We Require no Protection - A Romania TL

[Sceonn]

Just found this story again, even though it's on my watch list it never shows up.

Why don't the Germans simply move their Polish minority to Newly Independent Poland if they're so worried? And the Russians know that the allies aren't in a position to into their heartland so they have room for negotiations.

The map is missing a major lake.

 

[Richthofen]

Creating a Maginot Line from the Sea of Azov to Murmansk or even the Baltic seems ultra-expensive, also considering it took the French 10 years to build their Line. At most, I could see the Germans having the will and money to build such a Line in Poland, but the Romanians would have to build a line of fortifications on one of the longest borders in Europe and I see it more likely for them to rather invest in military technology and equipment.

You're probably right, also considering that scientific advances and the growing use of airplanes would make such fortifications pretty much useless in 25 to 30 years.

Just found this story again, even though it's on my watch list it never shows up.

Welcome back!
I wouldn't know how to solve the issue, maybe unsubscribe and subscribe again?

Why don't the Germans simply move their Polish minority to Newly Independent Poland if they're so worried? And the Russians know that the allies aren't in a position to into their heartland so they have room for negotiations.

The map is missing a major lake.

Such a massive population exchange should be a difficult undertaking, I reckon. It could work, though.

 

[Richthofen]

CHAPTER LXXVIII
​

La Maison Bonaparte was not as grand as the Versailles, nor could it ever hope to match the numerous palaces that Napoleon IV had previously lived in on mainland France. It was really not that fancy of a residence and barely fit for an emperor, but it was there that Napoleon somehow managed to find some peace of mind. As the Great War he had provoked almost by himself was ended on the continent, Napoleon was sure that his time on the island would soon come to an end. There was no scenario, he believed, in which the new regime, one that had inoculated itself deeply into the fabric of French society, would allow him to remain there. As soon as Debs would obtain a treaty of peace, the French Army would be sent to Corsica to retake the island. He was resigned however to the fact that he would, like his great-great uncle before him, go into exile to live the remainder of his life. He had learned that the British Royal Family lobbied for guarantees for him and his family’s well-being, although he was not so sure whether those would hold with the Communists, nor if he would be allowed to live in exile in Britain, especially since Empress Beatrice died.

With all of this taken into account, his immense surprise was understandable when almost all colonial governments, formally under the jurisdiction of the French Empire, declared that the government in Paris was illegitimate and that the rightful government was temporarily sitting in Corsica. In this new light, it had become obvious that the war would continue almost everywhere else outside of Europe and the Americas, as the French colonial administrations in Africa and Asia refused to recognize the ceasefire signed by Debs. With actual power in his hands now, Napoleon IV had some leverage. Surely, there was zero chance of actual military victory against the combined might of the Coalition, but he could now be an actual part of the final peace negotiations.

Napoleon’s thinking was not particularly far off, although he greatly overestimated the amount of goodwill the powers of the Coalition would actually be willing to place with him. While both Germany and Britain had made contact and negotiated with the new government in Paris, they were privately terrified of the prospects of having to further deal with the Communists in France. This was reinforced more by the decrees signed by Debs and other higher-ups in France during the months of the armistice – the sizeable French industry was placed under the control of the so-called “communes”, councils made up almost exclusively by FCP members or people aligned with the FCP, thus further ingraining the party into a leadership position.

Eugène Debs continued his public speeches even after taking power, drawing large crowds of Parisians​

The setup of the communes, initially made to function as democratic councils, was controlled in the finest details by the radicals that surrounded Debs and his provisional cabinet. While Debs himself was not particularly authoritarian and loathed governing in the same fashion as Napoleon, he was deeply ideological and believed that the country had to go through a phase of a “dictatorship of the proletariat” in order to finally make the transition to socialism and, finally to communism. On the other hand, Debs was also an internationalist, and he had few qualms about supporting revolutions in neighbouring countries, espousing that France could not achieve communism if she were left alone in the world – if only France were to maintain a worker’s regime, then it would, inevitably slide back into capitalism as it would have to deal continuously with the bourgeois and imperialist regimes all around her, on the other hand, the global revolution could not be fully forced. Debs believed there was a high chance of spontaneous revolutionary activity in Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain, all of whom could be supported into becoming worker’s regimes. He had doubts about Romania’s capacity to turn into a worker’s regime, due to the fact that the Socialist Party had become a traditional party and was actively working as a “counter-revolutionary force”. Nevertheless, he did believe that the Romanian society had a sufficient level of “revolutionary consciousness”, but some time had to pass and other societies had to make the switch before Romania could be pushed into the fold.

But not only had France become a hotbed of far-left radicalism, the new regime was also pushing against the old regime’s nationalist and militarist zeal. The pacifist Debs reconciled French society with the idea that France had to get along with her neighbours and peacefully foment the proletarian revolutions there that would finally end the petty conflicts of the failed old era of empires. But philosophical tenets and doctrines of international relations could sate a society as enraged as France’s only so much. Debs’ agenda also included what would be named “Les Decrets Ouvriers” or the „First Debs Decrees”. The worker’s decrees included relief for the impoverished French proletariat and a change of scope of the French industry from the production of arms to civilian industry. Along with the start of the partial demobilization that was done slowly, as the war had not officially been settled with a peace treaty, came one of the most radical measures adopted by a government. Unless stated to be immediate, the 8 decrees were to be implemented under a timeframe laid forward by Debs’ government, which by the autumn of 1917 had dropped the “provisional” title from all official documents:

• Decree for the war demobilization of the French people – partial demobilization was begun during the first days following the May Armistice. From 9 to 12 percent of the mobilized men were to be completely absolved of military duty;
• Decree for peace – the French state and its government was explicitly declared to be “neutral, civilian, anti-imperialist and non-interventionist”;
• Decree for the duration of the day of labour - the norm for work inside French factories was to become the eight-hour work day or the forty-hour work week;
• Decree for appropriate rest of the labourer - work on Saturdays and Sundays was to be banned completely;
• Decree for the final and permanent interdiction on infantile labour - child labour was to be completely and fully outlawed for all children under the age of 15 and for children of ages between 15 and 16 that were enrolled in school or were otherwise part of academic facilities;
• Decree for the final and permanent dissolution of the noble class - aristocracy and noble titles were fully abolished effective immediately;
• Decree for the final and permanent divorce of the Catholic Church from the state and its institutions– secularization on the Romanian model was decreed in the first instance but plans were set in motion to declare France an atheist state. The decree completely removed the historical ties the Catholic Church had with the French state and purged all education programmes from the influence of the Church.
• Decree for education – the new school system to be created was to guarantee free, compulsory, state education for all children between the ages of 6 and 14.

Further decrees were to be enacted and implemented after the peace negotiations would be over, hoped Debs, among them being the creation of a social insurance system as well as a social safety net system, although these were highly problematic measures that would be difficult to implement, especially since France was already heavily strained economically due to the burden of the war. That burden would likely become heavier after the peace treaty, as the new regime in Paris was acutely aware that war reparations would have to be paid.

Nevertheless, as the Coalition Powers were preparing to organize the final peace conference in Frankfurt, a race began to capture the last remaining French colonial strongholds in Africa and Asia. The most important prize was French Indochina and French Guangdong, both of which were highly coveted by Japan, but both the US and the UK, Japan’s uneasy partners in the Coalition were looking to deny them any new conquest, wary that Japan’s might soon grow unchecked if it would be allowed to obtain Guangdong and, thus, essentially become the foremost power in China. Not only did Japan already control Manchuria and a sizeable territory in the Americas, but it was already in control of the Philippines and there was little chance that territory could be wrestled away from it after Japanese soldiers had died in trying to take it away from Spain. Not only that, but American interest in Asia had been growing as well during Teddy Roosevelt’s long presidency. Roosevelt, who had been re-elected for the fourth time in 1916, and who led US troops to a quick victory in Spanish Cuba, was now interested in securing domestic support for his project of expansionism in Asia. This was going to be much more difficult than envisioned, as the United States had already put troops on the European mainland, in France, and sending troops to fight on the ground in Asia was seen as too much even by those loyal or supportive of President Roosevelt.

Lastly, there was also the third actor that had become active in the “Scramble for China” – China itself. The Shanghai Republic had been trying to join the Great War on the side of the Coalition for a while now, but all attempts had been duly vetoed by Japan. For Sun Yat-Sen, capturing Guangdong from the French alongside Anglo-Japanese troops was a chance to secure his country’s entrance to the club of civilized nations as well as obtain new guarantees that China would be allowed to remain at least nominally independent, even though the previous arrangement had practically created an economic zone dominated by the Western Powers. Sun needed to tread carefully in his quest for Guangdong and the long-term goal of securing the reunification of China, as Japan was still an unpredictable power in terms of its expansionist goals and could very well go to lengths to convince the Western Powers to go into establishing full colonial dominance over the Chinese mainland. But the European powers, exhausted by a war that had been going on for far too long, soon to be battered by an epidemic that was growing worse by the day and pressured by their populations to return their men on the field back home, only wanted to return to peace once more as fast as possible.

Sikh soldiers in the Army of the British Empire - Sikhs fought valiantly against Entente troops in Guangdong and Indochina​

With the United States involving itself in China, however, things were not looking that great for Japan either. Not only would it be difficult to convince the UK to side with Japan’s ambitious expansionist goals once more, Japan was growing less not more cohesive at home - Prime Minister Ōkuma was not looking to bolster the power of his militarists more than he had already and the Liberal government he was leading was also becoming increasingly overextended in terms of administering territories and navigating the complicated political landscape that Emperor Meiji had left behind. While the Genrō had been weakened a bit after the sovereign’s death, the militarists had been greatly emboldened after the conquest of the Philippines and were looking to get the lion’s share in Indochina and China.

As it looked increasingly unlikely that Japan was not going to get her way outside of the Philippines, Ōkuma also tried once more to play his hand at minimizing the power of the rival factions and to prevent a surgent militarist faction, led forward by Prince Aritomo Yamagata, an influential war hawk that was a direct rival to the incumbent prime minister. In this regard, Ōkuma was determined to keep Japan a part of the Great Powers’ Club and to maintain cordial relations with Britain and Germany, and there was no way any of that could be accomplished if the militarists would get their way. Even so, Japanese troops stood on the field in both Guangdong and Indochina, and while the post-armistice French troops were not nearly that much of a threat, skirmishes and military operations continued all the way throughout the first part of the spring of 1918. As Britain tried to pressure Japan into accepting Chinese entry into the war in order to grant relief to the exhausted British and Japanese troops in Guangdong and Indochina, the reports that British intelligence agencies had been receiving up until then proved to be truth – Napoleon IV and the network of remnants of colonial governments that remained loyal to him unconditionally surrendered to the Coalition, bringing the Great War to a formal end on 28 March 1918.

 

[Richthofen]

CHAPTER LXXIX
A DIFFERENT KIND OF WAR​

The arrival of peace had been long overdue in much of the war-ravaged regions of Eastern Europe. Especially in Ukraine, where the people and the land had absorbed the brunt of the conflict of the post-Trench War, the semblance of stability that came after all guns had fallen silent was not only welcome but also soothing. But the effects of the war were to be long-lasting, and the conflict left behind not only ravaged societies, but an epidemic for which none of the countries were prepared. In Romania, even though much of the War had been fought outside of its borders, the effects were deeply felt among most layers of society. The hardest-hit, as with any such conflict, were the poorest in the society. Families were torn apart by the battlefield – men either returned home in caskets, with missing limbs, or otherwise deeply scarred psychologically. It was all very novel in this regard – the new technologies with which it was fought and the length of the Great War created entirely new circumstances – the long period of peace between the Crimean War, the last major European conflict, and the Great War romanticized conflict for the people of the continent. Not only that, but technologies had advanced so much that no one had expected that the conflict would be a static meatgrinder for almost the entirety of its duration. The romanticized version of the wars of old came head-to-head with the reality of a bloody, vicious and unsettling conflict that practically ruined an entire generation.

In this regard, Romanian society was ravaged. Its best and brightest had either bled out in the Trench at the country’s border, or returned home unable to work or find any support in a society that was itself deeply hurt. Those that remained at home – children, women and elderly – they had their own tragedies or they had to share in with those that returned. It took a while for the tragedy of what had happened to settle in but when it did, people began clamoring for change. As such, 1918 was the year the country finally came to terms of what was truly the cost of war. And it was all exacerbated by a government much too unwilling to bring about change and too involved in the political aspects to care much for the pain that festered in the country. The epidemic was an additional layer to all of this.

