to be IOTL, although he operated on a significantly smaller scale in comparison. When he was given permission to form a group of commandos to gather funds through raiding during the wars following the Bolshevik seizure of power, his chief means of testing his recruits involved troops dressed as White soldiers ambushing said recruits in the woods. The recruits were then beaten brutally and tied to trees in preparation for execution, all on the orders of Kamo. When one unfortunate man actually admitted to being a Polish spy for Piłsudski in 1919, Kamo shot him on the spot and allegedly cut his heart out in order to show it to the rest of the commandos.
[15] Kamo was the son of a wealthy Armenian contractor and his Georgian wife, whose early education was considerably lacking in substance. Dzerzhinsky, on the other hand, was the scion of Polish nobility, educated in the Wilno gymnasium and fluent in four languages (Polish, Russian, Yiddish, and Latin). To call the friendship that develops between them ITTL that of an "odd couple" is an understatement, in my opinion.
[16] IOTL, this position was occupied by Stalin. The differences in policy between Kamo and Stalin ITTL will be explored more later on.
[17] The full name of the organization being the All-Russian Extraordinary (or Emergency) Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage Under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, abbreviated as VChK, and commonly known as Cheka. As IOTL, they were the first of the Soviet secret police organizations, though ITTL the organization will last longer and have a more profound effect on Soviet politics and ideology.

Persephone · Aug 25, 2020

Hey folks! This isn't really an "update" per se, because classes started up again last week, so my writing's kind of taken a hit while I readjust my schedule. The Italian update will hopefully be done this week in my free time, but don't quote me on that. In the meantime, I made this nifty little chart that shows some of the possible futures in PPM's timeline. I'm a big fan of the "future compass" meme format, so I decided to make my own for shits and giggles, as well as to give folks a glimpse at what I've got in store. None of this is "canon" yet and I obviously can't cover every single nation that plays a role in the timeline, so I'll probably be making more of these in the future. For now, feel free to speculate and guess at what each entry means and how blessed (or cursed) they are. I will note that "good" and "bad" in the chart are a bit misleading since PPM's timeline is firmly an example of the Grey-and-Grey Morality and Black-and-Grey Morality tropes (the former moreso than the latter) and no one's really that innocent in the long run. As always, please feel free to ask questions about anything you're wondering about my plans for the TL or let me know how things are so far! I love to hear constructive feedback!

Persephone · Oct 8, 2020

Laserfish said:
I see you have changed the title to "Of Poets and Supermen". I'm thinking that the "Poets" part is in reference to the influence that D'Annunzio and Carnarism will have in the world. The "Supermen"part is referencing to the general fascist and authoritarian need/desire for a strong dictatorial authority figure to lead the state, and the theory of ubermensch, or "superman". Than again, this is me guessing with what knowledge I know and have just searched up as I type. So, if it doesn't spoil too much, if at all, would you kindly explain why the title was changed from "Pro Patria Mori: A World Gone Mad" to this?

It doesn't spoil anything at all, thanks for asking! Now, while your analysis/speculation is actually really good (to be frank, I wish I'd come up with it, hah) it's honestly a lot simpler than that. I've been developing the concept behind this timeline for the better part of three years, as I stated in the OP. I was about 18 or 19 back then and I'm 22 now, and in the years since then this timeline has undergone a number of changes as I tweaked and fiddled with it on and off. I've been a fan of Latin for a while (honestly, I'm a Romaboo and a big Italophile, stemming from a childhood trip to Italy that had a profound effect on me) and at the time I liked the original name of Pro Patria Mori (taken from the Horace line "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori", which translates as "It is sweet and fitting to die for the homeland/fatherland"), since the original concept was very much a grimdark multipolar Cold War. But lately, as I've written the timeline and developed it further, I've felt like the original name was increasingly generic and cliché, and wouldn't attract as much attention as I want it to.

While I still like the original name to an extent, I came up with the new title, Of Poets and Supermen, after some discussion with my friend Ottoman (who isn't particularly active on the site but is still listed as a collaborator in the OP because I frequently bounce ideas off him on Discord) about new titles yesterday. He said that it had a neat ring to it that didn't sound like a lot of other alt-history titles/stories, and I agreed with him. In fact, at some point in the future, provided I get a decent enough audience for OPAS, I'm planning on making an expanded universe thread for the timeline, in the style of What Madness is This? and A More Perfect Union. I want people to interact with this timeline, to come up with their own ideas and speculate about what might happen, and I'm willing to give people the chance to write content for OPAS and make it canon if it fits with my vision for the timeline.

Now, as for the meaning of the title, it comes from a portion of a speech given by D'Annunzio in the next update that's an analogue to Mussolini's OTL Sansepolcrismo speech in 1919, where he declares that the members of his movement shall be "poets and supermen, depending on the circumstances of time, place, and environment". D'Annunzio in OTL was very much a sort of Italian Nietzschean figure, embracing the concept of the Nietzchean Superman and proclaiming himself to be one, as he does ITTL. The movement he leads ITTL is very much influenced by his interpretation of the concepts of the Übermensch and the will to power, and that influence will be shown in the post on Carnarism that will be written in the future. Now, with regards to that update, I realize that I've taken a long time to write it and I'm hoping future updates will take a shorter time, but I really do try to make this as plausible as possible, while still telling an entertaining story.

In fact, contrary to what I stated in the OP, the timeline has gradually evolved from a Type II/Type III timeline on the Sliding Scale of Alternate History Plausibility to closer to a Type I/Type II timeline as I thought more about how the butterflies would fly. With that being said, any help with research, particularly in regard to the subject of economics and military logistics (I am not an economist or particularly well-versed in economics and numbers/math/logistics was never really my strong suit), would be greatly appreciated, since my focus on history is more on the political/ideological/sociological side rather than the economic/logistical side. I've only got so much time on my hands to write for OPAS, since I'm currently taking online classes this semester for my university transfer degree at my local community college. I hope folks can understand that and be patient with me, though it wouldn't surprise me if they're not lol. Hopefully, this answers any questions you or anyone else might have about the name change and the future of this timeline.

Persephone · Oct 14, 2020

Hey there y'all, it's finally time for the next chapter, and we're back with a bang! This chapter is the longest so far, sitting at well over 6000 words and that's before you take in the extensive list of footnotes (a staggering 94 in total, which will be completely optional to read, though they give you a lot of context with regards to Italy's Red Biennium in OTL and the Fiume Expedition, as well as some of my creative/narrative decisions) that I've written. Unfortunately, I'll have to split this chapter up into two posts, since the ten file limit per post makes things slightly more difficult than I'd intended, so the footnotes will all be in the second part of the chapter. Regardless it's an absolute monster of a chapter and I had a blast writing it, and I hope everyone enjoys reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. After this chapter, the post schedule is going to be somewhat different than what I outlined earlier, with roughly three to four Italian POV chapters, from the perspectives of three Carnarist figures and one neutral international observer. Following that, I'm gonna delay heading over to the US in favor of switching things up and going back to Russia, the rise of Kamo, and two detailed ideology posts on the tenets of Carnarism and Petrosianism. I've made this decision for two reasons, first because as @Laserfish has guessed in previous posts upthread, Carnarism and Petrosianism play a major role in the world of OPAS, and second because I consider it unfair to you guys to make you wait for the chapters on the Italian and Russian Civil Wars to be complete before talking about their respective ideological currents. After that, we're gonna take a look at the losers of the Great War, Germany, Austria-Hungary (with a particular focus on Hungary more than Austria and the rest of the Empire), and Turkey. Finally, while this chapter doesn't go into the total numbers of each faction in the Italian Civil War, I'll be posting a brief interlude before the POV chapters focusing on the manpower and the advantages/disadvantages of the factions in the war.

As always, I encourage reader discussion and feedback on my baby, in particular what you like or dislike, as I'm certainly open to criticism as much as I am to praise. I'll hopefully be able to pound out more chapters this week, since I'm currently on fall break (which unfortunately is just one week

) and can spend a lot more of my free time writing than usual. As an aside, if anyone in the audience is inclined to make a TV Tropes or All The Tropes page (preferably the former, as the latter doesn't seem to be updated nearly as much) for OPAS sometime in the future once the timeline has picked up speed, I'd appreciate it a lot. Having an eager audience and a TV Tropes/All The Tropes page would confirm that I've "made it" among the AH.Com community, so to speak, and I'd be more than willing to dedicate a chapter to whoever made the page as a token of my gratitude. On one last note, it tickles me pink that Chapter III is post 69 of the thread, because if you can't have a little bit of fun with your timeline, what's the point?

Now then, here are a couple of listening suggestions for when you read the post. In the future, I'll be providing plenty of musical accompaniments to go along with the written and visual aspects of the chapters, to help create an interesting reading experience for you guys. First up is Babylon is Fallen, as performed by Jeremy Bass. This one is an American song, but the haunting tone and lyrical content fits well with the theme of Italy going to hell in a handbasket.

If that's not your style or you'd prefer something with more of a genuine Carnarist feel, there's Fiamme Nere (Black Flames) or Il Canto degli Arditi (The Song of the Arditi), the Great War era marching song of the Arditi shock troops, who make up a large part of the Carnarist army during the ICW and afterwards. It's a decidedly patriotic and somewhat uplifting tune that really exemplifies the spirit of the Arditi (and by extension, the spirit of Carnarism in general).

Finally, if classical music is more your thing, we have a compilation video of various performances of Vivaldi's sacred vocal works, something that I listened to more than once during the writing process of this chapter.

Now that that's out of the way, I am proud to present Chapter III of Of Poets and Supermen, Garibaldi's Nightmare!

Chapter III - Garibaldi's Nightmare (Part 1)

“I have promised to fulfill Randaccio’s vow! But first you must consecrate this flag. I want you, the people of Rome, to consecrate it... It is large, it is very large for it was destined to fly from the Duino Tower... that they might see it from Trieste... This, Romans, this, Italians, is our flag for this hour... In its folds I salute in your name the martyrs as yet without their palm: Fiume and Zara, Sebenico... Ragusa, Cattaro!”
- Gabriele D’Annunzio

Garibaldi’s Nightmare: Mutilated Victory and the Italian Civil War, Mauro Valeri

When compared to its allies Britain and France[1], the Kingdom of Italy gained relatively little as a result of victory in the Great War[2]. While their British and French counterparts were able to achieve their war goals rather easily, the efforts of the Italian delegation to do the same were hampered from the very beginning. The nominal head of the Italian delegation, Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, couldn’t speak English and suffered from a weak political position back home, one that would only get weaker as time went on[3]. As a result, the Italian negotiations were conducted jointly by Orlando and the Italian foreign minister, the conservative Sidney Sonino[4]. While both men sought to implement the terms of 1915’s Treaty of London, their differences in approach would ultimately prove disastrous for the Italian delegation. While Orlando was more than willing to give up Italian claims on Dalmatia in order to secure the annexation of the Adriatic port of Fiume, Sonino was firmly against it[5]. In the end, the Italian delegation pushed their claims on both Dalmatia and Fiume, only to subsequently be denied both at the conclusion of the Paris Peace Conference[6], in no small part due to the opposition of the American delegation led by Vice-President Thomas R. Marshall[7].

Naturally, the predicted results of the Paris Peace Conference were heavily criticized by the radical elements of Italian politics, in spite of the fact that the Italian delegation had achieved a number of their territorial goals[8]. On the left, the Partito Socialista Italiano (the Italian Socialist Party or PSI), which had taken a militant stance during the Great War[9], decried the Liberal-Democratic government for betraying the ideals of Italian liberation that had driven the country into the war. On the right, the Associazione Nazionalista Italiana (the Italian Nationalist Association) was similarly incensed over the perceived abandonment of Fiume to Yugoslavia and the failure of the Italian delegation to gain the northern portions of Dalmatia[10]. In a surprising show of cooperation, these normally hostile parties had united in their shared criticism of the government. In spite of the situation at home, the Italian delegation in Paris would nevertheless go on to sign the Treaty of Versailles in June of 1919, although Prime Minister Orlando was replaced by the Radical[11] politician Francesco Saverio Nitti following his resignation over the inability to secure Fiume for Italy[12]. Later on, Orlando would continue to declare with pride that he’d refused to sign the treaty, even as brother turned against brother and civil war tore Italy apart. In the end, Orlando’s pride in not signing the treaty would do nothing to spare him from the horrors of civil war.

From Left to Right: Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French Prime Minister Georges Clémenceau, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, and Italian Foreign Minister Sidney Sonino.

Prime Minister Francesco Saverio Nitti, Italian signatory of the Treaty of Versailles, pictured here in 1919.

Nevertheless, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Italy had won the Great War, but at a high price. Italy had lost a staggering 651,000 of her sons fighting for the Entente, only to be betrayed by their so-called allies and denied a complete victory over their rivals. As the reality of the post-war situation began to sink in, a new term began to circulate among the populace, vittoria mutilata (Mutilated victory). First coined in late 1918 by the celebrated nationalist poet and war hero Gabriele D’Annunzio, the rhetoric of vittoria mutilata was promoted by both the nationalists of the ANI and the socialists of the PSI[13]. Indeed, the ideas expressed by vittoria mutilata slowly but surely wormed their way into the hearts of many Italians. Despite these developments, the Nitti administration nevertheless tried to steer the ship of state, yet growing social unrest and a burgeoning economic crisis spelled problems from the start. The war had been won, but only time would tell if the Italian government could win the peace.

Unfortunately for the Nitti administration, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and the end of the war would not lead to the joyous celebration of Italian triumph that many had hoped for. Instead of peace and prosperity, the Italian people found themselves faced with rising inflation and exorbitantly priced basic goods, during a period of widespread unemployment made even worse by the mass demobilization of the Regio Esercito (the Royal Army)[14]. The growing social unrest drove many into the open arms of the PSI, the leading socialist trade union, the Confederazione Generale del Lavoro (General Confederation of Labor or CGDL), and the anarcho-syndicalist Unione Sindacale Italiano (Italian Syndicalist Union or USI). The PSI’s membership swelled to 250,000 members, while the CGL grew to a whopping two million members and the USI reached somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 affiliates[15]. The Nitti administration did its best to deal with the uneasy situation, even as the PSI called for a general strike in July of 1919. In spite of these attempts, the situation grew increasingly fraught as time went by, as violent clashes between socialist and nationalist paramilitaries became increasingly common. At the forefront of these paramilitary clashes were the “rising stars” of the PSI, maximalists Benito Mussolini and Filippo Corridoni[16], leading the socialist fighters of the Guardie Rosse (Red Guards) against the nationalist squadristi of the Camicie Azzurre (Blueshirts).

Benito Mussolini and Filippo Corridoni, the rising stars of the revolutionary maximalist faction of the PSI.

During this period of social unrest and political turmoil, a sequence of events would unfold, ultimately leading to the established order of Italy being overturned in its entirety after a devastating civil war. At the center of these events was one man, perhaps the most important political figure of Italy in the early 20th century, and certainly one of the most celebrated figures in modern Italy: Gabriele D’Annunzio[17]. D’Annunzio, already a celebrated poet and nationalist figure in Italy prior to the Great War, was elevated to even greater heights of prestige thanks to his actions during that momentous conflict. Enlisting voluntarily in the Regio Esercito in spite of his age (he was 52 at the time), D’Annunzio first distinguished himself as an aerial observer, dropping pro-Italian propaganda over the Austro-Hungarian city of Trieste, before taking part in the Eighth and Ninth Battles of the Isonzo. After a period of convalescence in Venice following a flying accident which led to the loss of sight in one of his eyes, D’Annunzio returned to the front to take part in the bloody fight across the Timavo river during the Tenth Battle of the Isonzo. D’Annunzio’s legend only grew as the war raged on, with the warrior poet seemingly appearing wherever there were daring actions to be undertaken for the glory of the nation. Even during the bloody Italian rout at Caporetto, Il Vate (The Poet) was there, rousing the war-weary Italian troops with fiery speeches.

