Map of the World, 1915
POST-WAR EUROPE:
SOUTHERN GERMANY
Many soldiers, like these of the 11th Brandenburg Foot Regiment, would come home with lasting scars, both mental and physical.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
- Remember, by James MacDonald, a Catholic Scotsman who fought in the Dutch Royal Army during the Great World War
The end of the Great World War finally came in late 1914. Despite their best attempts, the Britannic Union simply could not break through Irish defenses. In the end, a ceasefire was ordered as both sides licked their wounds. While neither side would actually ever sign a peace treaty and the border between the Kingdom of Ireland and the Britannic Union-occupied North Ireland (dubbed the Britannic Militarized Zone) remained on constant high alert, it effectively brought an end to the Great World War. Thanks in part to the Beckie Flu/New Black Death, the war had been, by far, the bloodiest in human history. While the official casualty numbers floated somewhere around 50 million, the actual number was likely closer to 80 million. When the last guns fell silent on December 24, 1914, the world could finally be at peace, if only for a while.
Out of the burning wreckage and carnage came a new generation, a generation of young boys and men who had left the schoolhouse and factory to fight for their country's honor. Many who never came home desired nothing more than peace and wished no ill on the enemy, but their intrinsic and noble sense of honor forced their hand to fight. Millions of people, millions of potential doctors, scientists, statesmen, and athletes, were all snuffed out like candles in their prime of youth. But the ones who survived suffered as well, if not sometimes more. In places like the Rheinbund, soldiers came home to find their country itself gone. Denmark had vanished. Hungary was unrecognizable. Others came home to find themselves in a foreign country, like Ruthenia and Grand Serbia. Since the first proxy wars in Greece, Europeans had spent the last decade and then some fighting and killing, giving their all for their fatherlands.
The amount of handicapped and disabled victims the war produced was truly horrific. Lost limbs, even missing chunks of face or skull, were far from uncommon. Soldiers, unable to work because of their missing limbs, sat outside taverns and storefronts, begging for change or a scrap of food. Many were blind or deaf or both. But while the general public felt bad for these heroes, men who had usually only followed orders, the truth was that the European civilian had barely suffered any lighter a fate. From the anthrax nightmare in the English Channel, to the starving Irish, to the fish shortages, to the workers strikes and riots, from the breadlines and overflowing graveyards, loaded with the corpses of plague victims, the everyday man, woman, and child was also scarred for life. Millions of people, just ordinary citizens, had been killed in the war. In fact, about 28 percent of all war casualties were civilian, and around 50% if the ridiculously awful Russian casualty statistics were removed from the equation. The number was much higher if counting Indian deaths, but the subcontinent saw little combat but bore the brunt of the New Black Death because of poor sanitation and overcrowding. Over 30 percent of India was wiped out.
For every advance made by one side or another, normal people paid the price in blood. Factories were deliberately targeted, but many people simply were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was routine to hear of a loved one's death by random artillery bombardment, especially on the Eastern Front and along the Rhine. As the war drew to an end, people realized they had to pick up their lives out of the gutter and start actually going back to some sort of normality. Many were unable to deal with the trauma. Suicide statistics from this period following the war are truly unbelievable, with people unable to deal with loss or the horrors of war simply giving up. The world of the Pax Napoleonica - a world which, aside from North America and the Middle East, had seen lasting peace for a century - had been turned upside down. The promise of a brighter future that their ancestors had hoped for seemed gone. The "Last Generation of Imperial Grandeur," the generation that had lived in the tail-end of the 19th century, gave way to the Lost Generation. A generation of men, women, and children who only could look back and see the obvious follies of those who had came before. Art and literature, formerly exciting and adventurous, became grim, dark, and ingrained with a sense of deep, horrible loss, of a kind never experienced by humans before. The last century had seen glorious wars with solid outcomes, a century of brightly-dressed hussars and musketeers marching home triumphantly and to the unerring thanks of a grateful nation, whether they won or lost. The 20th century had seen the grinder gun, aeroship, aeroplane, and mechanized total war destabilize a century of progress and kill and maim tens of millions of people. And as Europeans sat back and looked at the outcome of the war, they couldn't help but ask, "Why?"
This question became another name for the Lost Generation itself, with many calling it the "Why Generation." This era would be the byproduct of what happened when a confusing web of alliances and superstates decided to finally dance the tango of death. While the Pax Napoleonica had been viewed as a great achievement for humanity before, now it was viewed as the long-burning fuse to light the global powderkeg. Even the names of certain events a century prior began to take on new titles. Among them was the era of 1804-15, known as the "Great Wars for the Empire" in Europe and the "Wars of Imperialist Aggression" in America. Now it was being looked upon by historians as, truly, the first global war. Every continent which saw fighting in the Great War for the Empire occurred again in the Great World War of 1911-14. With this thought, most historians began to write about the Great Wars for the Empire as the "First Great World War," shortened to GWWI. Now, the 1911 conflict became known as the "Second Great World War," shortened to GWWII. This was not only a logical conclusion, but also somewhat of a condemnation of the Empire. Where before Europans and French looked back with pride on those early days of the 19th century, now the 20th century bore the fruit of those same conflicts. In Europa, official school texts still used the old names, but the general public began to use the newly popular ones. This sparked outrage among the Imperial government, but they let it slide as they had other things to worry about.