What was to be the first and mildest of the War Flu waves hit in March 1918 – the deadly strain of influenza had been circulating heavily much before then, during the late stages of the war, but it only became a threat to the social fabric after the conflict had ended and the returning soldiers brought the virus home en-masse. The spring and summer of 1918 were especially heavy in terms of the death toll, and the authorities of several European states realized that the new influenza was starting to go out of control. Previously, as only a limited number of civilians had fallen ill from it, governments believed that the disease was confined to the front and that as the War was reaching its final stages, soldiers would either recover or die before they could spread it further. It was a rather risky bet that turned out to be a criminal blunder. It is now believed that the fewer deaths of the initial “trench wave” were due to the virus being a much milder form. Once it was spread by the troop movement of the final more mobile stage of the war, the virus mutated and took on its much more deadly form that hit hard during the spring and summer of 1918. By May, cases of War Flu had been reported in all corners of the world, including in far-flung Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii.

Children wearing masks as a precaution against the War Flu. The mutated influenza virus killed healthy young people just as frequently by triggering a cytokine storm reaction in the body​

Initial response to the War Flu crisis by President Brătianu’s administration left much to be desired – the government tried to cover up at first, forbidding the friendly press from reporting cases or the death toll, while the more unfriendly press was silenced through intimidation. The Great War was an especially good time for the Romanian presidency to be greatly empowered and the general assessment and conclusion of the community of historians and political scientists in Romania is that the Brătianu presidency in particular and the Fourth Party System in general was a time in which the Executive amassed a tremendous amount of power relative to other institutions. However, these attempts by the Brătianu Administration would not last, since the National Union Government crumbled only one week after hostilities ceased. Cracks in the political alliance of the Romanian parties had become apparent long before this, but the Socialists were waiting for the actual end of the war to put an end to their collaboration with the Conservatives and Liberals. The leadership of the Socialist Party opposed the occupation of Crimea as well as the Administration’s active continuation of the war effort in spite of Russian attempts to end the conflict. Initially meant to lead Romania throughout the final peace negotiations as well, the National Union Government became a “traditional” Conservative-Liberal alliance, dubbed as another Monstrous Coalition, although the term had begun to lose some of its meaning in regards to the Conservatives and the Liberals, as the parties grew closer and closer in terms of their objectives as time went on.

With the Socialists’ exit from the National Union Government, the Brătianu Administration added one more adversary to its attempts to keep the Romanian public in the dark about the actual extent of the War Flu epidemic. Speaker Adrian Coronescu and the Socialists immediately began a campaign of spreading information about what was actually happening, especially about the more notorious cases – those of Vice President Ionescu and of former Minister Eminescu, both of whom were ill with the influenza. A left-leaning newspaper, “Cuvântul Liber” (rom.: The Free Word), was founded immediately in the aftermath of the crumbling of the National Union Coalition, funded by elements of the Socialist Party, which brought to the public’s knowledge information about the evolution of the epidemic. Newspapers such as “Santinela” or the Socialists’ own official publication “Muncitorul” (rom.: The Labourer) began covering important news and information about the epidemic. Outflanked by the spreading information, the Brătianu Administration had no other choice but to acknowledge the situation. The death of Mihai Eminescu a few weeks later added to the sense of dread the country was facing, as it became abundantly clear that real, directed measures had to be taken to face this deadly new enemy. Eminescu was the first senior political figure in Romania to die of the War Flu and the circumstances that surrounded his death would become even more grim – his funeral, attended by a large number of people, including politicians and figures of the Romanian cultural elite became a “super-spreader event”, one of the earliest “origin superclusters” of infection.

Things were not going much smoother elsewhere in Europe either. Since the War was ended, most democratic governments had to give up some of their emergency powers which included limited censorship of the press – this meant that the epidemic hit the headlines rather quickly in places such as Britain, Germany, Italy or Spain. In France, growing unrest prompted the new government to prevent any and all information from spreading and the massive censoring campaign heralded the “new era of repression”, as it looked like the French Communists, with few exceptions, were just as authoritarian minded as the exponents of the previous regime.

Eminescu’s unexpected and widely publicized death meant the Administration could no longer hope to contain any information surrounding the epidemic – as such, President Brătianu went on to publish a decree which extended the state of emergency in the country, all approved rather quickly by Parliament, a move supported by the Socialists as well, as Coronescu had previously heavily campaigned in favour of strong measures to contain the spread of the influenza as well as to assuage the people hardest hit by the epidemic. Limited social distancing measures were taken during May and June in Bucharest and other large cities which included closing of non-essential businesses for two weeks to curb some of the spread, which the government scientists believed was fueled by large crowds in small areas. But it was all too little and too late. The War Flu was already rampant throughout the country, and community spread meant tracing the new cases was incredibly difficult.

Response to the worsening epidemic would never truly become a top priority for the Brătianu Administration, not only because it was much more involved in preparing its participation in the future Frankfurt Peace Conference, expected to begin at the latest in May 1919, but also because the top dogs in the Conservative and Liberal parties were much more interested in preparing their political futures in a post-War Romania. There was also the expectation that the War Flu would burn out sooner rather than later, as it had been the case with other previous Flu epidemics. The PNL and the PC decided to keep the designation of the National Union Government even beyond April 1918, even though the Socialists rejected their pretenses, this was yet another tactic by Brătianu and Ionescu to maintain their strategy for the 1920 election as well. Previously, the Conservative and the Liberals had run on a single platform in 1916, in order to squeeze out the Socialists running in swing circumscriptions and maintain their control of the Assembly. With Senate results expected to not be impacted much by this strategy, the Conservative and Liberal leadership were well aware that they needed to run a tight campaign and avoid losses as much as possible in order to maintain a configuration similar to the 1916-1920 legislative. Keeping the name of National Union Government would serve this objective well, as people would either be confused by the designation or would be supportive of what they believed to be a common effort after the war.

Politicking remained the prime activity inside both government parties – while PNL was wholly under the thumb of President Brătianu and had merely become an annex to his will, latent power struggles were still a feature of the Conservative Party, a much larger and diverse political unit. More specifically, Vice President Ionescu was facing growing dissent inside the party, with many believing the party was much too subservient to President Brătianu and had become the junior partner in a political coalition which it should have dominated. Many local Conservatives were also irked by the fact that the party was once more ceding its influence in Wallachia and Oltenia in order to keep the Liberals afloat and that they had to sacrifice their careers for the sake of propping up a party that had clearly lost its edge. More importantly, Ionescu was looking to clear the field early before the 1920 presidential election, hoping he would receive a quick coronation as the party’s nominee. If the clandestine alliance with the PNL would continue to work well, the presidency would be his for the taking in 1920.

His most dangerous rivals were Senator Iancu Flondor, the powerful leader of the northern Moldavian faction of the Conservative Party and one of the more principled politicians in the country, and Deputy Iuliu Maniu, a Transylvanian Conservative that was previously supported by moderate factions of the party in a power struggle against the Nationalists, a faction still very powerful in the region. While Maniu could more easily be brought into the fold, Flondor was openly opposed to the alliance with Brătianu’s Liberals and was advocating for the Conservatives to finally let go of the president’s toxic influence and act as what they truly were – the largest and most influential political party in the country and “the true heir to the Partida Națională”. Ionescu and his two rival peers met several times in 1919, the vice president hoping to convince them to keep a unified stance in 1920 in order to prevent a socialist takeover. It was a rather frightening prospect for most establishment politicians in Bucharest, also considering recent history, the Red Uprising, as well as the events currently taking place in France. President Brătianu was unwilling to give up his influence, and by holding Ionescu in his grasp, he also held the Conservative Party – as the party’s leader, Ionescu put his peers in front of a choice that really seemed too good – the PNL would give up all seats of power for the short-term – Coronescu was to be replaced as Speaker by the new majority with Maniu, while for 1920 the Conservatives would keep the vice presidency and speakership and also gain the presidency, with Ionescu as the nominee. In return, the 1916 electoral strategy would be maintained and the two parties would run once more as the National Union Government, thus marginalizing the Socialists by maintaining that the political alliance was a promise made to the Romanian people until a final peace agreement would be established between the warring nations at Frankfurt. Flondor was offered the position of Governor of Romanian East Africa, a move meant to deprive him of power in national politics, but a highly sought position by the Conservative Party who had been deprived of this political prize for a long time. Ionescu made it clear that if Flondor refused this nomination, President Brătianu was determined to give it to a Liberal. With pressure mounting from all over, Iancu Flondor accepted the position.

The Socialists, now in full opposition to the Brătianu Administration, went on to revive their campaigns for social measures, most also in the context of the worsening crisis in post-War Romania. They went out after their political opponents for “being much more interested in imperial gains and international conferences” than the security and welfare of the Romanian people, and while their rhetoric was not necessarily always sincere, they were not incorrect and the worsening epidemic proved it. The highlight of Coronescu’s 1920 strategy was the call for passing of minimum wage legislation, deeply opposed by the Conservatives, the business-class and the business-imperialists, the latter whom feared such measures would impact colonial migration to their disadvantage. The Conservative-Liberal political establishment responded with a counter campaign attempting to paint the measure as irresponsible and a way to overbloat government spending and to kill small businesses. Not only that, they also claimed that a minimum wage would hurt the low-wage labourers more than help them, as it would drive unemployment up and prevent them from finding any work. Brătianu-aligned press also went on to criticize the measure as ineffectual opposed to other priorities, such as the ending of illicit commerce, a practice that had become extremely prevalent, especially in the rural areas, where shortages of food and essential goods due to the war made people desperate and more inclined to spend the little money they had on overpriced goods sold by exploiters.

Editorial published in the Gazeta Republicană, criticizing the proposed measures of the Socialist Party for passing minimum wage legislation.
The title reads: "Raising wages is a danger" (May 1919)​

 

[Richthofen]

CHAPTER LXXX
"WOE TO THE CONQUERED"​

The hustle and bustle that characterized the atmosphere in the city of Frankfurt in the spring of 1919 felt odd for the residents and locals who had not seen this kind of activity since the Great War erupted almost nine years prior. The German capital, now hosting the peace conference that was to finally settle the largest and most gruesome war the world had ever seen, was filled with diplomats of all ranks and from all corners of the world, and for the first time in the history of diplomatic relations, heads-of-state and heads-of-government all assembled at the “gates of the Empire”. For an untrained eye, it looked like the medieval dream of imperium, the universal monarchy was achieved, as Frankfurt on the Main seemed, for only a short while, like it was the capital of the world, the place from which the entire world was to be re-legislated – borders changed, countries shook and leaders left either done or undone from the long Peace Conference of Frankfurt.

Looking to prove its post-War dominance on the European continent, Germany not only hosted the conference, but also took the initiative regarding the topics discussed and the way issues were discussed. In April 1919, the first session of the Frankfurt Peace Conference was opened by Emperor Ludwig, who welcomed all heads-of-state and heads-of-government, as well as foreign ministers and high-ranking diplomats at the Imperial Palace. The rest of the Conference, however, took place a short distance from it over at the Frankfurter Hof at the Kaiserplatz.

The Kaiserplatz in Frankfurt, where the Peace Conference for the settlement of the Great War took place​

Right from the beginning, the conference was fraught with controversies – first there was the discussion on how diplomats and representatives from defeated countries were to be treated – there was a rather strong opinion among Coalition nations, especially Germany and the United States, that they should not be allowed to participate as full members. Second there was the discussion of the “two Frances”. Debs’ government refused to accept any responsibility for the war and maintained that the only peace it had any mandate to sign from the French people was status-quo antebellum and a quick return to normalized relations between itself and the nations of the Coalition. On the other hand, what constituted the Napoleonic “government” in Corsica was more willing to accept the “German diktat” seeing it as a hope to launch a counter-revolution against the Communists and Debs, eventually with the help of Coalition forces, if Germany and Britain decided the authorities on the French mainland could not be reasoned with. Napoleon IV especially thought that Britain would be accommodating in this regard. But more than that, Napoleon needed assurances that Communist France would not invade and the only ones who could guarantee such assurances were the victorious nations of the Coalition.

Besides the obvious problem of the delegations of the defeated nations, there was also the discussion on whether minor nations or colonial governments could have any say in the new world order to be created. First, there were the minor victorious nations, such as Bulgaria, Serbia or the Ottoman Empire, whom had made important efforts in the Great War and expected to receive boons or elevate their geopolitical position. Second, many colonial nations believed they had also sacrificed enough in the European war and that they had to receive compensation – Canada and Australia, among others, believed that they had a right to independence after the sacrifices their men had made on the front, on the other side there was the much more difficult situation of India and Ireland. Finally, new countries that rose from the ruins of the Russian Empire wanted to participate as victorious nations in the discussion at Frankfurt – representatives from Poland, Ukraine, Finland and Lithuania wanted to have their voices heard fully.

