CHAPTER 60
  • CHAPTER 60
    OUTBREAK
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    Yankee troops march with facemasks in downtown Philadelphia during the beginning of the outbreak

    The sound of death is a very peculiar thing. It is at once quiet but also loud. There is the sickening quiet of a man choking in his own vomit, and then there is the agonizing final howls of a man who sees the dark shroud of eternity looming in the corner of the field hospital, stretching out a bony finger, selecting him to sail upon the River Stix. The 13th ORRA came to Quebec on barges on the St. Lawrence. Now they were leaving on carts, stacked five high with the corpses of the fallen.

    What had been initial victory and occupation in Montreal had devolved into chaos and fear. No one was safe. Patton had been but the first well-known officer to become infected with the plague currently spreading over the city. Before him, there had been many coughs and causalities caused by an unknown "campground outbreak." It was typical for large armies to suffer such problems, especially during the initial mustering of the troops. The Union Army was bringing together men from all over the continent and mixing them together in what was essentially a giant petri dish. Over 800 of the 10,000 men in the 13th ORRA had showed signs of illness during the time between the sacking of Cornwall and the Siege of Montreal. As the siege lifted and the Americans occupied the city, the outbreak was spreading between the prisoners and the newly-arriving Lincoln's Hammer.

    Patton was not yet 30, and as he lay on his stretcher in Montreal's ORRA headquarters, he saw that black hand stretching out to claim him, to snuff out his light as if he was any farmer or baker. He always saw himself with a glorious future, boundlessly successful and going as far as Union society could take him. He couldn't believe he was in this position, randomly struck with such an abominable malady. A cough came, and with it came bloody, foamy phlegm gurgling out of his mouth. Three male nurses held him down as he convulsed and a doctor jabbed him with needle after needle. He drifted in and out of consciousness, his pale-white frame covered in cold sweat. He had to manage the occupation, damn it! He couldn't lie here and die. After 70 hours of misery, he finally stirred himself enough to sit up.

    Nurses tried to get him to lay back and rest, but Patton ordered them to fetch him a wheelchair. He pushed himself into the seat and demanded his officers come to see him. "Get me my men! I've been laying on my damn ass for who the hell knows how long and I need to get to work!" he shouted, his voice shaky and his attempt at hiding the pain was failing pretty badly.

    The doctor came into the pale-blue, poorly-lit room to see what the commotion was. When Patton demanded again to see his subordinates, the doctor, a chubby fellow with greasy black hair, replied, "Commander Patton... most of your men are sick. General Smythe is dead."

    Patton's eyes became like saucers and his mouth fell agape. "General Smythe?!" he roared. "I just talked to him yesterday! He was fine!"

    The doctor frowned deeply behind his mask. "Sir, that was nearly three days ago. You have been ravaged by a campground flu. We're not sure why this variant is so potent but we're trying to contain the outbreak."

    What the doctor said was only partially true. It was an influenza, but it was no mere campground outbreak. This was a devastating disease that was quickly mutating as it spread. Despite the evidence that it originated in New England during the call to arms, the Union government was blaming it on "Canucks and Beckies who live in their filth and Inferior fluids, insipidly spreading it as part of some diabolical scheme to grind our beautiful march to the North Pole to an end." Around the same time that Patton fell from his horse in Montreal, European powers were beginning to receive news of the outbreak of a devastating plague sweeping through Quebec. What was most unfortunate was that Union seizure of Greenland, causing immediate cross-contamination with the Nordreich and Swedish vessels forcing Iceland to surrender. The North Atlantic was a Central Powers zone now, but it was also the link for the disease to infect Europe.

    The public's morale had been high for weeks, celebrating the triumphant and bloody march of the Union Army toward Quebec City. All at the same time, the Californian Front was opening up and Lucius Africanus Goodyear's Army group IV was sacking Thunder Bay, the capital of Canada. All over North America, the American Eagle seemed to be soaring to total victory within months. "Over by Independence Day!" became the rallying cry. Tens of thousands flocked to the streets, waving flags and carrying signs. In short, it was the perfect breeding ground for a devastating disease. Within a week of Patton's jump from horse to wheelchair, newspapers were labeling the "Beckie Flu" and the "Canadian Influenza." Irrational hatred of all things Canadian and Quebecois was made even more extreme by the outbreak of the disease. The war crimes perpetrated by Ashton and Sims during the Kawartha Lakes and Belleville were nothing compared with what was to come.

    As Patton wheeled himself about the hospital, he could see the devastation the outbreak was bringing to his army as well as the civilian population. As he slowly recovered his mental faculties, he remembered the stormtroopers who brought him victory at the Hole in the Wall with their flamethrowers. The cogs began to turn in his head as he realized the potential to nip the outbreak in the bud potentially. A day after recovering enough to ride a horse, Patton, still crippled and weak in the legs, began to take command once again. With the death of Smythe and the officer corps of the 13th and Lincoln's Hammer very much "in flux," it was up to Patton to take a firm hand with the city and the army, and take a firm hand he did.

    On March 22, 1912, fifteen stormtroopers, their faces covered in crude respiration masks based on sea divers helmets, marched into Camp Patton, the prisoner of war camp currently holding several thousand POWs and "civilians of suspect." The camp was drenched in flu and the stench of death was very overpowering. It would be masked soon by the stench of burning flesh. That day, over 5,000 prisoners were burned to death in an effort to halt the spread of the flu. Patton told McClellan via telephone:

    "It is somewhat regrettable that we must take such measures, as some of our prisoners were Protestant Canadians of Anglo blood, but I know damn well, by personal experience, exactly what this disease is capable of doing. I have the utmost trust that the Supreme Marshal will see my drastic actions as logical and sound as we attempt to deal with this new plague. I have seen a man running with a rifle and then ten hours later his lungs are full of blood. It's brutal, vicious, and absolutely shocking in its speed and devastation. We need to control this situation now by eliminating the carriers."

    McClellan was busy dealing with outbreaks in New England. In the great ghettos housing so many laborers, Inferiors were dying by the score. Seemingly overnight, the ghettos became quarantine areas, their outer neighborhoods patrolled by RUMP officers and volunteer "town watchmen," and these thugs would instantly shoot any who attempted to leave. This was all becoming a logistical nightmare for McClellan, whose aging energy-level could only handle so much at one time. It was with these troubles on his plate that he decided that Philadelphia was too disease-ridden for the upper branches of government. President and Atheling Custer was relocated to the Poconos, not far from the Tobias Institute. The location was the sight of the massive Point Overlook Hotel, now taken over by the government and known as the "President's Vacation Home." There Custer and his cabinet were to be kept free of the outbreak. The newspapers tried to downplay the flu and, when discussing Custer's whereabouts, they would print that he had gone to the Poconos "to get some fresh mountain air and coordinate the war effort."

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    Bodies are unceremoniously dumped in a trench by American troops in Canada

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    RUMP officers prepare to move into an Inferior ghetto to restore order

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    The squalid conditions of the Inferior ghettos were ripe for spreading the "Canadian Influenza."

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    Many Yankee boys died before ever reaching the frontlines, such as this casualty being loaded into a Red Cross truck in Trenton, New Jersey

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    Point Overlook, the President's base of operations during the Great World War

    PRES. CUSTER SEEKS SOLACE TO MANAGE WAR EFFORT

    "President Custer, the tireless Atheling of our Party and the glorious leader of our most Christian realm, has elected for safety reasons to travel to the imposing Point Overlook Hotel, his new vacation home, to coordinate the war effort, discuss the Lord's Will with the Blind Christian Gentleman, and keep his lungs clean of the dreadful Canadian Inferior plague sweeping the north. The Reverend-Colonel Sunday has also elected to go into a self-imposed quarantine at the Chapel of the New Jerusalem, his new Shicagwa headquarters, but he will be regularly addressing the people every Sunday at noon by talkiebox. May Jehovah protect our noble leaders during these trying times, and may the Supreme Creator bring about the Manifest Destiny of our nation in spite of the Satanic disease and foreign hordes currently battling our troops all about. And may Jehovah protect the Central Powers and the Free World! All hail!"

    - Philadelphia Times front page story, April 10, 1912

    INFERIOR PLAGUE SWEEPS SANDUSKY GHETTO

    "Horror. Horror is the only word that can describe the events currently underway at one of the nation's largest Inferior ghettos. The Beckie Flu has ravaged the populace therein and led to the death of approximately 5,000 Inferiors. Despite the fact that this many unsouls have entered the Void, the Sandusky Military Police and their Quarantine Officer Miles Sledge is confident in their ability to contain the spread and keep Sandusky and Ohio a safe place to live. Masks may be acquired for free at every police station and post office, and use of the new Greek Fire weapon from the military has proved effective at managing the sudden onset of corpses, minimizing the need for graves for the dead Inferiors. One American scientist, Dr. Midas Israel Goldstein, a Man of Zion, has proposed the creation of mobill ovens, mounted on the backs of trucks, to quickly and efficiently rid the ghettos of biological hazards and corpse mounds. Colonel Ford, the noble proprietor of Colonel Ford Industries, has championed the work of Dr. Goldstein as a plausible and palatable way to deal with containing the spread of the disease and is purportedly in the early stages of designing these mobill ovens at his Crawford City factories. The disease can easily infect the Betters of Society, but Union doctors at Benedict Arnold University and Metropolis University for Medicine have confirmed that the disease claims the lives of the Inferior far more easily, due to his miscegenated fluids, low constitution and lack of common hygiene."

    - Cincinnati Herald front page story, April 15, 1912

    As Custer retreated to the Poconos, his son, Michael Custer, the famed Joe Steele of the Nippon War, was heading off to the Californian Front, where the flu had drastically effected the performance of Army Group VI under the Russo-Jew Legate General Abraham Edelstein. The Royal Army of California was finding itself cut off from the rest of the Europan sphere by the Yankee Pacific Fleet and the Australian Navy. This actually helped keep their valuable coast safer than most areas from the flu, but it still was coming. It was inevitable. Senan Andrew Napoleon, Queen Leopoldine's consort and great-grandson of Joseph Bonaparte, died in early April after contracting the disease. This event rocked the morale of the hearty and brave Californian people, who began to see the final catastrophic collapse of their nation as a matter of "if," not "when."

    As the world burned and thousands died by bullet and germ, the next generation of leaders were preparing to step onto the scene. Joe Steele looked out over the Great Plains on his personal aeroship, the USS Georgia Brown, and saw row upon row of hospital tents. In Philadelphia, a young Jewish polymath named Midas who had already made a name for himself with his famous equation "E=MC2" in 1905 was heading to a meeting with top government brass to discuss his plans for dealing with the outbreak. As Patton wheeled himself around the cinders of Montreal in a wheelchair, an increasingly depressed and disheartened Field Marshal Perrault returned to the frontlines of the European war to see huge portions of his army sick and dying as the Reich prepared to launch their "Großer Angriff" against the Low Country in an attempt to battle their way to Paris.

    But most of all, Field Marshal Ambrose Jansen, of the "Dixie Legion," was given orders to bring Army Group V to the Canadian Front to reinforce the weakened Lincoln's Hammer. The movement of so many troops north and out of the heart of the country was a recipe for a disaster, and the New Order of the Illuminati was about to take advantage of the chaos currently engulfing the nation....
     
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    CHAPTER 61

  • CHAPTER 61
    PANDEMIC PANDEMONIUM
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    An Illuminati bomb explodes in a vital railway hub in Shicagwa, May 1, 1912

    "I warned High Command--I told them that moving the Dixie Legion to Canada would leave the heartland undefended and swarming with Beutelists and egoists. And now these Illuminati terrorists think they can just swagger around and blow up our vital infrastructure! I hereby call for the resignation of Supreme Marshal McClellan and for President Custer to appoint someone of clearer mind to take his place to reassert the dominance of the Betters of Society over the plague-carrying, piss-covered ghetto-dwellers."

    - Legate General Ambrose Jansen, Army Group V

    When the Dixie Legion marched north in the spring to fill in the gaps in the Quebecois Front, Legate General Ambrose Jansen was very adamant that this was a bad idea. He insisted that "sending my Southron boys north will serve to unstopper a rat's nest of subversion and rebellion." This opinion was not unfounded; several weeks before the orders came down, the Jansen took partial command of the Lewis City RUMP forces and crushed a revolt in a ghetto led by starving factory Inferiors. But Jansen had no idea how right he really was. In the ghettos all across the country, the quarantined Inferiors were starving. With little supplies of food and medicine coming in, these sprawling dens of squalor became rife with crime and talk of revolt, no matter the consequences. The time was right, finally, for the New Order of the Illuminati to unveil itself.

    The New Order had been founded in Ireland in 1904, and the secret society declared itself to be champions of the Enlightenment. For the first few years, nothing much happened in the organization aside from taking in some very well-known members of society into their secret membership rolls. Little by little, the society began to spread across Europe, regardless of borders, and championed "a rebirth of democracy." Instead of diving headfirst into politics, waving a banner, the New Order sneaked its members into some of the leading parties all over the continent. This period of the organization, however, is very much shrouded in secrecy and not much is known about these first few years.

    When Horatio Hendrick's raid on a Sandusky ghetto print shop unearthed dozens of posters and propaganda pamphlets from the "New Order of the Illuminati," they were finally on the radar of the Republican Union. Further detective work slowly began to piece together a narrative. That was that the New Order was already widespread across North America. CYB Headmaster-Marshal Teddy Roosevelt advised President Custer in 1910 that, "We must stamp out this miscegenated menace before it engulfs our ghettos and brings about civil war. I will do all I can to instill Christian and American virtues upon the children of America, but that is greatly undermined when there is a psuedo-Beutelist subversive faction hiding among the people of this great nation."

    In the face of an ever-deepening investigation into the New Order's infiltration among the Betters and Inferiors of Society, Custer intended to have Horatio Hendrick helm the Committee on Conspiracies (CoC), but after only two months at its head, Hendrick up and died in his office of the Beckie Flu. His death sent shockwaves through the Union hierarchy, resulting in the moving of Custer and his cabinet to the "clean mountain air" of the Point Overlook Hotel, high up in the Poconos Mountains and close to the Mr. Tobias Institute. For a brief period, several lower ranking ORRA officers, such as Ernest Colten Brown, of Texas, took command of the Committee. Multiple men were arrested as Illuminati agents during this time, most notably Calvin Grant, an official within Colonel Ford's company. But the war and the flu were drawing resources away. In the North, an influx of prisoners and new citizens overwhelmed ORRA. In Anglophone Canada, tens of thousands of new citizens waited on their official government verification cards acknowledging them as Betters. Even more now stood in line to be shipped into ghettos, such as the huge Irish-blooded population in Canada as well.

    This situation was exactly what the New Order had been trying to engineer. They saw the advent of the Beckie Flu as a perfect tool to finally bring the proletariat of the Inferiors of Society to the breaking point. With its back now turned, focusing on the war, the New Order began to engineer their first major action against the Republican Union. With the ghettos quarantined, if they could sneak agents in they would not be stopped by RUMP. Indeed, RUMP had ceased patrolling the inner areas of ghettos by March for fear of exposing themselves to the "disease-carrying Infees." This moment of relaxed control was all the Illuminati needed to worm themselves into the ghetto crime families. For over a month, the Inferior crime lords of Shicagwa began to put aside their differences and worked together to formulate the "People's Revolution." Massive rallies where held in the heart of the poor neighborhoods at the cost of exposing themselves to the flu. The people were reaching the tipping point. All they needed now was a little shove. That shove came on the First of May, 1912, when several Irishmen planted explosives in the Shicagwa Railyards, one of the most vital lifelines of supplies across the nation.

