This chapter is largely inspired by or directly adapting the work of Zoid in his excellent Norwegian additions in the Star-Spangled Expanded Universe. I hope to quickly bring readers up to speed on the different members of the League of Nations and why they joined, and Zoid's terrific history of Norway makes an excellent opportunity to cover such a minor power in detail while remaining interesting to where we are right now ITTL, the outbreak of Operation Manifest Climax. There will be "A League of Their Own" chapter for each member of the LoN. Also, we are still getting a rounders chapter afterward, because a rounders superstar is going to end up becoming a war criminal when he leaves the sport to enlist in the military. Expect him to be a key character. Hold onto your hats!
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN:
THE REPUBLIC OF NORWAY
The Norwegian warship Strand steams into Port Pierce, Cuba, to provide relief for the crippled American base
The situation in the Western Hemisphere in 1936 following the attack by the Neutrality Pact upon the Union could best be described by a time-worn adage: "When an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object." The Pact had great reasons to land the first blow. If allowed further time to build up to strength needed for Operation Manifest Climax, the Yankee Navy would have decimated the coastlines of Gran Colombia, Peru, and Chile, cutting off supplies from Europa and other forces backing the Pact as a meatshield against American conquest. The Pact would have been foolish to have not acted first following General Dale's treasonous paperwork theft. But the Pact also shot itself in the foot by acting first. While this is largely a "damned either way" situation for the Latin American dictatorships, the fact they fired the first bullet hurt their perception abroad. Indeed, the very name "Neutrality Pact" seemed farcical following the surprise attack on the heart of the American Navy at Point Pierce.
In response to the attack on America, much of the fascist world was in an uproar. Despite the stern and honest radio broadcasts coming from Pact stations that they had valuable intelligence showing for a fact that America was building up for an assault on the entirety of South America after Joe Steele had a whimsy to do so, the kidnapping of General Dale by ORRA agents in late October, 1936, took away their only real evidence. The Union government declared the documents Dale had sold Caracas to be a forgery, and that Dale had died in a tragic yachting accident in early September, directly before the Point Pierce attack. This left the Pact fuming, as it desired above all else to stand upon moral high ground against the Yanks, wanting assistance from Europa and the fair and honest Napoleon V. But now Europa was both impressed by their sheer guts to attack the Union head on while also being certain Steele would crush them like a vice in retaliation. While the "Free World" was going to support virtually any direct foe of the Union, and Europan planes and equipment continued to pour into the Pact, the fascist world was none too pleased with the situation currently unfolding.
Indeed, the attack upon Point Pierce did something beyond just landing a crushing blow to the Yankee fleet: it guaranteed intervention on the part of the League of Nations. The League had been created at the 1934 London Conference. The League found members in Norway, the Britannic Union, the Republican Union, the Confederation of the Carolinas, West Germania, the Mittelafrikan Reich, Holy Nippon, and the Commonwealth of Australia. As Sweden was a monarchy, it was granted an "Honorary League Membership," allowing them to reap trade benefits without any promises of defense upon a foreign attack. The Kingdom of Holland was also offered the chance to become an Honorary League Member, which the Queen turned down. This would interestingly be followed by the abduction of nuclear theorist Professor Otto Meitner from Holland in 1935. Some historians believe this was Steele retaliating for Holland's "disrespect" and refusal to join the League.
To understand the cultural climate of these fascist powers, and why they reacted to Operation Manifest Climax as they did, we must examine them in turn.