The big five of the Coalition, Germany, Britain, the United States, Japan and Romania, decided that defeated nations would be allowed to participate in the Conference of Frankfurt but only within a limited scope, they would be represented only by diplomatic delegations and would not be allowed to decisively influence the deliberation process. In the same vein, the nations that were “born in the trenches of Eastern Europe”, would also be allowed limited participation in the discussions, but the burden of decision would fall entirely upon those that have physical military presence on the field and power of projection.

The Conference was divided in three main sessions, made up by smaller ones. Heads-of-government and heads-of-state participated only in the initial ones, while high ranking plenipotentiary diplomats and foreign ministers continued the work and gave their final touches. The first session was begun in April 1919 and touched upon the state of Europe and the future of the continent following the defeat of France and Russia. Here, Japan and the United States participated mainly as observants, electing to only make their voices heard marginally and in very particular terms. Japan, looking to weaken Russia as much as possible, voted for maximal anti-Russia measures, especially in regards to the independence movements in Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics. Germany took the reins in what was to be the discussion on the fate of France particularly – the Germans wanted a full admission of guilt from the French, as well as a complete demobilization, quick demilitarization of all border areas, a significant reduction of the French Army and for France to recognize the territory of Alsace-Moselle, “under the control of the forces of the Coalition, Germanophone and Germanophile in spirit”, as part of the Empire of Germany, as well as pay reparations that amounted large sums of money over a period of at least 45 years (OTL US$ 25 billion, of which 10% would be offset by the annexation of Alsace). Chancellor Heinrich Lammasch, who led the German delegation, had wanted a more moderate stance and a less punitive approach, but the general mood of the German cabinet as well as Emperor Ludwig’s stance was to be as intransigent as possible. Lammasch feared that France would spiral even further into radicalism if such a punitive peace were to be forced on her. He tried unsuccessfully to campaign for a more lenient peace, which would at least allow France to leave the Conference without the humiliation of proclaiming its own guilt, but nonetheless, the stronger currents prevailed. Germany’s final demands were to remain a part of the final declaration of the first session, diligently worked on by the lower-ranking German diplomats.

Heinrich Lammasch, Chancellor of Germany​

Britain acquiesced to most German demands regarding France, but also wanted guarantees from the new French regime that Napoleon IV would be allowed to remain safe. While neither the British public, nor its government were that concerned with Napoleon’s well-being, they were worried that yet another violent execution of a crowned head by France would stir republican and socialist elements in other European monarchies, as well as itself – monarchies were becoming hugely unpopular in both Spain and Italy, especially due to the events of the war, and the situation in Britain’s Ireland was rosy neither. In short, Britain realized that the collapse of other hereditary monarchies on the continent could be spearheaded if Napoleon were to be made an example by the Debs regime. And the British were not that far – as the Conference went on, protests by republicans took shape in Spain, as the country grappled with a worsening War Flu epidemic as well as the general effects of the War. With Spain about to be consumed by civil war even before it could enter a state of peace with the other European powers, the French delegation was given express orders to reject any treaty that forced it to accept responsibility for the war.

Back in Paris, as with any other political organization finding itself in power, the French Communist Party was now in a heavy power struggle between the dominant Debs faction – pacifist, non-interventionist and internationalist and more nationalist and jingoist factions, one of the most important led by Jacques Mora, a former guerilla leader against the Napoleonic police in Paris. The conflict stemmed from Debs’ openness to accepting the Coalition demands with a single exception – the recognition of France’s guilt. In Debs’ perspective, any reduction of military power and of the reliance states had on their militaries was beneficial and should be the objective governments strived for, irrespective of the Coalition demands – he himself was looking to cut the military and its influence down size and it could also work as a method of rooting out the more hawkish elements of both the French power structure and those inside the FCP as well. Debs also believed that any territorial loss on France’s part was to be temporary and reversible, due to the “incoming World Revolution”. In short, he wanted to accept most German demands but he was completely against the idea that France should accept that it was guilty for the war. In his mind, the Great War was the product of the Capitalist worldview and Napoleon himself was a product of that.

On the other hand, other factions of the FCP rejected Debs’ pacifist agenda and set out to make sure that France would not leave Frankfurt humiliated and dictated upon. Jacques Mora and those who supported him were not necessarily militarist in the Bonapartist sense, but they firmly believed that a socialist France that renounced its military deterrent would not survive the decade and that there was a rather high chance of an invasion to restore Napoleon or the monarchy, especially if Corsica remained in Bonaparte’s hands.

They did realize, however, that the country’s situation was not at all rosy and that Germany and other Coalition powers had troops on the ground in France and around France ready to resume the War if they were to be provoked. However, they also knew that nobody wanted to pay the political cost of resuming such a deeply unpopular war everywhere on the continent. As such, the German demands could indeed be tempered somewhat, or so they believed. Debs remained adamant, however, and the French delegation at the Conference of Frankfurt was given a mandate to negotiate the article that placed the sole responsibility on France, but tacitly accept the other terms. In an attempt to quickly take the initiative from his rivals inside the FCP, Debs quickly resumed his state-building efforts and went on to bring before the party his plans for the political reconstruction of the French state, following the social measures brought forward by the Worker’s Decrees, he launched the Second Debs Decrees, which mostly covered the new form of the French state – France was a declared a social republic with a fundamental law to be agreed upon by the Communes after a the Great War would be officially ended.

Les décrets d'état (The state decrees)
also known as the Second Debs Decrees​

• Decree for the form of the French state – France shall be a social commune governed by and in the name of the working people through republican principles.
• Decree for the collective leadership of the French Commune – the state leadership shall be exercised by a Council of State validated by the individual communes. The chairman of the Council will be directly selected by the communes.
• Decree for a fundamental law to govern the French Commune – a Fundamental Organic Law shall be enacted, which shall retain the essence of these decrees – it shall manifest itself as the will of the workers of France and shall maintain the autonomy of the communes.

With these new decrees, what Debs wanted was to cement his leadership, knowing that most communes still supported him, and also stop the centralists from fighting to return France to its centralized method of administration, through giving more authority to the individual communes formed by the FCP. With the majority of the communes still favouring him over his main rival, Debs was selected to become the Chairman of the Council without much hassle. But Mora was determined to not let France be trampled over at Frankfurt, and he loathed the fact that Debs was looking to change France into a decentralized unit – this was not the dictatorship of the proletariat that he envisioned. Nevertheless, Debs had secured power for the moment and any power struggle had to be put on hold.

Almost none of the Coalition members were willing to let France walk out of the Conference without acknowledging the guilt for perpetrating the war and this soon turned into a spirited quarrel between leaders of other Coalition governments and the head of the French delegation, Oscar Frossard. US President Teddy Roosevelt was one of the most radical participants to this quarrel, having famously replied to a 15-minute speech by Frossard in which he decried the way the victors of the war were treating France by saying “Woe to the conquered”. Roosevelt’s quips (including calling Frossard “that froglet with a moustache”) and his general opposition to any leniency towards France or Spain soon became a feature of the final part of the talks. As the Coalition stood resolute in its decision to enforce the peace it envisioned for Europe, the French delegation was confronted with a dilemma – it decided to take a risky course of action, a bet made on the prediction that neither Germany nor any of the other Coalition powers were willing to pay the price for resuming the war – and left the Conference with the message that a Carthaginian peace was not acceptable in any way, shape, or form.

Oscar Frossard, head of the French delegation at the Conference of Frankfurt​

 

[Richthofen]

CHAPTER LXXXI
LINES IN THE DIRT​

Only two months after the start of the Peace Conference in Frankfurt, all major European armies were going into alert once more. As France left the Conference and vowed to never accept a humiliating peace, Germany and Britain were pondering whether a quick invasion of the entire French mainland was viable in order to force the country into submission. A weakened and unwilling France could be easily run over quick, but there were many other things to consider as well – while the French people were tired and unwilling to keep fighting for a cause that was never theirs, resuming the war now, months after the hostilities were stopped and for a reason that was to be deemed petty by any outside observer, was not only going to lionize the French people into fighting for survival, but it would also make the FCP and the current regime that much stronger. Not only that, opposition at home would grow exponentially as well, and socialist agitation could spell new problems for the victors as well. Germany and Britain were acutely aware they were walking on very thin ice with their own problems regarding social cohesion – Britain was facing increased unrest both in the colonies and in Ireland, while Germany faced the prospect of renewed nationalism in Bohemia and the Polish-speaking regions in her eastern territories.

Regardless of whether the FCP regime in Paris wanted to or not, however, certain points on the German list of objectives had already been attained – Germany could not force France to pay reparations it had not agreed to in a peace treaty, but the territory of Alsace-Moselle and the strip of territory in north-western France remained under occupation, for Germany to do what she pleased. At the start of the debacle, Germany even debated ceding the territory to Belgium, but the government in Brussels refused to become part to such a problematic issue. Regardless, there was still one more French delegation at the Conference of Frankfurt, which the Coalition had reluctantly allowed to act as an observer under the name the “Bonaparte delegation”. Led by “acting Prime Minister of France Maurice Pujo”, Napoleon’s delegation was made of a handful of diplomats and politicians that the emperor could find to support what remained of his rule. While Napoleon had very few friends in any European capital, he now had the chance to position himself as the saner option to the “crazed communists in Paris”. In what looked like an irony of fate, Napoleon was to become the “unsung hero” of the Conference of Frankfurt, originally meant to punish him. Germany, Britain, Italy and Romania quickly renounced their recognition of the newly declared French Commune and re-recognized Napoleon IV as Emperor of France and his government as legitimate. Willing to play his cards and find a way to be restored to Paris, Napoleon signed the peace treaty in France’s name, both claiming full responsibility for the war, allowing Germany to lawfully annex Alsace-Moselle and promising the Coalition that reparations were to be paid as soon as the situation in France was resolved, ergo when he would manage to restore himself in Paris. A tall order that all of the leaders of the Conference realized was impossible without outside help, and none of them were willing to start another war or resume the current one just to restore a fallen Napoleon IV, even though such a situation would have been hugely convenient for them, in many ways. As the “French chapter” of the Conference was soon closed, both Germany and Britain subtly warned the government in Paris through their spies and hidden diplomats to not attempt anything against Napoleon and that the emperor was to be under the Great Powers’ Club protection.

Another “problem” to be solved in Western Europe was that of Spain, comprehensively defeated in her empire, but largely unscathed at home, on the Iberian peninsula. Both President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Okuma were adamant about their own spoils of war – American Cuba and the Japanese Phillipines. The Americans remained wary about Japan extending her influence in the Pacific, and some discontent was also voiced by Australia, but there was little that could be done to stop Japan from acquiring a territory it was now fully in control of. Britain, Japan’s oldest ally, guaranteed the Japanese claim strategically, hoping to dissuade Okuma and the Japanese from insisting on their claim in Canton and Vietnam, both territories being crucial to the balance of power in China. Japan’s most coveted prize was control of Canton, which would have made her the foremost power in China, but none of the other powers at the table – Germany, the US, or the UK were willing to let this happen. Instead, they believed Okuma could be convinced to appease the militarists at home with a limited shared protectorate in Vietnam. At the same time, Okuma himself realized that Japan was fairly overextended already and that the integration of Canton would give an unwanted boost to the militarists who wanted to depose him and establish a military regime.

It was for this reason that Japan was given the option of sharing a “mandate” with Britain with the compromise that the Great Powers’ Club will accept the “race equality clause” which Japan had been pushing for since before the Great War and which would allow all the other powers to accept Japan as a permanent member of the Club, a status that had been under question, due to American opposition. In order to maintain the balance of power in China, a proposal was made by Britain that Canton become an American protectorate, thus the U.S. would take France’s place within the power structure created after the Partition of China, a solution that appeased both Roosevelt and Germany and allowed Japan to leave the negotiations regarding Asia without appearing weak. Britain’s diplomatic play at the Conference was meant both to maintain her interests in China, but to avoid a breakdown of the relations between the victorious Great Powers, as points of contention between Japan the US could pose a significant risk to future peace in East Asia and the world. The framework of the Great Powers’ Club, which President Roosevelt was now warming up to, could also be in danger if Japan was not to be integrated as a full member.