    The huge explosion lit up the pre-dawn sky, killing over 1000 Better civilian workers and 14 soldiers. The initial explosion only killed a handful of people, but the chain reaction of secondary explosions ended up blowing away several warehouses as ammunition and artillery shells burst from the heat of the flames. Just an hour later, RUMP officers had located the culprits, now hiding within an old storage facility. As police swarmed the building, the two men opened fire with handguns and screamed, "Long live the revolution! Long the live the Oppressed! The New Order has arrived!" The men injured two officers and killed a third before falling to a hail of lead themselves. Though the newspapers and talkieboxes were suppressed from telling the nation about the last stand, word of mouth quickly spread. A Colonel Ford plant near Centralia, Iowai, soon found itself facing a revolt from the workers. These workers had been deemed healthy enough to produce shovels, picks, and other equipment for the war effort, and now they carried these in an attack on their overseers, killing twenty Colonel Ford employees and hanging their corpses for all to see at the entrance to the factory. In Sandusky, the original birthplace of the American New Order branch, on May 4, a horde of several thousand starving and ragged Inferiors assaulted RUMP positions and fought like madmen against their terrified Betters.


    "It was like something from a CYB campground story from when I was a lad, trying to scare my comrades. Thousands of Inferiors, Irish and Slavs, Italians and Spaniards, all rushing toward our position behind the barricades. Their eyes were red as blood, their clothes filthy and full of holes. Their bone-thin jaws locked in a scream, showcasing their hideous teeth, yellow and black as the puss that ran from their sores and the vomit encrusted upon their chins and shirt collars. I smelled blood and piss and gunpowder as they swarmed our positions. The devil had possessed them. This was it then, I thought, the End of Days. I would kill for the first time that day. It felt good. I was eliminating evil from the world. As we pushed them back, shortly after Captain Roy rode in with support cavalry, we cut them down on their own soil. We proved our superiority. The mighty octopus of the Military Police reached out a tentacle and struck them down in the name of Jehovah and the Atheling."

    - RUMP officer Stanley Hunt, describing the Sandusky May Revolt of 1912

    When Custer was briefed on this, he lambasted McClellan, immediately phoning him up and chewing him out for sending the Dixie Legion north so soon.

    "Damn it all, you old buzzard!" Custer harangued over the phone. "I told you Jansen's word had some merit, but you just couldn't trust a Southron born Legate, could you? Even though he gave us certifiable and true warnings that the Infees were ready to rise up! And now we got a G**-damned rebellion on our hands. I will not preside over a bloodbath that could have been prevented, Supreme Marshal. I have one thing to say to you: fix it!"

    Jansen's men had just taken up their positions around the growing Quebec City Campaign as the Union tried to drive through to the Kingdom's capital and secure the North Front once and for all. Jansen received a written apology letter from McClellan, with the Immolator of Mexico lamenting the fact that he had ignored Jansen's warnings.


    "... Furthermore, Legate General, I implore you to bring a final victory to us in Quebec so that we may focus our energies on destroying California and ending the war in North America. I implore you, not as your superior officer but as a fellow patriot, to make the most of the present situation. Use any means you see fit, Legate General. Bring us victory, and then we will crush this nascent rebellion together."


    - Supreme Marshal George McClellan to Legate General Ambrose Jansen of Army Group V, dated May 20, 1912

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    RUMP pushes back Inferior revolutionaries in Sandusky

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    Two public buses are overturned in Crawford City

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    New York City Chief of Military Police Arthur Blood (seated, derby hat) mans a RUMP war wagon during a show of force against Inferior dissidents. "We shall show them the cold steel and dispatch them to Hell if they try to stand up to Uncle Sam and their God-given Betters," Blood said during an interview with "Uncle Sam's Talkiebox Station" in May of 1912.


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    An Inferior incites revolution in Boston before being beaten and arrested by RUMP officers
    Jansen indeed pressed an assault deep into the heart of Quebec, with a still wheelchair-bound Patton by his side. Patton had asked Philadelphia for additional armored cars. With these, Patton said, he could lead a final push to Quebec City and crush the Kingdom once and for all. McClellan immediately granted the request, furnishing up some 1,000 armored Colonel Ford grinder wagons. With the 13th ORRA leading the way for Jansen's Dixie Legions and the newly-appointed Major General Benjamin Franklin Olson (the late Smythe's replacement), the Yankee forces cut across Quebec during the June Offensive. By later that month, the capital of the Kingdom was under siege and the Royal Family was fleeing to the north.

    Patton was a rising star, even in his crippled state, refusing to give up duties because of his newfound disability. At the Battle of Trois-Rivieres, just about thirty miles from Quebec City, the final bastion laying between the Yankees and the capital was ground into dust. Patton personally led the assault, seated in the back of one of his beloved grinder wagons. Trois-Rivieres was the place where Patton acquired the nickname "The Arctic Fox" as he used his war machines to absolutely devastate the weak and starving Quebec forces. Having been cut off from the motherland in Europe since the Central Powers had seized Greenland and Iceland, the Royal Army simply had the last bit of fight drained away from them during this battle. Patton received a promotion from ORRA Supreme Chief George Dewey to Commander of ORRA Forces on the Northern Front, bringing the 10th and 6th Units under his command as well.

    All the while, the 4th Unit was making a name for itself back in the heartland. In many of the ghettos across the nation, Inferiors had seized weaponry and were in open revolt, at long last, against their Union oppressors. Fears in the ever-volatile New Antioch--formerly New Orleans--of an out-and-out Inferior revolution taking over the entire city were crushed by the 4th ORRA. These 15,000 men came down from Lewis City on barges and declared martial law. A fresh wave of the Beckie Flu had weakened the local RUMP, and these reinforcements were badly needed. The 4th proceeded to steamroll the Inferior attempt at revolution, killin an estimated 4,000 Inferiors, further adding to the city's nickname of "Bloodbath Bay" it had been stuck with since the days of the Great American War.

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    Inferior revolutionaries are gunned down by the 4th ORRA in New Antioch's French Quarter

    As North America burned, McClellan resigned from his position of Supreme Marshal of the Grand Army of the Republic. This followed the publishing of several highly inflammatory remarks from Legate General Jansen making him sound like a fool and placing the blame for the outbreak of unrest squarely upon his decision to move the Dixie Legions to the Northern Front. It cannot be understated how major this shake-up was, as the former President McClellan had been in charge of the GAR for decades, loyally serving his country. Now, the GAR was leaderless, and Custer knew just who would be an ideal leader of his legions.

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    Supreme Marshal of the Grand Army Ambrose Jansen

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    American troops fire into a crowd of resisting civilians during the Occupation of Trois-Rivieres
    In the face of the civil unrest, the Union war machine still needed bombs, guns, and ammunition. With so many men fighting and dying on the Northern and Californian Fronts, demand for Carolinian goods went sky-high, with the industrial cities of Newport News and Norfolk providing invaluable commodities to the Union. The Carolinas were, at the time, only engaged in fighting in Hispaniola, where they were feeling out Europan defenses and planning an invasion. Metropolis, having been built as a WASP and Jew-only city from the ground up also proved to be a huge help in keeping industry going. However, this was still not enough, as the Union also helped keep the Central Powers in Europe supplied, shipping across the North Atlantic to Norway and (after its creation in mid-1912) the Britannic Union. For the first time ever, Colonel Goodyear Enterprises, the original creators of the Inferior working class, announced it would be hiring betters to fill the empty jobs once held by Inferiors who were now quarantined and rebellious. This was absolutely major in the history of the country, as CGE announced "Our new working conditions are fit for Betters! Come serve your country today in the factories!"

    One of the leading proponents of the new move to de-Inferiorize the workforce was none other than Supreme Chief of Public Works Matilda Richardson, the original creator of the Union's "Separate Worlds" policy, the final move after Custer rose to power to officially keep Inferior neighborhoods a certain amount of distance away from Betters and to keep Inferiors out of Better neighborhoods unless strictly there on business. In June of 1912, Supreme Chief Richardson, by the far the most powerful American woman who had ever lived up to that point, told her fellow Betters on Uncle Sam's Talkiebox Station:

    "We are in a new age. Just as the lancer and uhlan are no longer needed for victory on the modern battlefield, so to has the Inferior been outdated. In this brave new world, an era of machine and total war, we cannot trust the production capabilities, and thereby our national security, to non-citizens and rebellious Inferiors. Just as the original Minutemen who fought at Bunker Hill against the Mad King were free men, fighting for their own kith and kin, so too must the modern American industrial society have free men at its helm. To put it bluntly, the Inferior is no longer essential to the overall scheme of things. America's population is huge, even without the noncitizens, and I see no reason why the Economic Clans should not be welcoming to the idea of cleaning up their factories and putting America's women and children to work, pitching in for victory. For while the men fight for our freedom, there are plenty of able-bodied women and older children, especially the plucky youths of the CYB, that are perfectly capable of doing our parts. America needs labor. America guarantees a minimum wage and decent working conditions for all Betters. Do not hesitate, my comrade-patriots! America needs able hands and minds! Women! Come to the factories! Put down your bustles and corsets and put on overalls and a flatcap! Get your hands dirty with the grease of an honest day's work and save our country! Service guarantees victory!"


    - Supreme Chief Matilda Richardson, Department of Public Works

    Despite the dangers of merely going outside and breathing, America's women and children answered the call, pouring into the factories and completely industrializing every aspect of society. Everyone saved grease, canned their own foods, patched socks over and over, women and children worked together in the massive factories all over the nation churning out rations like SPUD (Succulent Potato Utility Dinner), ammunition, bayonets, aeroship propellers, and grinder barrels. It was awe-inspiring to see, as millions of people all worked together through war and disease to fight on. Supreme Marshal Jansen also created the official Republican Union Aeroforce as a separate branch of the military and set Union engineers to work reverse-engineering caputured Europan aeroplanes, which he thought would be key to ultimately winning the war and even possibly taking the fight to Europe proper.

    Meanwhile, Dr. Midas Israel Goldstein, the polymath professor who had designed Colonel Ford's "mobill oven trucks," watched with interest. As the Second Battle of the Plains of Abraham commenced far to the north, far in the south -- in Kissimmee, Florida, to be exact -- Goldstein called for a conference at his private summer home. He invited all manner of Union government officials to discuss "The Final Solution to the Inferior Question" on July 4, 1912. The Kissimme Conference would change the fate of millions upon millions of human beings, and steer the Union toward its final form....
     
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    CHAPTER 62
  • CHAPTER 62
    THE CHARTER OF THE LAND

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    The Declaration of Reunification in London

    Though the world was erupting into total war, the Scottish Nationalist Party was booming, bringing a semblance of prosperity back to Scotland under Ramsay MacDonald. MacDonald was a fascist by any other name, but he wasn't nearly as extreme as the Fascist Sphere would have liked him to be. Down south, in jolly old England, the situation was tense. The economy was in a state of freefall, as trade would be basically impossible without allying to one faction or another. Poverty was extreme, crime was rampant, and the people looked north to Scotland to see a way out. MacDonald proposed an economic union, with the governments still mostly independent but with a joint economy operating on his psuedo-fascist principles.

    Winston Churchill, then-Director of the English Nationalist Party, proposed going even further. He proposed joining the two countries once again as a "Britannic Union." He first put this idea forward in 1910, with his highly-publicized "Britannic Manifestum." In this 200-page book, he laid out his plans for a "New Union of the Isles, forged in the flames of brotherhood and patriotism." This new Union, he said, was perfectly agreeable to both parties.

    "With the destruction of our enfeebled nobility and monarchist government so many years ago, this proposed Union of Britannia is by no means a shadowy path for England to exert dominance upon Scotland. Operating on the same fascist principles which made Scotland great again, England will become great as well. I propose a Directorate government, founded upon the principles of the ancient Roman consulate. Of course, at some point in the future, Wales and Ireland need to be brought into the fold. Each nation will be ruled by a Director and Parliament, and together these Directors shall decide the fate of the nation. The economic squalor and disaster in which we currently are engulfed shall fade away as we strengthen these ancient isles one more time in the name of security and liberty."

    - Winston Churchill's Britannic Manifestum, pg. 15, Sedgwick Publishers, 1910

    MacDonald seemed surprisingly amiable to idea of reuniting with England in an equal alliance, and this angered some members of his own Scottish Nationalist Party. Unsurprisingly, many Scots began to call Churchill "King Winnie." MacDonald was even making appearances with Churchill, championing him as a "working class strongman." Indeed, in the upper echelons of party leadership, American agents were pulling the strings. Finally, upon the outbreak of war in Europe, MacDonald publicly called for unification. This would cost him his life. On the evening of November 11, 1911, just two months into the Great World War, MacDonald was watching a showing of "My American Cousin" in the Glasgow Theatre when an assassin shot him three times from behind, killing him instantly. The assassin was revealed to be a member of MacDonald's own Scottish Nationalist Party who killed MacDonald because of his "selling out of Scottish independence."

    After two weeks of mourning, Winston Churchill and the ENP saw the time was right. They joined with the remaining SNP leadership and called for a referendum. The vote would decide the course for the island. Churchill said, "A vote for separation and neutrality is a vote for slow economic death and cultural evisceration at the hands of the Catholic bastards our fathers fought for generations. A vote for Union is a vote for security and prosperity!" Tens of thousands took to the streets in December of 1911 and voiced their opinion in huge clashes during the vote. Over the course of five days, the fate of Britain was decided. The "Union" vote won with 64% of the vote. Wild celebrations erupted across the island, from Edinburgh to London. English Prime Minister Edwin Stanley, staunchly opposed to re-unification with Scotland, resigned in humiliation and fled the country for South America. Winston Churchill took to a balcony at the old Buckingham Palace to wave an old Union Jack, bearing only the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew. At the same time, riots also erupted across the newly unified country, anti-Union forces torching police stations and smashing windows and fences. But the new government immediately cracked down hard and used their pooled resources to crush all rebellion.

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    General Director Churchill announces the Reunification from the balcony of ENP Headquarters. During this same time, English Prime Minister Edwin Stanley was fleeing the country.

    Churchill was never voted into the position of Director of England, but he just seemed to make people accept that he was. He also began to call himself the "General Director," seemingly above the other Director, MacDonald's successor Edgar MacMurray. This would be a new era in British history. General Director Churchill's first move was to join the Churches of England and Scotland into the "Church of Britannia," which espoused much of the same doctrine as the American Fundamentalist Christian Church and was, indeed, a very literal sister movement with roots going back to Milo Miles' expeditionary force which participated in the revolution decades before. The Church began to administer aid to the poor and promised "a pheasant in every pot." The working class rose from the ashes and went to work on government-sponsored projects. The Army tripled in size as Churchill instituted a lottery draft system. He formed the Britannic Security Agency (BSA) as his own personal secret police to round up political enemies and dissidents. Between December, 1911, to February 20, 1912, over sixty thousand people of mostly Irish descent were either thrown into work camps or shipped back to Ireland, even if it had been generations since the families had last lived there. He also instituted a mandatory minimum wage and finally gave women the right to vote, the third nation to do so after the Republican Union and the Confederation of the Carolinas.

    Churchill was a political genius, moving at just the right opportunities and striking with determination and a core belief that he was always right. However, this entire time he was an American agent, easily influenced by his mother and his father-in-law, Horatio Hendrick. From the very start of the movement, Churchill viewed an alliance with the Americans as the only proper and moral thing to do. They would stand the test of time, united against the Catholic mainland and drenched in the blood of Irish traitors. This would also put them back into the same alliance as their Australian and New Zealander cousins. Custer was the first to personally congratulate Churchill upon his rise to power. Discussions were immediately held between the new Britannic government and the Central Powers about joing the war against Europa. Churchill would frustrate his Yankee handlers, however, when he repeatedly turned down joining the war, stating he needed more time to build up the military and defenses.

    At last, in late March, 1912, Churchill officially announced Britannia would be joining the Central Powers in the face of "increasing barbarism from the Europan government toward the Dutch and Germans."