-THE REPUBLIC OF NORWAY-
Flag of the Republic of Norway
Following its declaration of independence from Denmark on May 17, 1844, Norway became a republic with a semi-presidential system with a unicameral parliament and legislature known as the Storting, with a capital in the mighty city of Oslo. Two men are considered by historians to be the fathers of Norway: Espen Kjell Halvorsen, the bombastic and charismatic mayor of the city of Kongsburg, and General Thorlief Strand, the self-proclaimed "Provisional President of the Republic." In many ways, the War for Norwegian Independence (1844-1852) was a crude but visible seed for the Fascist Co-Prosperity Sphere and the League of Nations that would take its place. It featured an outpouring of "volunteer brigades" from countries such as the Republican Union, England, Sweden, and Prussia. Reverend Milo Miles led American Fundamentalist Volunteer Brigades into battle in the name of Protestant kinship, much as he had done during the overthrow of the House of Hanover in Britain. General Thomas Foxbridge led the "Cromwellite Volunteer Republican Army" to represent the English in the same way. Unlike many members of the League, however, Norway had not started out as a hardline dictatorship basing itself off Yankee fascism, but rather as an actual republic, more akin to the original United States Old Republic. The Storting was largely divided between the Liberal Party (
Liberale partiet). Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, the Liberal Party continued to be the dominant party within the realm of Norwegian politics, and the party managed to uphold the liberal, republican and secular values of the republic. Under President Frederik Due, a number of land reform bills were passed in the Norwegian Storting and then implemented throughout the rural regions of Norway. All of this changed with the election of 1864, which saw the defeat of President Due and the election of Georg Sibbern, the leader of the Norwegian Conservative Party (
Konservative partiet). The Sibbern presidency was to last for eight years and saw the passing of new tariffs in an effort to improve the Norwegian economy and the increasing of the budgets for the Norwegian armed forces. It was also during his presidency that military advisers and officers were invited from numerous foreign nations, such as Prussia, Sweden, Russia, France-Spain and Austria, to help improve the fighting capability and tactics of Norwegian military. In the election of 1872, the Liberal Party returned to power under the rule of President Ole Jørgensen Richter, who defeated President Sibbern rather easily as most Norwegians had begun to tire of eight years of conservative leadership. One of the first acts of Richter's presidency was to remove most of the Sibbern-era tariffs. However, Richter continued to keep the same amount of funding for the Norwegian Army and Navy that President Sibbern had first set up.
Thorlief Strand (February 5, 1806-October 24, 1880)
First President of Norway
Espen Kjell Halvorsen (August 4, 1799-April 30, 1868)
Founding Father of Norway
Frederik Due
Georg Sibbern
Ole Jørgensen Richter
By the 1870s and 1880s, in spite of being a quite minor power on both the European and world stages, the Republic of Norway was one of the great success stories among the European nations. During the last decades of the 19th century, Norway gained a reputation as being one of the most liberal and progressive nations on the continent of Europe. Norway had a republican and enlightenment-inspired constitution which enshrined numerous egalitarian and humanitarian values such as freedom of speech, religion, press, rights for all citizens regardless of race, nationality, gender, or religion, separation of church and state, among others.
In the decades after its independence, Norway experienced the Norwegian Cultural Renaissance (
Norsk kulturell gjenfødelse). This was a new birth of Norwegian culture in the form of literature, art and music, much of which was done in the style of Norwegian romantic nationalism (
Norsk Nasjonalromantikken), a style which emphasized a Norwegian aesthetic of liberty and of a bright outlook for the future. For centuries, during the personal-union between Denmark and Norway with Denmark as the major partner of the union, Norway became a cultural backwater, mocked as "a country of fishmongers and drunkards." With a large amount of artisans, craftsmen, and intelligentsia leaving Norway for Denmark during those long years of Danish rule, a distinctive Norwegian culture was largely found only among the farmers and peasants in the rural regions of Norway. After the War for Independence, the creation and maintaining of a new and distinct Norwegian cultural identity became a major priority for the Norwegian government and society. As a result, the governments of numerous Norwegian presidents, along with numerous Norwegian cultural institutions in Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim, among other cities, began promoting the arts and collecting artifacts and cultural practices from the rural regions of the country. This was all in an effort to preserve a distinct, identifiable Norwegian identity and culture, not just for Norwegians themselves but for the rest of the world as well. This resulted in the creation of new works of art, literature, theater and music within Norway.