Yet the two actions for which D’Annunzio would receive the most acclaim during the Great War were still to come, and when they did, they would cement D’Annunzio’s post-war image as the glorious and daring warrior poet that he is still celebrated as today. First, in the wake of the disastrous Italian defeat at Caporetto, D’Annunzio took part in the audacious raid on the Austro-Hungarian port of Bakar, in which three fast-moving torpedo boats of the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy) snuck into the port’s harbor and fired a total of six torpedoes at the boats in the harbor. While the raid (which would come to be known as the Bakar Mockery) was militarily irrelevant with little to no effect on the overall war effort, it did wonders for the public morale, which had been ruined by the disaster at Caporetto. Furthermore, it had served as a powerful psychological blow to the Austrians, who had viewed Bakar as impregnable and safe from attack. But the Bakar Mockery paled in comparison to D’Annunzio’s greatest wartime achievement, the legendary Flight over Vienna, in which Il Vate led a formation of seven planes of the 87th Fighter Squadron ‘La Serenissima’ on a seven hundred mile round trip to the Austro-Hungarian capital of Vienna. There, they dropped 50,000 propaganda leaflets written by D’Annunzio himself on the enemy’s heads, firmly cementing his reputation as a man of action. It comes as no surprise then, that as Italy’s preeminent nationalist figure, D’Annunzio would violently denounce the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, especially the loss of Fiume, alongside his allies and disciples[18] within the ANI. However, for all of D’Annunzio’s talk about reclaiming Fiume for Italy, the Nitti government and most international observers dismissed it as nothing more than the usual nationalist bluster.

Artistic depiction of D'Annunzio dropping pro-Italian propaganda over the city of Trieste in 1915.

An Italian propaganda poster advocating for the annexation of Dalmatia and Fiume by Italy.
Roughly translated, the poster states "To whom Dalmatia? To us! Either Fiume or Death!"

Persephone · Oct 15, 2020

Hey there, folks! The second part took a bit longer than I'd hoped as a result of the sheer number of footnotes I had to write up. Honestly, I think this sets a new AH.com record for total number of footnotes in a timeline chapter. You don't have to read them but I consider them crucial to understand the full context of the chapter. Anyway, the show must go on, so here's part two of Chapter III, enjoy!

Chapter III - Garibaldi's Nightmare (Part 2)

Garibaldi’s Nightmare: Mutilated Victory and the Italian Civil War, Mauro Valeri

Unfortunately for the government, they were wrong. On September 11th, 1919, a particularly auspicious date for him[19], D’Annunzio and twenty-five hundred[20] men, many of them black-shirted veterans of the Arditi, Italy’s elite shock troops, marched from Ronchi di Monfalcone[21] into the city of Fiume, ousting the Inter-Allied Control Commission and claiming that Fiume was rightfully Italian and thus should be annexed by Italy. Accompanying D’Annunzio in liberating Fiume were a number of colorful characters that would become notable in the years to come, such as the Japanese Ardito Harukichi Shimoi, the Futurist poet Mario Carli, the flamboyantly superhuman Ettore Muti, the fervent patriot Nino Host-Venturi, the fanatical Lorenzo Secondari, the skilled propagandist and organizer Francesco Giunta, and D’Annunzio’s closest companion Guido Keller, among numerous others[22]. Of course, being a prominent figure in the ANI, D’Annunzio’s endeavor was naturally supported by conservative figures as well, such as Major General Sante Ceccherini, Lieutenant Colonel Carlo Reina, D’Annunzio’s son-in-law Silvio Montanarella, Catholic friar-turned-legionary Reginaldo Giuliani, professional soldier Ernesto Cabruna, naval commander Luigi Rizzo, and fighter ace Francesco Baracca[23]. Naturally, the Nitti government denounced the actions of D’Annunzio and his legionaries, sending General Pietro Badoglio to suppress the rebellion, an effort that Badoglio effectively bungled, issuing a proclamation that the rebels had to rejoin the army or be branded as deserters. Unsurprisingly, this only strengthened the resolve of the legionaries, who were devoted to Il Vate and the cause of Fiuman annexation. Nevertheless, the Nitti government decided to take a hardline stance against D’Annunzio and the Fiumans, declaring an embargo and blockade of the city, an action that was met with dismay by the city’s population[24].

Not to be dissuaded, D’Annunzio responded with vitriolic invectives against the Nitti government, accusing Nitti of “starving women and children”[25], a charge that Nitti couldn’t exactly deny. Yet aid still came to the embattled Fiumans, in the form of funds collected by the ANI, who rallied around D’Annunzio and Fiume thanks to the efforts of one of the founders, Enrico Corradini[26], who was a fervent follower of D’Annunzio. Once in Fiume, D’Annunzio placed Giovanni Giuriati at the head of the Fiuman government as Prime Minister, while Francesco Giunta assumed the role of chief propagandist, and Guido Keller became the Secretary for Action and head of the Ufficio Colpi di Mano (Office of Direct Strikes) or the Uscocchi[27]. With the city firmly under his control, D’Annunzio made his headquarters in the Municipal Palace, attacking the Nitti government as well as denouncing the Wilsonian Americans who had prevented Italy from achieving a complete victory, all the while making himself available to any Fiuman who desired to see him and required aid or counsel[28]. The rebels were further bolstered by the hijacking of the steamship Persia on October 10th, laden with weapons and ammunition bound for the White forces in Russia that were instead diverted to Fiume[29]. Other ships inevitably journeyed to Fiume, bringing with them much-needed food and supplies, and a group of Italian laborers from the United States even sent a fine sword with a solid gold hilt depicting Fiume as a goddess as a gift for Il Vate[30]. In the months following D’Annunzio’s seizure of the city, more troops flocked to Fiume and Il Vate, with the total number of legionaries growing to 10,773 by November 18th[31].

Residents of Fiume cheering on D'Annunzio and his legionaries as they entered Fiume in September 1919.

From Left to Right: Harukichi Shimoi in his Ardito uniform (circa 1918) and Guido Keller (posing as Neptune, appropriately enough).

As D’Annunzio’s regime solidified itself in Fiume, the Nitti government was left to deal with the increasingly-fraught situation in the rest of Italy. Unfortunately for the government, the PSI had already called for a general strike in July, in coordination with the Italian anarchists[32]. Denouncing the actions of both D’Annunzio and Nitti, the PSI held its Sixteenth National Congress in Bologna from October 5th to October 8th, culminating with the revolutionary maximalist faction coming out on top, advocating for the creation of a socialist republic along the lines of the Bolsheviks in Russia[33]. Chief among these advocates were the so-called Red Triad of Benito Mussolini, Antonio Gramsci, and Amadeo Bordiga[34]. Yet the greatest triumph for the PSI came as a result of the 1919 General Election, in which they achieved an unprecedented success, gaining 32.3% of the popular vote and a whopping 156 seats won in the Chamber of Deputies, beating out the People’s Party with 20.5% percent of the vote and 101 seats, while the Liberal-Democratic-Radical Coalition only managed to gain 15.9% of the vote and 91 seats[35]. In the wake of the election and amid cries of protest from both the PSI and the ANI over the government’s mismanagement of the economic crisis and the Fiuman situation, Prime Minister Nitti was forced to resign shortly after Christmas, with four-time Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti ascending to the position on New Year’s Day[36]. Giolitti had been put into an unenviable position between dealing with the PSI and D’Annunzio’s legionaries, but he endeavored to bring stability back to the country nonetheless.

While the Nitti government (and after that fell, the Giolitti government) struggled to deal with the PSI back in Italy proper, D’Annunzio was ruling over Fiume like an adventurer of the Renaissance[37], with an iron fist and no tolerance for compromise. Inspired by the success of his auspicious entrance into Fiume, D’Annunzio proclaimed that the city was Italia vera, the true Italy that the Nitti administration was denying to the mainland, and a view that many of its denizens already held. To the outside world, D’Annunzio was turning into a modern Caesar, a benevolent dictator ruling over a populist regime. In mid-October, Nitti once again ordered General Badoglio to deal with Fiume, this time by entering into negotiations with D’Annunzio through the mediation of Major General Ceccherini. Yet even as Badoglio attempted to resolve the situation through diplomacy, D’Annunzio and a number of his cohort travelled to Zara to meet with Admiral Enrico Millo, Governor of Occupied Dalmatia, who swore to Il Vate that he would not abandon Dalmatia until it was firmly under Italian control[38]. Not to be deterred, the Nitti administration delivered a proposal on November 23rd for a modus vivendi to Fiume, offering a formal guarantee that Fiume would be annexed into Italy at some later date, an offer that D’Annunzio promptly refused. That very night the leader of the Autonomist faction in Fiume, Riccardo Zanella, attempted to plaster the text of the modus vivendi on the walls of the city, only to be stopped and killed thanks to the vigilance of Lorenzo Secondari and Ettore Muti[39].

In the wake of this extrajudicial killing and the increasingly authoritarian nature of the Fiuman regime, including the violent suppression of Fiume’s National Council[40], Prime Minister Giovanni Giuriati resigned from his position, declaring “I came to Fiume to defend the secular freedoms of this land, not to rape or repress them”[41]. Despite the departure of such a significant figure in the Fiuman government, the populace of the City of the Holocaust[42] soldiered on, as Il Vate hurled furious invectives at the city’s enemies. Yet as time went by, an air of licentiousness and radicalism began to develop in the city, somewhat perturbing D’Annunzio’s more conservative allies[43]. When Giovanni Giolitti assumed the office of Prime Minister in January, two prominent figures in the radical faction of Fiume had entered the City of the Holocaust: the Belgian poet Léon Kochnitzky and the Italian anarcho-syndicalist Alceste De Ambris[44], invited to replace the departed Giovanni Giuriati as Prime Minister. Kochnitzky on the other hand, became the head of the Ufficio Relazioni Esteriori (External Relations Office/Fiuman International Relations Bureau)[45], the closest thing to a foreign office the Fiuman regime had. While the actions of both Kochnitzky and De Ambris would greatly aid the Fiuman cause, it would be the actions of the former that would arguably have a grander effect on world history. Once he returned to Fiume (having previously left in December), Kochnitzky and several other officials[46] of the Ufficio Relazioni Esteriori initially set to work drumming up foreign support for the Fiuman regime, but soon enough Kochnitzky began to embark upon a far grander project: the League of Fiume[47].

D'Annunzio in discussion with Léon Kochnitzky, architect of the League of Fiume

D'Annunzio (center left) posing with a group of Fiuman Legionaries. Léon Kochnitzky is the third person to the right of D'Annunzio.

The League of Fiume, as Kochnitzky originally envisioned it, would be the means by which the old world order would be irrevocably shattered in order to establish a new world, one that would unite the oppressed and exploited peoples of the world against the corrupt imperialist plutocracies of the West[48]. In essence, this meant that the League would bring together a wide range of foreign nationalist movements and groups, united in their struggle for dignity and recognition[49]. While it would eventually evolve into something beyond Kochnitzky’s wildest dreams, for now it would enable the Fiuman regime to garner foreign support and recognition. As the Fiumans continued their struggle, back on the mainland Prime Minister Giolitti was busy trying to pick up the pieces of the fractious political situation left behind by the Nitti administration. The first order of business was the replacement of General Badoglio with the veteran Major General Enrico Caviglia, under the assumption that he would succeed where Badoglio had failed. Next came dealing with the PSI, which Giolitti assumed would be an easy task, since he was friends with Filippo Turati, one of the founding members of the party[50]. Unfortunately for Giolitti, the reformist faction under Turati had become increasingly marginalized and sidelined by the revolutionary maximalist faction following the Sixteenth Congress and the maximalists had no intention of cooperating with the liberal Giolitti.

Unable to negotiate with the PSI and USI[51], Giolitti was soon faced with another crisis in March, when FIAT workers in Turin went on strike over the management’s decision to move the clock back by an hour, which meant that they’d have to go to work in darkness[52]. Sensing an opportunity to strike a blow against the government and further their goal of establishing a Soviet-style socialist republic, the PSI threw their support behind the Turin workers and called for another general strike and the occupation of factories throughout Italy. The USI were quick to follow their lead, being encouraged to join in by Errico Malatesta (popularly known as the Italian Lenin), who had returned from exile in December of 1919. This proved to be a massive boon to D’Annunzio and the Fiuman regime, as Il Vate could now rightfully claim that Italy itself was under threat from the socialist menace occupying the factories. This kept his more conservative allies from abandoning the city, as they had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the behavior of the younger, more radical legionaries. Additionally, while the socialists on the mainland occupied the factories of Italy, the nascent League of Fiume pulled off a major propaganda coup in late March and early April, when Léon Kochnitzky negotiated the sale of 250,000 rifles to Egyptian revolutionaries (the arms being shipped from Spain by way of Libya) in exchange for a statement of support for the Fiuman cause and Egyptian membership in the League[53]. While the shipment of arms would not be able to go through until June, by the time that happened, the situation on the mainland had become increasingly chaotic.

On May 1st, which marked the occasion of International Workers’ Day for socialists the world over, the Giolitti government sent 50,000 Carabinieri to Turin to disperse the socialists there[54]. Expecting an easy victory over the workers occupying the factory, the government was shocked when the soldiers were beaten back by the combined force of the workers and their allies, with the Red Guards acquitting themselves particularly well in the brawl. While he was disappointed that the attempted dispersal had escalated into violence, Prime Minister Giolitti was still intent on dealing with the unrest non-violently, sarcastically responding to FIAT founder Giovanni Agnelli later that month “Very well, I will give orders to the artillery to bomb it”. Under any other circumstances, that would have been the end of the discussion, and Giolitti would’ve continued to attempt a non-violent resolution to the situation. Unfortunately for the beleaguered Prime Minister, a particularly naive young aide overheard his remarks and believing that they were serious, relayed the orders to the remaining troops in Turin, eager to gain Giolitti’s approval and prove himself as capable[55]. In short order, the troops in Turin shelled the FIAT factory, killing an untold number of workers, and all hell broke loose. Italians everywhere were suddenly galvanized, as they flocked to the ranks of the socialists in Turin and the nationalists in Fiume.

Giovanni Giolitti, last Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy (pictured here in 1920)

Back in Fiume, the chaos erupting on the mainland was perfect for D’Annunzio, who had attacked the Giolitti administration from the start, hurling the same sort of vitriolic invectives that he’d thrown at the Nitti administration. He had warned of the duplicity of the government from the very start, and now they had given the order (the fact that it hadn’t been Giolitti’s direct order wasn’t known to most at the time) to shell the very citizens that they claimed to represent. His more conservative allies, for the most part, were stunned. While many of them had been dismayed by the radical attitudes and the lack of conventional discipline permitted by D’Annunzio, not to mention the authoritarian nature of the regime, none of them could have imagined the events that unfolded in Turin. Where they were wavering in their commitment to the Fiuman cause before, now they committed themselves fully to whatever D’Annunzio had planned. D’Annunzio was no longer just Il Vate, he was now Il Profeta, the Prophet[56], and he had grand plans for the future. As Italy rapidly spiraled into chaos and bloodshed, D’Annunzio began to write his magnum opus, his greatest work yet, and he would write it on the pages of history itself.

In the eight months since D’Annunzio and his legionaries had first occupied Fiume, their numbers had grown to 25,000 by the time the army shelled Turin in May, and those numbers grew even more in the aftermath of those events as the total forces of Fiume swelled to 30,000[57]. Meanwhile, with the situation on the mainland rapidly escalating out of his control, Prime Minister Giolitti was faced with yet another crisis, this time in the Italian protectorate of Albania. With the conclusion of the Great War and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Italy had established a protectorate over Albania, and Italian troops occupied much of Southern Albania. Over time, the Albanians had forced much of the Italian occupation out of their country, but Italian troops still occupied the Vlora[58] region of Albania under the command of General Settimio Piacentini. On June 4th, the Albanian government sent demands to Piacentini to evacuate the 25,000 men in and around Vlora, demands that the general promptly refused[59]. After the Albanian interior minister Ahmet Zogolli[60] sent further demands for the evacuation of Italian troops, demands that were once again rejected, the Albanians announced the creation of a National Defense Committee and began to gather volunteers for the purpose of expelling the foreign occupiers[61]. What followed was yet another shock for the Italian people, as the Albanians soon amassed roughly 15,000 irregulars, including a band of volunteers that had traveled all the way from the United States, and promptly drove the Italians back until the garrison was firmly barricaded within Vlora proper[62].

In the course of the Italian withdrawal into Vlora, the majority of the senior officers of the Italian garrison were killed by the Albanian irregulars[63]. As a result, the remaining Italian troops garrisoned within Vlora were left under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Domenico Mondelli of the Arditi’s IX Reparto d’Assalto (9th Assault Section/Division)[64]. Mondelli, an Italian of Tigrayan descent, had fought in both the Italo-Turkish War of 1911 and the Great War, gaining a reputation in the latter war first as a daring Captain in the Corpo Aeronautico Militare (Military Aviation Corps), then as a Major in the Bersaglieri, before finally ending up as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Arditi. With the government back in Italy paralyzed as a result of the situations with the PSI and the Fiumans, the Italian garrison trapped in Vlora was effectively left without orders from the mainland. To make matters worse, the marshlands of coastal Albania (where Vlora was located) were infested with malaria, a disease that quickly spread to the garrison, resulting in approximately 100 deaths per day[65]. By August 4th, the number of Italian casualties had grown to 2,000 dead[66] from a combination of fighting and disease, leaving Mondelli in an untenable position. Reinforcements from the mainland wouldn’t be coming for much of the foreseeable future, and the government’s incapacitation meant that any possible peace treaty with Albania would be similarly delayed.