    “I would say to the people of Britannia, our young nation, as I said to those who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many long months of toil and struggle. You ask what is our policy. I will say, it is to wage war with all our might, with all the strength that God can give us, to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all the bullets and shells that Caesar can toss our way. Victory however long and hard the road may be. For without victory there is no survival for the Anglo-Saxon race and its Scottish brothers and sisters. Without victory there is no light, no illumination of the spirit or mind. There is only the darkness of a new Middle Ages under a Papal Imperialist hegemony stretching from the Baltic to the Pillars of Hercules, from the white cliffs of Dover to the Teutoburg. Without victory there is no England. There is no Scotland. This is a war of not only national but racial preservation. If we do not fight now, the Europans will merely suck the Reich and America dry until they finally turn their lecherous hordes upon us, raping our women and murdering our children. I ask each and every single Englishman and Scotsman to rise up! Stand up and take back Wales, the humiliation which, for too long, has blighted our sacred homeland! We shall go to Ireland and finally show the Shamrocks what happens to scum-sucking Papists! We shall fight the Papists on the beaches, and in the air, and in the fields! We shall fight! We shall never surrender!"

    - General Director Winston Churchill, March 26, 1912

    As can be imagined, this was a major turning point in the war. Shortly after this, the Dutch Royal Army was on the rocks, beaten badly by Field Marshal Perrault. However, it would be largely Britannic vessels that would help pull off the "Miracle of Gluckstadt," rescuing the Dutch Army and Royalty and evacuating them to England. This marked Britannia's true entrance into the war and enraged Caesar. At the same time, Wales was being steamrolled by Britannic troops. Though Wales put up a good fight, there were too many within its own borders who sympathized with the Union and assisted the invaders. Fort Scotia, the massive Europan fort which had for so long prevented a war between the Irish and Scots now also fell under attack. Scottish ships blasted its walls and cut the defenders off from supplies.


    The Europan Imperial Navy, formerly the most dominant force on the planet, now struggled heavily to keep up with the demand of the different fronts and also the Beckie Flu currently finally reaching its shores. Quebec was already a dead man walking, and Europa's guarantees of neutrality for Iceland and Greenland were completely worthless now as Nordic and Yankee troops occupied the islands. The Britannic Navy was nowhere near a worthy foe for the Imperial Navy, but constant attacks on supply lines at disparate locales kept it on its toes and unable to hold down its enemies in any area. The Russian Navy also was cutting holes through the Continental System, once again not defeating the Europan Navy but keeping it too busy and occupied to actually be used to its fullest extent. West Australia fell shortly after the North Atlantic, with the Imperial Navy handed their first real defeat when Australian and American vessels sank several battleships off the northern coast, crippling the Pacific Fleet for months.

    Britannia's entry into the war was a smashing success, with Wales totally occupied by summer. However, as the Beckie Flu began to really take hold in Europe and the Invasion of Ireland commenced in August, things were about to get extremely vicious. The Irish were determined to not fall once again to Protestant occupation. The 83 year-old King Dominic II vowed "an eternal war" against the "Cromwellite barbarians who seek to besmirch sacred Eire." Little did the Britannians know that he had actually long anticipated this event and had stockpiled chemical weapons to use against any invaders. Dominic was very serious when he told his cousin Caesar that "If Ireland falls, all is lost. The Cromwellites will have control of the Atlantic and the Empire will be crippled, if it somehow survives a treaty."

    This left Europa in an almost impossible situation. To the west were the ravenous hordes of Viktor, day after day launching new assaults on the trenches of the Eastern Front. Day after day, more Romanian, Austrian, and Hungarian blood was drained. To the north was the disaster of the Rheinbund, full of rebelling city-states and warlords. In early Spring, the Nordreich had launched its "Grosser Angriff" into the Bund, occupying the northern areas as a sort of "tit-for-tat" after the Europan occupation of Holland. Now, Field Marshal Perrault stood as the only man to hold back the Swedes, Norwegians, and Germans. Tens of thousands of Swedish troops were tied up in the occupation of Denmark, but they could not be ruled out of the equation. Perrault, a man whose loyalty to the Imperial Family was the only thing keeping him from mutinying, was left to face a gauntlet of foes from north, east, and west. Only time would tell what fate had in store for Europe....

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    An Austrian cyclist regiment prepares to ride to the Eastern Front (among them is a 23 year-old named Adolf Schicklgruber)

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    Nordic cavalry ride into battle with lances ready during the Grosser Angriff of summer, 1912

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    A Britannian foot regiment poses for a photo, circa 1912

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    Europan cuirassiers bid farewell to Paris as they ride to the Rheinbund Front

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    Russian cossacks attack a Hungarian cavalry force on the Eastern Front





    Sorry if any chapters are a bit scattered or contradictory. I'm trying to run an entire war here without taking 100 chapters to do it and make sure everything works. lol It's extremely easier to write about peace than war because the war is so globe-engulfing there is always going to be something I left out!
     
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    BREAKTHROUGH 1912: THE EUROPEAN THEATRE

  • BREAKTHROUGH 1912:

    THE EUROPEAN THEATRE
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    Russian Imperial troops advance against Hungarian forces

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    Russian troops suffering a gas attack seize an Austrian trench

    "I am Khan of Khans, Czar of all the Russias, Scourge of God. Though the debauched West may seek to delay my inevitable victory and hide like vipers behind their grinder nests, though they cower from my wrath and righteous fury, I am Viktor, and I shall reign supreme. The insolence of the Bonapartes will finally be crushed beneath my heel. For too long has the inbred family of Corsican gangsters controlled the world. The time is now for a new era! An era of Russian dominance of the likes which not any loyal citizen of our lands has ever dared dream. My legions! You must break through this day and we will free Europe from the grasp of the intolerable vultures of Paris! Before I die I shall stand in that debauched haven of scum and villainy and laugh as I burn it to the ground, forever reminding Europe that no force of evil, be it of man or the Devil, shall go unpunished by the Scourge of God! Even now, those who think themselves safe from my wrath are being visited by the Plague, a new Black Death to punish the West for its wickedness! Onward, my children! Let the blood flow - let it drown us! We shall swim in Europan blood before this war is over! Press on! Press on! To Budapest! To Vienna! To Paris! Urah! Urah!"

    - Czar Victor's general orders, June 1, 1912

    The morning of June 1, 1912 was a grim one for the Bonapartes. In North America, Quebec City was under siege by the Arctic Fox and the Royal Family was in flight. California was attempting a brave resistance against Joe Steele himself. The United Empire of Brazil and Rio de la Plata, one of the largest sources for Europan troops, was now majorly infected with the Beckie Flu and was seeing deepening divided between its artificially separated Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking populations, verging on civil war. India, too, was barely under control. West Australia was lost. Holland was captured, but the Nordreich had taken the northern Rheinbund. All over the world, the Bonaparte realms were buckling under the unbelievable stress exerted upon them.

    And now, on that sunny morning with not a cloud in the sky, the gas came drifting across the fields of the Eastern Front. That yellow-green smog of death crept closer and closer to the Europan trenchlines, trenchlines that had stood since the beginning of the war. Viktor was determined to finally break the Hungarians, Slovakians, and Austrians on the Eastern Front and push toward Vienna. Viktor told his generals he had been praying for hours through the prior night and had been told by God that now was the time to strike. Now, he said, was "The day that we shall send the Western pigs flying. Pity them, as wretched as they are, for they know not yet what I have planned for them." With banners streaming and drums beating, the gas was followed by Russian Imperial troops, all wearing new model 1912 gas masks, all carrying bolt action rifles and short swords and clubs, ready to finally take the trenches away from the enemy after so much death and sacrifice. Unbelievably, Viktor's son, Viktor II, was the man personally leading the attack, age 28 and a spitting image of his father. With a huge golden eagle atop his pith helmet and an elaborate dark green uniform, he made an excellent target. But he also made an excellent scare tactic. Viktor II was supposedly as vicious as his father, killing without mercy and leading his men into the mouth of hell.

    Hell was a polite term for what they were marching toward. The Europans had also equipped themselves with gas masks and now opened up unrelenting fire with grinders and rifles, mowing down hundreds of Russians. But all over the front, the sheer number of Russians was overwhelming the Europans. Viktor was determined to break them, here and now, no matter the cost. Scores of men died cheering the Czar's name, happy to die for their god-emperor. Aeroships, most damaged beyond belief and only barely running, still fired upon the Europan positions, blasting craters behind their lines and terrifying the field nurses, horses, and supply handlers. And one of the many young Austrians currently firing blindly into the ever-growing blot of green on the horizon was a young man named Adolf Schicklgruber, son of Alois Schicklgruber, the mayor of their hometown of Branau. Adolf was a wiry young man with an impressive Napoleon IV mustache, curled at the tips, and he was fighting like hell for his country. His father had ingrained in him a sense of Austrian nationality, and he wasn't even particularly fond of Europa. But Austria was a part of Europa, and he would not desert it as the wild Slavic demons were coming to burn it to the ground. He cheered "Heil Osterreich!" as he fired away, striking a distant Russian in the chest. Up above, Europan aeroplanes soared, blasting a huge Russian aeroship out of the sky. He cheered again, only this time all along the line he was joined by his comrades. They knew this was potentially a turning point in the war. If they failed here, it was likely the beginning of a retreat to Vienna. They could not fail. "They shall not pass," he muttered to himself as he methodically reloaded his gun and began blindly firing it once again.

    A shell whizzed overhead, hitting some twenty yards behind him. He could see two Austrians completely torn to shreds by it, with one being barely a puddle of red paste and the other literally blown in half. He tried not to look too long. Any second now and the Russians would be upon them. The green blob grew closer, the early morning sunlight glinting off the glass eyes of their gasmasks. A few yards down the trench a gunner slumped over on his grinder, a bullet through his forehead. Adolf dashed through the mud and blood that saturated the trench and pushed the man's corpse off the gunner seat. Then he opened up a tenacious burst of rounds on the attackers. He could see red mists come spraying out of the green blob. He became so enraptured in mowing down the Russians he practically lost all self-control, keeping up his fire even as the Russians began to swarm the trenchline. Suddenly, another shell burst overhead. With a blinding light and a deafening noise, Adolf lost all self-awareness altogether.

    When Adolf came to his senses, he realized he was on a gurney in the back of a medical wagon, a piece of shrapnel lodged in his left shoulder. He groaned and blinked his eyes. It seemed to be late afternoon now. Through the smoke of gunpowder and the smog of gas still lingering in the air and burning his nose, he could make out hundreds of his comrades following behind the wagon, some sprinting around it. He could hear other similar wagons all around. Slowly, he raised himself up on his stretcher and asked a gaunt young nurse sitting next to him in the wagon, "What happened?"

    The nurse looked distraught and she told him, never making eye contact, "The... The Russians and Romanians overran our position. We have been ordered to retreat to Budapest. All is lost. The spirits of the men are broken. I'm so afraid."

    Adolf sat there in shocked disbelief. It couldn't be! The Eastern Front had held for almost a year! They had killed tens of thousand of Russians. "That can't be true," he said to her. "We were holding! We always hold! We are the vanguard of the Empire!"

    The frail blonde woman looked him in the eyes and said, "That is not all. The entire front is breaking. Serbia and Montenegro have betrayed us. King Ivan III has taken up with the League and invaded Albania and Dalmatia. We're crumbling. The Slavic devils are coming for us all. We're completely fenced in. The officers say it'll be just weeks before they march on Vienna."

    Adolf felt red-hot rage surge through him. "No!" he exclaimed, raising his fist and gritting his teeth. "The Fatherland is forever! Never have we known defeat! We must turn around and hold off the Slavic devils! We must send them to their deaths for daring to trod on one inch of our sacred soil! We... must do... something. Anything!"

    The nurse clutched a crucifix hung about her neck. Slowly, she replied, "I... I fear I will be raped. There are stories of what the enemy has done already. When they enter the homeland, I... I don't want to imagine what those demons will do to us!"

    A single hot tear came down his cheek. His eyes stung from the gas, but he barely noticed through the pure horror and disbelief which currently filled him. Adolf reached over and held the nurse's hand. "My lady, as long as I live and breathe not a single Russian shall defile our home. We shall renew the struggle! Wars always have twists and turns, but God will not allow the Oriental vampires to take our home. I have faith!"

    As the wagon trains switched over to supply trains and the race to Budapest began, Schicklgruber could sense the panic in the air. Never before had he seen such fear, not in all the long months of the war so far. Not during the worst gas attack had the men been like this. They seemed beaten and broken. He wept as he rode in a tightly packed train car with other wounded comrades. He wept for his country. For the first time, it was giving ground to the League. He wondered if they would ever take it back.

    Adolf was not unique. All over the front, men could not believe the Russians had broken through. Major Wilhelm Zimmer, of the Austrian cavalry, tried to lead an assault of willing volunteers on Romanian forces currently plowing through Transylvania in an attempt to delay the invaders from butchering the wounded currently in retreat. Though they were effective at securing some more time for the army and some civilians to make an escape, they ended up completely annihilated to the last man, with Zimmer becoming a legendary figure for all Austrians for his noble sacrifice. Transylvania already had a massive Romanian population that desired reunification with Romania anyway, so some citizens there actually joined the Romanian army to throw off the Europan yoke.

    In the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, one of the most contested regions of the Eastern Front, the Russians had initially pushed back the Europan forces there in the early weeks of the war, but repeated chemical attacks had repulsed them at the beginning of 1912. Now, following the June breakthrough, the Russian hordes were sweeping over it once again, demanding the loyalty of the ethnic Slavs there. These Slavs included the Ruthenians and the many Poles who had called the region home since the forcible eviction of most Poles from the Nordreich in the last century. Even worse, Nordic troops were pouring into Bohemia, finally opening that front up. Galicia and Lodomeria was alone. In late June, General Melchior Niedzwiecki, an ethnic Pole who had joined the Russian Army in the early days of Viktor's reign, was proclaimed Tsar Melchior I of Ruthenia, officially breaking the region off from Bonaparte-Habsburg rule.

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    Tsar Melchior of Ruthenia

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    Flag of the Tsardom of Ruthenia

    The rout of Europan forces from the Eastern Front was catastrophic and Paris was stunned. Field Marshal Perrault had just pushed back a force of Nordreichers from liberating Holland and had regained his reputation after the Glucksburg debacle, but now his comrades, Austrian-born Field Marshal Luka Breunig and Dalmatian-born Field Marshal Timo Pregl were collapsing in the east. As Breunig's forces, which included Adolf Schicklgruber, collapsed, morale plummeted in Perrault's ranks once again. Making matters worse, the flu was ravaging Western Europe, disabling about 18% of his men and leaving him weak if the Nordreich would attempt another push through to Holland. Meanwhile, in Spain, the situation was becoming grave in Catalonia, where locals were now rioting in the streets, chanting "Death to Caesar! Death to the man who steals our sons!" Local Spanish garrisons, many with long-standing hatreds of ethnic Catalonians, declared martial law and put many of the Catalonians in prison camps, where thousands would die of starvation, abuse, and neglect. In Portugal, there were loud calls to declare neutrality and to pull out of the war before their African colonies were completely overrun by Nordic colonial troops.

    But all was not lost, for in mid-August, as the trenches were dug around Budapest, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Kingdom of Northern Italy finally brought their power to bear, with the North Italians smashing through the Serbian Army in Dalmatia and sending them staggering back to Sarajevo and the Sicilian Navy blasting the occupied Albanian coast and sending ground forces in in short order. Serbia's gains were ripped away at the sacrifice of thousands of Italian lives. But all was not well still on the Balkan Front. In Greece, King Vasilios the Bastard, the Nordic puppet, was assassinated by a palace servant in Athens, plunging the region back into instability and leaving the path open for General Petros Floros, a man with the backing of Europa, to seize power. However, this was not to be. In mid-September, Prince Alexander, the rightful heir to the Greek throne, came galloping out of the east at the head of a massive army of Greek exiles, Bulgars, Bosnians, and Russians. By November, Greece was finally under the control of one monarch and General Floros was captured and executed. Greece was likely the most war-torn region in the world. Over 30% of the population had been killed or wounded since the civil war had begun almost seven years earlier. The Serbian Army rallied from Alexander's victory and once again took back Albania, at massive cost, and attempted but failed to break the North Italians in Dalmatia. In response to the assistance Muslim Albanians had supplied the Europan invaders, the Serbs began a massive genocidal campaigns against the Muslim population there, making the owning of a Koran punishable by death. Mass executions were a common sight, and the festering corpses of the murdered laid in enormous pits with flu victims. The King of Serbia, Ivan III, once a client state of the West, now proclaimed himself Tsar Ivan I of Grand Serbia.