Some off the main figures of the Norwegian Cultural Renaissance were writers, be they novelists, poets or playwrights, such as Henrik Ibsen, called by the Virginian-born author Samuel Clemens as "the Norwegian Shakespeare", Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Jonas Lie, Johan Sebastian Welhaven, Amalie Skram and Henrik Wergeland, linguists such as Ivar Aasen, artists such as Adolph Tidemand, Hans Gude, J.C. Dahl and August Cappelen, and composers such as Edvard Greig, the violinist and composer Ole Bull and the composer, conductor and violinist Johan Halvorsen, who made a well-publicized debut playing violin at a theater in Oslo at the age of twenty-one in 1885. In particular, Edvard Greig produced a number of pieces of classical music that became world famous, such as "
In the Hall of the Mountain King" (
I Dovregubbens hall) and "
Morning Mood" (
Morgenstemning), both written for the 1867 play Peer Gynt by the aforementioned Henrik Ibsen. The music of Greig would also become popular within the Republican Union, where it was held up as an example of "fine, Protestant-inspired music", as stated as such by Union Supreme Chief of Education Thomas Edison. It was also during this period that new Norwegian patriotic songs were written and composed. One of the most popular of these was "
Ja, vi elsker dette landet" (Yes, we love this country), written in 1862 by the aforementioned Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, with music by a young Norwegian composer named Rikard Nordraak. Another one of these songs was "
Gud signe vårt dyre fedreland" (God bless our precious fatherland), written in 1891 by the professor, theologian, church councilor, hymn writer and Liberal Party politician and unsuccessful 1880 presidential-candidate Elias Blix. In 1894, his name would be given to the Blix Prize, a prize presented by the Norwegian Literacy Society for the best writer and the best novel written and published within Norway.
Brudeferden I Hardanger (Bridal party in Hardanger), Hans Gude and Adolph Tidemand, 1848
A Painting by Hans Gude, 1847
Fra Vossevangen, Hans Gude, 1860
In the election of 1888, with the popularity of the Liberal Party at an all-time high among the Norwegian people, Ole Anton Qvam was elected President of Norway. Under President Qvam, progressive policies would continue to be implemented alongside new ones. In 1890, under Qvam, Norway became the second nation in the world (after the Republican Union) to give women suffrage and the right vote, much to the chagrin of most members of the Conservative Party and the Christian Democracy Party. Thus, Norway continued to maintain its worldwide reputation as a liberal, open and progressive country and, in the words of the Spanish-born Carolinian philosopher, historian and Duke University professor George Augustus Santayana, "an island of prosperity and calm alone in a sea of massive, jingoistic and expansive empires." It was also during the Presidency of Qvam that relations between Norway and its old patrong the Republican Union began to worsen. It was the result of alarming reports of massacres and killings during the Yankee conquest of Mexico coming from Norwegian journalists who traveled through and reported about disturbing developments (all of which the Union government of President Custer vehemently denied), as well as the ongoing Union wars of expansion in islands of the Pacific Ocean, which President Qvam stated were "unjust and unnecessary." While President Qvam tolerated and allowed AFC missionaries to stay and conduct activities within Norway, there was a lot of tension between the missionaries and the clergymen of the many traditional Norwegian Protestant churches. As a result, in an effort to prevent further such problems and a potential religious conflict, in 1888, in one of his last acts as President, Qvam helped to pass a number of laws which would prevent any AFC Missionaries, as well as most other foreign religious missionaries, from coming into the country and proselytizing their religions within the Republic of Norway.