Britain’s diplomatic efforts were not yet over, even as discussion on Asia and the Americas were concluded at the Conference’s second session. The third session, concerning Russia, Eastern Europe and the Balkans required even more complex diplomacy as Germany and Romania needed to find a compromise for their designs on spheres of influence all throughout Eastern and Southern Europe and in the Balkans. Italy also wanted to have a stake in the negotiations as it hoped to extend her influence towards Albania and Greece, both nominally in the Romanian sphere, as well as Slovenia, a German sphereling. The fate of Hungary was also a very complex issue – first, regarding its government – Germany wanted to restore King Heinrich von Wittelsbach (anglicized as King Henry I) in a post-war Hungary that maintained its rule over Slovakia and Croatia. Italy and Romania both wanted the Wittelsbachs away from Hungary. Italy also wanted an independent Croatia it could influence, while Romania wanted an independent Slovakia, but for Croatia to remain part of Hungary, in order to keep Yugoslav pan-nationalists in check as well. Serbia, whose territorial expansion in the previous years and its important participation against Hungary warranted a number of boons, wanted a union with Croatia and Slovenia into a Yugoslav state and significant reparations from rump-Hungary. Yugoslav pan-nationalists throughout the Balkans were not satisfied with this and wanted a maximal solution – a federal Yugoslavia that encompassed Bulgaria and Albania as well and which could become a real counterweight to the powers in the regions, especially to Romania, whom they hoped could force to return territories they believed were rightfully Serbian or Bulgarian. While they remained weak and largely uninfluential generally, they could still prove problematic if they were to become terrorist militias. Nevertheless, support in Serbia and Bulgaria for such a plan was critically low, especially in Bulgaria which remained unequivocally aligned with Romanian interests at the Conference, siding universally with the Romanian vote.

Regarding the fate of Ukraine and Poland the situation was not as tense, as everyone was aware that these countries’ independence was a done deal, even Russia, but there were other more stringent issues that had to be solved before the treaty was to be signed – the first problem was the eastern border of both countries, which Russia wanted to push as westwards as possible. The second was the issue of Crimea and the regulation of Black Sea traffic – Romania, the Ottoman Empire and the nascent Ukraine wanted to limit Russia as much as possible, with some diplomats even arguing for an autonomous region governed collectively by the Great Powers’ Club in the remaining Black Sea littoral of Russia. President Brătianu did not mince his words in making it clear that Romania wanted to annex Crimea as a “guarantee against any future Russian aggression”. Of little importance to any of the other powers involved and with anyone unwilling to award any leniency to Russia, the proposal for the Romanian annexation of Crimea was voted on unanimously by the victorious powers at Frankfurt, thus fulfilling President Cuza’s ambition, almost 65 years later.

With Russia willing to accept the independence of Ukraine and Poland but not of the Baltic super-state proposed by Germany and neither that of Finland, Britain once again pushed only for limited reparations to Romania and Germany, offset by Romania’s territorial acquisition, as well as a time-limited reduction in Russia’s military for the final peace settlement. There were mounting fears among Coalition powers that Russia could choose the French method of simply leaving the conference and refusing to accept any terms, which would further complicate the issues. At the same time, independence movements in Finland or the Baltics had not managed to comprehensively take over their territories, and with skirmishes ongoing, the Coalition took the chance to allow the situation to progress more organically. The decision was to allow Russia to take care of her own troubles in the Baltic region and in Finland, while it evacuated from Ukraine and Poland. Further regulation of its borders was to be done with the framework of the Great Powers’ Club, which the new military government of Russia was eager to rejoin.

More pragmatic than the French, the defeated Russia wanted to keep herself in the power structures of the new world rather than oppose it, and also feared that further agitation would once more breed the seeds of socialist revolts. The Kornilov Government signed the peace treaty of Frankfurt on behalf of Russia, thus accepting the independence of Ukraine and Poland within the borders drawn by the Coalition powers on their initial war plans. Germany and Romania were to evacuate as quickly as possible from territory that remained Russian and no plans of further occupation were to be maintained or continued. Ukraine’s legitimate government was recognized as that led by Pavlo Skoropadsky and was guaranteed by both Germany and Romania. Under the Brătianu administration’s thumb, the Skoropadsky regime quickly resolved to solidify its hold on the country by strangling any opposition and forcing the UDF into becoming a completely clandestine organization. Ukraine was forbidden through the treaty to lay any future claim to western territories that were to be included in Poland and both countries were to sign border treaties between each other and with Russia.

President Ionel Brătianu greets the leading members of the Ukrainian delegation at the Frankfurt Peace Conference​

All borders in the region were deemed “untouchable” and were guaranteed by the Great Powers’ Club. This came mostly from Romania and Germany pressuring the Ukrainian and Polish nascent governments respectively into accepting a permanent peace. Following this, governments were to bilaterally resolve any lasting issues between them, especially those pertaining to national populations – the Brătianu administration had already pressured Skoropadsky into accepting a border treaty that also prescribed several plebiscites in nominal Ukrainian villages east of the Dniester that had overwhelming Romanian majorities. Poland and Germany also agreed on limited population exchanges, but the powers at Frankfurt agreed that no people’s rights were to be infringed upon, mainly stemming from Germany’s wish to not stir up Polish nationalism in Prussia’s eastern territories, where policies of Germanization had already yielded generational results.

In the Balkans, the Germans agreed on a compromise regarding the restoration of the Wittelsbachs in Hungary – since neither Heinrich nor any other foreign monarch was acceptable in the country and the Great Powers feared restoring them would breed further instability, Hungary was allowed to become a republic with a Constitutional Council to be set up, advised by experts selected by Romania and Germany; Heinrich was to be restored, but only as King of Croatia, and the country was to become independent and not tied to Serbia in any way but was free to enter a customs’ union with any of her neighbours if she so desired; a plebiscite supervised by a joint Romanian-German commission was to poll the residents of the region on whether they wished to become an independent nation or remain part of Hungary, a decision fueled mainly by fears that a diminished Hungary would not be viable and would become a poll of instability for the region. It was also a way to appease the Slovaks which lobbied intensely for independence.

Heinrich I von Wittelsbach, King of Hungary (1907-1908), King of the Croatians (1919-1946)​

The Commission for Hungary was created not only for the plebiscite in Slovakia and the Constitutional Council but also to serve as a further liaison of the Great Powers’ Club in Hungary, and was tasked with limiting the influence of nationalists in Hungarian society in an attempt to pacify and find a way to integrate the country in the international structures in order to promote peace in the region. Even though revanchism was expected to subside, there were also fears that a pro-independence result in the plebiscite in Slovakia would once more fan extremism in a country that was already discontent with its position in Europe. Nevertheless, the Commission had the task to pacify Hungary, who even though was to become severely limited in its ability to wage war and was already to be surrounded by countries several orders of magnitude stronger than her, could still become a breeding ground for extremism and instability.

With the issues of Eastern Europe partially put to rest, the Conference of Frankfurt moved on to its final chapter – the fate of France’s colonies in Africa, which Napoleon had signed off for the Coalition powers to do with as they pleased.

 

[Richthofen]

CHAPTER LXXXII
PEACE-TIME SIEGING​

With the Conference of Frankfurt sitting on its last legs and as the new world was beginning to emerge from the ashes of the old one, the large map of Africa that stood in the “Cairo Room” of the Frankfurter Hof was also beginning to outlive its usefulness. Prior, heads-of-state and heads-of-government took their turns to present their ideas on what the continent should look like and how imperialism could be further regulated so that all the victors of the War could leave happy. Now, the whole affair was reduced to the few details to be decided by the lower-level diplomats and the plenipotentiaries of each victor nation. In bright colours, the former spheres of influence, as agreed at the Conference of Berlin, remained the main feature of the map, now only to serve as the final charge laid against France at her trial – the Conference of Frankfurt was to be remembered mainly as France’s trial as the world’s aggressor and for the sentencing of the Bonapartes to their “home-exile” in Corsica, a final insult to remind Napoleon of the fate of his late great-uncle.

Other than that, the peace settlement for Africa was rather straightforward – it was Germany that was to be the heir to the majority of France’s large colonial empire – as the country that taken on the brunt of the war with France, even though the main fighting force in Africa was Britain’s. The other signatories, Romania and Italy, were to receive their fair share – Romania received the territory of French Djibouti, originally in the Romanian sphere at Berlin, while Italy was to be compensated with Tunisia and Madagascar for her efforts in the war.

Political map of Africa, following the Treaty of Frankfurt

- German colonies

- British Africa

- Romanian East Africa

- Italian colonies

- Portuguese colonies​

In Bucharest, the main effort was now to quickly pass the Treaty of Frankfurt through the Senate before the Brătianu Administration left office. President Brătianu wanted the end of the war to be the hallmark of his presidency, but the time window was quickly closing and he wanted to avoid the situation where the Socialists could benefit electorally from a botched ratification of the treaty. Not only that, but the situation in three territories that were under Romanian occupation or dominion was growing restless and things could spiral out of control quickly if left unattended.

In Crimea, the local population stood in opposition to the new military administration of the region and remnants of the former Russian garrison went on to wage a semi-guerilla war against the Romanians. The unrest was made worse by a growing War Flu epidemic in the region. As the final evacuation of a large Russian contingent was made through Crimea in the final stage of the Great War, the soldiers left the virus running rampant throughout the territory. With intense community transmission, the Romanian military authorities left in charge in Crimea were seeing themselves overwhelmed by the situation. President Brătianu needed the treaty ratified quickly so that civilian administration could be established over Crimea as fast as possible. The Ministry of Health recommended that measures be taken in Crimea before the virus spread uncontrollably in Romania proper, where the epidemic was also worsening. The new Conservative minister, appointed after the Socialists’ exit from the National Union Government, Radu Adler, advised the president to implement stricter control measures in Crimea and suggested a full quarantine of the area in order to contain the spread. With widespread support at the Ministry of War, the measure was implemented in November 1919 with the help of the Romanian Republican Navy that was sent to literally blockade Crimea and prevent anyone from leaving the peninsula.

Initially, the measure yielded results, as the transmission of the virus was beginning to come under control and while the very sick people kept dying, it seemed as though the virus had no more room to spread. It all turned into a major fiasco only a few weeks later – through the quarantine, the Brătianu Administration blocked the entry of medicine and food into Crimea as well, with the Ministries of War and Public Health claiming it was to reduce the possibility of the War Flu “escaping” into Ukraine, itself already ravaged by the war and a worsening epidemic and from there to push into Romania as well. The virus was already very present in Romania as well, with reported cases making their way into the press much faster now that the war was ended. The press soon began reporting of the situation in Crimea as well and while no reporter could go on the ground to report on the situation, leaks from inside government confirmed that the Brătianu Administration was essentially starving an epidemic ravaged region. It remained unclear whether this was a deliberate action or criminal negligence, but there had been strong hints that it was indeed the former.

While the Romanian government was blockading one occupied territory, another was made to be the “land of promise” – the Romanian government under the successive administrations of Titu Maiorescu, Alexandru Marghiloman, Alexandru Mocioni and Ionel Brătianu sponsored the migration of the Aromanian community from Greece and Albania to the Romanian Islands of the Aegean, hoping to resettle the territory and create an Aromanian territory in the islands, as the region was becoming increasingly intertwined with the rest of the Romanian colonial empire and steadily leaving the Greek influence it had had in the years after the Romanian occupation. This process was greatly accelerated by the fact that the Communists had essentially won power in Greece through the short civil war they led against the Zorbas regime.

Thousands of Aromanian families had arrived in Rhodes and the Cretan cities of Caneea (Chania) and Iracleea (Heraklion), especially during the tenure of Minister Ștefan Mihăileanu, Aromanian himself, but the beginning of the Great War and the busy situation with the Great Powers’ Club had slowed down the process. During the war, it was even harder for the project to be continued, but the Brătianu Administration encouraged Aromanians to flee north towards Bulgaria and seek the help of the authorities there. Almost immediately after coming into office, President Brătianu had signed an agreement with the Bulgarian government, one that was to remain secret, to allow the safe passage of the Aromanian families towards Dobrogea, where they would be picked by the Romanian Navy and brought to the Islands of the Aegean. Airplanes were also used to drop leaflets in the regions of Greece with important Aromanian populations in order to boost the campaign.

The colonial government was faced with the task of processing everyone that had come to the Islands as part of the campaign as well as filter out any possible spies or bad faith actors. It is estimated that a number of around 27.000 to 32.000 Aromanians moved to the Romanian Islands of the Aegean during the period between 1906 and 1920 with most of the migration occurring in the latter part of this period. Understandably, the large number of people to be processed meant the colonial administration of the Isles was extremely overextended and several incidents took place during the queues that processed all the people. In one such incident, several Greek nationals that claimed to have Aromanian ancestry but were refused during the bureaucratic check, were detained after trying to start an uprising at the offices and after they were joined by some members of the local Greek community that lived in the Isles and that wanted to be rid of the Romanian rule in the region.

Further down south, in Romanian East Africa, incidents between the converted Somali and the Muslims in the former Sultanates were broken down by the Romanian Colonial Army. To quell the sectarian conflicts and promote peace in the region, Governor Flondor decided to run the colonies with a more conciliating approach - full pardons were issued for people involved in ethnic conflicts and several previous acts that prevented internal migration between regions were repealed. With this new philosophy of governance, Flondor hoped to create a common identity for the people of REA, one that would transcend the divides between the multitude of ethnicities and religions and that would also keep safe the Romanian colonists that had arrived there in the decades of Romanian rule. The newly acquired territory of Djibouti was also governed by a military administration until the Senate ratified the Treaty of Frankfurt and the administration in Bucharest could incorporate it in Romanian East Africa.