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    Dalmatians flee into Italy to escape Serbian genocide

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    Starving Muslim Albanians pass out bread rations courtesy of the Italian Army

    The war had ceased any semblance of normality or respect for the rules of war. Every side was hastily rounding up and executing dissidents as quickly as possible. Everywhere in Europe was the location of genocidal campaigns of extermination and the abuse of civilians. Gas attacks rolled across the battlefields and aeroships began dropping flechettes, metal spikes, over towns that refused to cooperate. As winter set in, the Europan forces tried one last push against the Nordreich in Bohemia, failing quickly and sending them scurrying back to Vienna and Budapest. The Reich has already set up trenchworks all across the Bohemian border to last until spring and Kaiser Eitel Wilhelm gave simple orders: "Not an inch of ground is to be lost." Bohemia was declared a client kingdom under Eitel Wilhelm's cousin, Heinrich, who became King Heinrich I of Bohemia. His forces, mostly ethnic Germans and Bohemians sick of Europan and Austrian domination, eagerly joined the Central Powers, holding the line bravely against the Europan assaults.

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    Flag of the Kingdom of Bohemia

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    King Heinrich of Bohemia, House of Hohenzollern-Wettin

    Even though winter fell, early, cold, and harsh, across the continent, there was still heavy fighting. The Sicilians attempted another assault on Albania, but only managed to barely capture the southern coast and heavy snow held them down. At the same time, King Massimiliano of Italy died, and his only son had died in the war some months before. With no other legitimate heir available and facing increasing calls for unification of the peninsula, Caesar allowed Northern Italy to merge with the Two Sicilies to form the Kingdom of Italy. Despite celebrations of unification, much of Italy was currently racked with famine and the flu, and it had overextended itself badly. It would hold Dalmatia and the southern Albanian coast for the rest of the year, but the Serbians were fighting tooth and nail over every inch of ground.

    And last, but not least, Britain had commenced its invasion of Ireland, which would quickly rival Greece in its scope of violence and genocide. Fort Scotia would fall in September, leaving the coast of northern Ireland wide open to invasion. Wales was forced into the Britannic Union with a fascist puppet government answering to Churchill, and in July the Britannics had seized the Isle of Man, taking away yet another of Caesar's titles: Lord of Man. Now it was October, and Scottish troops were landing at Ballycastle and the English hammer hit hard at Bangor. But King Dominic was not about to go down without a fight. The English celebrated as they marched on Belfast and Lisburn, but their joy was to be cut short. Dominic began "gassing the hell out of them," instructing his men, "Take no prisoners. Give no quarter. As none shall be given to you. Long live Eire." General William Casey, of the Irish Army, was particularly vicious, gassing even medical staff and field nurses. The Irish knew this was a war of extermination. Churchill wanted to annihilate the Irish "race" from the face of the earth. As the snows came down that Christmas and the fighting slowed, with the Britannic Union still only holding beachheads and minor locations, the Irish Chemical Weapons Command was about to unveil their newest project: weaponized anthrax. Several Europan-made aeroplanes were used by the Irish to spray anthrax-laced gas over the encamped Scottish and English forces.

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    Irish troops mobilize against the Britannic Union

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    British troops landing on the shell-pocked Irish coast

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    Irish Royal propaganda posters

    That same Christmas, in Budapest, Adolf Schicklgruber watched through binoculars as the distant Russian, Romanian, and Ruthenian flags grew closer. It was now or never. Despite thinking that the Russians would hold back until after the snow thawed, the hearty Slavs began their assault on Budapest. Field Marshal Breunig told his men, "This is it, my boys. This is do or die. Today we fight for Western Civilization. This is not for Caesar. This is not for Austria. This is for you. This is for your children. Gott mit uns!" The Battle of Budapest had begun.

    But never let it be said that the Great World War could not be made worse. In the east Persia was smelling blood. The flu and racial and religious unrest was brutally tearing the Europan Holy Land apart. The Shah told his generals to mobilize. If the Holy Land could be taken, not only would it rock the Christian world, but it would cut off the last link Europa had to its Indian colonies. The Persian Lion was about to roar....
     
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    THE KISSIMMEE CONFERENCE

  • THE KISSIMMEE CONFERENCE

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    The Bradbury Hotel and Museum of Kissimmee, Florida, site of the infamous Dr. Midas Goldstein's Kissimmee Conference

    On July 4, 1912, the 136th anniversary of American independence, Dr. Midas Israel Goldstein called for a meeting of Union leadership at Kissimmee, Florida's Bradbury Hotel, far removed from the frontlines of the war. But even in Florida, where the closest fighting was in Hispaniola - Carolinian forces had just begun their blockade and bombardment of the Europan island - there was still death. The flu was busy at work infecting the populace. It was a beautiful day, with not a cloud in the sky. But there was no one out on the promenade, strolling underneath parasols, no beautiful ladies passing the afternoon with their gentlemen lovers. No children playing or singing. It was silent. Death hung over everything.

    Goldstein puffed his pipe thoughtfully as he stared out the window of the Bradbury Hotel's atrium. The sun was shining in, lighting up the inside of the lavish central hall of the hotel. Goldstein was standing up on the second floor walkway, leaning on the banister and lost in deep thought. He took a long drag off the pipe. It was made from moose antler, hand carved by a jeweler in Barnumsburg, Oregon. The tobacco was Morton's Finest, straight from the Inferior labor farms in Cuba. The Russian-born "Man of Zion," as the Yankees liked to call their Jewish population, was wearing a white seersucker suit with blue stripes, with a bright red necktie, which made him look sort of like an awkward Jewish plantation owner. He was thirty years old, but his prematurely bald head and weak chin made him look forty instead. His glasses rested on the end of his beak-like nose. He was glad he was not in Russia anymore. Most of his family had been killed by Czar Viktor. He looked so completely Jewish that if he was in Moscow right now he'd be lynched in a heartbeat. The Russian government was telling its citizens that it was Jews who had started the war and it was "International Jewry" who had released the "New Plague" upon the earth. Goldstein shook his head at the thought. He wanted to cure the Beckie Flu, not create it. Nothing could stop a Jew from getting sick from it anymore than an Orthodox steppe barbarian.

    Midas watched as, on the floor below at the front door, smiling porters greeted Union leadership with stiff-arm salutes and slight bows. There was Friedrich "Fred" Merkwürdigliebe, a Nordic-born scientist who had emigrated to the Union at the end of the last century. He wore a plain brown suit with an olive tie, always a simple man. He seemed jovial and in good spirits, telling a joke to the black porter who took his bag and derby hat. Next to him, already receiving a glass of whiskey from a servant, was Henry Willow, the Burrland-born Under-Chief of Military Police and eleventh in line for the Presidency. He was wearing a simple blue uniform with a mandarin collar, embroidered in gold trim. His thin, skeletal face was well-matched with his plastered back gray hair, parted down the middle and reeking of bacon grease. Willow was the right hand to RUMP Supreme Chief Thomas Custer, the President and Atheling's brother. Now through the door came the Quartermaster General himself, Woodrow Wilson. The gaunt Virginian was almost as rail-like as Willow, but he always had a smile on his face, grinning behind his spectacles. Wilson had a fondness for swallowtailed jackets and a top hat, and sure enough Midas was right when he guessed what he'd be wearing. Wilson spotted Goldstein from the landing of the stairs and doffed his stovepipe and saluted.

    "Ah! My dear Doctor Goldstein, if it isn't my favorite Israelite, by George! Salutations and all hail!" the friendly Wilson said as he ascended the red-carpeted staircase.

    Midas reached out a hand after saluting and shook it firmly. "Quartermaster General, it is good to see you indeed. Tell me, how is your family doing?"

    Wilson frowned a slight bit and said, "Well, you know how this damn flu is. I sent them off to Martha's Vineyard for the duration. Private cabin there, you know. Fresh air. God's country!" Wilson then lifted a cigarette on a stick to his mouth and motioned for a light.

    The Jewish doctor quickly pulled a gold-plated lighter from his pocket and lit the Morton. He and Wilson stood there and chatted a bit as the other officials arrived. There were several civilian medical experts, but most were members of the government and Manifest Destiny Party. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Matilda Richardson, the Supreme Chief of Public Works. She was wearing a simple tan dress and her graying hair made her look something like a school marm, Midas thought. She was actually one of the most hardline members of the MDP leadership and had been with Custer since his March on Philadelphia so many years before. Rudy Long, the Supreme Justiciar of Law and Order, arrived as well, one of the highest ranking officials present. He was a burly man with a thick black beard and he always wore a plain black suit and tie. He entered without fanfare and waved off servants, preferring to carry his own belongings. Eric Newman, the Supreme Justiciar of Inferior Law, was the polar opposite of this, immediately using the servants to carry his things and demanding a refreshment.

    "It's hot out there, boys! Almost as hot as a corpse oven in a ghetto!" Newman laughed as he arrived. Two black porters awkwardly joined in on the laughter as they took his green jacket and bag. Newman spotted Wilson and Goldstein up on the landing and raised a finger to them, bellowing with some levity, "You fellas better have something important to say! I'm a busy man, what with all the Infees rioting and blowing themselves up in the quarantine zones!"

    Goldstein hated that man. He was so obnoxious, so personally repugnant, that it didn't matter if they agreed on most things. But Midas knew he had to play nice with him to get his way. He knew Newman would likely eat what he was about to say at the conference out of his hand, but Newman was so personal and vile in his personal relationships that he wanted to be sure to play nice with him. "Of course, Comrade Newman!" he yelled back, plastering on a grin. "We wouldn't waste your valuable time unless we had a real hum-dinger for you! Make your way to the dining room and help yourself to the fresh roasted turkey and gravy!"

    Newman licked his lips cartoonishly, smacking them while he rubbed his belly and loosened his gray tie. "Mmmmm boy! Sounds like an important government affair to me!" he said cheerfully as he strolled directly to the dining hall where the conference was to take place.

    Midas frowned as the real "party" showed up. A long black Colonel Ford pulled up outside and a squad of men in navy blue uniforms stepped out, their pinched-crown hats bearing the Bird of Prey, the ORRA logo. It was ORRA Supreme Chief George Dewey himself, third in line to the Presidency, only following the Vice President. His massive mustache was perfectly groomed and his faded haircut sat high on his unblinking face. The mustache seemed to almost go ear-to-ear, making him almost look like a caricature. But the cold eyes behind the mustache balanced out the look, going well with his plain black uniform and bicorne hat. Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and came to attention, raising their right hands high in the air and shouting their hails to the heavens.

    Dewey's tall black jackboots echoed on the white marble floor as he saluted back, clicking his heels. He then waved for everyone to go back to normal as he and his armed squad of officers made their way to the dining hall. They were soon followed by several of the biggest economic clans, such as the New Jersey-born Samuel Bush, CEO of the Bank of the Union.

    Midas sighed. "I guess it's time to get this show on the road," he thought to himself as he and Wilson began to walk down the stairs. Wilson was blustering on about Joe Steele's campaign in California while Midas was lost in thought. "This is it. This is possibly the most important day of my life. Let's do this."

    After about ten minutes, all the various officials were gathered around the long mahogany table. Aside from the food, the table sported massive golden eagles serving as candelabras, their wings seemingly afire from the flickering glow of the candles. The room was huge, some 1200 square feet, with dark red paisley wallpaper, white wainscotting,dark red short carpet, and a vaulted ceiling. An enormous portrait of Wyatt Masterson, the almost mythical lawman of the old West Florida Republic, hung on the wall opposite the window wall, showcasing him with his famous coonskin cap on, perched on a rock with a long rifle. Fresh scalps hung on his belt. Probably Frenchmen or Spaniards. A huge marble fireplace sat unlit at the end of the room, directly behind where Midas would be sitting. A portrait of a young President Custer, still sporting the long golden locks of the 1880s, held the place of honor above the mantle. It had been painted by request of the Bradbury family when the Atheling had stayed at the hotel years before. Below that was a frame with a flintlock pistol inside it, with an inscription below it saying the rusty, splintery gun belonged to George Washington and was used during the Battle of Boggy Swamp, where he had met his unfortunate demise so many years before, during the Franco-American War. The Bradbury Hotel had been open for decades, pretty much since the end of the Seminole conflicts, and it also served as the local museum, which explained the relics on every wall. Midas wondered if one day his own portrait would hang on those walls. He was ready to find out.

    At that, the meeting began. Midas assumed his place at the head of the table at the host's chair and rang a small bell to interrupt all the nattering and eating going on. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, even though Richardson was the only lady present, "I have brought you here today for a singular purpose. This single purpose, I believe, may save our glorious Union! All hail!" All the people seated at the massive table raised their arms once more, saluting. Midas continued, saying, "I have brought you here today to discuss the final solution to the Inferior problem. A problem which, putting it lightly, is one of the most severe threats to our national security and our Manifest Destiny."

    "Agreed!" said Newman, his mouth stuffed with turkey as he pounded his fist on the table.

    "Uh, yes," Midas continued. "As I was saying, the Inferior is a grave risk to the continued security of the Betters of Society, God's Chosen. Now, in the last century, the devil's creations were needed to help rebuild society. The indignities rendered to us by the shatter of the Old Republic and the War of 1812 made Charles Goodyear's so-called New Slavery a necessity. There was no way we could have gotten out of the hole we were in if not for the heroic work ethic of the late Colonel Goodyear, all hail his patriotic-spirit and may he rest in peace till the New Jerusalem comes. For almost a hundred years, we worked the Inferior. We took the lowliest Irish, Italian, and mongoloid barbarian and enlightened his life with the belief that work would set them free to the Void in death. It was truly missionary work. We saved them. We did them a favor by taking them out of their pitiful sinful existence and imposing morality upon them. We set aside whole neighborhoods for them to live in peace, well-patrolled by our RUMP and ORRA officers! We curtailed their sinful ways and paid them for the sweat of their lowbrows. But it is as if all these years, after all we have done to serve them and better them, have flown straight out the window. As you all know, all over the Union, Infees have been taking up weapons against their Yahweh-given Betters and trying to spread their caustic diseases to the Betters by force. By taking up arms against the Union, they have slapped the face of God! Even Lucifer would not be so bold."

    Hands slapped the table in a show of agreement with his disgust. Midas might have been a Jew, but he knew what these Christians wanted to hear.

    "The only good Infee is a dead Infee!" roared Henry Willow, raising his beer glass to the sky. About a dozen others at the table voiced their agreement, cheering and clinking their glasses.

    Midas chuckled slightly. "Yes, well, that is what I have brought you here to discuss."

    The room went silent.

    "I also want to discuss the actual gravest threat to our security, even graver than the rebellious Infees. The Quebec, or 'Beckie', Flu."

    The room stayed silent. On everyone's faces came a look of sudden anxiety. Just remembering the epidemic made them think twice now about touching their glasses together or shaking hands. A servant in a nearby room let out a muffled cough and almost everyone squirmed in their seats just a little bit. Only Dewey sat motionless. He had seen his friend Horatio Hendrick pass of the flu not long ago. He just sat there, showing no emotion whatsoever.

    Midas clapped his hands together to end the silence and then rubbed them together as he spoke. "I happen to have a dear, dear friend from England. His name is Joseph Kenneth Finch, one of the most celebrated doctors of Europe. He has come to our shores to carry on his research in the relative peace and stability we offer compared to the ever-shifting tides of the war in Europe. He's a genius, and his staff is excellent. They are some of the greatest medical professionals who have ever lived. But I digress. Ladies and gentlemen, the reason I mention him is because he is here, in attendance, and he will explain his purpose here. Please welcome Dr. Joseph Finch! Come in my dear friend!"