Mondelli was now faced with a situation where he could either surrender his troops to the mercy of the Albanians (which would spare their lives but besmirch the honor of his beloved homeland) or remain trapped within a city where countless more Italian soldiers would die. Unwilling to surrender or sacrifice more Italian troops for a malarial Albanian port and fed up with the inability of the government to come up with a solution, Mondelli came up with an audacious plan. The besieged Italians would break out from Vlora during the night and proceed on a forced march along the Albanian coast, into and through Yugoslavia, before finally arriving in Fiume. There, he hoped, D’Annunzio and the Fiumans would greet their countrymen with open arms. Initially, Mondelli had chosen not to join in with Il Vate’s grandiose venture to avoid breaking the oath he’d made to the House of Savoy, but the actions of the royal government under Prime Minister Giolitti had changed things considerably. Rallying the 23,000 troops left under his command, even the ones stricken with malaria, Mondelli and his men marched for eight days straight, avoiding the Albanian and Yugoslavian authorities whenever possible[67]. When the exhausted troops finally arrived at Fiume, miraculously only having lost 2,385 men to disease, deprivation, and depredation[68], they were indeed welcomed by their countrymen with open arms, with D’Annunzio himself bestowing the moniker of L’Aquila Tigrina (The Tigrayan Eagle) upon the audacious Mondelli.

Albanian Irregulars with captured Italian Cannons.

Domenico Mondelli, Quadrumvir of Carnarist Italy and The Tigrayan Eagle.

Auspiciously enough, the arrival of Mondelli and his 20,615 deserters on August 12th coincided with D’Annunzio’s greatest declaration yet. Recognizing the instability of the situation on the mainland and the stalemate between Giolitti’s government and his own regime, the poet-turned-dictator declared that Fiume was an independent state, the Italian Regency of Carnaro. Accompanying this declaration was a decidedly Fiuman constitution, co-authored by Alceste De Ambris and D’Annunzio himself: the Charter of Carnaro[69]. A truly revolutionary document, the Charter combined anarchist, syndicalist, corporatist, and republican elements to lay the foundations for a state unlike any other. While the more conservative and monarchist elements of the regime were somewhat wary of the decidedly republican nature of the Charter, they stayed in Fiume anyway, confident in the leadership of D’Annunzio, who now assumed the title of Commandant as laid out in the Charter. But even with the newly-arrived troops from Albania bringing the total amount of Fiuman forces to the not-so-insignificant number of 50,615, there was still a major issue facing D’Annunzio’s regime. Namely, the problems that arose when trying to house and feed a veritable army of men during a blockade, not to mention ensuring that the native population of Fiume didn’t starve.

From the very beginning of the Fiuman enterprise, the fearsome Uscocchi (led by Guido Keller[70] and his second-in-command Lorenzo Secondari) had performed daring raids on both land and sea in order to help provide for the people of Fiume[71]. However, as their numbers grew in the aftermath of the Turin shelling and the defection of Lieutenant Colonel Mondelli, these raids became increasingly less effective. A solution had to be found and quickly, before the population of Fiume turned against the Commandant and his newly-created Executive Council[72]. By mid-September, a plot was being formed in Rome by the ANI supporters of D’Annunzio and Fiume, and a particularly daring one at that. Concerned over negotiations between the Italian and Yugoslavian governments intended to solve the Fiuman issue in order to free up the government to deal with the ongoing PSI-USI occupations (now in their fourth month), D’Annunzio’s ANI supporters planned a march from Fiume to Rome, where they would overthrow the Giolitti government. The fact that factories throughout Italy were being occupied by the PSI-USI alliance wasn’t taken into much consideration, since outside of the May 1st clash between the Red Guards and the Carabinieri and the shelling of Turin, the PSI-USI members and their worker allies hadn’t taken up arms in violent insurrection. Unbeknownst to the plotters however, the socialists and anarchists had begun secretly stockpiling weapons and ammunition, as well as training the original striking workers, in preparation for their own planned revolution and march on Rome.

Nevertheless, the planning for the Fiuman coup continued, in spite of the lack of knowledge of the Red[73] plot. The coup, given the typically D’Annunzian title of the March of the Iron Will[74], would unfold in two parts. First, the Esercito di Salvezza Nazionale[75] (the Army of National Salvation, another title thought up by the Commandant) would march from Fiume to Trieste, growing in number as they went, expecting the Royal Carabinieri to let them pass. Second, as they marched towards Rome, their supporters and allies throughout Italy would rise up, taking up arms and ousting the Reds occupying Italian factories in order to ensure that they wouldn’t face any resistance after the seizure of power. Garnering support from a number of businessmen, chief among them Oscar Sinigaglia and Giovanni Agnelli[76] (who planned to finance the venture), Fiume’s allies within the mainland began to stockpile weapons, fuel, and ammunition in preparation for the March. At the same time, the ANI and the Blueshirts (who were D’Annunzio’s most prominent allies within the mainland itself) ramped up recruitment methods, primarily in the north and northwest of Italy, aiming to undermine the PSI by siphoning off their supporters among the former veterans of the Great War. By the time the March of the Iron Will began in January of 1921, the ANI had succeeded at swaying a good number of the PSI’s supporters[77] to their cause, thanks to enthusiastic articles by Enrico Corridoni in the ANI’s newspaper (L’Idea Nazionale, or The National Idea) promulgating his theory of proletarian nationalism[78] alongside the tenets of the Charter of Carnaro.

The most important part of the planning for the March of the Iron Will, however, wasn’t the stockpiling of arms or the expanded recruitment efforts on the mainland, but the successful courting of various figures within the Italian armed forces. The newly-appointed Foreign Minister of Fiume, Harukichi Shimoi (Léon Kochnitzky had initially wanted the position, but he’d been convinced by the Commandant that his work with the League of Fiume in securing foreign support would be more valuable in the long-term) played an important role in this aspect of the conspiracy, using his diplomatic passport to move freely between Fiume and the mainland[79]. Before long, Shimoi’s diplomatic efforts bore fruit, as three prominent figures within the Regio Esercito (Royal Army) agreed to support the Iron March: Generals Gustavo Fara and Emilio De Bono and Colonel Rodolfo Graziani[80]. These men would later be (along with Domenico Mondelli) hailed by D’Annunzio as the Quadrumviri[81], “The four superhuman leaders who stood with our noble cause and helped save Italy, when lesser men balked at the task”. But the two men who would ultimately ensure the success of the March of the Iron Will, even more than the Quadrumviri, were Major General Enrico Caviglia and Admiral Enrico Millo, who were won over through correspondence with D’Annunzio personally. Admiral Millo, who had previously promised the Commandant that he wouldn’t abandon Dalmatia until it was firmly under Italian control, stayed true to his word and agreed to do whatever he could to subvert any efforts by Prime Minister Giolitti to bring the Regia Marina (Royal Navy) to bear against the Fiuman rebels. As for Major General Caviglia, he had begun to express doubts about his role in the handling of the Fiuman enterprise following the shelling of Turin on the orders of Prime Minister Giolitti, and was ultimately won over to the Fiuman cause by the charismatic words of D’Annunzio[82].

Enrico Corradini, one of the founders of the ANI and D'Annunzio's chief supporter and propagandist on the Italian mainland.

With the preparations for the March of the Iron Will well underway, the Commandant and his Executive Council decided upon the date of the grand venture: January 10th, 1921. The date chosen was a fitting one, since it had been on January 10th that Julius Caesar had crossed the Rubicon river in 49 BC, and D’Annunzio was nothing if not superstitious. In private, he remarked to his secretary Tom Antongini that “The March shall be our Rubicon, Tom, because like Caesar, we shall save Italy from those who would seek to bring her to ruin”. As the date of the March was announced to the followers of D’Annunzio in both Fiume and the mainland, rumors of the plot inevitably spread to the ears of the PSI’s Red Triad and Prime Minister Giolitti. The former, who were already planning their own March on Rome, took the threat from D’Annunzio seriously and proceeded to accelerate their plans for socialist revolution. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, was in disbelief that senior officers of the Royal Army would even consider joining up with a madman such as D’Annunzio and refused to investigate further in spite of General Badoglio’s (who was now Chief of Staff of the Royal Army) concerns, certain that the rumors were nothing more than idle chatter[83]. It would prove to be a fatal error in judgement in the months to come, as Italy descended into the flames of civil war.

Just how fatal an error that Giolitti’s decision to continue an attempt at peaceful reconciliation with the PSI-USI occupiers would soon become apparent on October 25th, when the Red Triad (along with Errico Malatesta) proclaimed the Repubblica Socialista Italiana dei Lavoratori (Italian Socialist Workers’ Republic)[84], or RSIL for short, in the north and northwest of the country, with the date of the proclamation chosen in clear emulation of the Bolsheviks’ October Revolution. The proclamation came as a shock to both the Giolitti government and the Fiuman plotters, though the latter group responded to it far better than the former, immediately going underground to continue their plans in secret. With Giolitti and his government paralyzed by inaction in response to such a shocking turn of events, General Badoglio took advantage of the situation and removed Giolitti from power, ostensibly to ensure that the government and the royal family weren’t placed in any further danger. To make matters worse, news soon arrived that a massive group of rebels had departed from Turin, composed of 100,000 armed workers and Red Guards[85] marching towards Rome, led by none other than Filippo Corridoni, the Red Triad, and the Italian Lenin (Malatesta) himself. With many of the Carabinieri deserting to either the Fiuman cause or the RSIL and the Regio Esercito still racing to the mainland in defense of the country, Badoglio made the drastic decision to evacuate the royal family and court (as well as Pope Pius XI, who faced violence at the hands of the anti-clerical Red Guards) to Sardinia[86].

As the forces of the RSIL celebrated their conquest of the Eternal City on November 5th, General Badoglio was frantically trying to find a solution to the position the legitimate government found itself in. Diplomatic messages sent to the British and French were being ignored[87], and a plea for aid from D’Annunzio and the Fiumans was ignored by the Commandant. In desperation and assuming that the Fiumans would disperse if faced with a show of military might, he sent orders to Major General Caviglia to attack Fiume alongside a naval bombardment from the battleship Andrea Doria in mid-November[88]. Historians have long speculated on why Badoglio chose such an unrealistic course of action, since he must have known that Caviglia’s forces were vastly outnumbered by the Fiuman ones, and any attempt at attacking the city would’ve been suicidal even if Caviglia hadn’t already been turned to the Fiuman cause. Nevertheless, Badoglio sent the orders only to find out that not only had Caviglia switched sides, but that the crew of the Andrea Doria had refused to follow through with the bombardment of Fiume, presumably under the orders of Admiral Millo[89]. Even worse, he discovered to his dismay that Caviglia, in preparation for the March of the Iron Will, had managed to send the Regio Esercito’s only battle-tested tanks to Trieste prior to the formation of the SWRI[90]. Included among the tanks diverted by Caviglia was the formidable FIAT 2000 heavy tank, which hadn’t seen active service during the Great War, but was still more than a match for what few tanks the Regio Esercito still had[91].

The FIAT 2000 Heavy Tank, dubbed "L'Arcangelo" in honor of D'Annunzio and driven by Gastone Brilli-Peri, commonly known as "The Disciple of Speed".

For the rest of 1920, the situation remained somewhat static as the RSIL gradually moved the bulk of its forces from the north and northwest towards Rome and Central Italy, assuming that the Fiumans had been effectively isolated and removed from the equation. Meanwhile, in Southern Italy, Badoglio and what remained of the Regio Esercito[92] consolidated their forces to prepare for the first real military conflict between Italians since the unification by the House of Savoy many decades prior. By January 1921, the two sides had settled into a stalemate of sorts, with neither faction attempting to break the lull as they geared up for the inevitable moment when all hell would break loose. As it turned out, that moment would come on January 10th, when the March of the Iron Will began. After a rousing speech by D’Annunzio to his forces[93], the Esercito di Salvezza Nazionale began its march to Trieste, with many of them singing the Canto degli Arditi (the Song of the Arditi) as they did so. After reaching Trieste in roughly half a day, the Esercito di Salvezza Nazionale marched into Italy proper, taking the unprepared and comparatively inexperienced forces of the RSIL by surprise. The nationalists of the ANI that had gone underground over the previous four months suddenly rose up against the socialist enemy, killing a great number of them and showing no mercy, even when they tried in vain to surrender.

In the region of Liguria, Gustavo Fara led his troops to victory over the enemy from his hometown of Nervi, while Emilio De Bono and Rodolfo Graziani rose up to oust the socialists from Lombardy and Parma respectively, and in Ferrara a 25 year-old veteran named Italo Balbo[94] rallied the local Blueshirts under his leadership. By mid-to-late February, the Esercito di Salvezza Nazionale and their mainland allies had all but crushed the socialist forces in the north and northwest, securing the regions of Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria, Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige, Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Aosta Valley, and portions of Emilia Romagna and Tuscany for their noble cause. In the wake of the March of the Iron Will, a great number of Futurists led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Ferruccio Vecchi[95] flocked to the north and the nationalist cause, eager to do their part in overturning the old order. While further combat wouldn’t come for a good few months afterwards as the three warring factions consolidated their grip over their respective territory, the Italian Civil War had nevertheless begun. As the world watched in equal parts terror and fascination, Italy descended into chaos. The old order would be overturned, and Europe would never be the same.

Chapter III Footnotes
This chapter has a whopping 95 footnotes (I did a double check and it turned out to be 95 instead of 94) of varying lengths, so feel free to ignore them if you so choose. Apologies for that, as I'll try to keep footnotes under 20 in the future, but there was just so much to condense into one chapter. I could've split the chapter up into a series of chapters, but I wanted to go ahead and set the stage for one of the major conflicts of the 1920s right away, so I could switch gears and cover other, equally interesting locations. Edit: Yes, I did make the footnotes un-spoilered because I'm an egotistical reputation-seeking bastard. Plus, I wanted to bump the total word count up by a shit ton. They're entirely optional to read.

[1] In OTL, a great deal of territory taken from the Central Powers by the Entente (especially territory sought after by Britain and France) was made into League of Nation Mandates. Here, with the League of Nations being non-existent, they're outright annexed and brought into the British and French colonial empires.

[2] This isn't strictly accurate since the Kingdom of Italy did gain a good deal of territory as a result of the Entente's victory, but as far as the nationalists and maximalists are concerned, the Kingdom didn't get enough, particularly with regards to the inability of the Italian delegation to secure northern Dalmatia and Fiume.

[3-6] All of this remains the same as in OTL, no changes there.

[7] In OTL, Wilson didn't have his stroke until October 1919, by which point the Paris Peace Conference was effectively over. In TTL, Wilson has his stroke much earlier, directly prior to his travelling to Paris, and vice-president Thomas R. Marshall is the head of the American delegation in Paris. While he tries to live up to the spirit of Wilson's 14 Points, he ultimately doesn't press for the League of Nations and doesn't do much to enforce the 12th point regarding the partition of the Ottoman Empire and the autonomy of the non-Turkish nationalities under Ottoman rule.

[8] Again, not much changes here from OTL, with the exception that the extremes of both sides of the political spectrum are openly decrying the mutilated victory.

[9] Here we have one of the many butterflies caused within international socialism by the events of the POD. Whereas the PSI expelled the revolutionary maximalists such as Mussolini and Corridoni in OTL for their interventionist stance, here the revolutionary syndicalists have a lot more sway and influence among the party.

[10] Again, not a whole lot of changes from OTL, the very concept of mutilated victory was born out of the inability of the Liberal-Democratic government to acquire these regions for Italy.

[11] Radical in this instance is referring to the Italian Radical Party, which was a "radical liberal, republican, secularist, and social-liberal party". In other words, a centre-left party of the establishment.

[12] This is true to OTL, no changes here.

[13] While the concept of mutilated victory was mainly promoted by the nationalists in OTL, here it's promoted by both the nationalists and the revolutionary maximalists due to the PSI taking a strong interventionist stance during the Great War.

[14] This is all true to OTL and marked the beginning of the Biennio Rosso (or Red Biennium/Two Red Years), which was arguably the closest that Italy came to seeing a Soviet-style revolution. In TTL, it's the start of what Carnarist historiographers call the Anni di Piombo, or the Years of Lead.