Iancu Flondor, 8th Governor of Romanian East Africa​

In Bucharest, the administration was trying both to navigate these multiple crises, as well as prepare for the election of 1920. Even though their odds were still highly favourable, the Conservative-Liberal alliance that was hellbent on keeping the Socialists out of the possibility of winning the second place in Parliament, were wary of the results in some exceptionally close circumscriptions that could very well turn the election. Nevertheless, Brătianu and Ionescu were confident they could win again with the same strategy employed in 1916. The presidency, however, was a different deal. There, the Conservatives and Liberals had to fight a nominal battle, even though everyone was aware of the fact that the Liberals had fallen too much in their electability to be able to seriously contest the election, especially if disengaged socialist supporters sat out the election, as instructed by their party. It was even more problematic as the party needed someone to run and ruin their political career in a feigned battle. It was for this reason that President Brătianu decided that his party would support the Conservative nominee, by maintaining the so-called National Union Alliance, essentially another monstrous coalition, since the Socialists had long since left both the executive and the parliamentary non-combat agreed upon for the duration of the Great War.

It was an important gamble for the president’s party, especially since its fall was not only continuing, but since the lack of a candidate in 1920 would surely disengage even the most ardent of PNL supporters. Having secured the PNL support and thus ensuring that the Conservative Party would govern for at least the next four years, Vice President Take Ionescu, the strongest leader that party had had since President Titu Maiorescu, was almost guaranteed the nomination. In fact, the Brătianu-Ionescu government, endowed with the emergency powers given to it by Parliament because of the war, had managed to comprehensively bring the PC to heel and transform it into an effective vehicle for the duo’s ambition. With most dissent silenced, Ionescu’s bannermen reigned supreme over the few disparate factions that remained – the Junimea, now older than 80% of the party, had lost the will to resist the new dominant faction, and its members were either retiring from politics altogether or simply swearing fealty to the vice president; on the other side of the Conservative spectrum, the Nationalists had been so thoroughly discredited that their only hope was to at least keep their seats of power and gain something new by being serviceable to the future president.

The only problem with this new alliance was the choice of vice president, which was almost guaranteed to be desired by a large number of Conservative hopefuls looking to bolster their political careers and secure the spot of Ionescu’s successor. Caretaker Speaker Iuliu Maniu was one of them and the more obvious choice after Iancu Flondor was sent to govern REA. But the vice presidency, inconsequential as it was, was also wanted by a number of Liberals, wary of the fact that they were slowly but surely slipping into electoral irrelevancy and wanted the party to maintain an edge going into future elections. Some local politicians, more aware of the political tides, were beginning to doubt that even a razor-thin victory in 1920 could be achieved in Parliament, winning the second spot and keeping the party afloat for another electoral cycle.

President Brătianu also had his own agenda and he was not yet ready to give up power, even though controlling Ionescu through a parliamentary alliance could still be a way to maintain influence. At this point, there were two plans he could set in motion in order to keep himself fully in power. One was extremely difficult and would likely bring almost the entire political establishment in Bucharest against him – trying to repeal term limits from the Constitution. Not only would such an attempt provoke a storm in Bucharest, but it was also not very practical. In order to repeal a constitutional amendment, The Conservative-Liberal alliance had to control 75% of parliament, a number that almost guaranteed that repealing an amendment would be impossible. Even so, the alliance still controlled around 72% of Parliament and if all could be convinced to support Brătianu in his quixotic quest, then it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that some of the more politically ambitious Socialists could be bought off to get the last 3%. It was a difficult gamble and not one that was particular easy to achieve and could easily backfire to provoke political fallout not seen since President Cuza’s attempt at a fourth term.

The other possibility was for President Brătianu himself to seek the vice presidency as Ionescu’s running mate, essentially switching their places. This could be achieved if the Conservatives could be convinced that the alliance with the Liberals was lucrative enough. And for anyone that knew the facts, it was obvious that it was – with the Socialists perpetually blocked outside the possibility of winning the presidency, the Conservative-Liberal alliance would essentially create a dominant-party state. Iuliu Maniu could remain in his current seat of power, the speakership, while other more ambitious Conservatives could be compensated with important Cabinet positions. With the speakership considered an easy springboard for the presidency, it was a plan that could very well win over Maniu, at the time the second most influential Conservative politician in the country and especially so in sapphire blue Transylvania. The only problem with this plan was, just like before, the fact that Brătianu was term-limited and it was rather controversial not to say possibly unconstitutional for a person ineligible to be elected president to run for vice president. It was one more time that for personal ambition, Romanian politicians were to stretch the Romanian constitutional and political structure to its limits.

 

[Godot]

Great update! Interested to see if Romania has any interest in Odessa in this TL....

 

[Nelson Mikeson]

Welcome back, @Richthofen! Hope to read more of yours soon.

 

[Richthofen]

Great update! Interested to see if Romania has any interest in Odessa in this TL....

Not directly, but seeing as Ukraine is becoming a client-state, the Black Sea is rather close to turning into a Romania & allies lake.

Welcome back, @Richthofen! Hope to read more of yours soon.

Thanks!

 

[Richthofen]

CHAPTER LXXXIII
TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN​

It was a strange sight, on the eve of the election season of 1920 – major actors in the political establishment in Bucharest negotiating over what was essentially a powerless office. The vice presidency had never been so coveted before, and while there had been exceptionally powerful vice presidents before, the office itself was not particularly endowed with constitutional powers, at least not in regards to the executive. Even within its legislative scope, the vice presidency was only situationally powerful, if its holder had some sway with the Senate majority or if that person already had major influence. And President Brătianu was currently the most influential individual in all of Romania. With a large number of Conservatives under his clout and with his own party merely an annex to his will, the president was unwilling to give up all of the power he had amassed. Becoming the vice president, however, even if it would ensure that he would remain the de facto leader of Romania, was not particularly easy. The nomination could be obtained by negotiating and twisting arms, something President Brătianu had been doing successfully his entire career, but there remained the issue of constitutionality.

It was enough for the discussion to become public and for Brătianu’s politicking to be revealed to the general public that his dream started to fall apart. The Socialists almost immediately raised the issue with the Constitutional Court, who advised that the Constitution was rather clear, in spirit, if not in letter – a person not eligible to be elected president was also not eligible to be elected vice president, since the latter office was the direct and only successor to the presidency itself, in fact, argued the constitutional judges, the vice president, in his executive capacity, was a “president in waiting”.

Take Ionescu had only just been coronated the Conservative Party’s nominee for president with zero opposition and had only hinted at the possibility of switching places with Brătianu for 1920, but the issue was so politically problematic, that the Socialist opposition and other independent-minded institutions of Romania went to quickly stop the tide that was forming. President Brătianu was prevented from keeping his power in a formal manner, but his influence was still widespread. In the Conservative Party, a small faction within the ranks of the Bannermen had been built from the ground up in support of the Brătianu dynasty. With Take Ionescu’s help, aware of the fact that his political fortunes and future were still deeply intertwined with the fate of the PNL and the Brătianu family, the faction was propped up. It was also a way for Ionescu to keep other factions that could arise within the party and that could oppose him, preoccupied with an internal struggle. The Brătianu faction within the Conservative Party, led by none other than the president’s brother himself, Vintilă, the first Conservative Brătianu, was also a tool for Ionescu to keep control of his party. This peculiar “dance” between Ionel Brătianu and Take Ionescu, a game in which both used each other for their ends seemed to work for the time being, but other people were not so sure that it would last, especially Ionescu’s Conservative rivals, who were patiently waiting their turn, feigning loyalty or simply biding their time.

All the political shifting that occurred during the last weeks of the 1916-1920 term stood to reinforce one more time what had been deeply engrained in Romania’s political tradition since the end of President Alexandru Ioan Cuza’s terms – that no leader was going to be tolerated in power for more than eight years, regardless of any popularity he may or may not have with certain circles or with the population at large. Socialist leader Coronescu commented at the time that Romania had “formed durable self-defences against autocratic power” and that another “fixed” presidential election after 1920 would not be accepted any longer, either by the people or by the institutions. It was, of course, a way for the Socialists to signal to their electorate that the legislative election of 1920 was crucial in order to break the monopoly the Conservatives and Brătianu had on the presidency. It was also Coronescu’s political swan song – the party he had been leading for the past 18 years was growing restless after it was denied the opportunity to run a candidate for president in 1912 and many believed Coronescu’s decision to form the grand coalition during the war to have been a mistake that could permanently lodge the Brătianu dynasty and the Conservative into power.

For 1920, the Socialists were facing an uphill battle for the second place, the one that would guarantee they would be allowed to run in the presidential election of 1924 and that could send the Liberals further into irrelevancy. Coronescu’s strategy was to coordinate and concentrate resources on eight battleground deputy circumscriptions, the ones that were most likely to flip during the election. With the Conservatives and the Liberals running common candidates in almost all circumscriptions once more, there was a rather low chance that any seats other than these eight could flip. In the 1916 legislature, the Socialists were 5 seats away from claiming the second place, so what was needed to win, was to keep all of their current seats, as well as win five out of the other seven contested. The most important objective in this strategy was to hold Calafat, a Socialist seat in the south-east that had been won against all odds, with a razor-thin margin in 1916 and would be especially difficult to defend. Other strategies were also thought up for the winnable seats – in Corona, for example, a seat that had previously changed hands between Republicans and Conservatives and was now representative of a county that had been heavily industrialized in the past years, forming the backbone of the Romanian aeronautic industry, it was decided that the Socialist leader, a Corona native, would run. For the past years, it had become a sort of tradition that the Leader of the Socialist Party would run in the Bucharest Circumscription 3, a super-safe seat. For Coronescu, running in his native circumscription was a risky undertaking and one that, upon failure, would undoubtedly spell his political demise. Losing Corona would both leave him outside Parliament and thus on shaky grounds for continuing his leadership and would also potentially cost the party the objective it had set. Nevertheless, he was still the best positioned to eke out a win in this crucial circumscription.

1916 configuration of Assembly seats, with safe and competitive electoral districts​

The Socialists’ strategy included not only flipping these crucial seats, but also ensuring a larger share of votes nationally, which would allow them more seats in the Senate. On the other hand, the opposition group in the party believed that attempting to win more seats in the majoritarian chamber, where the Socialists were severely underpowered due to the Conservative-Liberal alliance and the institutional disadvantage of left-wing candidates, was a losing strategy. They believed the leadership should have made its objective to hold the seats in the Assembly and focus on growing the national score, in order to obtain more Senate seats, where the Socialists had the clear advantage. Either way, however, the race was going to be difficult and very problematic especially for the Marxist faction, the main opposition group inside the party, that risked being removed completely from the Assembly, especially due to events that had taken place outside the country’s borders, ergo France’s change of regime.

And it was in this direction that President Brătianu and the Conservatives shaped their campaign for the legislative election. Associating the Romanian Socialists with the new authoritarian regime in Paris was a low-hanging fruit for the Conservative-Liberal majority and it was also the preferred rhetoric that came in a natural succession to fearmongering about the Red Uprising and the Marxist “scare” that had been building among the Romanian capitalists, fearful that a future Socialist president might start a campaign of nationalizations and of breaking the trusts and also attempt a project of decolonization which would deprive them of the asymmetrical access to the lucrative markets in Romanian East Africa.

The problem of anti-competition practices in the Romanian economy had become apparent since the early 1910s, highlighted especially by the Aroresa Affair as well as by the continued pro-trusts efforts of the Maiorescu and Marghiloman Administrations, both of which continuously supported the growth and development of the military-industrial-capitalist complex that dominated the economy and led the charge in what was military expansion and development. During the Great War, this complex was enriched by one more area that was now ripe for development – aviation. Following the great successes of Romania’s aerial campaign during the war, President Brătianu signed executive orders for the founding of several schools of aeronautics and aeronautic engineering in order to maintain the Romanian technological edge in what Romanian strategists believed to be a crucial military domain in the years to come. As a new and open to fundamental innovation sector, however, aviation could not be yet shackled to the anti-competition practices. Since 1905, the Romanian government had been the sole contractor and benefactor of Vlaicu Industries, the company that had built and developed the Aquila series. The Romanian government, however, had no stakes in the company, and thus was unable to influence it any way, something that was seen as a problem, especially after 1915, when President Brătianu established the Romanian Society of Aeronautics, a state agency-company created for the sole purpose of regulating the industry and keeping Vlaicu Industries in a tighter grasp, something the founder and main inventor of the Aquila, Aurel Vlaicu was not particularly fond of.