    From out of a dimly lit hallway came a white-haired man with a long face and a mustache not yet quite as white as the rest of his hair. He was of average size and wore a gray three-piece tweed suit. Heavy bags under his eyes gave away the fact that he obviously worked harder than he should. He entered to some applause from the people at the table and took a seat by Midas at the head of the table.

    The Englishman poured himself a glass of wine and took a calm sip before speaking. "Hello, my Anglo-Saxon kin. I am, as I'm sure you're now aware thanks to my good chum Dr. Goldstein, Dr. Joseph Finch, recipient of the London Medical Society's highest honors and a graduate of both London University of Medicine and the Stockholm Medical College. To put it simply, my associates and I believe we have isolated the bacteria that is causing the so-called Beckie Flu. We believe with adequate funding from your proletarian fascist government that we could have a usable vaccine ready by sometime early next year. If we have enough support, we could make this horrific flu a thing of the past and something no Better would have to worry about.

    Dewey finally spoke from his seat at the other end of the table. "You sure this would work, doctor? Our brightest minds have had no luck figuring out a cure."

    The Banking Clan's Sam Bush piped up now, too. "Indeed! The Banks have loaned out millions to scientists in a quest to further research the Beckie Flu, but that mission was not accomplished."

    The weathered Finch smiled ever so slightly and answered, "Yes, we are sure. The field of medicine is constantly evolving. What is impossible one day may be possible the next."

    "Have you tested a cure on anyone?" asked Quartermaster General Wilson, raising a skeptical eyebrow behind his glasses.

    "Well," Finch began slightly reluctantly, "Not quite, dear chap. Pigs, or tasty porcine friends, are sadly able to carry the disease. When we tested the cure on them, 80% fully recovered. The problem with getting to try it on humans is no one is exactly standing in line, rolling up their sleeves, and telling me, 'Give me the flu, gov'ner.' We need clinical trials on humans immediately to finalize the vaccines."

    Goldstein raised his hand to interrupt. "And I have located just such an ideal place for said clinical trials to take place. In Chersonesus, just south of Crawford City, there is an ORRA facility known as Camp 222. Right now, that is where some of the most hardened and vicious criminals and Inferiors in the country are held, as well as many prisoners of war. Within the month, if we gain approval today from patriotic-comrade Supreme Chief Dewey, we could have Finch, his crew, and myself hard at work, developing a cure for the Betters of Society by forcing the Inferior trash to once again serve their Betters with their very blood."

    Dewey waved his hand dismissively, as if it didn't even phase him in its diabolical nature. "Do you think I care about what happens to those dogs in 222? The only reason I haven't ordered them thrown into ovens trucks is because it isn't worth my time to sign their death warrants. Doctors, if you can give us a cure, you can run 222 to your hearts' content."

    Finch flashed a toothy smile. "Ahoy-hoy! That's what I like to hear! Thank you, sir!"

    Midas slapped his approval on the table. "Thank you, Supreme Chief Dewey! We shan't disappoint you!"

    Newman raised his hand, however, asking, "This cure would be grand, but I thought you said this was about solving our Inferior problem?"

    "Ah!" Midas exclaimed, wagging his finger. "Excellent question, Supreme Justiciar! You see, this cure would be a cure for only the Betters of Society. We would let the infected ghettos cannibalize themselves and spread their lowbrow fluids until most of them die off."

    Again there was a silence for a moment before Matilda Richardson asked, "What if it dies out? I'm no medical expert, but I know that in past inoculation efforts it has resulted in the weakening of the strain and its eventual extinction. If it dies out, we have some corpse piles to burn, but we still have revolting Inferiors, and now they wouldn't have a disease to keep their numbers in check. They could even rebound. Also, if the Betters of Society are easily attaining this inoculation, then couldn't that possibly further escalate matters into a full-blown civil war, as the Inferiors would literally be fighting for their lives?"

    Fred Merkwürdigliebe spoke up finally, in his squeaky Westphalian accent. "Ja! Perhaps, theoretically now, we could implement a program of sterilization? If we sterilize the vast majority - and don't vaccinate them as well - then the survival of the fittest would run its natural course, ja, sending them to extinction. Just as the Great Flood drove the leviathans to extinction, ja. Given a few decades, an Inferior could be just as endangered as, say, a Custer Lizard."

    A hearty laugh rose up from the Union officials, toasting their beers to Merkwürdigliebe.

    Goldstein rose from his chair, ready to unveil his master plan. "No. No, ladies and gentlemen, I must turn down those ideas, good as they may be. I do indeed have an effective strategy to implement a final solution for the Inferior Question. We will vaccinate them all."

    A shocked rush of chatter struck the table, with several officials booing the idea, not realizing what Midas had up his sleeve.

    The Man of Zion raised his hand to stop the commotion. "Gentlemen, please! Listen carefully! My plan is not fully revealed. We will not wait for the Inferior to die out while we inoculate, it will take far too long. We will not sterilize every Inferior because men don't stand in line to have their balls snipped and women don't like similar procedures either. You might as well shoot them, because that is farcical. No. In the coming new era, the new century, the Inferior has been outdated. Ask the clans. It is now far more efficient to have a loyal and happy Better do a job well and with skill than have 10 Inferiors do it with barely any training at all and just itching to kill us all. No, we will not wait. We will vaccinate them. And within these vaccines, made specially for them but bearing absolutely no difference visually from the vaccines for Betters, we will lace in a chemical cocktail that will guarantee they develop several, let's say, abnormalities. We'll cure them of Beckie Flu by giving them the cure for life as well."

    Whatever was silence in the room before was now deafening. You could practically hear the beating hearts and the short-breaths of everyone seated at the table.

    Dewey finally spoke. "Doctor Goldstein. You are proposing we give lethal injections to all Inferiors?"

    "In a way," answered Goldstein matter-of-factually. "It would not kill immediately. Rather, it would give us time to distribute the vaccine on a wide scale so that we can give them the shots before they realize Uncle Reilly is lying on the kitchen floor."

    Eric Newman even looked horrified. "You... you'd just... kill them all?" For a split second, his typical brash and bravado was replaced with stuttering and horror.

    "Not all of them," said Goldstein. "We will always need expendable manual labor for large projects. But the day of the Inferior in the factory is gone. We have arrived at a new era. A spectacular new chance for humanity. When we win this war, the world will be sitting upon a giant ash heap. Only the Fascist Co-Prosperity Sphere and the Central Powers shall have the cure. Our Inferior problem will vanish. And we will stand as masters of our Manifest Destiny, unopposed and with our dear land stretching from sea to shining sea. Yes, gentlemen, the dreams of our fathers will be realized. A marvelous future where we will live in peace and harmony, secure in our loyalty to the state and President. A future where Americans might grow up and grow old without ever even seeing an Inferior in their entire lives. We might have been joking around earlier about a dead Inferior being a good Inferior, but this is a serious offer. Dr. Finch and I offer a final solution. Will you all be the generation to make America great, or will you sit by as Beutelists and anarchists and godless egoists run rampant, terrorizing God's Chosen Betters? As you all took your pastor's hand at one time or another to be baptized, I ask you to take mine now, as I offer a national baptism in blood. We purify and sanctify our lands, and make ready for the New Jerusalem. The Children of the Void have no place in this New Jerusalem. What say you all?"

    Silence.

    Slap. Dewey slapped his hand against the table, voicing approval.

    Another slap. Now it was Richardson.

    Slap.

    Slap.

    Slap.

    Slap. Slap.

    Slap. Slap. Slap. Slap.


    Before long, the entire dining hall was full of men smacking their hands on that mahogany table as the Union government began the first steps toward building the New Jerusalem and Dr. Goldstein was about to acquire the nickname of "The Black Jew of Camp 222."


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    CHAPTER 63
  • CHAPTER 63
    SOUTH AMERICA ON THE ROCKS
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    Brazilian troops prepare to assault Georgetown, Grand Panama

    The winter of 1912 was one of the most brutal on record. The temperatures were bone-chilling, and snow fall in the mountains of California, Central and Eastern Europe, Britain, and China slowed things down to a crawl. Joe Steele pressed on against the Californians, having to travel by land rather than aeroship thanks to copious ice slowing down his ship. In Budapest, brutal fighting was still raging between the Russians and Europans. Field Marshal Perrault had managed to break through Nordic lines in Northern Germany, taking back a small portion of the territory lost. Italy fought long and hard to take back Dalmatia from Grand Serbia, but brutal conditions continued to play havoc. Even Europa's sizeable aeroplane fleet, one of its biggest advantages in the war, was grounded for much of the winter due to the brutal cold stalling planes and freezing pilots. The Beckie Flu was also making headway on the Eastern Front, leaving devastation and death. In Catalonia, more reprisals from Spanish garrisons were spiraling into open civil war. Catalonian separatists bombed the capitol building in Barcelona and burned Europan flags, proclaiming independence before being brutally put down. This violence seemed to spread to other regions of the Empire, particularly South America.

    The long-standing plan had been for the United Empire of Brazil and Rio de la Plata to seize Gran Colombia, a neutral state, and from there assault and capture the Panama Canal from the Americans. Earlier that year, Dutch Guiana had seized the nearby Europan Guiana and held strong against UEBRP incursions to take it back. No one had realized that the UEBRP had been forming a perimeter around the colony, as its reconquest was but a minor secondary objective. In reality, a huge buildup in armed forces was aiming for an invasion through Gran Colombia. In early November, in a shocking move, the UEBRP military invaded Gran Colombia and quickly overthrew the government, exiling them to the Galapagos. This rocked Peru, the other neutral power on the continent. Peru's military junta, in power since the Nordic-backed Lima Coup of 1891, reacted with complete rage and blamed the blatant violation of neutrality squarely on Caesar. While Peru remained neutral, it began a fresh buildup of troops and supplies, wary that Caesar might decide their time was next at any moment.

    The Gran Colombia campaign was hardly as vicious as other fronts of the war and a puppet government was soon installed under General Julio Augustin Ramirez. The Brazilian-born UEBRP Field Marshal Bento Almir was responsible for the swift action against Gran Colombia and the following decisive victory. Now, his men stormed the Union State of Grand Panama and headed straight for Georgetown, the heart of the shipping world and the home of the Canal. But as his troops, who had a nominally high morale due to their success in Gran Colombia, stormed full-speed ahead into Yankee territory, they were surprised to find only a single legion, Legion XX, of Edelstein's Army Group VI, manning defenses. While Edelstein had just seized Baja California, only Legion XX under Major General Stanley Q. Sherman, great-nephew of the more famous general and president William Thomas Sherman, was left behind to hold the line. Cheered on by the fact that only 20,000 men were against their 80,000, the UEBRP eagerly attacked, only to find that Legion XX had been given orders directly from Point Overlook that the Canal was to be held to the last man and was absolutely not to fall. They were reinforced by RUMP units mustered from Waynestown, to the north, and from New Oxford and Sweetwater, in the neighboring state of Oxacre. The campaign waged against the Canal's defenders was relentless, with wave after wave of troops going into Georgetown to push them out, only to be relentlessly barraged from every window and alleyway by determined defenders constantly getting resupplied from the north.

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    Driving Colonel Fords that had seen better days, American militiamen patrol the outskirts of Georgetown for Imperial invaders

    By late December, morale was plummeting after an outbreak of measles within the UEBRP Army and two entire months of missed pay. Many of the UEBRP soldiers were just ordinary farmers and laborers who counted on their army checks to feed their families back home. Most had no great love for the forced union they were in and cared little for Europans, who they saw as crusty bourgeoisie living the high life while they suffered in poverty. Now, this was becoming a much bigger problem. The Union Army believed it was literally fighting for God. The UEBRP Army fought for a paycheck, and those paychecks had stopped coming. This was only the beginning of the nightmare. Field Marshal Almir warned Paris that further delays in pay would likely end in mutiny, and that he was beginning to fear for his own life. The weeks of relentless unsuccessful attacks rolled on into the early days of 1913. Over 25,000 men had been lost, and their brothers in arms were slowly beginning to refuse to assault the American trenches again. At last, social order began to break down in Gran Colombia. The rightful president, Jose Tancredo Quirino, had returned from exile with Peruvian assistance and had declared himself under the protection of the "South American Alliance for Neutrality."

    Now, Almir's men were cut off by hostile Colombian territory and Peru was itching to assault the motherland while they were trapped fighting the Americans. Faced with starvation and running low on ammunition, huge droves of UEBRP troops began to surrender to American troops. Luckily for them, they were not captured by ORRA units, but by the regular Grand Army of the Republic and RUMP forces. Over 20,000 men gave up the fight this way, with many finding themselves in the POW camps of Springfield, Oxacre. Desperate, Almir launched a mad assault into Gran Colombia, reuniting with forces loyal to Ramirez's puppet government and attempted to cut through back to the homeland. However, this was not to be. On February 20, 1913, Almir was shot in the jungle not far from Caracas by Colombian freedom fighters. Out of the 80-90,000 men he had started the campaign with just a few months earlier, only 20,000 were left to surrender to the Gran Colombian Liberation Army. Faced with fears of a Union retaliatory strike through their territory, the Gran Colombian and Peruvian governments quickly negotiated the Cooperative Pact of 1913, with Peru and Gran Colombia joining the fight against the UEBRP and Europa without formally joining the Central Powers. The UEBRP's neighbors could smell blood, and many thought revolution was coming.

    If the UEBRP was in a extraordinarily tough situation before, it grew much graver in March, 1913, when Australian forces touched down on the very southern tip of the continent, having come all the way across the Pacific to throw the country into chaos. The attack was repulsed to some acclaim, but this would be the final victory of the UEBRP. Peruvian troops had a field day cutting through the center of the country, even being gladly welcomed as liberators by some Spanish-speakers who loathed their forced union. On April 1, 1913, in Buenos Aires, a revolutionary government proclaimed the sovereign Republic of Argentina and announced their entrance into the South American Alliance for Neutrality and the Cooperative Pact. Civil war was devastating the country, with the government-favored French and Polish-speakers being pushed out or massacred. In several locales, radicals set up Beutelist communes, such as the Patagonian People's Anarchist Republic.

    Meanwhile, in Brazil, the government was now faced with angry, starving crowds hearkening back to the French Revolution. Many officials escaped across the Atlantic and back to Europe, but others were unfortunately part of the May Coup of 1913. Radical republicans basing themselves off the writings of Robespierre and Beutel, stormed the government palaces and began beheading anyone they deemed "foreign." There had been decades of internal strife within the United Empire, and now it all came to a boiling point. Covered in blood and wielding farming implements, the peasants faced down French troops guarding the Imperial Palace in Sao Paulo and demanded Imperial Governor Jean Christophe Jourdain be given to them. The troops fired into the crowd, killing dozens, but the mob soon tore them apart. As they stormed inside the palace, they were greeted with every symbol of luxury and excess that could be imagined. Full cellars full of wine were soon looted, as were priceless works of art and endless mountains of food. The starving farmers finally captured Governor Jourdain and dragged him through the streets, calling him "Murderer of our sons!" and "Foreign devil!" In scenes again reminiscent of the French Revolution, Jourdain was publicly beheaded and his head placed on a pike in front of the Imperial Palace.

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    French troops scramble to defend the Imperial Palace in Sao Paulo in this rare photograph

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    Revolutionaries backed by the Neutrality Alliance pose for a photo in Teresina

    While the people of Brazil had initially succeeded in destroying foreign rule, the mobs soon turned on each other. Brazil would never join the Neutrality Alliance, as it had no recognized government. There were still thousands of Europan troops in the country, adding to the chaos as they rode across the Pampas and through the jungles, looting and murdering as they went, cut off from the homeland and becoming mere warlords. When Custer received reports of the Brazilian Civil War, he remarked, "It looks like China down there." Again, Beutelists kept popping up all across the nation, but they were now finding most of their membership drifting toward something called the "Brazilian People's Army," founded by Reynaldo Edu, a professor from Sao Paulo who had written several radical texts that had seen him banished to Peru. Now he was back, championing the idea that "The workers should seize the means of production and redistribute the wealth of the nobility." As can be imagined, this greatly appealed to the downtrodden citizenry and was less chaotic than Beutelism or Egoism. Quickly spreading this new gospel of "Eduism," his followers raced across the country to recruit for the People's Army. Before long, Edu's signature plain green banner bearing a yellow star became a common sight across the land. A new era was coming for Brazil as well as for South America....