The main problem, right off the bat, was the loss of the Rheinbund. This was a horrendous blow to Europan industry. However, not all of the Bund was totally lost. Bavaria, Baden, Nassau, and Wurttemberg were left within Europan domination, but they weren't allowed to reunify into a Bund or be annexed into greater France, according to the Versailles Concordat. The end of the war saw almost all German Catholics in the northern Bund, now fully a part of Germania, flee for their lives to the new southern nations. However, overpopulation became a huge concern as so much of the pre-existing housing had been destroyed by the many battles waged in the region. Low food supplies, caused not only by the war but by a poor harvest and so many sick laborers, also contributed to the problem. Hungary was one of the key farming breadbaskets of mainland Europa and now it laid in ruins.
Nassau, in particular, was a tiny principality ruled by Wilhelm Friedrich of the House of Nassau-Weilburg, and it was almost completely wiped off the map during the war. Wilhelm Friedrich ruled with absolute emergency powers as soon as he dared venture from Paris and back into his own nation. Immediately, tensions between the government and the people were high as refugees arrived and demanded food and housing. One protestor, Ludwig Muller, became famous for breaking down as Wilhelm Friedrich's coach passed, moaning, "Where is my son? Where is my home? Where is my bread? I named my son after you, you bastard!" Riot police had to stand ready around what remained of the Princely Palace in Frankfurt day and night as starving citizens clashed around the clock. With chants of "Bonapartist lackey!" and "Down with the coward who let the enemy defile our home!", the citizens of Nassau gathered and demanded the ousting of the Prince. With no confidence left in their monarch, the Army, under General Ludwig von Stein, seized power and sent the Prince into exile in Paris once again. Von Stein announced on September 1, 1914, that he would restore the country to its former glory and called upon his countrymen to help him rebuild. Immediately after, he began a plan for rebuilding the economy and nation. He would become incredibly popular with the people for of his willingness to come into villages himself and help with repairs and the building of homes. The removal of the House of Nassau-Weilberg was extremely unpopular with the Imperial Europan government, as they had controlled the princes since 1806, but it decided to not send troops in to reinstate the puppet prince. But it also could not sever relations with Nassau without risking its control over the other South German states. Thus, the Free State of Nassau was born.
Flag of the Nassau Free State
Wilhelm Friedrich, last Prince of Nassau
Free State Oberpräsident Ludwig von Stein and his son Rudolf strike a pose in this 1920 snapshot
Meanwhile, the
Grand Duchy of Baden was now a sovereign nation of some two million people under Grand Duke Karl Friedrich II, the great-grandson of Stéphanie Louise Adrienne de Beauharnais, Napoleon the Great's stepdaughter. His story was different from the ill-fated Prince of Nassau, and he had remained present during the thickest of the fighting and personally led military offensives. The defense of the southern region of the Bund was largely thanks to his strategic mind. He also had been wary of war for many years, and the Grand Duke had years of grain and supplies stored away in his capital of Karlsruhe which he now distributed to the relief effort. He also welcomed the Catholic refugees of North Germany and spoke to his people on the talkiebox, or "radio" as the Europeans called it, giving words of encouragement and hope.
"People of Baden! Proud patriots all! The Grand Duchy did not ask for war, but we fought valiantly and with all the strength God gave us. We never fell, though the Bund may have. We have lost many sons, brothers, and fathers, but all is not lost. We still stand strong, united under one banner, in the hopes of a brighter future! Together, Baden will rise to the occasion, as we have for so many centuries, and we shall live to see a better tomorrow! Long live Baden! Long live the Fatherland!"
- Grand Duke Karl Friedrich II's address to the people, June 2, 1914
Always wise, Karl Friedrich II oversaw the drafting of a constitution which limited his own power and created a parliament and prime minister position. This was an outstanding move and greatly limited clamor for reform in Baden after its adoption on December 1, 1914. The Grand Duke was an inspirational figure of the post-War era, and Baden did indeed recover and welcome many thousands of Catholic refugees. By 1915, Baden was sending in crews and architects into Nassau to help rebuild the cities there. When he passed away in 1920, leaving the title to his son Karl Friedrich III, he was honored with the title of Karl Friedrich II the Great. His funeral was huge, with thousands of his loyal veterans from the war bearing his casket aloft through the streets of Karlsruhe. Baden faced the uncertain world strong and resilient, thanks in large part to their monarch's genius and innovation, and with some of the best industrial facilities in Europe. It would also be home to some of the greatest post-War authors, such as Konrad Sauer, author of the immortal classic
All Quiet on the Rhinish Front, which chronicled in chilling and stark detail the tribulation and terror of serving on the frontline during the War.