Inventor Aurel Vlaicu at the helm of one of the first airplane prototypes in late 1906. Vlaicu's work had been sponsored by various Romanian administrations since the early 1900s as a secret military project​

The falling out between President Brătianu and Vlaicu Industries became a very public affair in late 1919, and it led to a scandal that forced the Conservative-Liberal political alliance to rethink its strategy. Vlaicu accused the Executive of trying to undermine his company through intimidation and anti-market practices by capping the level of production in order to prevent exports and even went as far to allege an attempt to nationalize the industry. On the other side, the Brătianu Administration accused the company that it failed to honour part of the deal that was signed and also of bribery of government officials. The scandal was made even worse after the Romanian Government cancelled its contract with Vlaicu Industries and signed another with the newly founded Romanian Civil and Military Aeronautics Industry (Industria Română de Aeronautică Civilă și Militară, IRACM), a company jointly owned by the Romanian Society of Aeronautics (RSA) and inventor Oscar Coandă, son of Colonel Constantin Coandă, former politician and presidential candidate from the PNL. The president’s critics said this was a blatant attempt to punish Vlaicu, who had been politically critical of the Conservative-Liberal alliance and of the way Brătianu and his political allies were conducting themselves, especially in regards to Crimea, as well as place the aviation industry further into the hands of a politicized military-industrial complex. Regardless, even though Coandă was perceived as a PNL crony, it was fairly obvious that the man was competent as an inventor and he tried as much as possible to distance the job and his results from the political masters inside government. Nevertheless, his share of ownership of the IRACM was bound to make him one of the wealthiest men in Romania. IRACM provided the Romanian Army with several prototypes, including the Coandă-1924, a biplane model designed to be lighter and faster than the Great War era Aquilas.

The scandal had deep political ramifications though, especially in the context of the highly competitive 1920 legislative elections. Vlaicu Industries had factories in Hunedoara and Corona and due to the loss of the government contract, had to fire workers and factory personnel. It was a conclusion that could very easily be pinned by Vlaicu, as well as the Socialists, on the Brătianu Administration. With most of the worker Unions having been progressively defanged by Conservative and Liberal Administrations since 1900, there was little to no representation for the workers outside of the Socialist Party who campaigned relentlessly in Corona against the administration. Several worker strikes and protests erupted in both Corona and Hunedoara, some spontaneous, others organized by the Socialists. From there, other local party organizations took the initiative to organize pro-union legislation protests in other counties as well. Naval workers protested in the Dobrogea counties of Ovidiu and Tulcea, both of which were considered competitive electoral circumscriptions. By the end of 1919, it looked like the Brătianu Administration had put into motion a tide that had completely unforeseen consequences for the 1920 election. Vlaicu Industries, as well as a local worker organization in Corona also sued the Romanian Executive for an “unlawful termination of a contract”. The case was to be considered by the courts.

In another part of the Romanian society, the absence of effective action by the Romanian government against market exploiters that had become ubiquitous during and immediately after the Great War, especially in the countryside, vigilantism begun arising as reaction. Bands of organized vigilantes formed to stop exploiters from ripping poor people off soon devolved into gangsterism themselves. As the Brătianu Administration was unsuccessfully trying to manage these late-term crises, a mob was forming in those forgotten parts of the country, where the war and the corruption had bled entire communities dry.

 

[Richthofen]

CHAPTER LXXXIV
THE HYDRA'S SECOND HEAD​

“The streets are not safe” – signs bearing this message had become ubiquitous all over the villages and small market towns in between Ploiești and Buzău. It was a timid attempt by the authorities to reclaim control of a situation that had quickly turned into a headache even for the administration in Bucharest. Simply put, what the authorities called “gangs” or “violent groupings” were feuding all over the region after they had grown too big for one another. Initially appearing as a reaction to continued exploitative tactics by local merchants in the context of the Great War, the first groups of what became known throughout the country as Cavaleria (eng.: The Cavalry/The Knights) soon monopolized local crime for themselves. Organized in families and “clans”, these organizations appeared rather spontaneously in most of the country but soon took a similar form through copying and migration. Not dissimilar to other forms of organized crime present in other countries, such as the Sicilian Mafia, the Cavaleria was still much more fragmented and lacked a national structure as a crime syndicate. Nevertheless, the lack of action by the authorities up until 1919, had allowed it to grow from a bunch of loosely organized vigilante groups to a “creed” that formed organically around the needs of ignored and forgotten communities. In the village of Ceptura, in north-eastern Wallachia, it was that the one of the most important Cavaleria groups arose. Led by Luca Ventura, the original “Knight”, a war veteran that had lost an eye in the Eastern Trench, the Ventura Clan soon grew large enough to control crime in Ploiești, Buzău and most of the surrounding villages and small towns. As the Ventura Clan was trying to cement its position and become credible as a force that rivaled even the authorities, it engaged in violence against local merchant organizations that profited from the post-War situation to rip off the locals. Without a clear power structure and without an ability to quell dissent, the Ventura Clan devolved into a “civil war” that provoked alert not only at local level in and around Prahova but also in Bucharest.

It was the quick and almost surreal fall into criminal anarchy in the region that prompted the Brătianu Administration to try to take measures. In Parliament, the Socialists and even some critical Conservatives were voicing heavy criticism against the president for not doing anything to prevent this situation.

“Anarchia este resultatul președinției lui Ionel Brătianu. Peste patru ani, când vom fi încheiat un mandat de președinție Ionescu, câștigat nedrept și ilegitim prin sufocarea instituțională a oposiției, vom ști și cât de mult mai trăește democrația românească, născută prin vărsare de sânge la 1843”*​

Senator George Diamandi (PS), 1920​

While a headache it was for the Romanian state and for the politicians, especially those in Bucharest, the Cavaleria was actually liked and supported by many people in the rural areas, who were feeling protected and finally represented by someone. Prior to its “violent phase”, the Cavaleria worked as a substitute for the social measures that were either not taken or eroded into nothingness by the Conservative and Liberal administrations that had governed Romania following the tenure of President Rosetti. Nevertheless, the appetite for stronger social measures had grown stronger especially during the war, when the anti-war campaign soon evolved to become a pacifist and pro-socialist movement that also advocated for the emancipation of women and minorities and for an expanded welfare apparatus to reach the millions of people that lived in poverty and whose only option to live a more decent life was to attempt a difficult, sometimes dangerous and unpredictable trip to settle in the colonies. The Ventura “civil war”, however, dissipated much of this support, as the families and groups that formed the criminal organization controlled by Luca Ventura fought a bloody deathmatch in which the locals were frequently turned into collateral victims. In order to secure future loyalty, Ventura “clansmen” used barbaric practices, such as blinding one eye, to make the traitors do through the same ordeal as the leader had, or amputated fingers. These were acts that soon turned the Cavaleria into a feared organization that people did not want to be associated with under any circumstance. The Brătianu Administration also decided to act on the matter and greatly empowered the police in the area to act in a radical way in order to ensure that the violence was brought to an end and that the region was safe once more. With orders to act decisively, the police finally engaged with ruthlessness and the leadership of the Cavaleria decided to go underground in order to avoid an assymetrical war with the authorities. With the threat that the army would be deployed if the situation was to continue to escalate, it seemed that everything was calming down just in time for the election season of 1920.

Almost noone was expecting 1920 to be a sweep or re-aligning election. The fact that the last two presidential elections had been merely symbolic coronations of Ionel Brătianu as per the will of the entire political class, and that the next one was also going to function in a similar fashion due to the Liberal-Conservative alliance continuing with the objective of keeping the Socialists perpetually out of power. Outside of a few hopefuls and the Coronescu leadership circle almost everyone in the PS was already resigned with a future loss. What everyone hadn’t yet taken into account was the multitude of factors and events that were beginning to influence the electoral cycle – from the ravaging War Flu epidemic, the choked economic recovery after the war, the Cavaleria rampaging throughout the country, the workers’ protests, the scandals that had kept the Brătianu Administration on its toes during the last year and a half and the electoral “fatigue” of the Romanian voter.

The Liberals were hit hard by the courts’ ruling in favour of Vlaicu Industries in its case against the Romanian Government, a clear defeat for President Brătianu that further damaged the credibility of the administration. One other such scandal arose when the president attempted what no other head of the Executive attempted before him, to gut the Electoral Investigations Bureau, the government organization tasked with enforcing minority voting rights. The EIB had been created during the Cuza Administration in an attempt by the former president to secure the electoral support of the Roma minority, but had since then evolved to become a strong enforcer of voters’ rights all throughout the country, especially in areas with mixed communities, where Jewish, Roma or Magyar voters were frequently abused at the polls by both electoral commissions or extremist groups. Since the Socialist Party was the main beneficiary of the minority vote, this was a blatant attempt by the administration to tip the scales in the favour of the Liberals especially, whose share of the minority vote had dwindled to almost nothing during the past years. Pushback also came from the Conservative Party which had also considered gutting the Bureau, but had always considered it much too politically risky. Especially due to the circumstances that surrounded the end of the Great War and the social tensions that were pervasive in society, turning the EIB into a rubber stamp was especially problematic, and the Conservatives were not ready to deal with an aftermath of heavy protests and social disobedience by discontent minorities, especially since Take Ionescu was to become president in less than a year. Nevertheless, President Brătianu maintained the course, only to be stopped in his tracks by the courts, which ordered the reversal of all measures and the return of power of prosecution to the EIB.

When results of the legislative election started coming in during late March, the picture they painted started looking increasingly grim for the Conservatives and Liberals. The first swing district to announce final results was Ilfov-Băneasa, the ring that surrounded Bucharest, a strongly industrialized area that had consistently voted on the left before it was claimed by a Conservative candidate in 1916. This time, a Socialist won by a margin of 3%, thus confirming a trend that seemed to be valid all over the country – the PS overperformed in most of the districts, even in those that were heavily Conservative, managing to secure larger shares of the vote. But the highest surprise came from a circumscription that was not even considered competitive – in Botoșani, where the PC expected to win handily, historian Nicolae Iorga managed one of the most surprising upsets in a Romanian election – with a margin of over 12 points over his Conservative rival, Iorga managed to flip a county that had never voted a Socialist before and which had been under the control of the Conservative Party for the past 15 years. What was even more surprising was that the district was not particularly industrialized, nor was it very urban either. Even more so, Iorga was a radical Marxist that was consistently criticized by his political opponents, some even inside the PS, for his stance on several issues regarding Romanian constitutionalism as well as for his praise for the new French regime.

Result of the legislative election for the Botoșani district (1920)​

Later results confirmed that the Socialist Party had secured its objective in spite of all doubts – it managed to hold onto Calafat and also win seven out of eight competitive districts, including Corona, which was captured with a comfortable margin of victory of 3%. One more surprise win in southern Timoc brought the final tally to eight new seats in the Assembly for the Socialists, an overperformance that brought the party into the centerfold of Romanian politics for the first time in over 30 years. At the national level, the party secured a large enough share of the vote to win 24 new Senate seats, thus bringing the total of Socialist MPs to 208, over 50 more than the Liberals’ 154. This guaranteed that 1924 was going to be the first time that a Socialist candidate could run for the presidency and that president-elect Take Ionescu was going to have to face a real battle for the second term. Other electoral battles were much tougher than Botoșani, though, notable being the Horincea district, where the Socialists claimed victory from the jaws of defeat with a margin of 0.04% Similarly, in the formerly Republican seat of Câmpeni, the Socialist candidate achieved a razor-thin victory.

Result of the legislative election for the Horincea district (1920)

Result of the legislative election for the Câmpeni district (1920). János Mattis (commonly Romanianized as Ioan Matiș) became the first ethnic Magyar to win this seat

The achievement of the PS was not to remain without reverberations in society, though, especially after the events that had transpired in other parts of Europe, such as France or Greece. Following the election of 1920, the Metropolis of Wallachia and the Metropolis of Moldavia formally united to form what was named the Romanian Orthodox Church. Even though they were not formally united before, the two dioceses functioned as an organizational complex commonly referred to as “The Church”. Until this formal unification, however, the two dioceses had refused to recognize the Romanian state and proclaimed that the two principalities were still the legitimate governments of the territories in which the Romanian faithful lived. This was due to the very strict secular nature of the Romanian Constitution and of the state. Nevertheless, the heads of the Orthodox dioceses contemplated uniting the structures before, especially after it had established a presence in the colonies, but what greatly sped up the process was the PS winning the second place in the election, an event that brought with it the prospect of a having a Socialist elected for the first time to the presidency.