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    Eduist militias march through Sao Paulo, June, 1913

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    An Eduist painting depicting the abuse of laborers by the upper classes

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    A soldier carries the flag of the Neutrality Alliance in this propaganda painting

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    Reynaldo Edu greets crowds during a People's Army rally in mid-1913

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    Political map of the world, early 1913
     
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    CHAPTER 64

  • CHAPTER 64
    ANTHRAX AND ANARCHY

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    A Europan political cartoon showing the horrible situation the Empire was in, "fighting a war for the fat capitalists" for nothing but a medal while families starved back home

    Ireland had been using pulmonary anthrax-laced gas in its defense of it shores against the hordes of Scottish and English invaders. The Britannic Union was hellbent on destroying the very fabric of Irish culture, and so King Dominic was determined that Ireland would use any means at its disposal to contain the invasion and assert its long-cherished independence. But Ireland was entirely reliant on supplies coming in from the mainland, and those supplies were becoming scarcer and scarcer as the the war dragged on into 1913. The Battle of Budapest was consuming thousands of men and supplies, barely holding the Russian menace and its League allies at bay. But one thing that Europa had in abundance was gas and poisons, and, as of that point in time, it saw little use for using them in their now defensive posture on the Eastern Front, as they did not want to accidentally gas their own soldiers and civilians. But Ireland asked for them, and Caesar was glad to pawn off some of his vast stockpiles to keep Britannia busy. This lending of gas to Ireland was about to come to a catastrophic conclusion on February 1, 1913.

    That morning started like any other. Millions of people woke to another day of unceasing violence. Perrault had just launched an offensive at Reich trenches in the Northern Rheinbund, Russian troops were still shelling Budapest, and in Asia Yankee troops were busy dealing with an outbreak of revolutionary activity in Holy Nippon. Thousands of ships filled the North Atlantic, carrying supplies for the dozens of countries currently involved in the most deadly struggle the world had ever seen. Since the war began in the fall of 1911, over thirty-six million people were believed to have lost their lives, by crude estimates (these estimates included deaths from disease, such as measles, typhus, and the dreaded Beckie Flu). It was on this day, however, that the French-operated civilian transport liner Bon Chance struck out from the port town of Dunkirk with a massive supply of poison gas bound for Ireland. It was being guarded by two new Europan submersibles, which could dive under water and made the ship look far less menacing than a guarded convoy. Despite the war's barbarity, for some reason civilian liners usually were allowed to pass through open water. General Ian O'reilly, of the Irish Royal Army, was the man who had thought of the plan, and it had worked to bring supplies in for several months. Today, however, would be different.

    At approximately one o'clock in the afternoon, halfway between Calais and the famed white cliffs of Dover, the Bon Chance was spotted by a small English patrol boat. Today was different from usual, and Britannic intelligence had received word that the French ship might be carrying weapons. The English captain used a megaphone to tell the French that, "Please drop anchor and prepare to be boarded. We have been told your ship might be carrying weapons bound for Ireland. We wish innocent civilians no harm, as we have enough spilled blood to go around. Please drop anchor and prepare for search. If nothing is found, you are free to go."

    This did not sit well with the captain of one of the submersibles. Thinking it would be a turkey shoot, easy odds, he made a decision. He ordered his men to prepare the torpedoes and to blow the English ship out of the water. The first torpedo was away within a few seconds, rocketing toward the English. When it hit, it blew a hole in the side, sending men, guns, and debris showering into the ocean as the water poured in through the hole. Smiling in his victory, the submersible captain ordered a second shot to finish off the boat. What happened next was a tragedy for both sides. The torpedo malfunctioned in the loading area, suffering from a faulty blasting cap. It detonated in the belly of the submersible, imploding it. Blood, flesh, brass, and steel ripped through the water like a hurricane, sending flames jetting up toward the sky. Even more unfortunately, the flaming debris showered the nearby Bon Chance, setting the deck alight. The other submersible fired its torpedoes at the English, finally finishing them off. But panic was gripping them because they thought another English ship had struck the other submersible. Rather than surfacing to help put the fires out on the civilian ship, the remaining sub stayed underwater. The Bon Chance was now engulfed in flames, and the fires were beginning to rip through the below deck and toward the massive stash of chemical weapons.

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    The Bon Chance burning just moments before the main explosion

    At 1:30 pm, the flames made their way to the stockpiles. The ship exploded into a humongous fireball, casting an orange glow for miles and sending mustard gas, chlorine, and anthrax for miles. Over 1,000 people died instantly. One survivor of the ordeal, Mr. Alexander Lucio, an Italian businessman who was one of the few to recount the ordeal, said:

    "I had already jumped overboard by the time the explosion happened. I didn't want to burn up, so I jumped. I did not know anything about chemical weapons. I thought I was going to Ireland to close a deal for my company. We made rations. Anyway, there I was, keeping myself afloat, when the weapons detonated in the ship. The explosion was like nothing that could possibly be imagined. I saw a human hand land in the water nearby. I had no idea what had happened. Then the rest of the corpses and bits of corpses started to splash down, turning the water black, mixing with the oil from the destroyed ships. Then I started to smell it. Then I started to see it. The air turned a nasty sickly-white. At first I thought it was just burning oil. I figured there must have been an oil reserve under the deck. But it was then I noticed the smell. That sickly-sweet pineapple smell the newspapers used to describe gas attacks on the front. Frantically, I dove under the water, took my necktie and wrapped it around my mouth, and began to try to swim as far away as possible. The fountain of gas was descending from the sky in rolling waves, a sheet of death. I lost consciousness soon after. I woke up on the deck of a fishing vessel some time later. I don't know how much time passed. I just know that I saw dozens of vessels, of every flag and faction, running together to escape the oncoming deluge of poison. The water was neutralizing some of it, but the ship was still burning with intensity. I thought it looked like something out of the Bible, and I immediately thanked God I survived. I fell to my knees and cried like a little baby."

    - Alexander Lucio, one of only ten survivors of the Sinking of the Bon Chance
    As soon as everyone realized what had happened, the Imperial and English coast guard and navies declared the Channel to be a no-go zone. A ceasefire was proclaimed for any ship flying colors at half-staff and every vessel was ordered to flee at once. This moment was one of the very rare ones of the war which saw two enemies working together to guarantee the safety of all. However, as the heavier-than-air poison began to descend and become watered down, the danger was not over. The Europans did not warn the English that the gas was mixed with anthrax. Unsurprisingly, the anthrax proceeded to disperse for miles around. By that night, the shores of England and France were poisoned. Fishermen had enough common sense to cut their lines that day for fear of poisoned fish, but long after that the anthrax was still active. Unknowingly, all over England and France, anthrax was spreading like wildfire. By March, the effects were beginning to hit hard. The fish made the perfect vehicle to carry the bacteria. The scentless, colorless, odorless substance was poisoning thousands of people. On the banks of the Thames, playing children crawled onto the shoreline complaining that they felt nauseous and sick. Within hours, they would be covered in lesions and many died the same day. Others did not encounter enough of the disease to kill them, but it left them in bitter agony and required hospitalization. The hospitals were overrun. First they had to deal with the Beckie Flu, and now this. Morale in England plummeted at first, with the dead and dying all over the southern coast. But then came the anger. If Caesar was going to disguise weapons of mass destruction as civilian passenger boats, all bets were off. The Central Powers announced unrestricted aquatic warfare. From now on, any vessel was free game and could be sunk or captured at the leisure of commanding officers. All civilian travel ground to a halt.

    England was not the only one badly hurt by the world's first ecological disaster. On the contrary, the anthrax brought chaos to the French shorelines, killing or infecting thousands. Paris was in an uproar. The famed fishermen who brought in massive hauls to feed the Europan war machine and people were forced to close up shop until the waters were clear again. Roland Babineaux, the head of the Fishing Union, a powerful political entity on the shores of France, famously asked Imperial Prime Minister Othmar Derichs:

    "Comment pouvons-nous manger? Comment pouvons-nous travailler?"
    "When can we eat? When can we work?"

    The Prime Minister replied, "When the waters run pure again. This is completely out of our control. But the ban on fishing must remain until the supplies are safe."

    "When the waters run pure again" became the new "Let them eat cake!" to the working-class Imperial citizens (interestingly, both phrases came from an Austrian). Riots broke out all across the French coast. Amiens, Le Havre, Caen, and Brest burned as thousands of hungry, discontent citizens cried out in anger and desperation. Emergency food supplies came in, but they were nowhere near enough. The Bon Chance Disaster crippled the Empire's will to fight on. Now, Catalonia once again rose up, proclaiming independence as the "Unitary State of Catalonia." Unrest spread all the way into Spain itself, the citizens tired of seeing their sons chewed up in a devastating war for a corrupt government. Portugal had been steadily losing ground in Africa to the Reich, Jacksonland, and South Africa. King Louis IV, descendant of Napoleon I's Etrurian lapdog Louis I, became the first member of the Continental System to sue for peace with the Central Powers. On July 1, 1913, Portugal signed the Treaty of Nampula. The peace agreement surrendered all of Portugal's African colonies besides Senegal. While the Reich took most of the prize, by far, acquiring the Trans-African Railway and connecting their per-exisiting colony of Bechuanaland with the Nordic Congo, the Carolinian colony of Jacksonland interestingly got a slice of Portuguese Angola to add onto itself. This brought Carolinian morale in the war to a new high, as they had also just conquered Hispaniola from the Europans and renamed it "East Carolina." Macau, Portugal's ancient Asian colony, went to the Dutch Government-in-Exile, still operating from England.

    The "Portuguese Betrayal" shook Napoleon IV to his very core. Portugal had been a loyal ally for a century, since the reign of Napoleon I, and now it was deserting him before the war even came to their home shores. Furious, he ordered every nation in the Continental System to immediately cease trade with Portugal. While this did definitely further damage Louis IV's reign (he actually allowed the passage of parliamentary reforms limiting his own power afterward), it also damaged the Empire in a way that it most certainly couldn't afford. Portuguese fish were a staple of the Europan civilian population. Now, another access to food was closed. When Prime Minister Derichs warned Napoleon that this could be the beginning of the end if they went through with the Portuguese trade ban, Napoleon told him:

    "I will not suffer betrayal. I see the situation which we are currently in, and have very little hope that we shall win this war. But I will not suffer an indignity of this magnitude from the likes of Portugal. I will not. I cannot. If I had the manpower to spare, I would invade Portugal. First, I shall crush Catalonia, then I shall crush Portugal and force it into Europa and hang that lecherous fool Louis. Death always to traitors."

    Shortly after the Portuguese debacle, a new assault was launched into Catalonia. The Spanish brutally slaughtered the Catalans en masse, women and children. Whole villages burned and this time, they were thorough. Orders came down from Caesar himself to the Imperial Spanish Guard, the elite infantry of Spain, to absolutely obliterate Catalonia as a symbol of resistance. An aeroship was also sent in to drop bombs and "Greek fire" over the rebels. Over 50,000 Catalans were murdered in just two weeks. The Unitary State crumbled. Above the main thoroughfare in Barcelona, as black smoke spouted out of burning homes and as bodies laid in piles on the sidewalks besides abandoned autos, a sign was hung. It was made out of Catalan flags crudely stitched together. On it, written in black paint or motor oil, was the phrase "Thus always to Traitors" in Spanish and French.

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    Europan aeroship L'Aiglon drops Greek Fire over a rebellious Catalan town

    In the Middle East, Ahmad Shah, the portly emperor of Persia, had been building up his forces for some time now. He greatly feared Viktor and Russia and worried that after Europa would fall then Viktor would turn his attention south to avenge Russia's loss in the war that made Viktor who he was. Portugal proved to him that the Continental Allies were fading. Europa was weak. Shah Ahmad was by no means a tremendous ruler, but his Prime Minister, Reza Pahlavi, was a brilliant strategic thinker and a slick politician. Despite belonging to different branches of Islam, Pahlavi funneled guns into Egypt through Arabia to equip revolutionaries. By mid-August, riots had broken out in the Grand Realm of the Levant, with the Knights of Jerusalem and their garrisons fighting mobs of armed revolutionaries. In Cairo, revolutionary kingpin Fihr Sa'd Qadir proclaimed himself "Field Marshal of Egypt" and stormed the administrative buildings and executed the Imperial Governor, Ambroise Faure, with a sword.

    Qadir then proclaimed himself head of the "Islamic State of Egypt" and his followers soon were uniting to wage a Jihad against the Europan colonials. This now opened up another front in the war for an already overwhelmed Paris, and panic began to take hold of Caesar. The panic became horror when, on September 11, 1913, the Tehran Pact was signed. Persia, Iraq, the Egyptian Revolutionary Government, and Arabia all agreed to fight together to throw Christian influence and Imperial troops and citizens out of the Holy Land. On September 15, Chevalier Cyrille Coste, Grandmaster of the Knights of Jerusalem, held his pith helmet aloft as he stood before his men, telling them that, "Today you fight for God. If we fall here, the Land of Christ will be overrun with the barbarous heathen. We will not let Napoleon II's Crusade be in vain! We will hold Jerusalem and the Grand Realm for God, Pope, and Caesar!" Despite the cheers from his devout men, they knew the odds. As the Persian lion steamrolled toward the border, they braced for impact.

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    Egyptian revolutionaries in Cairo, 1913

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    Persian troops on the long march toward the Grand Realm of the Levant

    Elsewhere in the world, California fell to Joe Steele on September 20, 1913. And now, with the potential loss of the Suez Canal, there was a chance for the last link to ever-restless India to be cut off. Budapest was holding, but just barely, as the Russians were mostly just regrouping and taking a respite. The continual defeats could be suffered no longer by the Europan citizens. Banding together in the streets across the nation, they demanded an end to the war. Angry mobs gathered outside Fontainebleau Palace and hurled rocks and flaming bottles (nicknamed "shamrock shakes" thanks to their common usage in the ongoing war in Ireland). Others held up signs that said, "We want bread and peace" and "The blood of millions is on your hands." To deal with the situation, Caesar summoned Field Marshal Perrault to come home "with enough men to clear the streets." This would not end well....
     
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    CHAPTER 65
  • CHAPTER 65
    THE VERSAILLES CONCORDAT

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    Leopold Klapil, the Prime Minister of Bohemia, signs the Versailles Concordat

    The autumn and winter of 1913 was catastrophic for civilization. It would see a large front of the bloodiest war in human history crumble to a peace that satisfied no one and massive civil unrest would sweep the world. The disease known in America as the Beckie Flu had mutated, becoming far deadlier than ever before. This new form of the disease was first reported by Russian troops during the Siege of Budapest and it quickly spread throughout the globe. This wave of death and rot was so horrifying that, at long last, Czar Viktor called for his forces to hold the line rather than attack. He was running dangerously low on able-bodied troops, but so were the other nations. Indeed, most every nation in the war was becoming exhausted both in manpower and ability to continue the war and the bodies of dead sons killed in combat were joining the bodies of their dead families killed by the flu. It was the darkest time in world history since the Black Death. It was the apocalypse. On the Atlantic coast of Europe, anthrax still lurked in the waters and food supply. In Paris, mobs that had roamed the streets were dispersed partly by Perrault, back from the Rhine Front, but mostly by the fear of catching the Second Black Death, as it was being called in Europe.