[15] This is also true to OTL, and the possibility of an Italian revolution can't be dismissed especially since contemporary observers noted that Italy seemed to be on the brink of revolution in 1918. Arguably what prevented this from taking place was the fact that the PSI and the CGL refused to commit to the enterprise fully in 1920.

[16] As noted above, Mussolini wasn't expelled from the PSI like he was in OTL. Corridoni on the other hand, was one of the few characters that I deigned significant enough to change their OTL fate, which was to get shot in the head in 1915 during an Italian assault on the Austro-Hungarians.

[17] Ah, Gabriele D'Annunzio, what a truly larger-than-life figure. There's been a lot written about him and his impact on history, but this footnote isn't about that. Rather, this footnote concerns the popular misconception of D'Annunzio as an incompetent arch-hedonist who couldn't lead a political movement to save his life, a misconception that I've determined to be unequivocally false. The root of this misconception is based on the rather licentious and radical nature of the society that developed in Fiume, a society that was centered around him and made up of fanatically loyal legionaries, as well as D'Annunzio's activities in retirement after the Impresa di Fiume until his death in 1938. As I've stated previously, my characterization and depiction of D'Annunzio is based off of three separate books on the man, including the definitive English-language book on the Impresa di Fiume, D'Annunzio: The First Duce by Michael Ledeen. The other two books that I'm using are John Robert Woodhouse's Gabriele D'Annunzio: Defiant Archangel and Frances Winwar's (who was a contemporary of D'Annunzio and his associates) Wingless Victory - A Biography of Gabriele D'Annunzio and Eleanora Duse.

The first indication that D'Annunzio's reputation as an arch-hedonist is wrong comes from Ledeen, who notes that while there was a not insubstantial drug culture in Fiume and there was plenty of experimentation with narcotics and a desire among the more radical elements to build a new society there, D'Annunzio himself still urged a sense of chastity among his men and that the main consumers of narcotics within the city were the young officers and radical legionaries there, not the Commandant. The second indication comes from Woodhouse, who notes on page 294 of his biography that it was a well-known fact that D'Annunzio consumed very little alcohol when he was speaking out in favor of annexing Fiume and northern Dalmatia, and given the fact that this comes a mere 21 pages before the chapter focusing on the Impresa di Fiume, I'm of the opinion that this trend continued during his time in Fiume. Furthermore, Woodhouse notes on page 364 in the chapter on D'Annunzio's life after the Fiuman expedition that his possible experimentation with drugs only started during his post-Fiume years, when he was out of the political limelight and in retirement. Finally, Winwar's only mention of D'Annunzio using drugs in her entire biography was well before the Fiuman expedition, and it was only brought up in relation with his recovery from an illness. Prior to his retirement, he seemed to view drug use and addiction as something tragic, as Winwar recounts that he tried in vain to break the spell of morphine addiction that one of his many lovers, Marchesa Alessandra Carlotti di Rudini, had fallen under after a major surgery.

Of course, this isn't to say that D'Annunzio didn't indulge his love of women during his time in Fiume, as Ledeen notes that he would bring a night club singer, Lily de Montressor into the back of the Fiuman municipal palace for sex on a regular basis, for which she was paid 500 lire, not to mention the fact that his constant companion during those days (and indeed, for the rest of his life) was the pianist Luisa Baccara. In any case, the idea that D'Annunzio was nothing more than an incompetent arch-hedonist who couldn't be an effective and charismatic leader is false. While it's true that he didn't care for bureaucracy and took a rather hands-off approach to his rule of Fiume, he was still a man who brooked no compromise, commanded the personal loyalty of elite veterans of the Great War, and spoke so fiercely that Walter Duranty (of Holodomor denial fame who will also feature in a series of chapters covering the Italian Civil War), who was the foreign correspondent for the New York Times in 1919, was left shaken and wrote about it with such eloquence that the Literary Digest decided to reprove him editorially. Additionally, Winwar notes that no one was denied access to the Commandant in Fiume, with Sundays set aside for the poor women of Fiume who had sold all they had and still needed to provide for their hungry children. In other words, the man was a truly charismatic and compassionate leader who doesn't get enough credit in alternate history and popular culture as a whole.

[18] Alongside being one of the leading figures among the ANI, D'Annunzio's influence there can't be discounted, as one of the founders of the ANI, Enrico Corridoni, was a fervent follower of D'Annunzio.

[19] In addition to being the original planned date for the entrance into Fiume, September 11th was also the date of D'Annunzio's Bakar Mockery during the Great War, and the superstitious D'Annunzio viewed it as an auspicious choice for his grand entrance into Fiume. In OTL, the invasion was delayed until September 12th due to D'Annunzio being stricken with a fever that kept him confined to a makeshift bed, but in TTL, he never catches that fever and the plan goes along as scheduled. Additionally, because of his successful invasion on the 11th, D'Annunzio's uncompromising side comes out in full force, resulting in a number of divergences from OTL. I feel like it's a narrative element that fits the world of OPAS, so I'm running with it.

[20] The rough estimate of the total number of initial troops that D'Annunzio and his allies brought into Fiume ranges from 2000 to 2500. For the purposes of this timeline, I'm going with the maximum number of troops at 2500.

[21] The original name of Ronchi dei Legionari, which was where D'Annunzio and his troops departed on their march to Fiume. In OTL it was renamed in 1925 and the same thing will happen in TTL.

[22] The sheer amount of colorful personages that entered Fiume alongside D'Annunzio simply can't be ignored, given how legendary a reputation the Italian Regency of Carnaro obtained in OTL. Harukichi Shimoi was a Japanese poet and author (much like D'Annunzio) who moved to Italy and worked as a Japanese teacher at the Naples Eastern University. In 1917, he enlisted in the Regio Esercito and became a member of the Arditi, even teaching some of his fellow troops some karate. It was during this time that he met D'Annunzio and the two men became fast friends (with Shimoi even promoting the construction of a temple in Tokyo dedicated to D'Annunzio), and D'Annunzio nicknamed him "Comrade Samurai" and "The Samurai of Fiume" during the Fiuman expedition. Mario Carli was a Left Futurist and former Ardito who joined D'Annunzio and later on initially supported Mussolini and Fascism in OTL, being one of the speakers at the original Sansepolcro rally alongside Mussolini and Marinetti, before dissenting from the movement as one of the more "left-wing fascists". Ettore Muti is another figure from OTL who's better known for his extremely daring exploits as during WWII. By the time of D'Annunzio's Fiuman adventure, he was only 17 and had already distinguished himself as an Ardito during the Great War, and D'Annunzio bestowed the moniker of Gim dagli occhi verdi ("Green-Eyed Jim").

It stuck with him (at least until he distinguished himself even further during the Spanish Civil War) and D'Annunzio even told him that "You are the expression of Superhuman values, a weightless impetus, a boundless offering, a fistful of incense over the embers, the scent of a pure soul", and that was high praise coming from D'Annunzio. Nino Host-Venturi was a Fiuman native who was an Italian irredentist and a defector to the Italian side during the Great War, distinguishing himself and earning the rank of Captain in first the Alpini and then the Arditi. During the Impresa di Fiume, he helped convince D'Annuzio to lead it and worked as a diplomatic envoy to Mussolini under the auspices of Giovanni Giuriati, and sought to enlist the aid of Croat, Montenegrin, and Albanian separatists in order to prevent the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from consolidating as a nation. Later, during Mussolini's regime, he became an outspoken proponent of forced Italianization among the non-Italian populace. Readers of Pirate Utopia will recognize Lorenzo Secondari as the fictional protagonist of that story (though he shares a surname with one of the Arditi del Popolo's founders, Argo Secondari, curiously enough) and that's the fictional POV character I mentioned previously in the thread. He won't be a carbon copy of Sterling's character, because I'm not a hack, but will retain some of his backstory from Pirate Utopia, mainly his Turinese origins, his status as a war veteran who nearly died in combat, superhuman outlook, and piratical temperament. The main changes to his character are his rank as one of the Arditi during the Great War rather than as an artillery engineer and his role within D'Annunzio's regime as a member of La Disperata (The Desperate Ones), D'Annunzio's personal bodyguards in addition to being a member of the Uscocchi raiders.

Francesco Giunta was a Fascist propagandist and organizer during the early days of the movement, who served as one of D'Annunzio's points of contact with Mussolini during the Impresa di Fiume. There's not much to talk about with him that you can't gleam from his page on Wikipedia to be honest, other than that he was fervently anti-Yugoslav and was responsible for the more brutal repressions in Occupied Yugoslavia during WWII. Finally, Guido Keller was D'Annunzio's most loyal follower and arguably the most extreme of his legionaries. If you want a good OTL analogy for the relationship between the two, Keller was to D'Annunzio what Balbo was to Mussolini. In addition to being his most loyal follower, he was invaluable to the Fiuman expedition as a whole, acquiring vehicles for the initial invasion of the city, ransacking the Yugoslav countryside, raiding naval vessels to provide for the Fiuman cause, and overall maintaining a reputation as a gentleman, daring aviator, and refined dandy. Also, not gonna lie, he was pretty damn hot.

[23] While the more conservative supporters of D'Annunzio's adventure in Fiume weren't nearly as colorful or eccentric as the more radical legionaries, they were just as distinguished, if not more so. Sante Ceccherini was a Major General who'd distinguished himself in both the Italo-Turkish War and the Great War, as well as being an Olympic fencer (and according to unearthed OVRA files, the homosexual lover of his subordinate Achille Starace) and one of the organizers of the OTL March of Rome. Lieutenant Colonel Carlo Reina was a staunch conservative who was opposed to any sort of revolutionary drift in Fiume as the Fiuman Chief of Staff, trying in vain to maintain military discipline within the city, and was ultimately kicked out of the city by D'Annunzio after the latter found out that Reina had secretly requested Carabinieri from the mainland to help secure order. Now, obviously this doesn't happen in TTL, due to the advanced concerns about the militant socialists back on the mainland and the hardline stance adopted by the government. Silvio Montanarella isn't really noteworthy outside of being married to D'Annunzio's daughter, so there's no need to cover him much. Reginaldo Giuliani was a Dominican friar-turned-hardened soldier who joined the Arditi during the Great War and fought bravely, writing a book about his experiences after Fiume fell and taking part in the March on Rome. In the end, he rejoined the Regio Esercito during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in order to help lead a crusade against "heretics and infidels", where he fell in the First Battle of Tembien while attempting to rescue wounded soldiers. The final three conservative allies mentioned were all highly-decorated veterans of the Great War: Ernesto Cabruna was a daredevil fighter ace who fought swarms of enemy planes singlehandedly on two separate occasions in 1918 and even went back into the air with a broken collarbone, Luigi Rizzo was a torpedo boat commander who managed to sink no fewer than two Austro-Hungarian battleships (including the SMS Szent István, which was arguably the most famous of the Austro-Hungarian battleships) and took part in the Bakar Mockery, and Francesco Baracca was Italy's top fighter ace of the Great War with 34 aerial victories. Much like Filippo Corridoni, I chose to spare Baracca from his OTL death for narrative purposes.

[24] The Nitti government in OTL actually initiated a blockade of Fiume, but let the Red Cross in to help provide for the citizens of Fiume, while here they chose not to since D'Annunzio immediately started to assume dictatorial powers and Nitti was firmly opposed to any sort of dictatorship.

[25] The quote here is is an actual quote from D'Annunzio (albeit switched around from "starving children and women" to "starving women and children") the only difference being that the accusation is one that the Nitti government can't really deny.

[26] As mentioned in footnote 18, Enrico Corradoni was one of the original founders of the ANI and a fervent follower of D'Annunzio. In OTL, the person in charge of fundraising for Fiume was Mussolini, who raised something like 3 million lire for the Fiuman cause, with the first amount of money (857,842 lire) arriving in Fiume in October 7th, 1919. Later on, Mussolini would end up being accused of stealing a great deal of the accumulated funds for his own political ambitions. The same fundraising happens in TTL, although Corradoni doesn't end up stealing the money for his own use, being such a fervent follower of D'Annunzio and the Fiuman cause.

[27] The Office of Direct Strikes (Ledeen calls them the Office of Armed Coups), also known as the Uscocchi (after the medieval Croatian pirates of the same name, the Uskoks), were a band of daring raiders led by Guido Keller who were the main procurers of supplies and funds for the Fiuman regime.

[28] As noted in footnote 17, this was something that D'Annunzio did in OTL as accounted by Winwar, showing a remarkably compassionate side to D'Annunzio.

[29] This is also from OTL, and the massive coup that this was for the Fiuman rebels can't be understated. According to the New York Times when the hijacking occurred (carried out by the leader of the seamen's trade union, Giuseppe Giulietti), the haul of the Persia included "a cargo of 30,000 rifles, 10,000,000 cartridges, 20 batteries of mountain guns, and two heavy guns" headed for Vladivostok and the White Army in Russia.

[30] Actually happened in OTL, as noted by Winwar.

[31] The total number of troops that flocked to Fiume varies between sources, but the Italian wikipedia page on the Fiuman Armed Forces notes that Lieutenant Colonel Francesco Lorenzo Pullé assessed the number of D'Annunzio's troops on November 18th, 1919. The troops under D'Annunzio seemed to be well-trained and organized, with 615 officers and 10,158 regular legionaries.

[32-33] This is more or less the same as OTL, though with more collaboration between the socialists and anarchists. The Sixteenth Congress went much the same way in OTL, although because of the earlier adoption of revolutionary maximalist principles, the maximalists are already seeking to actively establish a Soviet-style socialist republic, which they only adopted after the Sixteenth Congress in OTL.

[34] As in OTL, Mussolini is representative of the revolutionary national syndicalist faction of the PSI, while Gramsci and Bordiga are representative of the communist faction of the PSI.

[35] This is the same as OTL.

[36] In OTL, Nitti only resigned in June 1920 because of his failures to effectively manage the crisis. In TTL, the combination of his hardline stance against Fiume alongside his inability to solve the economic crisis and the gains of the PSI in the 1919 General Election means that he's forced to resign much sooner to make way for Giolitti's administration in 1920. Another thing to note is that Major General Caviglia replaced Badoglio on December 20th of 1920 in OTL, whereas here he replaces him only after Giolitti comes to power.

[37] This is an actual quote from OTL in the Times ridiculing D'Annunzio as a madman.

[38] This is true to OTL and plays a key part in the success of D'Annunzio's endeavors in TTL.

[39] I'm not a huge fan of the whole Been There, Shaped History trope when it comes to fictional characters, but in this instance, I'll allow it since Secondari plays a key role in the narrative as a viewpoint character. Anyway, in OTL, Ricardo Zanella was the leader of the autonomist faction within Fiume who successfully plastered the text of the modus vivendi on the walls of the city. Here, since D'Annunzio is already suppressing the Fiuman National Council, the legionaries are more vigilant and put a stop to Zanella's agitation. Permanently.

[40-41] As noted above, D'Annunzio's authoritarian and uncompromising side comes to bear from the very start, violently suppressing the National Council of Fiume in order to cement his power early on. The Giuriati quote is the same as in OTL, although in OTL he said this after D'Annunzio rejected the modus vivendi.

[42] This was D'Annunzio's actual name for Fiume in OTL. He viewed the city as an eternally suffering woman, only saved from further torment by the bold and gallant actions of himself and his legionaries. In Fiume, the old world would end and new ways of life would develop. Amazing stuff, no?

[43] In OTL, D'Annunzio's Fiume became legendary for the new society that sprouted up there, with the legionaries experimenting with drugs, new forms of dress, radical ideas, nudism, open sexuality, religious freedom, the marriage of friars to women, and more. While the more conservative military officers tried to maintain a strict form of military discipline among the legionaries, they weren't able to succeed in that task. Indeed, part of what caused many of the more conservative troops to depart from the city in OTL because of the radical nature that was developing, though this doesn't happen in TTL because of the increased socialist threat back in the mainland. That being said, the legionaries still maintained an exemplary discipline, just not one based on a traditional military hierarchy. This will prove to work to their advantage during the civil war.

[44] Léon Kochnitzky and Alceste De Ambris were, aside from Keller, the more radical figures in the Fiuman regime in OTL, and they both tried to drum up support for the Fiuman cause (foreign support in Kochnitzky's case and domestic Italian support in De Ambris' case), though their ideas clashed somewhat, with De Ambris viewing Kochnitzky's efforts as running contradictory to his own. Alceste De Ambris was a supporter and collaborator with D'Annunzio and helped co-author the Charter of Carnaro with him.