However, as one who knows that Norway happily joined the League of Nations that fateful day in 1934, all was not well. The 1890s saw a period of poor harvests and decreasing trade revenue, as well as large-scale immigration to the Republican Union. The RU happily welcomed Norwegians as Betters, and it would be many Norwegian "carpetbaggers" who would settle the vast, sprawling, depopulated lands of Old Mexico. Back in Norway, the election of Otto Blehr in 1892 saw the Centrist Party come to power as the divide between the Left and Right within Norway began to escalate and the economy continued its course of stagnation. In 1898, the fifty-four year-long era of liberalism, egalitarianism, pluralism, freedom and liberty within the Republic of Norway would come to a sudden, ironic and utterly tragic end. When the new President and
God Leder (Good Leader) Thorvald Njord Holgersen came to power in Norway, many within the nation, both in the intelligentsia and the public at large, began to ask themselves how such a thing could ever happen and how a country and a people that once valued freedom so much could give it all up in favor of what was essentially fascism. This was all the work of “the Norwegian Custer”, Thorvald Njord Holgersen. A radical believer in the Strong Man Theory and Survival of the Fittest, Holgersen's views of cultural dynamics were shaped by his fateful years spent in the Republican Union learning from Custer loyalist and Mexican Campaign veteran Hans Heg, who became a father figure to Holgersen. Heg and Holgersen developed the idea of a fascist Norway together, wishing to bring their shared ancestral homeland "into the light." Thus, in the "Little Norway" neighborhood of Oshkosh, Michigania, the two men formed the seed that would grow into the Norwegian People's Fascist Party (
Norsk Folksfascistparti) or NFFP. They saw Europa and Catholicism as a growing threat to the Norwegian nation, and were very concerned that a conflict with the gloryhound Caesar Napoleon IV was inevitable.
But it would not be a quick ride to the top for the NFFP, and they would have to wait until the time was right to take over the government. The economy continued to stagnate, and conditions between the Norwegian government and the Republican Union erupted into the so-called Tariff War of 1896, which saw many prominent Norwegian businesses go bankrupt. Also in in 1896, the presidential elections would prove to be one of the most contentious to date. President Otto Blehr of the Centrist Party was facing off against Conrad Mohr of the Conservative Party, Jørgen Gunnarsson Løvland of the Liberal Party and Christian Holtermann Knudsen of the Workers Party (which desperately tired to distance itself from the numerous radical left-wing groups, oftentimes with mixed results) and finally, Thorvald Njord Holgersen of the NFFP. Going into the election, most agreed that President Blehr was sure to lose, with Blehr himself not even bothering to campaign. Thus, the election was mostly a contest between the other four parties. On July 25, 1896, the election was held and the fate of the country was to be decided. After the ballots came in on the next day, it was found out that the election was won narrowly by the Conservative Party of Conrad Mohr, with the Liberal Party coming in second, the Workers Party third, the NFFP fourth, and the Centrists dead last. With Mohr running on a platform of law and order and return to normalcy and prosperity within Norway, many hoped that this would be the end of both left-wing and right-wing radical agitation within the nation, and that now things could finally go back to the way they were before the economic crisis and see a new Cultural Renaissance. Sadly, this was not to be.
While the first years of the Mohr presidency were mostly quiet, the NFFP continued to quietly build up a base of support. In 1897, Holgersen ordered the creation of a new paramilitary wing of the party known as the Foot Soldiers (
fot soldater) or FS, which he established in an effort to work with businessmen, such as shipping magnate Johan Ludwig Mowinckel, to help suppress workers strikes, combat radical left-wing paramilitary groups in the major cities, fight banditry in the countryside and to intimidate members of the public into following their cause. All in all, President Mohr was powerless to stop any of these paramilitary groups from operating. Although he considered having the military take temporary control over the government in an effort to restore order, he ultimately decided against this, as he did not want to be known as the man who destroyed democracy within Norway.
In 1898, elections wereheld from May 16 to May 24, 1898, and in the elections, no one party gained a clear
majority of seats, but the NFFP gained a
plurality of seats. Thus, in an effort for his party to have a clear majority within the government, President Mohr reluctantly decided to enter into a coalition with NFFP and appointed Thorvald Njord Holgersen as the new Prime Minister of Norway, much to the shock and anger of many within the political establishment of Norway, both inside and outside of the Conservative Party. Nevertheless, Mohr defended his decision as merely a temporary measure. Mohr even stated in private that "In two years time our party will either win the elections and be rid of Thorvald or the Liberals will win the elections and get rid of Thorvald themselves."