    Before Perrault returned to Paris at the behest of Napoleon IV to quash a potential revolution, there had been a suspicious lull in activity in the Rheinbund theatre, with almost no new attacks being launched from the Nordreicher trenches. Instead, the formerly eager and battle-ready Germanic forces now seemed to be in a state of confusion and weakening morale. This mysterious lull was one of the only things keeping the Imperial Army together and away from mutiny. The New Black Death was wreaking havoc in Berlin. The Kaiser was dying, and several key military leaders, such as Erich von Kellerburg, the Army Chief of Staff, were also in a critical state. Now, as the year rolled into October, the Nordic Army ceased all attacks. On October 10, 1913, a telegram was delivered to General Ernst Schloss in Nordic-occupied Hamburg. All attacks were to cease. Kaiser Eitel Wilhelm I was dead at 30. Now the real problems began. Helmut Wilhelm, the only child of the Nordic emperor, was not even yet a year old. The widowed Kaiserin Erika now became Kaiserin Regent in the stead of her son until he would come of age. For about two weeks she reigned with the full respect and confidence of the Army Chiefs and the government. But fifteen days into her reign, the unthinkable happened: Prince Helmut Wilhelm was sick and things were looking grim. Faced with a potential collapse of the dynasty, she knew there was now a potential civil war brewing. Fearing a situation like the Greek fiasco which had helped to start the inferno of the Great World War, she knew she had to act fast. With a sad, depressing realization that continuing the war could mean the end of everything, she dispatched ambassadors to Paris to negotiate a ceasefire.

    This moment was absolutely key. Without Kaiserin Erika's desperate effort to bring peace, the war could have stretched on much longer. Indeed, while Erich von Kellerburg declared his absolute confidence in the Kaiserin's ability to forge a new path, others within the aristocracy and government began to mutter words of discontent, such as Ernst Schloss, the wildly popular "blood and guts" commander of the Rheinbund front who waded into battle himself frequently. But chief among the opposition was the indomitable Wolfgang Kapp, Reich Prime Minister. The bespectacled, mustachioed gentleman held in his heart what he called "an iron will" to break Paris once and for all. He warned the Kaiserin that making peace now would "enable the Gallic Jackal to rear its head again" further down the road. On Halloween, 1913, Kapp tendered his resignation, saying he no longer held confidence in the monarchy.

    Meanwhile, in Paris, Perrault was really coming into his own. No longer a sad drunk, the overwhelming feeling of what he viewed as Destiny's call to save France was taking over his mind and body. He worked long hours through the night orchestrating troop movements and supply routes while also attempting to provide a modicum of relief for the sick and dying throughout the country. On October 20, Caesar officially ended his direct control over the armed forces of Europa, a century-old tradition of the caesars, and declared Perrault to be the Imperial Chief of the Armed Forces. Napoleon IV was almost catatonic by this point and had recently been diagnosed with stomach cancer. Exhausted from the overwhelming load of the war and worried he was dying, he felt he had no other choice but to name Perrault supreme commander. This nicely coincided with Kaiserin Erika's ambassadors arriving to propose a ceasefire.

    On November 4, 1913, at the old Palace of Versailles which now served as the Europan Imperial Army headquarters, Perrault represented the United Empire of Europa at the very secret peace talks. Neither side would admit guilt for the war and anger and rage were still the foremost emotions at the conference. But slowly, bit by bit and piece by piece, a treaty was being devised.

    As neither side would admit fault for the war or defeat, this led to an interesting situation. Particularly in the Rhinebund, where the Reich demanded the entire nation. While Perrault was willing to give up Holland and hand it back over to the rightful King Louis Napoleon, he did not want to give up the Bund for fear of making it look like a total defeat. He had to get some victories out of this. Luckily for him, Erich von Kellerburg was a very sensible man. He knew the Reich would have a devil of a time holding down the overwhelmingly Catholic southern Bund and also share a border with Switzerland and Italy in the Alps, so a compromise was reached. What was finally decided was that the Reich would annex the northern Bund to form the Grosse Reich of Germania. It would also be allowed to hold the colonies it captured in Africa. However, the southern Bund countries of Nassau, Baden, Wurttemberg, and Bavaria would be allowed to remain free of Germania and would become independent buffer states. High King Franz Josef was furious, as this meant he was no longer a High King. This greatly impacted the Hapsburg part of the Empire. When he would return to live in Vienna for the first time since his childhood, he would be greeted with crowds waving the old gold-and-black colors of the House of Hapsburg.

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    Angry crowds waving the old Hapsburg colors march in Vienna to protest the "growing inadequacy of the Europan system"

    What made this treaty so odd was that it only concerned Europa and the new Germanian state, and did not involve the rest of the Central Powers or the Russian elephant in the room. Interestingly enough, von Kellerburg had actually pulled Perrault aside and told him that the Kaiserin was actually terrified of Viktor. There had been rumors several months before that Viktor had moved troops onto the Reich's eastern border and that Viktor wanted to capture Berlin on his way to sacking Munich and Paris. This absolutely terrified the Reich government and explained why troop movements had been so slow in Budapest. Indeed, von Kellerburg supplied telegraphed orders captured by spies that had ordered a general readiness to be made by Russian forces to invade and sack the Reich and Bohemia. This all made too much sense, as Viktor clearly desired world domination and he never had any great love for the Hohenzollern-Wettins, even if they were cousins. The mutation of the Second Black Death seemed to have stalled his plans for now, but if the Reich's military was busy invading and occupying Europa still, it would leave the Eastern Front precariously undermanned. Viktor could quite literally steamroll over the border with ease if he managed to find enough men and equipment to send in. The Slavic Poles, although many had fled the Reich's oppressive policies against them years ago, were still nothing to be laughed at. If Viktor promised them freedom, as he always viewed himself as a twisted liberator, they might even rise up and rebel. Even Napoleon IV thought the idea of the Reich under Russian control was a complete nightmare and it was the main argument Perrault used to talk him into agreeing to the peace.

    Finally, on December 10, 1913, the two sides signed the Versailles Concordat. On the Rhinebund Front, soldiers begrudgingly picked up their rifles and marched home for Christmas. The fall of the Rhinebund was a messy affair. In the Protestant north, now occupied by Germanian forces, citizens celebrated and used this moment to begin the "Christmas of Broken Glass." Catholic storefronts were vandalized and Catholics beaten in the streets. Several famous cathedrals were set alight as mobs of torch-wielding Lutherans celebrated, waving their new black-red-and-white tricolor jubilantly. In the south, in Bavaria, Baden, and Wurttemberg, the citizens were mortified at the treatment of their Catholic brethren in the north, but there was little they could do. The Catholics in the Reich felt abandoned. As they were persecuted, they felt that Caesar had left them to rot. This would not be good, as time would tell.

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    Troops bearing the Imperial Kriegsbanner parade through Hamburg

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    Germanian police hassle a Catholic citizen

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    Germanian police round up those deemed to be "enemies of the state" before sending them to work camps in Finland

    Bohemia would also sign the Concordat, which would further alleviate the Budapest Front and allow much troops to be allotted to defending against Viktor. On December 31, Sweden and Norway would also sign the Concordat, ending the war in Western Europe aside from on the British Isles, where the battles between Churchill's forces and the Irish still raged on with no end in sight. King Louis Napoleon finally made his return from London on January 14, 1914, marching triumphantly back into Amsterdam with all of the Royal Army troops who had not seen their families in two years. Despite the plague, massive parades celebrated the return of the rightful king, but this was a horrible mistake, as the New Black Death spread even more rapidly than before. As Europan troops pulled out of Holland, more were sent to Budapest. The defensive line, however exhausted, was growing. Also, Europa had just built several battles of what it deemed to be "land battleships," which were giant, lumbering metal behemoths on treads and mounted with cannons and grinders. French weapons experts told Caesar and Perrault that the new weapons might be able to bring peace with the Russians. The Reich was very close to having its own version of the machines, which would have made potential use against them a moot point, but the Russians were the least technologically advanced nation of the great powers and would be completely shocked by the war machines if they found themselves facing them. Perrault ordered as many of the machines to built as possible, along with more two-man aeroplanes, to finally break the siege of Budapest. Jerusalem also still was holding out against the Egyptian and Persian forces. Perrault was determined that the Holy City should not fall.

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    A returning Dutch soldier is given the news that his family had been wiped out by the Second Black Death

    Back in the Reich, the Kaiserin was being finally vindicated to some extent by the massive territorial gains she had secured, but still her internal enemies protested, saying that they should have taken the entire Bund and sacked Paris. They said that Napoleon IV had gotten off far too lightly and that Perrault was a bloody war criminal for what he had done in Holland, but still the overwhelming feeling was of relief. Peace had arrived, and both sides could admit that things could be worse.

    When news arrived in the Republican Union of the Versailles Concordat, the Americans were furious. Acme Ashton declared, "It is a great travesty, a farce even, that our European allies should so easily lay their weapons aside and allow the popemongers to remain on their thrones another hour." A formal condemnation of the Concordat was handed down from Philadephia and Reich flags were burned in front of the Germanian Consulate. What everyone expected was an official reaction from Custer, who seemed strangely quiet recently. Though it was excused away as him deep in thought, controlling the war effort from Point Overlook, the reality was far different. For in reality, Custer was now infected with the Beckie Flu and had been bedridden for two months. Though he had mostly overcame the infection, the aftereffects were proving very hard for him to recover from. On January 28, 1914, Joe Steele was summoned to leave occupied California and come to Point Overlook. His father was dead....
     
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    MAN OF THE HOUR: ICEPICK JOE
  • This is it. The moment we've all been waiting for, when Madness truly arrives on the Steele Train:



    MAN OF THE HOUR:
    ICEPICK JOE

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    Joe Steele in his uniform as Commander of the Californian Front (1913)

    The following is a transcript of Joseph Steele's talkiebox address to the nation, delivered on Uncle Sam's Talkiebox Station on February 5, 1914:

    "Citizens of the Republican Union of America! Rejoice, for our faithful and glorious President, George Armstrong Custer, has entered the Promised Land! At the right hand of Jesus Christ he dwells now with Father Abraham and the Prophet Burr! In just two decades, my father brought forth on this continent a stronger Union, forged in the crackling, red-hot smelter of liberty and Manifest Destiny. Every generation, there is a man who Jehovah our God calls to holy duty, be it of the sword or pen. Every generation, there is a champion of truth, justice, and the American Way. A man with brains, brawn, and courage, and the internal fortitude to do what he must to preserve this our sacred way of life and our core beliefs. These men show themselves to be truly of the Pinnacle blood, passed down in their veins through the eons from our ancient Betters. These men do not stand idly by. They do not stare at the struggles ahead with complacency. They do not shirk from the path Jehovah has set before them. They stand up, like an Old Testament Judge, and lead the Chosen closer to the Promised Land.

    "My father never put anything ahead of his country or people. He was a mighty Lion of New Judah. From the worst of days, when the Prophet Burr's and Father Abraham's dreams seemed to be slipping away and America drifted into the sinful decadence of soft-democracy, my father felt the call. He knew that everything is preordained. He firmly believed in everything upon which this mighty nation we call home was founded, especially the Destiny which is made Manifest. Sometimes this divine fate only reveals itself to the one who has been called by the Lord, and through his actions he reveals God's plans to all. The son of simple Ohio stock, there was nothing simple about my father other than his love of country and devotion to duty. He had in him the greatness for which we all pine. The feeling in his gut that he was meant to be remembered for all time. When my father overthrew the flaccid guttersnipes that were festering in Philadelphia, so many years ago, he knew he would not rest until he had made America great again. First he started with Mexico, securing the Canal and annihilating the Mexican menace which plagued us for so many years. Then he moved into Asia, creating the Fascist Co-Prosperity Sphere and bringing the fledgling Australia and and Holy Nippon into our ranks, Chosen all. A little boy from Ohio stretched his arms across the Pacific and whipped it into shape. That fighting son of the Buckeyes and servant of Christ licked the Beckies, Canucks, and Californians, bringing us to the cusp of total dominion over the New Jerusalem. Only Russian Alyaska remains under the contemptible control of the foreign steppe demons.

    "But our fight, his fight, is not yet finished! My father's struggle is not yet over! The whole world must be cleansed of the evil that once called us small and weak. The entire world stands and watches us, in this our most crucial hour. Will we reap the rewards my father labored for decades to attain, or will we slide into the decadence of a new post-Lincoln era? People of the Republican Union! My fellow citizens! America has experienced tumult before. In our most glorious hours, we also face our biggest challenges. We are presented with a choice. We can do it God's Way, or we can do it Satan's Way. Our destiny is preordained. We will fulfill the sacred prophecies of the Four Books of Manifest Destiny, but we may set ourselves back by resting on our laurels and not dealing promptly with the problems at hand.

    "I wish to tell every American this day that never again will we experience the chaos of a disorderly leadership succession. Never again will Americans shed blood in the streets to overthrow a corrupt and cuckolded government that does not care for the ordinary Betters of Society. No more shall our country be ravaged by disease and civil disorder! My father's purpose for which he dedicated his life must not be allowed to fall to the wayside. We did not sacrifice these bloody years to let our victories give way to internal strife. Therefore, in the name and memory of my adopted father, Patriot-Saint George Custer, I will assume the office of the Presidency, effective immediately. It is important that our enemies do not catch us off-guard in this saddening yet triumphal time. Now ordinarily, following the preset order of succession, the Supreme Chief of the Office of Racial and Religious Affairs would become the President following the latter's death. However, Supreme Chief Dewey has personally called upon me to fulfill this role. He knows that right now America needs a young, strong Pinnacle hand to guide it through this victory and loss and to end the internal issues we have been dealing with for some time.

    "This leads into my next point. The night is always darkest just before the dawn. A veil is lifting. The dreaded Beckie Flu, the means by which so many of our dearest patriot-comrades have passed, has mutated into an even stronger and deadlier version of itself. As we speak, millions across the world are dealing with this blight. But I have good news. News that will go down in history as the potential salvation of mankind. For Better minds have been working together for many months. We have been blessed with the fortune of having two of the greatest minds of this era, Dr. Joseph K. Finch and Dr. Midas Israel Goldstein. Together, they have done it! My father knew of their success on his deathbed, and he told Supreme Chief Dewey "Jehovah be praised. They've saved the country." My father rests in peace knowing a cure has finally arrived. Beginning one month from now, every single man, woman, and child, Better and Inferior, rich or poor, white, black, red, or yellow, will receive a free inoculation against the flu. This vaccine is a medical miracle, gifted to us by the Lord. This disease must not be allowed to flourish. It must be wiped out and completely destroyed in the New Jerusalem. Therefore, this inoculation will not be voluntary. Beginning March 1, we will begin the Cleansing Month. Within a month, we will inoculate every last person on this continent and end this terror once and for all. We will also be sharing this miracle with our dear friends in the greater fascist alliance and the Co-Prosperity Sphere. After all, Dr. Finch is an Englishman, and he will be delighted to help those so sorely afflicted in Britannia.

    "My final words are these: We will never surrender to the global papist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious Pinnacle fluids. This global cabal may be on the run. The Bonapartist menace may have had its teeth kicked in by the Central Powers. But. The Central Powers did not continue the fight. They abandoned the fight to save themselves from the necessary horrors and rigors of total war. If Missus Hohenzollern-Wettin had continued the fight, perhaps Germanian and Dutch troops would be marching through Paris right now, with Old Boney's head on a pike. But they betrayed the war effort. They went soft. And now, at this second, the diabolical minds inside the Vatican and Fontainebleau plot together their insidious schemes to topple the Pinnacle Man and drag all of our souls to Hell. These heretics spit upon Jehovah. Like Lucifer and his Fallen Angels, they desire nothing more than the sapping and impurification of our bodily fluids. They want left-wing agitation. They want indoctrination. And they Want miscegenation. But this will not be allowed. Not now, or ever. Not while Joseph Steele is President. All hail the Prophet! All hail Father Abraham! All hail Patriot-Saint Custer! My fellow Americans, all hail the New America, a steel America!"