[45] The only real thing to note about this footnote is that the literal English translation (from Google Translate) of the Ufficio Relazioni Esteriori is the External Relations Bureau, while Ledeen/Wikipedia calls it the Fiuman International Relations Bureau.

[46] These other officials are listed by Ledeen as Henry Furst (who convinced D'Annunzio to recognize the Irish Republic), Eugenio Coselschi (better known for being the driving mind behind the Fascist International in OTL, although D'Annunzio reportedly detested him for being a sycophant), and finally Ludovico Toeplitz and Giovanni Bonmartini (who I can't find any information about).

[47] Like a lot of the institutions and ventures created during D'Annunzio's rule in Fiume, the League of Fiume was almost utopian in its goals, which will be outlined more in the following footnotes. In the years after the Civil War, it'll morph into something grander than it was originally intended to be, and be the center of an Italian-led Carnarist (and Carnarist-adjacent) power bloc, to rival the Entente, the Comintern, and the unnamed Asian alliance.

[48] This is accurate to OTL, however I feel the need to give a bit more elaboration on what inspired Kochnitzky's League, so I will do that here. The League of Fiume was intended to shatter the corrupt imperialist and plutocratic world order (and it will in this ATL), but the main basis for Kochnitzky's vision of the League was a speech D'Annunzio gave during the early days of the Fiuman endeavor called Italy and Life. Seeing as how it's nigh-impossible to find the text of it outside of Ledeen's book on Fiume, I've decided to post it here in its entirety so y'all can get a better understanding of the League's stated goals.

"All the rebels of all the races will be gathered under our sign. And the feeble will be armed. And force will be used against force. And the new crusade of all poor and impoverished nations, the new crusade of all poor and free men against the usurping nations, the accumulators of all wealth, against the races of prey and against the caste of usurers who yesterday exploited war in order to exploit peace today, the new crusade will reestablish that true justice that has been crucified by an icy maniac with fourteen dull nails and with a hammer borrowed from the German Chancellor....
Fiumans, Italians... when you proclaimed in the face of the Supreme Council that history written with the most generous Italian blood could not be stopped at Paris... you announced the fall of the old world.
Therefore, our cause is the greatest and the most beautiful which today has been directed against the evil of the world. It extends from Ireland to Egypt, from Russia to the United States, from Rumania to India. It gathers the white races and the colored peoples, reconciles the gospel with the Koran...
Every insurrection is an effort of expression, an effort of creation. It does not matter if it is interrupted in the blood, provided that the survivors transmit the instinct... to the future.
... For all veterans, carriers of the cross who have climbed their Calvary for four years, it is time to rush toward the future."

[49] In other words, the League of Fiume was intended as a sort of anti-League of Nations. In the world of OPAS, where the League of Nations doesn't exist, the League of Fiume is the closest thing to such an organization, and unlike the LoN in OTL, it lives up to its stated purpose. The broad range of movements that the League sought to unite (to quote from the Wikipedia article on it):

I. – Representatives of oppressed peoples: Fiume of Italy, the Islands, Dalmatia, Albania, German Austria, Montenegro, Croatia, German Irredentists now under Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, France and Italy (with reservations: autonomy) and the Pseudo-League of Nations, Catalonia, Malta, Gibraltar, Ireland, the Flemish. Islam, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, India, Persia, Afghanistan. India, Burma, China, Korea, The Philippines, Hawaii, Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico.[5] Oppressed races: The Chinese in California, the Blacks of America. The Israeli problem.
II. – Representatives of the countries unjustly damaged by the Treaty of Versailles: Russia, Romania, Belgium, Portugal, Siam, Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, The Holy See.[6]
III. – Delegations of parties and groups sympathizing with "Fiumanism", mainly Italian, French, English and American.
It was a patently D'Annunzian project, one that was revolutionary and internationalist in nature, and one that ultimately succeeds in its goals in this ATL.

[50] This is true to OTL, Giolitti did strike up a friendship with Turati and sought on more than one occasion a strategic alliance with the PSI. Part of the reason why Italy didn't descend into chaos in OTL like it does here is because Giolitti was able to exploit the fact that the majority of striking workers during the Red Biennium weren't supported by the PSI or the CGIL.

[51] As mentioned in the chapter, Giolitti tried to remain peaceful and wait out the striking workers rather than suppress them violently. The anarchists of the USI were supportive of the striking workers while the PSI and CGIL weren't.

[52] This was known as the Clock Strike or the Strike of the Hands in OTL as well as TTL and didn't result in any factory occupations and was dispersed by May 1st.

[53] This happened in OTL, as Ledeen recounts (and speculates that some of the weapons sold were from the Persia), with the only difference in this ATL being that Kochnitzky secures a concrete statement of support from the Egyptians as well as Egyptian membership in the League.

[54] In OTL, the strikers were dispersed by the Carabinieri, while here the strikers (assisted by the anarchists of the USI and the PSI's Red Guards) successfully manage to beat them back and leads to earlier factory occupations and strikes throughout Italy.

[55] And finally, this is where things go absolutely tits up for the Liberal-Democratic royal government. It's a convenient narrative tool to have an overeager aide communicate what he interprets as genuine orders from Giolitti to the military, who go ahead and fire artillery on the striking workers and their allies. It's a galvanizing act that sends already discontent Italian citizens flocking to the ranks of the Fiumans and the socialist-anarchist coalition.

[56] I can't find any concrete information on when D'Annunzio started to be called the Prophet in addition or in place of the Poet, so for narrative purposes, I'm having it come about as a result of the shelling of Turin.

[57] I'll openly admit that these numbers are arbitrary, but also not what I'd consider unreasonable, given the fact that the total Italian population was a little over 35 million in 1920.

[58] This was the same in OTL, and the Italians called the region Valona.

[59] Same as OTL, nothing much to say other than that.

[60] Better known as King Zog I in OTL.

[61] This is the same as OTL, as the Albanians had no actual military at the time the Vlora War started.

[62] Also true to OTL, made even more shocking by the fact that the Albanians were fighting what amounted to a guerrilla insurrection, and one that involved some irregulars that weren't even armed with modern weaponry like the Italians (using a variety of weapons such as "swords, sticks, bricks, shovels, old-fashioned front-loading muskets, and even their bare hands"). Definitely not the Regio Esercito's finest hour, and a large reason for Mussolini's later invasion of Albania in OTL. You can read a good English language account of the war written in 2008 by an Albanian-American here. It's fascinating, really.

[63] This is done for narrative purposes, as the officer who becomes the senior commander of the Italian garrison (Domenico Mondelli) plays a significant role in Italy in this ATL. In OTL, the only senior officer killed by the Albanians was General Enrico Gotti, while the rest of the Italian high command survived.

[64] Domenico Mondelli, one of the major Italian viewpoint characters alongside Lorenzo Secondari and Gastone Brilli-Peri, is honestly one of the unsung heroes of Italy and it's a shame. Adopted by Colonel Attilio Mondelli of the Regio Esercito in the Italian retreat during the First Italo-Abyssinian War (he was the son of an Italian soldier and an Eritrean woman), he followed in his adoptive father's footsteps and became a decorated soldier during the Italo-Turkish War and the Great War, as well as being the first Black aviator in Italy. His illustrious career during the Great War is all true to OTL, as well as his deployment to Albania during the Vlora War, and the only reason he didn't go further in the Regio Esercito was due to the 1925 ban on Freemasons serving in public employment in addition to discrimination in the army where his promotion to Colonel was blocked. He went on to join the Blackshirts as a reservist, reaching the rank of Consul General. After World War II he re-enlisted as a reserve officer and eventually was promoted to the rank of General in the late 60s and was decorated with the Italian Republic's highest order of merit in 1970. He lived in Rome until his death in 1974 and became a Master Freemason of the 33rd Degree. He was an absolute legend who's been forgotten by history, a perfect example of how Italian colonial subjects could've been fully integrated as Italians, and the fact that he was forgotten is a shame that I intend to correct in OPAS. The author of the in-universe book on the Italian Civil War, Mauro Valeri, is the author of the sole biography on Mondelli in the present. Currently the book is only in Italian, but I wish it had an English translation.

[65] This figure is true to OTL, as confirmed in Giovanni Giolitti's personal diary.

[66] This is also true to OTL.

[67] It takes about 7.7 days to travel from Vlora to Rijeka (modern-day Fiume) on foot, according to Google Maps. For narrative purposes, the Vlora War in OPAS doesn't end the same time it did in OTL (August 4th instead of August 2nd), so Mondelli and his men arrive in Fiume on the 12th, the same day that D'Annunzio declares the independence of the Italian Regency of Carnaro.

[68] This was based off of RNG, with the range set from 1000 to 4000, a range I feel is acceptable given the fact that Albania at the time was hostile to the Italians and infested with malarial marshes. The Yugoslavs were also not fond of the Italians at this time, for obvious reasons, so Mondelli does his best to lead his men out from Vlora to the safe haven of Fiume.

[69] The Charter of Carnaro is a really unique document in the history of political constitutions. I'm currently reading it as part of my plans for Carnarism, and it's really striking how unique it is when compared to contemporary works such as the Futurist Manifesto, the Futurist Political Manifesto, and the Fascist Manifesto. While De Ambris wrote a good deal of it, the drafts he came up with were always shown to D'Annunzio in the months prior to its completion, who gave it a lot of it's flair. Ledeen comments that it's somewhat syndicalist in wording and has some secular views on religion in the same vein as Marx, which I agree with to an extent, but it's just as much a corporatist document and a uniquely D'Annunzian text, one that's radical and transcends the left-right political spectrum. Give it a read, it's fascinating.

[70] I've seen it stated that the actual leader of the Uscocchi was one Captain Romano Manzutto, but since I can't reliably verify that, I'm going with Guido Keller, since he's associated with them.

[71] This is true to OTL, as the Uscocchi raided a great deal of ships and committed daring acts in support of Fiume. One of the ships that was raided, the Trepani, was said to contain "600 sacks of flour, 330 sacks of pasta, 100 sacks of chickpeas, 278 coffee bags, 224 baskets of cheese, as well as hay, oats, bran, building timber, 10,000 pairs of shoes, and even 40 cases of fire extinguishers!". Another ship that was captured, the Cogne, "silk, cotton soft goods, automobiles, airplanes, Swiss watches, and other miscellaneous goods" that D'Annunzio sold to raise funds for insurrections from Balkan separatists, and the ship itself was eventually ransomed for 12 million lire from a group of industrialists. Even more daring than these maritime raids were the ones on land, where the Uscocchi kidnapped General Arturo Nigra, who'd been critical of Fiume from the very beginning, as well as the adventure of the "Horse of the Apocalypse", where the Uscocchi stole 46 healthy horses from a military stable in protest of the imprisonment of ex-legionaries and when given demands to return them, returned 46 emaciated horses from Fiume instead.

[72] To put things into perspective, the total population of Fiume 35,839 inhabitants in September 1919, when D'Annunzio and his legionaries entered the city. There's plenty of economic factors that I don't discuss in this chapter for expediency's sake, but generally the population was able to be fed thanks to the Uscocchi's raids. However, with the addition of Mondelli and his men who arrive in August, the total population would then be 86,454 when you count both legionaries and civilians. Even if the Uscocchi continue to be successful when raiding civilian shipping, there's no feasible way to continue to feed and clothe and pay all those people. It's just not possible. Which then leads the Fiumans to begin to plot their March on Rome to coup the Giolitti government, thus relieving the civilian population of the strain on them.

[73] "Red" is a bit of a misnomer here, since the occupied factories are made up of both socialist and anarchist elements, but the nationalists of Fiume don't really care enough to see the difference between the two, even with Alceste De Ambris being an anarcho-socialist figure.

[74] This is an obvious Allohistorical Allusion (something I'm fond of in alt-hist, as long as it's not overdone) to the Fascist propaganda event of the same name during the final days of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.

[75] Technically, this is also a misnomer, since the "Army" is more like an alliance of nationalistic groups, but it's cooler to call it an army, so I'm sticking with it.

[76] Oscar Sinigaglia was planning to fund the coup in OTL, while most other corporate figures stayed neutral. Here, he's joined by Giovanni Agnelli (who you'll remember as the founder of FIAT), who's become disillusioned by the Giolitti government's failure to handle the situation, even though his plea for action led to the shelling of Turin.

[77] I haven't decided the exact number yet, but I'm most likely going to roll on the RNG in a range between 100k and 750k, given the total number of socialist and anarchists.

[78] To give a brief summary of the concept of proletarian nationalism, it essentially adopts the view that "war is revolutionary" and that Italy is morally and materially a proletarian nation. Mussolini would expand on this in OTL, claiming that it's derived from the theories of the French intellectual Georges Sorel and that Italy needed to stand against the imperialistic and plutocratic powers of the West. Since Mussolini never abandons the Maximalist wing of the PSI, that's obviously not the case here. Funnily enough, Corradini occasionally used the term "national socialism" to define his theory, though no evidence exists that his use of the term influenced the Nazis in Germany.

[79] This is mostly the same as OTL, although here Shimoi is contacting a broader range of figures than in OTL, rather than only acting as a liaison between D'Annunzio and Mussolini.

[80] Gustavo Fara was a distinguished General in OTL as well as one of the organizers of the Fascist March on Rome and Emilio De Bono was also drawn to Fascism (though he asked both the People's Party and the PSI if they needed a Minister of War) and helped to organize the March on Rome as one of the Quadrumviri, so I see no reason for them not to be drawn to the ANI and Carnarism. As for Rodolfo Graziani, he was one of the most dedicated Generals to Fascism and the youngest Colonel in the Regio Esercito during World War I, and it feels only natural that he'd join the nationalist cause.

[81] This is another Allohistorical Allusion to the Fascist Quadrumviri from OTL.

[82] As stated in the chapter, Enrico Millo assured D'Annunzio that he wouldn't leave Dalmatia until it was part of Italy proper, and I have no reason not to believe that he'd join in the plot if he thought it would be successful. As for Major General Caviglia, it's confirmed that he held grievous doubts about the events of Bloody Christmas (where he led the army that expelled D'Annunzio's forces from Fiume in December of 1920), doubts that he expressed in his personal diary. From a narrative and historical perspective, I can easily see him becoming disillusioned with the response of the Giolitti government and throwing his lot in with a Fiuman coup as a result.

[83] You may have noticed that the Nitti and Giolitti governments have been screwed pretty hard thus far. While Nitti's bungling of the situation is true to OTL (through no fault of his own), Giolitti's failures may seem like me screwing him for no good reason. This isn't the case, even if it comes across that way, because it's part of the butterflies caused by the initial POD. With an overall more militant international socialist and anarchist movement, the strategies of men like Giolitti and Nitti, men who seek peaceful solutions to increasingly chaotic situations, aren't as viable. The Great War (in both OTL and this ATL) changed the world irrevocably, as charismatic men (and women, eventually) like Kamo and D'Annunzio come to power. This is a timeline where functioning democracies become increasingly rare, where republicanism spreads throughout Europe as monarchies are overturned and toppled, where China is united by an army of religious zealots who crush infidels and heretics, where movements like Carnarism, Petrosianism and the Volkssturmbewegung take root and spread throughout the world, and where warfare retains the same brutality of the Great War. To refute Matthew 5:5, the Meek are not the Blessed in the world of OPAS and they do not inherit the Earth. Instead, to quote Matthew 10:34 and 10:35, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword. For I come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law". Which isn't to say that OPAS is a dystopia, because it's firmly in the category of A World Half Full, since democracy still survives in the US and the UK despite the odds, there's an earlier feminist movement and other civil rights advances, and there are radical political changes that promote idealistic and utopian ideas about society. It's not perfect by any standards, but my intention is for my audience (you guys) to read this timeline and understand how morally gray history is and determine for yourself whether the world of OPAS is better or worse.

[84] Why the Italian Socialist Workers' Republic and not something like the Soviet Socialist Republic of Italy or the Socialist Republic of Italy? Two reasons for that: First, Soviet is the Russian word for "Council" and makes no sense in the context of Italy. Second, the closest equivalent for tbe Soviets in Italy would be the so-called "workers' councils" formed during OTL's Red Biennium. However, Italian Socialist Workers' Council Republic would be a mouthful, so I've shortened it to the Italian Socialist Workers' Republic.

[85] This is significantly more than the Fascist numbers marching in OTL, mainly because the combined forces of the socialists, anarchists, and workers number closer to 1 million in comparison to OTL's 320,000 members of the National Fascist Party. Furthermore, they've been organized, on strike, and occupying factories for months now compared to the somewhat hastily-prepared Fascist March on Rome. Therefore, I don't see it as particularly implausible for them to take such a large number of individuals to march on Rome, especially since the Regio Esercito has been demobilized and spread out. Additionally, since I can't find any concrete information about the Carabinieri's size in 1920, I'm gonna operate under the assumption that a good deal would desert to Fiume or the RSIL.