Flag of the Grand Duchy of Baden
Grand Duke Karl Friedrich II the Great
Veterans of the World War stand guard around Karl Friedrich II's casket in Karlsruhe (1920)
In the industrial powerhouse of
Wurttemburg, Wilhelm II now reigned as sovereign King. Following the lead of Baden, he established the Wurttemberg Constitution of 1915 a year after the end of the war. Wurttemberg was hit very hard by the conflict and it was the scene of a bitter civil war between the Protestant minority and the Catholic majority. The Protestants largely fled to the north after the Versailles Concordat, but the damage had been done. The Reich had sabotaged much of the factories in the region during the war and had also torn up rail lines. Faced with starving citizens and no way to bring bodies home from the frontlines for burial in their hometowns, Wilhelm II faced a severe threat of a putsch by the military, who viewed him as weak and ineffective during the war. Even if things were a mess back in Paris, Europa still sent in troops to support his rule and eventually the military backed down and agreed to the Constitution of 1915. Otto von Freiburg, a top general during the war, was elected Prime Minister, finally ending absolute rule in the Kingdom for the first time.
Wilhelm II would not live much longer than the Grand Duke of Baden, dying in 1921 at his palace in Stuttgart. He was succeeded by his daughter and only heir Pauline, who became Queen of Wurttemberg. Pauline was a mild-mannered young woman who cared for people and greatly feared an Illuminist uprising sweeping her nation. She would actually repeal the Constitution for a short period in 1922 after she received news of an Illuminist plot to overthrow the Kingdom. She arrested von Freiburg as an "Illuminati agent" and had him executed on May 2, 1923. She then reinstated the Constitution a month later and held an emergency election for Prime Minister, with von Freiburg replaced with popular statesman and veteran Wolfgang Zeigler. Zeigler was a rabid antisemite who viewed Jews as the "progenitors of Beutelism, Illuminism, and Fascism," and his tenure as prime minister would see an active persecution of Jews culminating in the 1926 Expelling of the Jews from Wurttemberg.
One of the original flags first flown after the Versailles Concordat
King Wilhelm II of Wurttemberg
Queen Pauline of Wurttemberg
"Fur Königin Pauline!"
Royal troops deploy against an "Illuminist uprising" during one of the many street battles of the Wurttemberg Political Crisis of 1923 that would end with the execution of Prime Minister Otto von Freiburg
Last of the nations formed in Southern Germany from the Versailles Concordat was the powerhouse
Kingdom of Bavaria, home of the largest standing army of any of the South German states. Its forces had not only died in the thousands against the Reich but had also participated in the Relief of Budapest, where Bavarian foot soldier Hermann Goering was among the first to follow Adolf Schicklgruber during his heroic charge against the Tsarist forces. Bavaria's King, Rupprecht, served as a Grand Marshal during the Great World War and was absolutely key in securing the stalemate on the Rhinish Front, thus sparing Paris from occupation by the Reich and perhaps total defeat. The people were overwhelmingly Catholic and heavily supported the war effort and High King Franz Josef, and the last heir of Hapsburg fled to Munich with his family following the dissolution of the Rheinbund. With his personal forces accompanying him, Franz Josef was able to safeguard Bavaria after the Versailles Concordat while Rupprecht's Bavarian Royal Army marched to save Budapest. Bavarian forces were present in Bucharest during the signing of the treaty there, guarding the Europan delegates to the peace talk. One Tsarist Romanian general said in an interview years later, "Of all the Europan forces that stood against us at [Budapest], we feared the Bavarians most. They fought like devils. They took to calling themselves the Teufelhunden after that, mocking our fear."
After the war, there was a large amount of civil unrest as Bavaria took in more refugees than any other South German nation, but the elite Bavarian shock troopers, still bearing the nickname of Teufelhunden, kept Rupprecht in power and prevented Illuminist movements from forming against him. Even after Franz Josef's death in 1920 and the Hapsburg family's return to Vienna, the Teufelhunden cracked down hard on political dissidents and anti-war publications as "anarchist subversion." In 1925, a brief movement to ratify a constitution was taken up by protestors, but the Teufelhunden cracked the whip and shut down the rallies. By the late '20s, Bavaria was essentially a Catholic police state with very little freedom for non-Catholics or any who opposed the King. The capital of Munich would also see the birth of the Anti-Illuminist Society, a group of movers and shakers from within, and later from without, who sought to quash the Illuminist movement by any means necessary and uphold traditional Bavarian monarchist values. Among the first members was none other than veteran and professional Teufelhund, Hermann Goering.
Flag of the Kingdom of Bavaria
King Rupprecht of Bavaria
Teufelhunden shock troops patrol Munich circa 1925
Bavarian nationalist and war hero Hermann Goering wearing a traditional Bavarian hat