“Ateismul politic militant amenință, de astăzi, România și pe credincioșii ei. Trebuie să existe o reacțiune la fel de dură din partea dreptei credințe – de ce nu – o facțiune militantă creștină în Parlamentul României”**​

Ioan Lupaș, Orthodox theologian and Sibiu deputy (PC)​

As Romania seemed to be finally moving towards a new party system, the PNL and President Brătianu had to face a new reality – no longer directly in power, the Liberals were free to build favours with all factions in Parliament and as the electoral alliance with the Conservatives had outlived its usefulness, there was a potential chance of reconciliation with the Socialists as well. It was looking increasingly likely that the PNL was going to be a powerful kingmaker in the future legislature and potentially in the next one as well. With 154 MPs, the party could ally with either the PS or PC to form absolute majorities and had the potential to strike down any legislative objective of the incoming Ionescu Administration or, on the contrary, to leverage its support for more power inside it. All in all, President Brătianu saw no reason to be dissatisfied with the result and even though the party lost, his influence was to remain strong in the years to come.
--

* “The result of Ionel Brătianu's presidency is anarchy. In four years, when we will have ended a term of the Ionescu presidency, unfairly and illegitimately won through the institutional strangling of the opposition, we will know just how alive Romanian democracy, born after bloodshed in 1843, still is”
**“Militant political atheism today threatens Romania and her faithful. There must be an equally strong reaction from the true faith - and why not - a militant christian faction in the Parliament of Romania”

 

[Richthofen]

CHAPTER LXXXV
WILL OF OUR PEOPLES​

In the midst of an explosion of hurrahs and chanting of "Will of Our Peoples!" coming from the large crowd that had assembled at the place, a man carefully took down the sign bearing the name Pozsony and replaced it with another that spelled Bratislava – the first expression of the newly decided independence of what was previously called Little Hungary. Now elevated to a kingdom, Slovakia had expressed its will for independence in something that had been unthinkable for everyone just ten years prior – a referendum. Against the loud protests of the Hungarian nationalists, Slovakian and Croatians were invited to participate in plebiscites to decide on whether they wanted to be independent or remain part of a large Hungarian polity that was to implement strong reforms in the future.

The Commission for Hungary, a temporary body created by the Coalition victors after the Great War, and sanctioned by the Great Powers’ Club, was tasked with organizing the plebiscites and with the difficult job of ensuring the pacification of Hungary and integrating the country or countries resulting from the referendums into the international community. Formed by diplomats and administrators jointly organized by Germany and Romania, the Commission for Hungary pretty much worked as a civilian administration of Hungary in the aftermath of the War and was meant to administer the country as well as execute the results of the plebiscites.

Hungarian nationalists, as well as some of the Budapest intelligentsia condemned the plebiscites as illegal and illegitimate and also decried what they claimed to be irregularities in their execution. Claiming the Commission had gerrymandered electoral districts in order to ensure pro-independence majorities, they rejected the overwhelming results for independence in both Slovakia and Croatia and maintained that the Greater Hungary of before 1870 must remain the goal of the Hungarian state. Even so, the plebiscites had been organized in good faith by the Commission and were generally regarded to have been free and fair elections with very few interferences or controversies – with the exception of limited scope demands of Ruthenians in Slovakia and Serbs in Croatia that wanted to have other options on the ballot – independence of Ruthenia or Union with Serbia.

After so many years of war and conflict, however, the Hungarian society remained deeply split on whether it should continue to pursue nationalist and irredentist goals or simply accept what had been the case for many years, that Greater Hungary was to remain merely a pipe dream of the nationalists and the radicals.

Break-up of Hungary following the Great War and vote in the independences plebiscites by electoral districts in Slovakia and Croatia (1920)​

The break-up of Hungary was not particularly well received by the governments of Germany and Romania either. In fact, both of them had preferred a different course – Romania preferred a preservation of Hungary in her pre-War borders or with an independent Slovakia, at most. The administration in Bucharest was not very fond of Croatia becoming independent, fearing that it would once more stir Yugoslav pan-nationalism in the Balkans and strongly opposed any initiative to create a Serb-Croat union. At the same time, there were fears in Bucharest that a diminished Hungary would only be more radicalized and become a breeding ground for extremism once more. On the other side, Germany feared that an independent Slovakia could stir Czech nationalism in Bohemia and would be detrimental to the future pacification of Hungary, which they believed, was more attached to Slovakia than it was to Croatia. Then again, they also wanted to restore the Wittelsbachs on the throne of Hungary, something that was almost impossible due to both Romanian opposition and the fact that the German monarchs were almost universally despised in Hungary itself. Creating a Croatian state, however, could save the German aristocracy some face, since it meant they could install the former monarchs on its throne instead.

Nevertheless, both powers were met with an intense lobby from within both Croatia and Slovakia to make independence a reality, and feared that rejecting these wishes would simply breed instability in a country that was already disintegrating and could hardly be administered in its current form.

In April 1920, little under a month before the Ionescu Administration was to enter office, Vice President-elect Iuliu Maniu travelled incognito to Prague, after consulting with both President Brătianu and President-elect Ionescu and was given instructions and full authority to negotiate a secret agreement for the future of Central and Eastern Europe that were to be divided into Romanian and German spheres of influence. Maniu’s discussion with the Germans did not start particularly well, as right before his arrival, the Grand Coalition government of Heinrich Lammasch, himself a member of the Centre Party, crumbled due to the National Liberals decision to return to opposition after the War. Ludwig V, more politically involved than any of his predecessors, had grown tired of Lammasch’s dovish stances and had orchestrated his chancellor’s downfall in order to have a more like-minded chancellor for his negotiation with the Romanians.

Lammasch had been previously selected in order to placate the Austrians in the Centre Party, as well as brand himself as a champion of the people, as Lammasch was the first non-noble Chancellor since Karl Heinrich von Boetticher, himself one of the most popular and popularly approved chancellors. Nevertheless, the politics of the Empire were beginning to change and career party politicians started growing stronger in the German legislative, thus becoming more capable of leveraging their position. The previously uneasy alliance between the Centre Party and the German Conservative Party, also known as the Prussian Party or the Junkers’ Party, had become more natural as the years passed and they found themselves more comfortable with each other than with the more “civilian” aligned opposition – the Social Democrats, previously barred from standing for election and the main opposition party, the National Liberals. The aristocratic-civilian divide of early German politics had led to a more pronounced involvement of the princes in politics before, but it was now starting to go the other way around and as the Empire itself was becoming more cohesive and united than ever, the Junkers and the Catholics had understood that they had to stand together in front of the “onslaught” of the more democratic-minded left.

As such, Eugen von Knilling, a member of the Bavarian Centre Party and a close associate of Emperor Ludwig was selected to become the new chancellor and to begin the discussions with Iuliu Maniu. The German-Romanian meeting was to remain strictly secret, as Maniu had no constitutional authority to negotiate anything in Romania’s name just yet, and the contents of these negotiations were also deemed to be “dangerous to hear” for the outside world. In short, both powers wanted to clarify the extent of influence they would have in the new countries created in Central and Eastern Europe, and also wanted to discuss a coordinated effort in regards to the revolts taking place in the western Russian Empire. The Germans and Romanians agreed for a crisscrossed sphere in Hungary and Croatia – Hungary was to become a republic on a model decided by Romanian constitutionalists, but would fall squarely in the German sphere of influence. This was meant to ensure that Romania also had a say in the statal and national reconstruction of Hungary while the Germans controlled it directly. Likewise, Croatia would become a Romanian sphereling and was to be invited in the Eastern European League, but with a restored Heinrich von Wittelsbach on her throne, in order to keep the Germans connected to the country and allow them to save face as well. It was also agreed that Croatia was to not be allowed any political union with Serbia or Slovenia and was to be kept afloat and independent. A possible scenario was to allow the Western Balkans and possibly Albania to enter a tightly controlled customs’ union. The Germans were not willing, however, to share Slovakia and maintained that it was to be ruled by a German prince and would remain a part of the German sphere of influence on a model that they claimed could be similar to Ukraine. Through this, they hoped to run in front of any independence or national movement in Bohemia and to prevent the ideologization of the “Czecho-Slovak” movement, a proto-nationalist movement that advocated for a new country in Central Europe after the fall of Hungary.

Things were more complicated in regards to lands of the Russian Empire, whose independence was deeply problematic and very difficult to enforce, especially considering the fact that everyone expected that the Russian government would only become more irredentist in the years to come. While Poland and Ukraine were obviously to remain in their respective western neighbour sphere of influence, it was more difficult to predict what would be the fate of Finland and the Baltics, all of which were faced with strong national movements that were opposing the disintegrating Russian Imperial Army. In Finland, things had become clearer, as the Russians had already evacuated fully, but were yet unwilling to accept the new Finnish Diet’s declaration of independence. In the Baltics, rebels were still engaging the Russians and the local leaders were still unsure on how to proceed, and were petitioning the German and British government for support. Only in Vilnius and Kaunas had local nationalists proclaimed their intent to create a Lithuanian national state. Up north, Estonian and Latvian rebels wanted a “Baltic personal union” in order to be able to resist possible future Russian aggressions.

Iuliu Maniu returned to Bucharest with the secret “treaty”, essentially a gentleman’s agreement between himself, Chancellor von Knilling, and the emperor. The act had, of course, no legal weight, since it was negotiated by someone who was not yet empowered by the Executive in any official capacity and it was also required for it to be approved by the Romanian Senate first. Nevertheless, its contents were to become an essential part of the Romanian diplomatic and foreign policy in the years to come and were integrated and embedded seamlessly into the policy of several administrations throughout the years. It was also the culmination of the decades-long Conservative goal of aligning German and Romanian interests in order to ensure a lasting domination of the continent’s affairs, moving away from the growing Anglo-American dominance of other economic and political spaces of the world.

Iuliu Maniu, 21st Vice President of Romania​

In the Western Balkans, Hungary and Slovakia, the Commission for Hungary was to implement all decisions and work towards state-building until 1925, when the Commission was to be fully dissolved and the three countries were to hold elections. Ukraine and Poland were to essentially become puppet states of their respective western neighbours and also buffers, while Finland and the Baltics were to remain a larger issue for the Great Powers’ Club, but were also to be closely monitored by Germany which was required to act for the creation of friendly governments and buffer states against Russia in the east.

As complicated as the situation was in the East, the West was not faring much better. While the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine had already become part of international legislation and a closed chapter in German-French relations, the strip of land still under military occupation in northern France was to remain a rather large stumbling block for any attempt at normalizing relations between the Germans and the French. As the Debs’ delegation at Frankfurt left negotiations without officially accepting the Coalition’s peace, it also remained unrecognized and isolated. What would later be called the “Northern Strip” was to be a physical expression of the animosity that remained between Germany and France, as the government in Paris continued to demand that Germany evacuate the territory and allow it to resume administration. Rhetorically, they also asked the same of Alsace, which was why the German government also maintained that the Debs’ regime was illegitimate and that it still recognized the Napoleonic government in Corsica as legitimate. It was impossible, however, to return the territory to Napoleonic rule, since the downsized administration of Corsica had no capacity to administer a territory in Northern France, sandwiched by FCP-controlled France and Belgium. The region remained, thus, under German military administration.

Napoleon IV, still under the protection of the Great Powers’ Club, also ramped up his demands and organized his administration in Corsica as the “rightful government of all French”. It was an opinion shared by almost everyone that the situation was going to be temporary and that sooner or later the French government would normalize relations with the international community and it would be then that Paris could finally retake control of Corsica and exile Napoleon once and for all. Things were not going into that direction at all, however – in the spring of 1920, Debs’ government tightened its control over the French economy and politics by launching another flurry of decrees that along with the previous were to be assembled into a future constitution – the government in Paris began the nationalization of all private property and the concentration of all economic initiatives in the hands of the state. On the political side, all “reactionary” parties, opposed to the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and to the "legitimate interests of the French workers" were banned. The enforcing of the political domination of the French Communist Party had already begun way before, when the paramilitary “Popular Guards” (also known as the Guardians or Defenders of the People) had taken shape during the war as an organization of force against the Napoleonic authorities of then.

France in 1920, split between the French Commune, Empire of the French (Corsica) and the Germany-held Northern Strip​

The new measures of the Communists in France only made the country more isolated and as its reputation of the “Mad Dog in the backyard of Western Europe” was growing, hopes that the territorial issues in the region could be fixed sooner rather than later were starting to die off. The frozen conflict in Corsica and the Northern Strip threatened to keep the wounds of the Great War open and festering, while many societies in Europe, be they of victorious or defeated countries, were facing increased social unrest - the unpopular monarchies of Spain and Italy, the fall of Greece to the Communists and growing tensions in Ireland all looked they could keep the Old Continent on its toes even in what many hoped would be peaceful years to come.

 

[5000 Cows]

Yeesss this liiiives

 

[Panzerlied]

So Commune and Imperial France is their equivalent of China and Taiwan?

 

[Richthofen]

So Commune and Imperial France is their equivalent of China and Taiwan?

Yes, something similar to that politically, but with different circumstances.