[86] It should be fairly obvious why Badoglio would evacuate the royal family and the Pope from Rome in the face of a huge throng of militant socialist revolutionaries who're republican and firmly anti-clerical in outlook.

[87] The British have their hands full dealing with the Irish Republic and the increasingly fraught situation in the British Raj, the French have lost millions of people in the Great War and are busy occupying the parts of Germany, and D'Annunzio obviously doesn't want anything to do with the legitimate government because he's planning to take over himself.

[88] From everything I can find thus far about Badoglio, the historical picture paints him as more or less an incompetent glory hound who did whatever he could to benefit himself. In WWI, he appears to have played a major role in the disastrous Italian loss at Caporetto, and then spent the rest of his career from the interwar period on trying to cover it up. Even his attempt to switch sides during WWII was a fuck up, with the declaration to the Allies being announced (by the Allies, to be fair) before Italian troops could be informed, leading to widespread Italian disarmament and the massacre of an entire infantry division at the hands of the Germans after their high command. Hell, Enrico Caviglia had grown increasingly hostile towards him by 1943, referring to him as a "barn dog that goes where there is the biggest morsel" because he'd left Caviglia in dire straits in 1917 (Caporetto), 1920 (Fiume), and 1943 (Rome). In summary, I have every reason to believe that he would be stupid enough to attempt something so blatantly suicidal in a situation like this. Fuck Pietro Badoglio.

[89] Now, could Admiral Millo have plausibly given this order to the Andrea Doria in OTL? Maybe, maybe not, but in OTL it was Giolitti giving the orders for the Andrea Doria to shell Fiume, whereas here we have that role given to Pietro Badoglio. Badoglio was not the head of the Regia Marina, but the head of the Regio Esercito, while Millo was an established Admiral in the Regia Marina who'd been honored multiple times. Furthermore, you have to take into account the situation in Italy by this point in the ATL. The Giolitti government has seemingly given the order to fire on Italian citizens, a Socialist republic has just been declared in the North-Northwest and marched on Rome, the country's gone to shit, the Carabinieri have deserted, and everything is going to hell in a handbasket. Finally, to quote the woefully underappreciated AH Tropes Wiki, "History is implausible. We can't say that history is ASB. There's nothing in it that couldn't possibly have happened, or at least not that we can prove. But we can say history is extremely implausible. It takes deliberately bad writing to be less plausible than what actually happened". And you can bet your ass that I'm a damned good writer.

[90-91] As far as plausibility goes, I'm willing to say that these events are plausible. In fact, the number of actually functional tanks in Italy prior to 1921 was a grand total of 5: 3 Renault FTs, 1 Schneider CA1, and the FIAT 2000 heavy tank (the other one was in Libya). With regards to Caviglia being able to give the order to send these tanks to Trieste, I think it's feasible, given the fact that the FIAT 2000 was sent to Fort Tiburtina on the orders of a Colonel in the 30s. As for my rationale for the Nationalists getting a decent number of tanks is that their main advantages in the Civil War are that their troops are highly trained and disciplined, are led by a number of distinguished military personnel, fight with unorthodox tactics compared to the Socialists and Royalists, and regularly use cocaine and alcohol to hype themselves up for battle. Plus, the narrative idea of a former motorcycle racer and veteran-turned-tank ace (Gastone Brilli-Peri) with a crew of coked-up veterans is too good not to use. When it comes to the FIAT 3000 tanks (100 in total) that entered into service in 1921, I can't find any information on when they were delivered, so for the sake of narrative "balance" (or whatever you want to call it), I'm going to handwave it that they were sent out before the declaration of the RSIL in 1920. Even still, with Agnelli on the side of the Nationalists and the Socialists occupying factories throughout Italy, the breakdown of tanks in the Civil War is going to be as follows:

40 tanks on the Nationalist side (including the Renault FTs, the Schneider CA1, the FIAT 2000, and 35 of the FIAT 3000s)
30 tanks on the Socialist side (all FIAT 3000s)
30 tanks on the Royalist side (also all FIAT 3000s)

[92] The total number of soldiers in the Regio Esercito by December 1st, 1919 was 552,000 according to John Gooch in his book Mussolini and his Generals. I'm going off of the assumption that the majority of the enlisted soldiers stay loyal to the Royalist cause and that the 1920 cuts proposed by Minister of War Ivanoe Bonomi (which would leave the Regio Esercito at 175,000 total enlisted men) don't go through. This leaves the Royalist side with the lowest number of soldiers in the Civil War (I can't find any numbers for the Royal Corps of Colonial Troops circa 1919-1920, besides the Italian colonies are gonna be dealing with their own shit during the Civil War, namely with the Senussis in Libya and the independent-minded Sultans in Somalia, while Eritrea remains loyal by virtue of the fact that Mondelli is on the Nationalist side), but the most trained in conventional warfare and a strong position in the south of Italy.

[93] You'll get to see this speech (or part of it) in Secondari's first POV chapter.

[94] While Balbo hasn't established a name for himself just yet, he will during the Civil War. Besides, it wouldn't be the same without Balbo appearing in some form.

[95] As I've mentioned before, Marinetti and Vecchi went to Fiume in the early days of the adventure, but were eventually asked to leave because they were viewed (Marinetti in particular) as rivals to the Commandant, as well as being dismayed by the fact that D'Annuzio was working with conservative officers. However, with the outbreak of civil war and Marinetti denouncing the PSI and the Royalists, they're quick to turn around and go back to D'Annunzio. Plus, Feruccio Vecchi looks like a goddamn supervillain and I want to feature him in some capacity.

Persephone · Oct 15, 2020

Here's a current map of the world, circa 1921. I mainly focused on Italy and tried to make it as close to the territory controlled at the start of the Civil War as I could, but I might've messed up a little. Note that Albania has retaken most of their territory not occupied by the Greeks/Yugoslavs as well as the area around Fiume occupied by the Nationalists.

First Executive Council of Carnarism/the Army of National Salvation
Minister for Foreign Affairs/Prime Minister: Harukichi Shimoi
Minister for Finance and the Treasury: Ezio Maria Gray
Minister of Public Instruction: Francesco Giunta
Minister of the Interior and of Justice: Guido Keller
Minister of National Defense: Enrico Caviglia
Minister of Public Economy: Alfredo Rocco
Minister of Labor: Alceste De Ambris

Persephone · Oct 19, 2020

Alright, as promised in Chapter III, here's the breakdown of the forces involved in the Italian Civil War. I realize that this is a bit unnecessary since the Carnarists are ultimately going to win, but I still think it's useful just to give a point of reference for why the civil war lasts as long as it does (though to be honest, the Carnarists get more details than the other two factions). As per usual, the numbers are rough estimates because the exact numbers are difficult to find online, though Gooch's Mussolini and His Generals is somewhat helpful in that regard, although it's a massive fucking text that I won't finish anytime soon. In any case, I came up with some of the numbers with RNG (for the number of ANI members siphoned off from the PSI-USI alliance, using two numbers on a range of 100K to 500K, then dividing the total by 2 ) and estimated OTL numbers of the time (for the number of Blueshirts and existing ANI members and recruits). You'll notice that I don't list specific naval estimates and that's because I have found zero concrete information about the size of the Regia Marina at the time the war starts (Gooch only notes a demobilization of Regia Marina sailors in November 1920 that reduced the sailor numbers from 120,000 to 34,000 and nothing about the number of ships). The only concrete numbers I have at the moment are the numbers of the Regia Marina ships that had sided with Fiume, which comes out to a grand total of 21 ships, with the Andrea Doria bumping it up to 22 (that's 2 battleships, 6 destroyers, 1 directed coastal torpedo boat, 2 regular coastal torpedo boats, 2 explorers, 1 coastal submarine, and 8 MAS motorboats). Because of this, they'll play a limited role in the Civil War, probably just as troop transports and possibly used to attempt to cut off the foreign volunteers to the RSIL from Spain and France. As an aside, I'm not sure whether the Washington Naval Conference will be butterflied away just yet.

As for airpower, Gooch notes that the total number of Italian planes at the end of WW1 2,725 aircraft, with no reference to exactly what types of aircraft they are, (and this is before the formation of the Regia Aeronautica in 1923) so I've decided to divide them between the Carnarists and the Royalists. In summary, this means that the Italian Civil War will effectively be a land-based war, with limited aerial support. You'll also notice that I'm not going to speculate on how much ammunition and armaments each side has other than tanks and armored cars because to be completely honest, I have no clue about the amount of numbers and math that would entail, and I have no desire to bog down the narrative with the minutiae involved. I'll be more than happy to attempt it for future conflicts, but doing it for this particular war is currently beyond my abilities. Call me a hack if you want, but my goal here is to create an entertaining narrative timeline that lands on the Type I/II scale of plausibility with a mix of hard and soft elements. In other words, I'm a narrative writer first and foremost with numbers (while trying to remain in the realm of plausibility) as a secondary concern with regards to the Italian Civil War. I've tried to limit the number of foreign volunteers to keep it within reason, with the main ones being on the Carnarist and Socialist side, with significantly more volunteers for the Carnarists, and I've more or less not included the Italian-Americans deported from the United States, as I'm still trying to determine how many will be deported by the Palmer Administration. You'll also notice that the 2 million plus members of the CGIL don't participate on the RSIL's side and that's for three reasons:

They didn't support the strikes and occupations in OTL or TTL and have no desire to take up arms with the RSIL as a result.
By not participating in the Civil War, said members avoid the possibility of getting dragged out of their homes and getting executed (and having to watch their families get executed) after the Carnarists win.
Having 2 million plus members on the RSIL's side would mean that the Carnarists would have to bump up their recruitment/conscription efforts into the millions, as would the Royalists, and the resulting conflict would be at least a decade and a half of warfare that would mean Italy would be ruined for decades to come and I have no desire to write such an apocalyptic scenario.

After the war (which will roughly end in 1924 or 1925, haven't decided yet), they'll spend the remaining 5-6 years of the 20s rebuilding the country and reasserting control over the Italian Colonies in Africa (meaning that they won't be as screwed by the Great Depression equivalent, if it happens), only starting to rebuild their military as they go into the 30s and possibly into the early 40s. As a result, the major regional conflict in Western Europe is likely to end up happening in the mid-to-late 40s and early 50s, I'm still planning the specifics of that one, though the basic outline is there. Spoiler alert: It's Germany, Italy, and French Africa (that last part will be explained later on) versus Spain, possibly Portugal, and Mainland France.

First up is the Carnarists:
Total Troop Numbers - 828,029 (Composed of 382,311 ANI members siphoned off from the PSI-USI, 320,000 existing members and Blueshirt paramilitaries of the ANI, the 2,033 crew of the Andrea Doria, 43,000 demobilized veterans of the Regia Marina, 30,170 foreign volunteers, and the 50,615 Fiuman Legionaries)

As noted in the opening paragraph, I used RNG for the number of ANI members siphoned off from the PSI-USI, while I used OTL numbers for the National Fascist Party in around late 1921 for the number of existing ANI and Blueshirt paramilitaries. With the demobilized veterans of the Regia Marina, the November 1920 reduction of the Regia Marina from 120,000 to 34,000 would've left around 86,000 sailors out of work, and I can easily see them flocking to the Nationalist and Socialist sides since the Royalist government was ultimately responsible for making them civilians. Finally, the 30,170 foreign volunteers represent the 3,070 exiles of the Montenegrin Government-in-Exile after the failure of the Christmas Uprising, arbitrary numbers representing Egyptian and Croatian nationalists (2,500 from Egypt and 5,000 from Croatia) returning to aid the Carnarist cause in exchange for future support in the League of Fiume, a token force of 500 sent by the reactionary Hungarian regime in exchange for recognition (something Kochnitzky protests against but ultimately accedes to after some convincing from D'Annunzio, and then 19,100 from Portugal and a range of other countries (numbers taken from OTL's Spanish Civil War, 8,000 from the Viriatos and 11,000 from a multitude of foreign countries).
Total Number of Tanks - 45 (Composed of 3 Renault FTs, 1 Schneider CA1, the FIAT 2000 "L'Arcangelo", and 40 FIAT 3000s)
- As noted in the second part of Chapter III, this consists of 3 Renault FTs, 1 Schneider CA1, the FIAT 2000 "L'Arcangelo", and 40 FIAT 3000s.
Total Number of Armored Cars - 60 (Composed of 10 Lancia 1Zs and 50 Lancia 1ZMs)
- The Lancia 1Z and 1ZM in OTL were the primary armored cars of the Regio Esercito, with the former produced in 1914 and the latter produced in 1918, though they didn't really see much use in combat and after the war a good deal were sent to North and East Africa for use in policing duties. For narrative purposes (and also to ensure that the Carnarists don't just steamroll over the RSIL on their way to the Royalists), their transfer to Africa will be butterflied away and they'll instead be divided among the three warring sides, with the Carnarists receiving the bulk of them while the RSIL and Royalists split the difference on the remainder. Not gonna lie, they were pretty powerful for their time and only took a six man crew to run, so their use in the war will help influence future Carnarist military strategy.
Total Number of Aircraft - 1,362 (Comprised of a multitude of types aircraft)
- As noted above, I can't find any information about what types aircraft the Italians had at the end of the war, so you can safely assume that they'll play a limited role in the Civil War. As for after the war, you'll just have to wait and see. They might utilize actual semi-rigid/rigid airships, they might not, there's a lot of potential for more aviation development to take place, given the number of fighter aces and aviators on the Carnarist side, as well as a certain prominent airpower theorist.
Carnarist Military Advantages
- The most obvious military advantage that the Army of National Salvation has is that a good majority of their troops are elite, well-trained, and utterly fanatical to the cause. They also have a stronger discipline than the other two factions, albeit not one based around conventional military hierarchy but rather based on devotion to the Commandant. They aren't afraid of death and they're more than willing to fight dirty. While they won't begin outright slaughtering the civilian population as they advance into enemy territory (after all, they're ultimately trying to save Italy, not destroy it), they won't cry over collateral damage, though they'll limit their extrajudicial and civilian killings to those who're openly aligned with the RSIL (and eventually, the Royalists) and try to resist their grand endeavor. Additionally, they're somewhat more open-minded than the Royalists, with no real discrimination (outside of the Futurists) towards sex or gender among their troops, as they actively encourage women to join the fight against those who'd destroy Italy. Finally, the increasingly-urban nature of the civil war and the radical nature of the legionaries leads to some creative uses of what most contemporary armies wouldn't consider.
- The second military advantage is that out of all three factions, they have the most armored fighting vehicles, including the aforementioned FIAT 2000, which was an absolute behemoth of a tank, just look up the specs and you'll see why it's going to be devastating in the bloody urban warfare that the Civil War turns into. While the Socialists and Royalists have their fair share of armored fighting vehicles, including tanks, the FIAT 3000s that they have (though the Carnarists also have them) had underpowered armaments (two 6.5 mm machine guns) that weren't replaced in OTL until 1929. I'm not the most well-versed in tank warfare, but compare the specs of the FIAT 2000, Renault FT, or Schneider CA1 to the FIAT 3000 and I get the impression that one of any of those tanks could be more than a match for two or three of the latter tanks.
- Next up on their advantages is something based off of the legionaries' experimental society in Fiume. Namely, the experimentation with drugs and alcohol among the younger legionaries. Cocaine is a hell of a stimulant, and soldiers used it fairly heavily during the Great War for medical use and as a performance enhancer. Fighter pilots used it to stay alert during the prolonged dogfights in the Great War and it developed a reputation as a drug associated with valorous actions, something that the Nationalists will use to their advantage. As a result of the extensive use of drugs during the Italian Civil War on the Nationalist side, a new term/trend begins to spread throughout Europe: Psychopharmacological Warfare.
- Their final advantage is their unorthodox method of fighting, as a result of the mixture of military theories among the Carnarist high command. Quadrumvir Fara and Minister of National Defense Caviglia advocate for a more traditional approach to warfare, Quadrumvir De Bono is pushing for a more cautious and calculating approach, Quadrumvir Mondelli and Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimoi (who is willing to actually risk his own life in the fighting, unlike some of the other ministers) favor an approach involving shock and awe and direct assaults in the style of the Arditi, Quadrumvir Rodolfo Graziani advocates for the use of rapid advances with motorized and armored troops to overwhelm the enemy, and Minister of the Interior and of Justice Keller (who, like Minister Shimoi, is willing to risk his life in the fighting) favors a rather flamboyant and piratical approach to the war with raids on enemy supplies and military leaders. All this combines to create a rather unorthodox approach with more autonomy in comparison to the Socialists and Royalists, who won't be as prepared for the diverse tactics used. Throw into that the fact that the Carnarists are more than willing to fight a total war to save Italy, and you've got a serious threat to their enemies.
Carnarist Military Disadvantages
- While the unorthodox, rather hands-off, and autonomous approach to fighting helps the Carnarists, it also leaves them vulnerable to a slower advance as the high command doesn't always agree on how battles should be fought and when to push further into enemy territory. The fact that they're intent on waging a total war to destroy the enemy also doesn't help endear them to the civilian population of the territory they conquer, even if they do their best to only focus on hostile civilians. Looting is a problem among the legionaries as well, despite it being discouraged by the high command. Overall, Carnarist military doctrine won't be set in stone until after the civil war ends, when the Armed Forces can actually be re-established and use the experiences learned in the war to create a uniquely Carnarist military.
- While the use of drugs and alcohol as part of the early developments in psychopharmacological warfare that occur during the civil war are terrifying to be up against also have a detrimental effect when the soldiers inevitably come down and begin to crave more and more. As anyone who's struggled with substance abuse will tell you, when you're craving and going through withdrawal, it's utter shit until you get that high again. There'll be solutions to this post-war, but in the meantime it'll be a back-and-forth swing between furious combat and a slow bloody slog.