A Militia of the Foot Soldiers in Sogndal, Norway in 1897
In less than a month, the unexpected happened. On June 20, 1898, President Conrad Mohr, known to be in declining health for some time, died of a sudden heart attack in his bedroom in the Presidential Palace in Oslo at the age of 49. The government of Norway was then thrown into a panic, as a President had never before died in office and they now needed to find a new President for the nation. According to the constitution, in the event of the death of a President in office, the Prime Minister would then become the interim President until new elections could be held. As a result, much to the horror of many within the government, Thorvald Njord Holgersen of the NFFP legally became the interim President of Norway while still being the Prime Minister of Norway. Truly, it was the beginning of the end for the era of democracy in the Republic of Norway.
On June 20, 1898, Norwegian President Conrad Mohr died of a heart attack in his bedroom in the Presidential Palace in Oslo. Thorvald Njord Holgersen then became both the interim President and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Norway. Using this momentum, President and Prime Minister Holgersen began a large-scale program of consolidation of power within the Norwegian government, which included using corrupt means, from intimidation to bribery, to get members of the Storting to support his policies. On March 23, 1899, with the passing of the Emergency Acts of 1899, the offices of both the President and Prime Minister were legally combined into the sole office of President. Holgersen would now act as both the head of state and government. On October 15, 1899, President Holgersen passed the Salvation Act into law, "temporarily" banning all political parties within the Republic of Norway except for the NFFP. The act also forbade any parties except for the NFFP to run in parliamentary elections.
The official Presidential Photograph of Thorvald Njord Holgersen, 1900
From 1899 and 1903, a series of purges took place against the old guard of the Norwegian Armed Forces, many of which were vocal Liberals. Several high ranking generals and officers were either imprisoned or exiled, with a very few even being executed for treason. Thus, with a lot of the old guard having been purged from the Norwegian military, a new, younger generation of officers, whose loyalty to the fascist government was unquestioned, began to forge "bold new careers." This would come to have some interesting consequences during the Great War over a decade later.
On New Year's Day of 1900, a new Norwegian secret police known as the Norwegian State Police (
Norsk Statens politi) was established. This new secret police, known colloquially amongst Norwegians as the "Stasi", became infamous for their brutality, including methods of torture, it displayed in its treatment towards political dissidents such as leftists, syndicalists, monarchists, trade unionists, Freemasons, Roman Catholics and certain resident foreigners, mainly Europans of various ethnicities, Italians, and Russians, among others, suspected of so-called "subversive activities". As a result of the political repression that took place within Norway, many political dissidents emigrated overseas to places such as the Carolinas, Dutch South Africa, French Australia, Brazil-Argentina, Gran Colombia, Peru, French Saint-Domingue and French Puerto Rico. On June 8, 1900, a series of laws were passed, known as the Communication Laws, that nationalized most newspapers and radio stations within Norway, with those not owned by the government not allowed to publish or air "subversive and false news." With many of the big businesses in Norway now supporting the new government, Holgersen passed a series of laws from 1900 to 1904 which gave state grants to friendly businesses and companies, all in an effort to help these numerous different businesses and companies against their competitors (many of which had questionable loyalty to the new government). On November 30, 1900, the Norwegian People's Labor Union (
Norsk Folke Arbeidsunion) was established as the only legal trade union within Norway, with all others being banned. Those that did not disband immediately had their offices raided and their members arrested.
On February 7, 1901, the Norwegian Constitution of 1901 was officially ratified by the Storting of Norway. This new constitution officially established Norway as a fascist state in the form of a fascist republic and a "fascist people's democracy". The new fascist state allowed for both Presidential and Parliamentary elections within Norway, both every four years, where all citizens would be allowed to vote, but only different members of the Norwegian People's Fascist Party were allowed to participate and run in these elections, with the NFFP being the only legal political party within Norway. Holgersen would retire from politics to "live in the shade of the tree I have planted," and his protege Knute Ralf Danielsen would win the 1906 one-party election.