 

[PrinceofApathy]

I've been bingeing this, and I gotta say it's very unique. Initially I was very suspicious of a republican Romania. I was kinda hoping that a boyar would become King, but I was pleasantly surprised. I think Romania being a unitary state makes republicanism works better than in a federal state. I wasn't surprised that Romania would institute homogenization policies, but I was hoping that it would go in a more ethnically pluralistic direction. I had never thought of Romania colonizing anything, let alone Ethiopia. I especially love the idea of a united Germany. You don't see that in a lot of TLs.

As someone of Transylvanian-Jewish descent, I was very interested in what happened to Hungary. I was hoping it would stay Hungarian, but alas. The idea of an independent Hungary is appealing though.

I love it! Subbed.

 

[Richthofen]

CHAPTER LXXXVI
A COUNTRY UPSIDE-DOWN​

When President Brătianu left the domain at the Hill to depart for his last address in front of Parliament, everyone believed that it was indeed the end of an era. When he assumed office, eight years before, the country was at war, had a vicious and bloody conflict in front of it and had as many chances for success as it had for bitter defeat. Now, one week after Senate ratified the treaty of peace that ended the conflict that maimed a generation, the president was taking the last step of his presidency. Yet he was unwilling to let go of all the power and influence he had amassed all these years. While he could not keep power formally, he could still wield the considerable influence he had in all corners of the political domain.

Just one more month was left before Take Ionescu was scheduled to assume the presidency of Romania and the entire political establishment in Bucharest was enthusiastic about this transfer of power, for one reason or another. The Conservatives, anxious to return to the forefront after spending eight years blocked in a deal that turned them into junior partners in an alliance in which they felt they should have dominated, saw the Ionescu Administration as an important break and even though they had managed to win power through institutionally enforced non-combat, they felt like they had a natural claim to the presidency after what happened during the Marghiloman Administration and after.

The Socialists felt enthusiastic for a reason that was completely different – with 1924 being the first election in which the party could run a presidential candidate and with such an important strategic victory in the 1920 election, they were confident in their ability to sweep to power after what they believed would be their last four years of opposition.

Liberals and President Brătianu, on the other hand felt they could become the kingmakers and play the Conservatives and Socialists against one another. In fact, thought Brătianu, dropping to the third place could be a blessing in disguise for the Liberals, who were now no longer forced to ally the Conservatives and could instead work to shave support from both sides of the political spectrum.

And the first opportunity for Brătianu to wield this power came during the confirmation of the members of Ionescu’s cabinet – by themselves, the Conservatives did not have enough votes in the Upper Chamber in order to pass the Cabinet, but could do so with Liberal support. The former president, now only a frequent visitor at the Hill, strong-armed Ionescu into accepting one of two demands, both of which would have been unacceptable for any previous president, especially when made by a party that was not part of a governing coalition – Brătianu asked that the Conservatives either vote in a Liberal Speaker of the Assembly, of the former president’s choice naturally, or that his brother, Vintilă Brătianu, a member of the PC, be nominated for the Finance Ministry, a move that could undoubtedly be later used to tighten the PNL’s and the Brătianu Family’s control over both the Conservative Party and the Ionescu Administration.

Take Ionescu, 17th President of Romania​

The president believed the latter choice to be the better one for him and his administration, as there was little choice he could convince the Assembly Conservatives into voting in a member of another party to the Speakership position, arguably the most powerful in Parliament. In exchange, Ionel Brătianu and the PNL were to pass the Cabinet with no other demand and also vote in the Conservative leadership of the Assembly and all nominations to the colonial Governor offices.

Take Ionescu Administration
President: Take Ionescu
Vice President: Iuliu Maniu
Minister of Internal Affairs: Gheorghe Mironescu
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Nicolae Titulescu
Minister of War: gen. Traian Moșoiu
Minister of Finance: Vintilă Brătianu
Minister of Justice: Stelian Popescu
Minister of Agriculture: Ion Borcea
Minister of Infrastructure and Public Works: Ion Inculeț
Minister of the Colonies: Radu Rosetti
Minister of Public Health: Radu Adler
Minister of Education and Research: Ilie Bărbulescu
Minister of Culture: Petru Cazacu
Non-Cabinet positions
Governor of Romanian East Africa: Iancu Flondor
Governor of The Romanian Islands of the Aegean: Antoniu Tescanu
Governor of Crimea: Iuliu Coroianu​

President Take Ionescu inherited a country at peace, but mired in instability and facing a number of heavy issues – social unrest was growing due to both the War Flue epidemic, as well as due to the inability of the authorities to meaningfully subdue the Cavaleria, whose “civil war” had turned a lot of the local administrations upside down and the tensions only subsided when Luca Ventura simply went underground after having subdued the “the unruly clans”. On the other hand, the situation in Crimea was spiraling out of control and the number of deaths in the closed down peninsula was growing so large that the military administration in the region had trouble keeping the population from revolting.

A new wave of the War Flu hit the entirety of Europe hard in the summer of 1920 and the situation in Crimea, while worsening itself, soon became an afterthought, as the Ionescu Administration struggled to impose the right measures to control the spiraling pandemic. The president decided to renew the war decree that imposed a state of emergency throughout the country, as well as martial law while the very limited demobilization that was begun in the later stages of the Brătianu Administration was halted, all to the chagrin of the opposition.

The Socialists had campaigned heavily for demobilization and a switch back to a civilian economy, arguing that the country needed social measures and a proper response to the medical crisis, and not a further ramp-up of military and police activity. President Ionescu, on the other side, argued that the army was needed both so that the Cavaleria rebellions could be quelled if they arose or to keep the mob in check, as had been the case since the disappearance of Luca Ventura. At the same time, the president also maintained that the state of emergency was needed in order to control the War Flu and stop it from spreading uncontrollably once more.

The situation was only made worse by the fact that the new strain of the virus, that had emerged in the middle of 1920, was more aggressive than those of the previous waves – especially the one of the original trench wave, its mildest form. As cytokine storms started killing indiscriminately, the Romanian government went on to extend measures similar to those in Crimea to the entire Romanian territory.

In Crimea itself, limited shipments of food and other essential goods were allowed to enter and the locals were also allowed to leave the territory for Russia, if they so desired, an opportunity that was quickly taken by a large number of Russian nationals. The Ukrainians in Crimea also left in large numbers for Odessa, while the Crimean Tatars generally refused resettlement in Russia, opting to remain in the territory. Through these departures, as well as because of the massive number of deaths brought on by the famine and the War Flu, the Romanian government estimated that Crimea had lost around 15% of its pre-War population and was steadily declining.

Heavy Russophobia also meant an exceptionally harsh treatment of the local population by both the initial military administration of the peninsula, as well as by the later civilian administration created by the “Act for governance of the territories adjoined to Romania through the Treaty of Frankfurt” (Actul pentru guvernarea teritoriilor alipite la România prin Tratatul de la Frankfurt). The bill created what was to be, essentially, a colonial government in Crimea, on the model of the Romanian Islands of the Aeagean and Romanian East Africa, and was passed with unanimous Conservative and Liberal support and near-complete opposition by the Socialist Party. Conservative Iuliu Coroianu was named the 1st Governor of Crimea in July 1920 and put into practice policies similar to those employed by the Brătianu Administration during the brief time in which it governed the territory with the help of the military.

A special agency and task force was created at the Ministry of Public Health for managing the raging epidemic and minister Radu Adler, a previously little-known politician of the Conservative Party, also minister during the Brătianu Administration, and the architect of the original heavy quarantine of Crimea imposed in November 1919, became the public face of the administration’s struggle against the War Flu. Adler proposed several unpopular measures, mostly considered to be necessary afterwards, but which severely eroded at the foundations of an already fairly unpopular government.

Stricter social distancing measures were enacted in the summer of 1920 including the closing of schools, theatres as well as places of worship. Public transportation was also severely limited and under the state of emergency, mass gatherings were also curtailed in order to prevent protests. Face masks were recommended to be used in banks, government buildings and other such places. Enforcement of these measures was initially lax, but as the number of deaths kept growing, the administration essentially militarized the Ministry of Public Health, using the army and the police infrastructure to strongly enforce measures, especially in the countryside, where heavy opposition to the government was growing stronger than ever.

The government also adopted a paternalistic approach in regards to the press and how it reported cases and deaths – the press was given information to report to the public on a need-to-know basis and several outlets were outright blocked from reporting anything related to the pandemic. Data from the archives of the Ministry, made public several years after this deadly wave, showed that the government believed that 28% to 32% of the entire population of Romania (excluding the colonies and Crimea) was infected with the War Flu while around 1.5% to 2% of the population was killed by the virus, an estimate in line with the overall mortality of the virus globally.

20th Parliament of Romania (1920-1924)
Speaker of the Assembly: Mihail G. Cantacuzino (Conservative)
President of the Senate: Iuliu Maniu (Conservative)

Partidul Conservator - 314 seats

Partidul Socialist - 208 seats

Partidul Național Liberal - 154 seats

Partidul Republican - 4 seats

More emboldened than ever after its success in the election, the Socialist Party went on to hound the Conservative Administration in each and every decision. While it had no power to prevent any legislation approved with the Liberals’ help, the Socialists worked to rally its sympathizers as well as disappointed independents, an important segment that the Conservative Party could not afford to lose. Sensing weakness from the Conservative side, Ionel Brătianu also pounced – the Liberals supported several Socialist attempts to censure the administration, especially in regards to its habit of using the military to enforce the anti-epidemic measures. The PNL stopped short of supporting an overarching censure of the president, thus maintaining its cordial relationship with the Conservatives.

Overall disapproval of President Ionescu was growing in the Conservative Party as well, however, as the factional lines that had blurred during wartime were starting to re-emerge, and the president’s “big tent” of Bannermen was starting to crumble into intense factional rivalries – the president’s loyalists, on one side; the more neutral supporters of Vice President Maniu in the middle; and the president’s detractors on the other – they all locked heads on several different occasions.

The Ionescu loyalists was the ficklest faction of them all – comprised mainly by opportunists and those handpicked by the president to run for Parliament, they were the ones who stood to lose the most if the administration was to be unsuccessful or lose its standing with the electorate.

The “president’s Conservative opposition”, on the other hand, was mostly made up of disgruntled former Junimea bosses as well as embattled former officials and bureaucrats that had seen their fortunes go down in flames during the Ionel Brătianu Administration.

The Maniu supporters, generally standing in the middle, were the Vice President’s Transylvanian Conservatives mostly, many of which had been previously affiliated with the discredited Nationalist Faction, with the exception of that group’s more radical and antisemitic Wallachian wing, most of which had been forced out of the party by President Maiorescu. This faction also united Romanian exceptionalists, the new generation of career diplomats and politicians of the party’s youth wings and the growing Religious Right movement. The latter had been growing more powerful, especially due to its influence in colonial affairs in Africa and as a reaction to the overall strengthening of the Romanian left-wing movement.

The War Flu Pandemic went on in similar fashion in other parts of the world and Europe as well – in Germany, the first heavy containment measures were also taken during the summer of 1920, while Italy and Spain both struggled to contain the epidemic as well as a worsening social climate, in which protests and anti-government and anti-monarchy rallies were becoming more frequent. The same situation was to be found in Portugal, previously spared by republican tensions. In France, the authoritarian government imposed strict anti-epidemic measures, also as a pretext for tightening control more.

In the United Kingdom, as the Great War ended and the country was also consumed in the struggle against the War Flu, tensions continued to strengthen in regards to the “Irish Question”.

 

[Richthofen]

I've been bingeing this, and I gotta say it's very unique. Initially I was very suspicious of a republican Romania. I was kinda hoping that a boyar would become King, but I was pleasantly surprised. I think Romania being a unitary state makes republicanism works better than in a federal state. I wasn't surprised that Romania would institute homogenization policies, but I was hoping that it would go in a more ethnically pluralistic direction. I had never thought of Romania colonizing anything, let alone Ethiopia. I especially love the idea of a united Germany. You don't see that in a lot of TLs.

As someone of Transylvanian-Jewish descent, I was very interested in what happened to Hungary. I was hoping it would stay Hungarian, but alas. The idea of an independent Hungary is appealing though.

I love it! Subbed.

I'm glad you've been enjoying this!

Haven't had much opportunity to update consistently, or even that much lately, but I'm confident there will come a time when I'll be able to return to my pre-pandemic "a chapter every two-weeks" schedule.

Stay tuned!

 

[Aghstadian]

Glad these continue, how much money Romania spent to keep all those territories outside Romania proper? The Great war and the virus surely will have large rammification for Romania let alone the continued effect of wartime economy and mobilisation. I can see some sort of paternalistic "decolonization" or "autonomist movement" happen in a way to adress this issue. Be interesting to see the effect to the colonies.