Now that the Carnarists have been covered, let's move on to the RSIL forces:

Total Troop Numbers - 919,651 (Composed of 367,689 PSI-USI members, paramilitary Red Guards, and Ceka agents, 500,000 workers, 8,962 French and Spanish foreign volunteers, and 43,000 demobilized veterans of the Regia Marina)
- While the PSI-USI alliance did lose a good number of their members to the ANI's recruitment efforts, they still have an advantage due to the fact that 500,000 workers joined in on the industrial strikes (as in OTL's Red Biennium), even if they're untrained, and the 43,000 demobilized veterans of the Regia Marina flocking to their cause. Meanwhile, the numbers for the French and Spanish foreign volunteers are taken from the OTL numbers of French volunteers in the International Brigades. It might be a bit of a stretch, but the Socialists are stuck in the middle of Italy and have the numerical advantage, so it only seems fair to give them a bit of foreign support (plus it's also for narrative purposes for later on in the timeline), even if they're not going to win in the end.
Total Number of Tanks - 30 (All FIAT 3000s)
- As noted in the second part of Chapter III, the Socialists managed to seize 30 FIAT 3000s before being driven from north/northwest Italy.
Total Number of Armored Cars - 30 (30 Lancia 1ZMs)
- As noted in the Carnarist section, I've decided to split the difference of the remaining 60 Lancia 1ZMs between the Socialists and the Royalists, for narrative purposes.
Total Number of Aircraft - 0
- As noted in the beginning of this update, the total number of Italian aircraft has been split between the Carnarists and the Royalists, and this will primarily be a land-based war with some aerial support.
RSIL Military Advantages
- The obvious advantage that the RSIL has over the other factions in the civil war is that they have the largest number of troops to mobilize against the other two factions, even if a large bulk of those troops are merely revolting workers that aren't particularly trained in warfare.
- Under the auspices of Benito Mussolini, the RSIL has formed a secret police, the Ceka (named and modeled after the Soviet Cheka) to root out traitors, saboteurs, reactionaries, and to serve as political commissars if necessary. Run by Roberto Farinacci and Cesare Rossi, the Ceka serve as the iron fist within the RSIL's velvet glove.
- While they don't gain nearly as much foreign support as the Carnarists, the RSIL does receive a steady amount of volunteers from France and Spain. As a bit of foreshadowing, a future prominent political figure in France will take part in the civil war as a volunteer on the RSIL's side, though I'll leave it up to you guys to figure out who it is.
- Compared to the Carnarists, who are waging a sort of semi-total war, and the Royalists, who are waging a more conventional war, the RSIL are waging a guerilla war/insurgency within the territory they control. Obviously, this gives them greater mobility and flexibility compared to their enemies and is especially useful when you consider that they're surrounded on both sides by hostile enemies that could otherwise hem them in from both sides.
RSIL Military Disadvantages
- There are really only three disadvantages that the RSIL have, and the first one is that despite the fact that they've got a larger number of troops than the other two factions, a large bulk of them (the 500,000 workers) aren't trained soldiers while their enemies are. Sure, you can teach them to shoot and fight back and wage a guerrilla campaign, but time spent trying to train and keep them alive is time that the enemy armies can use to attack your untrained workers that don't have proper military training and discipline.
- The second disadvantage is something I mentioned in their advantages, and that's the fact that they're surrounded on both sides by hostile forces with no real way to get outside or foreign support other than the Spanish and French foreign volunteers that are coming in. The Soviets are still in the midst of their civil war and won't finish it until the later months of 1921/early months of 1922 and therefore can't provide material aid or support, and the German socialist uprisings have been crushed by the Freikorps and the Weimar government by this point.
- Finally, the third disadvantage is that the Ceka, while useful as a secret police force, are also bloodthirsty thugs who kill anyone they perceive as reactionary or bourgeoise, and go out of their way to target Jewish citizens under the orders of Roberto Farinacci. That's not exactly the greatest recipe for endearing yourself to the civilian population, y'know?

Finally, let's cover the Royalists under General Badoglio:

Total Troop Numbers - 552,000 (Composed of the total number of enlisted men in the Regio Esercito)
- As noted in Chapter III, the total number of enlisted men in the Regio Esercito in 1919 was 552,000 and I'm operating off of the assumption that those numbers weren't reduced in 1920.
Total Number of Tanks - 30 (All FIAT 3000s)
- As noted in Chapter III, the Royalists managed to maintain control over 30 of the FIAT 3000s.
Total Number of Armored Cars - 30 (Composed of 30 Lancia 1ZMs)
- As noted in the Carnarist section, I've decided to split the difference of the remaining 60 Lancia 1ZMs between the Socialists and the Royalists, for narrative purposes.
Total Number of Aircraft - 1,362 (Comprised of a multitude of types)
- As noted in the beginning, I've decided to split the 2,725 aircraft remaining at the end of the Great War between the Carnarists and the Royalists.
Royalist Military Advantages
- I'll be honest, the Royalists don't have a lot going for them, outside of being firmly entrenched in Southern Italy and Sardinia, with the loyal troops of the Regio Esercito and competent military officers like Giovanni Messe, Ettore Bastico, and Armando Diaz as well as others among their ranks. Their troops certainly have more discipline than the RSIL's forces and they have more airpower than the RSIL, but other then that, they're outnumbered by both the RSIL and the Carnarists. The only reason the Carnarists and the RSIL don't put aside their differences and march into Royalist territory is the fact that they hate each other more than they might hate the Royalists, so the Royalists don't have to worry about that for a while.
Royalist Military Disadvantages
- Yeah, I kinda covered a lot of their disadvantages in the advantages section, but to recap, they have the smallest number of troops of all the factions in the civil war, with only 552,000 troops compared to the Carnarists' 828,089 and the RSIL's 919,651 troops. They're also being led by the incompetent Pietro Badoglio, so that's bound to lead to some disastrous mistakes. Additionally, they're trying to fight a conventional war against enemies who're fighting a guerrilla war (the RSIL) and a semi-total war (the Carnarists), respectively. While their troops are disciplined, this isn't a conventional war and conventional tactics won't work as well when your enemies are fighting without regarding the traditional rules of warfare.

Anyway, that wraps up the breakdown of the factions in the Italian Civil War, and I hope it's entertaining, even if it's a bit on the technical and statistic side of things rather than any advancement in the narrative. Next up is the POV chapter for Domenico Mondelli, which is almost ready to post, pending a brief rewrite of things given the changes in circumstance for how Mondelli and his men go to Fiume.

Persephone · Oct 20, 2020

Hey there folks! Tonight we have a special treat for you, the first truly POV chapter of the timeline, this time from the perspective of Lieutenant Colonel Domenico Mondelli! Your musical accompaniment for this chapter La Leggenda del Piave, or The Legend of Piave. It's a fitting song for this chapter that presents a brief history of the Italian Front in WWI, in that it embodies the spirit of Mondelli's actions in this chapter, as well as being a battle that he fought in during OTL's Great War. As always, feedback and comments are appreciated. Now that that's out of the way, enjoy Chapter IV - The Miracle of Vlora!

Chapter IV - The Miracle of Vlora

The Italian garrison in Vlora, during the Italian occupation in the Great War.

August 4th, 1920. Vlora, Albania.

Domenico Mondelli considered himself a good soldier, and a loyal one at that. After all, he’d served the House of Savoy with distinction for years, first in the Libyan War, and more recently in the Great War. Even now, stationed in damnable Albania, he wore his medals earned during the Great War with pride. In spite of that, he felt a certain sense of unease. He was proud to be Italian, proud to serve his country, yet the fatherland was engulfed in chaos. The PSI were occupying factories and advocating for revolution, civilians were flocking en masse to Red Turin and Black Fiume, while the king’s government was paralyzed in the face of all this unrest.

And here I am, stuck in this godforsaken country, fighting a pointless war with no orders from the mainland as the politicians squabble amongst themselves, Mondelli thought with indignation. The Albanians had fought like devils for months now, killing his superior officers and leaving him in charge, and no orders were coming in from the government idiots on the mainland. Mondelli kept up a calm facade for his men, but here in private he fumed. What use is this so-called “war” if all it does is lead to more unnecessary deaths? How many brave Italian men must die for a mere parcel of Albania? He would not dare to utter such sentiments where his men could hear him, lest he further endanger the troops’ already weak morale.

Something had to be done, and soon, before more men succumbed to malaria or the attacks of those damned Albanian irregulars. Surrendering to the Albanians was out of the question, as that would besmirch the honor of his beloved army, and staying in the city would only lead to more of his men dying. What we need is a miracle, not more silence from the bastards on the mainland, Mondelli mused. We need something daring, something unexpected, something brave and worthy of the spirit of our elite corps, something...Fiuman. At that last thought, Mondelli paused. He’d refused to join in on the poet’s venture when it began out of principle, in order to stay loyal to his oath to the King and the House of Savoy. But now, with Italian troops stranded in Albania and dying in droves by the day, what good was that oath? If the government won’t act, then it falls upon me to ensure our survival, and if that means abandoning the King for D’Annunzio, then so be it. No more brave Italian men will die for this malarial swamp.

But he couldn’t act alone in this daring endeavor, far from it. Even if the majority of the men looked up to him and agreed to the plan, he would still need officers to keep them in line as they marched to Fiume, and for that he would need Majors Guadalupi and Bronzini. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long to find the two men, since they’d become fast friends after their superior officers were slaughtered. It was a strange friendship, since Bonaventura Guadalupi was a hot-headed and brash officer of the Arditi while Giuseppe Bronzini was a calm and collected major in the Carabinieri. Regardless, Mondelli found them deep in discussion, this time arguing about the merits of Italian women.

“I’m telling you, Giuseppe, my brother, a good Sicilian wife will change your life! They cook, they clean, they take care of the children, what more could you want?” Guadalupi gestured with emphasis as he spoke, extolling the virtues of Sicilian women as wives and mothers.

“And what exactly would you know about wives, hmm?” Bronzini fired back with a probing question. “I don’t see a wedding ring around your finger, for all your talk of wives.”

At this, the brash Arditi man laughed heartily. “Ha, you’ve got me there, brother! I’m not the type for marriage and settling down, but I’ve met my fair share of lonely wives, if you know what I mean.” Guadalupi punctuated his reply with a conspiratorial wink.

Before Bronzini could respond, he noticed Mondelli approaching, nudged Guadalupi in the side, and snapped off a quick salute. “Lieutenant Colonel. What can we do for you?” Guadalupi quickly followed suit, though he was somewhat slower on the uptake than his comrade.

Mondelli smiled at the younger officers’ dedication to discipline before responding. “At ease, gentlemen. If you’ll follow me, there’s an important matter we need to discuss, and seeing as how you’re effectively my joint seconds-in-command, your presence is vital.” After giving a brief overview of his plan to break out of Vlora and lead the remaining 23,000 men trapped in the city to D’Annunzio and his Fiuman rebels, Mondelli waited patiently for a response from the officers he was placing his trust in.

It was Bronzini that spoke first, a look of clear bewilderment on his face. “Lieutenant Colonel sir, with all due respect, this plan is...well, it’s desertion from the army, an abandonment of our sworn duty as soldiers, and even worst of all, it’s treason against the King!” The normally composed Carabinieri officer was clearly disturbed by the plan put forth by Mondelli and it showed.

Guadalupi chimed in next, a grimace on his face. “I have to agree with Giuseppe here, sir. While I’d normally be all for giving the Albanians a black eye, this would be something else entirely, and for all the success the Fiumans have had, how do we know the army won’t move in to crush them?”

Mondelli frowned at the two junior officers’ response. While he’d anticipated Bronzini to be against it, he’d hoped that the brash Guadalupi would at least be more amenable to the idea. Nevertheless, he would still try to convince them. “Gentlemen, we are in a hopeless situation, as I’m sure that you know. You’ve both been here since the beginning of this damned war, and you’ve both seen how many men we’ve lost. Good men, brave men, men that didn’t deserve to die in this malarial backwater.” Mondelli was resolute in his tone as he fixed both men with a steely gaze.

Bronzini stood firm while Guadalupi remained silent, shifting back and forth with his hands in his pockets. “That may be true, Lieutenant Colonel, but this plan of yours, this idea to lead our men hundreds of kilometers through hostile territory, it’s...it’s madness born out of desperation! The Albanians will harass us all the way to the border, and the Yugoslavs won’t treat us any better if we’re caught. We should just maintain our position here and wait for orders from the mainl-”

At the mention of waiting for orders, Mondelli snapped. Everyone knew that no orders were coming, yet here was Bronzini suggesting that they wait for them. “Damn it man, there are no orders from the mainland! The generals, that fool Giolitti, even the King, they’re all willing to leave us here to die, can’t you see that? Would you rather surrender to the Albanians and lose your honor as a soldier or would you like to show the world that Italian soldiers never give up? Or do I need to remind you of the men we’ve lost in this so-called ‘war’!”

As Bronzini tried to stutter out a response to Mondelli’s outburst, taken aback by the fury behind his words, Guadalupi spoke up. “Giuseppe…” He trailed off for a moment, as if to try and find the right words to say, before continuing. “Giuseppe, whether you like it or not, the Lieutenant Colonel’s got a point. We haven’t received any orders in well over a month, our men are dying by the day, morale is plummeting, and if we stay here any longer we’re liable to meet the same fate as the generals.”

Now it was Bronzini’s turn to have an outburst, turning to his friend and comrade with a glare. “How can you even think that this is a good idea, Guadalupi? Not only would we be abandoning our post, but we’d be abandoning our oath to the king!” Pivoting to face Mondelli, he directed his vitriol towards his superior officer next. “And you! You’re suggesting that we abandon our oath to the king, and for what? Some madman’s Renaissance fever dream on the Adriatic? You may be my superior officer, sir, but I will have no part in this madness!”

Mondelli’s response to this outburst from his subordinate was short and to the point. “Very well, Major Bronzini. If you aren’t honorable enough to take the necessary action to save the lives of your men, then I will do it for you.” At that, he turned and left the room. He didn’t go far, however, merely lingering outside the room and waiting. After a few minutes, the two majors exited the room and turned to face him.

“Lieutenant Colonel, we’ve discussed the situation and…” Bronzini began, speaking in a sheepish tone, before Guadalupi finished his sentence for him. “We’re with you, Lieutenant Colonel. Fiume or death.” Mondelli smiled, knowing that Bronzini was an honorable man, and would assent to the plan if he’d cast aspersions on his honor as a soldier. Just as planned.

“Excellent. Now that this is out of the way, Major Guadalupi, Major Bronzini, gather the men. We have an announcement to make.” With that, the smiling Lieutenant Colonel left his subordinates to gather the men for what would no doubt be a surprising announcement. After waiting for the men to assemble for roughly an hour or two, he now stood in front of a mass of weary soldiers, with both Guadalupi and Bronzini at his side, gazing out across their ranks.