In 1910, Sweden parlayed with Norway, desiring an alliance in the face of a looming war. Danielsen desired to fight alongside Protestant Europe against the "Bully Cad Napoleon IV." Norway joined the Central Powers not long before the outbreak of the Great World War. He said to the Swedish Prime Minister Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, "We do not have the same philosophy or politics. But we do have the same faith in a God of the Lutheran variety. And hundreds of years ago, our glorious Norse forefathers sailed the fjords together and raided the cities of Charlemagne's sons, decimating the coastal cities of the Franks, destroying the very concept of a united Europe. God willing, the men of the North will fight together again, and die if need be, to free Europe. All hail the Men of the North!"
While Norway would not experience unimaginable gains from the Great World War, its industries boomed. While Sweden took Denmark with their aid, the actual nation of Norway was shielded from most of the frontline fighting. Rather, instead of countless waves of suicidal infantrymen, the Republic provided in a different way. It was Norwegian fish that fed the army and navy of the Britannic Union. It was Norwegian doctors and sailors who assisted the English coast following the devastating anthrax disaster. It was Norwegian shipyards who built the transport boats and ships utilized by many of the Central Powers. It was a hub of industry, and the fascist tycoons running the country were smoking cigars in backrooms as the war came to an end. Norway was granted full control over the Faroe Islands and Iceland by the Versailles Concordat. Seeing as it was a vital hub for resources and industry for the war effort, it was also one of the first locations to be given Beckie Flu vaccines by the Republican Union. A new Norwegian Renaissance had arrived.
In the years since the end of the Great World War, business was never better. As a reliable ally of the Republican and Britannic Unions, Norwegian iron and fish was a hot commodity. Even better was the "Baby Boom" of the 1910s and 20s in America. More Yankees meant more people to sell to. In addition, Colonel Goodyear Enterprises was very active in Norway, as was Colonel Ford, whose vehicles would become the autocarriage of choice for the growing Norwegian middle class. When it joined the League of Nations in 1935, under Great World War veteran and business mogul President Otto Bergland, the future still seemed bright. However, when news hit Oslo of the Neutrality Pact's "treachery" and the massacre at Point Pierce, protests erupted in the streets. A large number of Norwegian-Americans worked in Cuba for the America megacorporations, and several Norwegian vessels delivering fish and trade goods to Point Pierce were sunk on the day of the attack. President Bergland addressed the nation by state radio station on September 13, two days after the attack and a day after the news reached home of the Norwegian deaths.
"This was an attack not on only America, our oldest ally who fought for our independence in 1844, but upon the entire Free World. Let us answer the call of the League! Let us show them the power of the Men of the Fjords!"
The Storting declared war upon the Neutrality Pact at high noon on September 14, 1936. Within weeks, ships bearing ammunition, food, and supplies were steaming toward Cuba to help relieve the embattled ORRA and privately hired mercenary forces dealing with the Inferior rebellion and the landing of the paratrooper commandos from the Pact. While President Bergland hoped for a quick war, it would prove to be anything but, and Norwegian involvement, however small, would long outlast his presidency. Norwegian expertise on mountainous climates, in particular, was of special use to the Union. While direct military intervention was not really possible, many Fascist Norwegian citizens joined "Milo Miles Brigades," determined to pay back the Union for their help almost a century prior. When bedraggled ORRA officers and Union Navy sailors welcomed the arrival of the first Milo Miles Brigade in Point Pierce on Patriot-Saints Day Eve, 1936, the shout from the Norwegians was loud:
"REVEREND MILES, WE ARE HERE!"
The outdated uniforms worn by Norwegian volunteers during the opening days of Manifest Climax.
These uniforms would be discarded quickly in favor of American style uniforms and pot helmets. GWW-era rifles would be largely phased out in favor of Norwegian knock-offs of the Europan Compact Grinder 35.
Norwegian-produced copy of the Europan CG-35, as used by Norwegian forces in Cuba and South America during Manifest Climax