Taking a moment to clear his throat, Mondelli began to address his troops. “Men, as I’m sure many of you are aware, we’ve been stuck in this Albanian swamp for the better part of two months. Not that there’s anywhere else that we could go, of course.” At that comment, several of the men audibly chuckled, but Mondelli wasn’t finished just yet. “As brave soldiers of Italy, we have held out in the face of adversity, even as our comrades have died from disease or at the hands of the Albanian devils. Yet despite our sacrifice, despite the hardships we’ve endured, the King and his Prime Minister Giolitti have abandoned us to our fate, to waste away and die as our fatherland suffers. So now we must look elsewhere for salvation, and we must strike out and seize it for ourselves. It is clear that the government would like to see us perish, but there are those who would prefer to see us live, who would welcome us with open arms: the valiant legionaries of Fiume.”

Now, murmurs swept through the crowd of assembled men, as they looked at each other in confusion and shock. Finally, a voice from the crowd spoke up. “What of the sick and injured? What of the Albanians and the Yugoslavs? And what of our oath to the King?” The murmurs grew in number as Guadalupi and Bronzini shifted nervously, and Mondelli knew he would have to convince them if he wanted to avoid a revolt.

Stepping forward so that the men could see the medals he kept pinned to his chest, Mondelli spoke. “You ask about the sick and injured among us. They will march with us, for we will not abandon them like the government has abandoned us! You ask about the Albanians and the Yugoslavs. We will overcome them, though they are bound to attack and harass us! Finally, you ask about our oath to the King. And to this, I say: What good is an oath to a King who will not protect his loyal soldiers? We have fought and bled and died for him, yet we remain trapped in this Albanian swamp while the politicians in the fatherland squabble among themselves, even as brave Italian men die in their stead!” Tearing the medals from his uniform and tossing them to one side dramatically, he continued. “If any among you doubt me or my devotion to Italy, know this: I have fought the Turk in Libia and the Crucco at the Piave, and have devoted my life to the fatherland! Now, I have but one question for you men: Will you march with me to the true Italy, to Fiume?”

Now, all was quiet as the crowd contemplated his words and talked amongst themselves. Then another voice rang out from the crowd, this time with a shout. “Fiume or death!” Then another voice echoed the call, and then another, and before long every soldier that could muster the strength to do so was shouting it. Mondelli couldn’t help but smile at the sight. The men would follow him to hell, if need be, and he knew it. Now let us pray to God that we don’t end up there, he silently thought to himself.

August 12th, 1920. The Outskirts of Fiume.

They had marched for eight days and nights through hostile territory, dodging Albanian irregulars and the Yugoslav authorities the entire time. They’d lost good men to disease and depredation, 2,385 in total according to Major Bronzini, but they’d survived nonetheless. It’s a miracle that we didn’t lose more, I suppose, Mondelli mused as he marched alongside his men. Before long, the first buildings of Fiume appeared in the distance, and Mondelli grinned while his men began to cheer and shout. Yet as they drew closer to Fiume, Mondelli’s heart sank as he saw an unknown flag fluttering in the wind: a crimson flag, emblazoned with an ouroboros and the stars of the Grande Carro. Were we too late? Have D’Annunzio and his legionaries been driven from the city?

Thoughts of despair ran amok in his mind for a moment, before he caught sight of a pair of men standing guard at the entrance to the city. One of them, a bare-chested youth in black jodhpurs and jackboots who couldn’t have been older than 18 held a Carcano in his hands, a Moschetto 91 TS from the looks of it, with the practiced ease of a soldier. His companion, on the other hand, appeared somewhat older, and far more grizzled in appearance. The right side of his face was covered in what looked like shrapnel scars and a matching pair of scars on either side of his lips gave him a permanent grin, though his somewhat gruesome visage was offset by a pitch-black beard and mustache. Like his young comrade in arms he wore black jodhpurs and jackboots, but unlike his companion, he was bedecked from head to toe in black attire. He wore a black bicyclist’s coat with a lapel patch depicting black flames on it, and a black fez adorned his shaven head. As if to further emphasize the difference between the two, the older one carried a veritable arsenal of weapons on his person: he cradled a Beretta M1918 in his arms, a Glisenti M1918 was holstered on one side while what looked like an Austrian Steyr-Hahn was secured on the other, a pair of Thevenot hand grenades hung from his belt, and a long trench dagger was strapped to his side.

As he stared at the two men in slight awe, something suddenly clicked in Mondelli’s mind. Their uniforms, their arms, their appearance, it all began to make sense. They’re Arditi, or are dressed like them at the very least. Which means they’re Italian, and that means that D’Annunzio still rules over Fiume. With newfound vigor, he rushed towards the pair, with his men trailing behind him. Now alerted to his presence, the two Arditi stopped their conversation, levelling their weapons at the newcomer.

The younger one spoke first, a lit cigarette jutting out from his lips as he promptly barked out an order. “Fermati! Identify yourself in the name of the Commandant and the Regency of Carnaro, or we will open fire, abissino!” Faced with a pair of guns pointed directly at him, Mondelli could do naught else but acquiesce to the command, as he slowly stepped towards the two men. As he did so, a single thought raced through his mind: Who in God’s name is the Commandant, and what the hell is the Regency of Carnaro?

As the two men sized him up, the older one suddenly had a look of realization flash across his face. “Lieutenant Colonel Mondelli, is that you? What are you doing here?” At this, Mondelli breathed a sigh of relief. The man had recognized him from somewhere, though he had no idea where that could possibly be. Visibly relaxing, he took another step forward before responding.

“That would be correct, and you would be…” Mondelli trailed off, waiting for the man’s response.

“Lieutenant Lorenzo Secondari, former Ardito of the Third Army, at your service. I fought at the Battle of the Solstice, not under your command of course, but I thought I recognized you.” The black-clad veteran lowered his M1918 as his younger compatriot looked on in incredulity. Turning to the younger man, Secondari gave him a terse order. “Gim, lower your rifle, they’re friendly.” Returning his attention back to Mondelli, he continued speaking. “Don’t mind him, he’s seen his share of fights, and with how things have been lately, we can’t be too careful. Now then, Lieutenant Colonel, what are you doing here, so far from home?”

Taking a moment to relax after the tense situation, Mondelli answered the Ardito succinctly. “Well, Lieutenant Secondari, I have with me 20,615 Italian soldiers, fresh from the fighting in Albania and more than willing to join in your endeavor, myself included.” Secondari’s jaw dropped as Mondelli’s men came into view, many of them grinning and cheering. Even Major Bronzini looked pleased, despite his initial opposition to the plan.

Turning to the young man he’d called Gim, who was as astonished as he was, Secondari barked out a quick order. “Gim, go and inform the Commandant and the high command! They’ll want to know about this immediately.” As his comrade raced off, presumably to inform whoever this Commandant was of their arrival, Secondari clapped Mondelli on the shoulder as a grin spread across his face. “Welcome to the Regency of Carnaro, Lieutenant Colonel. If you’ll follow me, I’ll give you and your men the grand tour before you go to see the Commandant.”

In short order, Secondari proceeded to show Mondelli and his sufficiently awestruck men around what he cheerfully called “The City of the Holocaust, a place unlike any other in existence”. As he did so, he informed Mondelli of the newfound circumstances that the Fiumans had found themselves in and the situation within the city itself. The Commandant that Secondari and his younger comrade (who he identified as Ettore Muti) had referred to was the new title of D’Annunzio, and the Regency of Carnaro was the name that the poet had chosen for his newly-proclaimed independent city state. Now we really are traitors and deserters, for better or for worse, he pondered grimly as Secondari talked. Once he got over the initial shock of the new situation he’d found himself in, he’d been whisked away to a meeting with the Commandant, trusting in Majors Guadalupi and Bronzini to maintain order among the men.

Thankfully, the meeting with D’Annunzio was mercifully short, with the Commandant mainly lavishing praise upon Mondelli and bestowing a grandiose title upon him, The Tigrayan Eagle, owing to his ethnic origins. Once the meeting was over, he’d been left to his own devices, free to wander the streets and do as he pleased. Checking in with Bronzini and Guadalupi to make sure the men had stayed out of trouble and had adequate lodgings, he learned that word had spread among Fiume’s legionaries of their escape from Vlora, an escape which was becoming known as “The Miracle of Vlora”. Afterwards, he spent the remainder of the day exploring the strange city of poets and supermen that he’d found himself in. As he lay down that night in the comfortable accommodations that Secondari had acquired for him, he couldn’t help but ponder the situation he’d found himself in. What madness is this that I’ve gotten myself into, to be in this strange city of soldiers and scoundrels? Perhaps he was more like D’Annunzio and his legionaries than he’d care to admit. Or perhaps he was just another stranger in a strange land, looking to find his way again.

Endnotes
Alright folks, that concludes Chapter IV, I hope you've enjoyed it! You all got an introduction to Domenico Mondelli in TTL, as well as a brief glimpse at the young Ettore Muti and his older comrade (and POV character), Lorenzo Secondari. While I won't be doing footnotes for narrative POV chapters like this one, as I feel like that would bog down the narrative, I will provide some helpful endnotes to give a bit more context to the events within them. First up, the Red Turin that's mentioned in the narration is an obvious reference to the fact that the center of the Socialist occupations is in Turin, while Black Fiume is a reference to the fact that the legionaries of D'Annuzio that have taken over Fiume are mainly black-clad former Arditi. Next, Majors Guadalupi and Bronzini were real individuals listed in the Italian order of battle for the Vlora War, though I've obviously given them fictional first names, backgrounds, and personalities since I can't find anything about them online. You'll notice that the Red Oni, Blue Oni character trope is in play here, with Guadalupi representing the passionate Red Oni, while Bronzini is the calm and collected Blue Oni.

As for the various Italian phrases and terms that I've sprinkled in throughout the chapter, as well as the term "The Battle of the Solstice". First off, Turk is clearly referring to the Ottomans that fought the Italians in the Italo-Turkish War (known in Italy as the Libyan War), while Crucco is an Italian term for Germans that was coined during the Great War in both OTL and in TTL. It's derived from the Slovenian kruh, or "bread", and was invented by Italian soldiers after they captured some hungry Austrian-Slovenian soldiers who asked for "kruh". In this context, Mondelli is using it to refer to the Austro-Hungarians that were fought at the Second Battle of the Piave River as Germans, regardless of actual ethnicity. Similarly, the term that Muti uses to refer to Mondelli when he first encounters him, tizzone, is an Italian word (at least, as far as I can tell) referring to dark-skinned individuals, particularly those of black African descent. Meanwhile the word that Muti shouts at Mondelli before he calls him a tizzone, Fermati, is the Italian for "halt!", though I could be wrong on this one as I'm relying on Google Translate. @andry2806, feel free to correct me if I get any of the Italian words or phrases wrong! Next, the term "The Battle of the Solstice" that Secondari uses is another name for the Second Battle of the Piave River, one that was coined by D'Annunzio himself. Finally, Grande Carro ("Great Wagon") is the Italian term for the stars of the Big Dipper, which feature prominently on the emblem and flag of the Regency of Carnaro.

Now then, one final note regarding the descriptions of both Muti and Secondari in this chapter. The rifle that Muti wields, the Carcano Moschetto 91 TS, was one of the weapons that the Arditi were armed with during the Great War, with the Moschetto being a short-barreled carbine form used by Italian troops in the Great War. With regards to his clothing (or lack thereof), one of the more striking photos I've found of Muti, albeit one taken much later in life, was a shirtless picture of him in Addis Ababa. The name that Secondari uses for him, Gim, is a shortened version of the nickname that D'Annuzio gave him in Fiume, "Green-Eyed Jim", as mentioned in Chapter III. As for Secondari himself, he's decked out in full Arditi uniform, specifically the uniform of the Arditi Infantry (also known as the Black Flames). A black Bersagliere cyclist coat, black jodhpur trousers, black jackboots, black shirt, and a black fez. Lots of black, those Arditi. As for the various weapons he's armed with, they're all weapons that would've been used by Italian troops in the Great War, save for the Austrian Steyr-Hahn, which he stole (or as he'd say, "requisitioned") off of a dead Austrian during the war. The iconic weapons of the Arditi were the trench dagger and the hand grenade, among other, deadlier weapons. The Thevenot hand grenades were frequently used by the Arditi during the war, and were well-suited for assaults. While they weren't too powerful, they were extremely noisy, which proved useful to the Arditi as they used them to create panic and fear among the enemy troops. The Beretta M1918, meanwhile, was the first submachine gun issued to and used by the Italian armed forces (and arguably the first submachine gun used as a general-issue combat weapon), while the Glisenti M1910 was a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol issued to the Regio Esercito during the Great War, and both weapons seemed fitting for someone such as Secondari. Finally, the beard that I describe him sporting is the Balbo style beard, named after Italo Balbo himself.

Persephone · Nov 4, 2020

Laserfish said:
Oh, understandable! Lovecraft and his mythos is all good and such, but I can sympathize with how you feel. Really, the grimdarkness of WMIT goes very well with the cosmic horror stories that the Lovecraftian mythos tends to make. Good for such a dark and hilariously morbid timeline, where the plausibility is more relaxed in favor of telling a world gone mad (both the funny way and the scary way). OPAS is similar, but different. You want to tell a good story, like every respectable and good author wants to! The theme is more different though, of course. While WMIT had pulpy influence, it wasn't too prominent compared to the rest of the themes, like mad science, state cults, and a horrific perversion of the American Dream into the American Nightmare. OPAS, on the other hand, has a healthy handful of pulp into the mix. This timeline sounds like the setting to a tabletop RPG, or some Two-Fisted Tales in a Pulp Magazine. A different sort of horror genre would work better in this setting, a more human element.

I in fact have some more ideas for those kinds of stories you favor as well, if you may take a look.
The Return of the Ripper: The Regency of Carnaro attracts many sorts of individuals. The broken, beaten, and the damned are the cherished alongside the young, the eager, and the dauntless. One of those who have recently arrived is a old and depressed man, who once left a mark on history, but was discarded from the headlines as callously as he had discarded of his victims. This is a new city, with new opportunities. Why else would he have wanted to come here? He calls himself Jack Whitechapel, but he'd rather go by the name Ripper...
Strangled in a Handless Grasp: Leopold Jacobs had a distinguished career. Serving his kingdom he did his duty with honor and merit civilizing the dark heart of Africa, with a prestigious promotion in his hands, he had it all. Keyword, had. After sleeping with the white daughter of an influential administrator instead of his usual lowly Congolese laborer for a change, he barely got out with his reputation, getting out with only a few medals and a severe career setback. He resumed his job, but his greed and anger only combined to worsen the already savage punishments freely dispensed in the Congo Free State. With his retirement after The Great War, he settled down for a time. Until opportunity made itself known on the European continent. Seeing the opportunity to make some money, he made his way to the domain of the cuckoo commandant. Unbeknownst to him however, specters of the past are starting to make themselves known. And very soon, Leopold will find out that these "specters" are very real, as is also their lust for vengeance.
The Creeping Count of the Carpathians: Bloodshed has come to Italy, and the bloodthirsty flock to the beleaguered boot of Europe. Some more literally than others. It is not every day that nobility come to such a scandalous sovereignty, yet here one is. The Commandant makes a peculiar acquaintance in a cold and courteous count. He claims that he belongs to an ancient and prestigious lineage that has fallen on hard times, with a county that is all his own. He brings with him beautiful maidens, their skin like freshly fallen snow, and as cold as it too. Soon, though the Commandant and his companions will find that his guest's self proclaimed "exotic" tastes are more than boasts. The most dangerous struggle for the survival of the Regency lies not in the streets, but in the esteemed halls of the government itself.

IMHO, you may want to do a couple more chapters before we get a holiday special. You probably want to build up the world a bit more before we get some special chapters. You do what you want to do, we're just here as the audience and advisers. It's your call!

I like these a lot, the second one in particular is really good, especially since I already have some future plans for the Belgian Congo. As for holding off on special chapters, you're right, to be honest. There's a lot of ground I want to cover, and we're not even out of the 20s yet! I'm gonna have a lot of fun detailing pop culture over time in OPAS, not to mention the changes that occur as Europe and Asia gear up for conflict while the US retreats into isolationism and xenophobia. Kamo's gonna be really different from Stalin both in outlook and personality, and the future of European (particularly British and French) colonialism is gonna be a lot bloodier and harsher than it was in OTL. Plus, there are some developments that I've got planned that I think people will really enjoy. Without giving away too much, these developments include the rising political career of Charles Nungesser, the explosion (yet again) of the Balkan powderkeg, the Great Migration of the 1920s, the restoration of the Habsburgs to a European throne, the development of alternate terminology, the Shanghai adventures of George W, and more!

In other news, I've began to get more into alternate propaganda and the creation of it, and I've done two so far that I wanna share with y'all as a teaser of things to come. Enjoy another glimpse into the future of OPAS!

Of Poets and Supermen Volume I - The Drums of War

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