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    President Custer's funeral procession rolls through Philadelphia

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    Custer's body lies in state at the First Fundamentalist Church

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    Custer's final funeral ceremony at his tomb at Patriot's Rest, the nation's largest military and political graveyard
    The death of George Armstrong Custer at age 75 - the death of the man who had led America with an iron fist since 1881 - sent shockwaves across the world. Not only had the Kaiser died, but so too had the Blonde Lion of Fascism. All across the Republican Union, thousands of black banners hung from windows and doorways. Crosses, flowers, and portraits of the dictator lined the roadways, a symbol of respect and gratitude to the man who had overthrown the weakling government and had fulfilled the dreams of Father Abraham. He had lived to lead an America that stretched from Quebec in the north to Panama in the south. He was a figurative giant among men, a titan of tyranny and true, inarguable success. Despite the high losses in the war and the ongoing Inferior insurrections, he had brought previously unimaginable success to the Union. While before dreams of a unified North America had been fantastical pipe dreams of a long-dead prophet, where people would clutch their children's hands and tell them "some day," the dreams were now realized at the expense of the nightmares of all who surrounded the Union. Virginia, Georgia, Texas, Mexico, Cuba, Quebec, Canada, and California had now all tasted Yankee steel and had been consumed by the ever-growing fires of Manifest Destiny.​

    When Joe Steele, also known as Michael Custer, spoke at the massive funeral in Philadelphia, he made it clear that his father's work would never be finished. However, he made it particularly clear that he would continue his father's work himself. In reality, Supreme Chief Dewey enjoyed being the ORRA commander and claimed to be too old for politics. He also feared Steele would overthrow him anyway. So, in the last two months, Dewey had maintained a secret correspondence with Steele as the latter occupied California. He made it clear that Custer did not have long left. His lung cancer had combined with the flu to ravage his body. Dewey pleaded with Steele to return to Philadelphia and take the reigns of power. In particular, he feared the potential leadership of Thomas Custer, the Supreme Chief of the Military Police. Steele also disliked his adopted uncle and considered him a mere shadow of George. And with Dewey wanting no part of the Presidency, that left the gates wide open for Thomas to occupy the Presidential Mansion. This would not do. Dewey also kept Joe abreast on the Kissimmee Conference and Steele knew full well when he announced the "Cleansing Month" what was in store for the Inferior vaccine patients. Eight out of every ten viles of Inferior-destined vaccine was laced with a deadly toxin that would slowly kill the recipient. It would take about a month for the symptoms to fully kick in, so the push to actually accomplish the Cleansing Month in time was essential.

    When Steele told the Union government he would be stepping into the Presidency, thousands of politicians were horrified. Steele had not acquired the nickname of "Icepick Joe" and "the Butcher of the Plains" for nothing. According to some stories, Steele personally would kill any who disobeyed or offended him. He also maintained a small group of disciples he referred to as the "Wolf Pack" that were trusted assassins and goons loyal only to him. Using the Wolf Pack, he quickly manipulated those in the government who were against him or on the fence. Interestingly, Matilda Richardson, Supreme Chief of Public Works, was a devout follower from the beginning, heavily invested in both the Final Solution to the Inferior Question and adored Steele. According to legend, Richardson often had acted as a mother-figure to Steele, especially in his teenage years. Backed by Dewey, Richardson, and the Wolf Pack, as well as almost the entirety of the Office of Racial and Religious Affairs, Steele moved in. While Custer's body laid in state at the First American Fundamentalist Church, Burr's first church, Steele and his agents were acting fast. In order to prevent civil war, they had to move like clockwork.

    In the shadows, they worked away. Thomas Custer's only child, 26 year-old Margie, was kidnapped under the dead of night by the Wolf Pack. Joe visited his uncle the next day to "comfort his uncle in his time of grief." Joe had just given his uncle a huge bear hug, holding him and patting his back, telling him he would not rest until Thomas's daughter could be found.

    "Thank you, Michael, er, uh, Mr. President. I appreciate your help very much. If Jehovah favors me, perhaps she shall be brought back to me speedily," Thomas said, as the 69 year-old Custer brother looked dejectedly at the floor of his Philadelphia home.

    Michael, or Joe, then pulled out a small picture of Margie from his jacket pocket. It showed a bruised and beaten Margie Custer tied tightly to a chair, naked, in a cabin somewhere. The look on Thomas's face was of abject horror. "Where... where... did you get this, Mr. President?"

    Joe looked his uncle straight in the eyes as a wicked grin spread over his face. The beginnings of a mustache made his smile even more disturbing and odd-looking. "Uncle Thomas. Your daughter can be brought back to you. Your prayers answered! But I swear on my life, if you ever oppose me or ever try to work against me, your daughter will be chopped into six pieces and dumped like revolutionary tea into the nearest harbor. Do you understand me, Uncle? I will not be stopped. I know what you have said about me. I know you tried to pull strings to get me shipped out into the most dangerous frontlines since the Nippon War. I have killed many men. I don't even think about it anymore. I can't kill you, because that would be far too messy, but it would be a real shame if some 'anarchists' ripped your precious Margie limb from limb. I will return her to you. She has no idea who is holding her. This is your only chance. You will officially throw yourself and the Military Police behind my administration or she will die. What say you, Uncle?"

    Thomas stared him down, shaking with terror and rage. Hot tears poured down his wrinkled face. Snot bubbled pathetically from his nose and dripped onto his ill-fitting blue uniform. He grimaced and answered, "Fine. You monster. Fine. You can expect my endorsement tomorrow but please don't hurt her! She's your cousin for God's sake!"

    Joe. laughed and plopped down in an old Napoleonic-era chair in his uncle's living room. He happily poured himself a glass of brandy from the nearby decanter, took a sip, smacked his lips, and looked back at his uncle. Without flinching he said, "Cousin? Hah!" he laughed a raspy, mocking laugh that would have choked someone else. "You pathetic creatures are not my family. The Custer family did nothing but raise me in isolation with that pathetic fool Mr. Tobias beating me day and night for so much as looking out a window. And then you know what my father did? He had me 'volunteer' to fight in Holy Nippon to 'make the family look good.' I was shot down by the yellow savages and almost killed. But it backfired. I know you tried to have me killed, Uncle. I know you knew that aeroship I was on was going into the thick of the action. You told George it was safe. You wanted Margie to be President some day, don't tell me you didn't. I have no father. I have no family, nor a need for one. I for damn sure don't have an uncle! What I have... is an entire country, one of the biggest empires in history. I am master of a continent. And you listen to me, you decrepit son of a bitch: trust no one. Not your friends. Not your colleagues. Not even your family. Don't even trust yourself. I know I don't! Haha!" Steele took another swig of brandy before kicking his boots up on the antique coffee table in front of him, mud streaking across the white marble top and sending a magazine flopping to the floor to make room. "So, I will expect your endorsement tonight. Or little cousin Margie gets torn to ribbons and you spend the rest of your life in the Tobias Institute as a meditating recluse. Choose wisely! The world is your oyster!"

    That evening, Thomas Custer officially endorsed Joe Steele as the legitimate President. Three days later, an "ORRA raid" on an "anarchist terrorist cell" in the Poconos saw the "rescue of Margie Custer from the gnarled, freckled hands of diabolical Irish nutters."

    Another fierce opponent of Steele's administration was Custer Youth Brigade Headmaster-Marshal Theodore Roosevelt. Not only had Roosevelt said that Joe Steele was "better suited to military adventures than politics." He actually formed what he called the "Bull Moose Movement." It quickly became clear that he had... higher... aspirations. Roosevelt had been a massively influential follower of George Custer, and they always had had much in common. But Roosevelt was now preparing to challenge Steele. Steele was ready to do whatever he needed to get rid of Roosevelt and told Calvin Coolidge, Winston Churchill's college chum, to stand ready to replace Teddy as Headmaster-Marshal. Speaking to a crowd in Oshkosh on February 20, Roosevelt told them:

    "If Supreme Chief Dewey does not want to fulfill the requirements of his position, one of which is becoming President if the current President dies, then he should step aside. It is written in our 1882 Constitution, Section I, Clause II, that the ORRA Supreme Chief is first legal successor to the highest office in the land. Patriot-Saint Custer wrote this himself. Now his son, not even by blood mind you, well, this so-called Butcher of the Plains wants to come in and declare himself President of his own accord. That, my friends, is a load of horseshit. I instead ask for one thing before this whelp rips our laws asunder: a free and fair election. I guarantee that I could beat him! I feel as strong as a bull moose!"

    Shortly after that, as the crowd cheered and booed, an assassin's bullet hit Roosevelt squarely in the chest. He staggered back, clutching at the wound as the crowd screamed in horror. Slowly, he leaned forward onto the podium, taking a thick, rolled-up speech out of his chest pocket. The bullet was caught in it. As the crowd began to cheer and the assassin was restrained, he held the paper aloft and shouted:

    "Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, I have just been shot. But I tell you now, it takes more than that to kill a bull moose!"

    At that, a gunman located somewhere on the rooftops blew his head open with a rifle round. As brain matter and gore flecked the podium and stage, everyone ran, worrying an anarchist mass-shooting was about to erupt. Up on the roof of the Yankee Telegraph and Shipping office across the cobblestone street, a 20 year-old member of Steele's Wolf Pack, a veteran of the Californian Front, threw his bolt-action rifle down a chimney and then stuffed a pair of leather gloves into the pockets of his trenchcoat, emblazoned with the Yankee Telegraph company logo. He then calmly headed down the fire escape that he had ascended on before driving away in a company truck. Benedict Arnold Hoover smiled to himself as he saw policemen carrying away Roosevelt's body in his side mirror. He lit up a Firebreather and enjoyed a hit of cocaine as he rattled on down the road.

    Within two days, Coolidge was in control of the CYB. The takeover was almost complete. A few ice picks here, and a few disappearances there, and Steele would truly be master of all he surveyed....

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    Theodore Roosevelt moments before his assassination in Boston

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    B.A. Hoover, Theodore Roosevelt's assassin

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    Headmaster-Marshal Calvin Coolidge walks down the steps of the Capitol after his swearing-in

     
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    THE SHADOWS OF STATE
  • THE SHADOWS OF STATE:
    THE STORY OF GEORGE DEWEY, PLAN ZEPHYR, AND THE SECRET STRUGGLES OF 1914

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    1914 propaganda poster depicting young Joe Steele

    When Joe Steele took power over the Republican Union in 1914, it was the culmination of years of planning, plotting, and maneuvering. His true father-figure Supreme Chief Dewey and mother-figure Supreme Chief Matilda Richardson had long detested both Thomas Custer and his daughter Margie, and they greatly feared an America ruled by "a weakling or the pampered spawn of a weakling." Thomas was only head of RUMP, or even in the government at all, because he was George's brother. Their younger brother Boston had retired from politics in 1900 to manage a ranch in Redemption. Joe Steele was never meant to be President. He was a trophy-son so Custer could send him to fight for his name and honor, fully expecting he could be killed in combat. Custer rarely ever even spoke to his own adopted son, leaving him with abusive tutors like the Blind Christian Gentleman. From early on, Joe Steele hated his father and the rest of his adopted family. When he had to threaten and cajole his uncle and kidnap his cousin during his 1914 shadow revolution, he thought nothing of it. To Steele, who much preferred his military pseudonym to "Michael Custer," power was power, and that was the only thing which made him truly happy. From very early on, Joe knew that one day his father would die, and that day would be the grand triumphal ascendancy to power he always dreamed of.

    Unknown to all but the highest-ranking officials in the Union, President Custer had actually been dead since the summer of 1912. Having been a life-long chain-smoker always ready to pop a Morton's Finest (or ten) out of his pocket - an understandable trait for one with so much daily stress - Custer had shown symptoms of lung cancer for a long time. When Dewey advised him to leave for Point Overlook to avoid catching the Beckie Flu, the ORRA Supreme Chief knew full well that Custer was on Death's door. Day after day, night after night came the bloody mucus and sludge, the last gasps of a man whose once strong and healthy lungs were now withered black husks. Custer knew he was dying. But in order to keep the war effort strong and morale high, he agreed to hide any evidence of his illness. On July 4, 1912, Custer collapsed in his bathroom in his Point Overlook Presidential Suite. Dr. Thaddeus Ryan, his personal physician, found the body sprawled next to the commode, urine and blood covering the floor from the President's final release. A phonograph disc of Yankee Doodle was stuck on a loop of static, the last note playing over and over eerily until Dr. Ryan shut the machine off.

    Almost immediately, Dewey was at the scene, ordering his guards to remain outside the room. As he sipped a small glass of brandy from Custer's personal cabinet in the suite, he stood over the body and raised a toast. "Hail Caesar! Triumphal leader of a New Rome!" the ORRA chief declared in a theatrical voice as he watched the rays of light from the bathroom mirror light refract through the crystal drinking glass. Then, quite unceremoniously, he dumped the contents of the glass on the corpse's face, plastering the famous whispy handlebar mustache over the thin purple lips. "A libation for a Pinnacle Man, you old windbag!" he muttered as he rolled the corpse over onto its stomach so he didn't have to look at it. Now was the time, Dewey knew. Now was the time to move.

    Since the early days of the Third American Revolution, Dewey had served loyally with the Manifest Destiny Party and had even been a member of Father Abe's Second Sons of Liberty long before the MDP was even thought up. Dewey had also been in military service since 1854 and had served in the Great American War, participating in McClellan's invasion of New Orleans (known by the Union as "New Antioch" after the war). Born in the former Green Mountain Republic of Vermont, Dewey had faced bullying and mockery for his birthplace from other Yankees at both the Philadelphia Military Academy and while serving in the Army. But through his prowess in battle and terrific leadership skills, George quickly rose through the ranks and was a major by 1864. Following the era known later as the "Interim Presidencies" (those who served as President between Lincoln and Custer), Dewey had soured on the Republican Union government and viewed it as a disgrace to the memory of Lincoln. When Custer showed up on the scene and created the MDP, Dewey became Party Member 191 and an early radical supporter.

    However, Dewey was very peculiar, as he was privately a deist. He seems to have held all the same core drives and beliefs as any other MDP radical, but in actuality he was a believer in the Darwinist Strong Man Theory. Rather than be motivated by Church dogma, he merely believed that a strong and capable leader was necessary to attain true and lasting societal harmony and wealth. In Custer he saw everything he had hoped for and Dewey was right by the new President's side when they rode into Philadelphia in 1881 during the Third American Revolution. Dewey was appointed Supreme Chief of the Office of Racial and Religious Affairs due to his complete and total loyalty to making America "pure." During these early days of Custer's rule, Dewey did end up seeing the Church as a useful tool to control the populace but remained a closeted deist. In the 1882 Constitution he was named first in the order of succession to the Presidency, serving not only as ORRA Supreme Chief but effectively also as what had been known as a "Vice President" in earlier years. As the number two man in the Union for the next few decades, he would leave a huge impact and would form ORRA into the devastating war and intelligence machine it would grow to be.

    But his faith in Custer weakened over time. For the first few years, Dewey saw Custer as a brilliant strategic and political Strong Man, leading with an iron hand. Custer had always spoke of his disdain and hatred for politicking and backroom deals and all the corruption related to the slimy political machines of years past. Custer's government was organized as a streamlined and barebones - yet powerful - core group of Supreme Chiefs and their staffs. But as time went on, Custer became more and more under control of the Church and, slowly but surely, the government became a morass of disparate political entities and infighting offices, all sprawled out over their massive empire. Dewey had been one of the masterminds behind the Immolation of Mexico and the seizure of the Panama Canal zone. When Metropolis was built upon the ancient ruins of Old Mexico City, Dewey used this a perfect time to experiment with creating a city easily and quickly accessible by his army of spies and agents and he greatly helped Custer centralize his authority.

    Upon the death of Reverend-Colonel Edward Everett in 1893, Dewey pushed for Custer to finally exert more power over the AFC Church and let the shadowy Council of Jehovah know that they may be in authority over the Church, but the President was over everything. Dewey viewed Edward Everett as a shadow-president and viewed the Council of Jehovah as a bunch of drug-addled country clubbers who forced President Custer to do their bidding. Over time, the ORRA Supreme Chief came to see the Church leadership as a threat to the Strong Man movement. Custer, by this point overwhelmed with the day-to-day management of a booming economy and almost doubled national territory, did not want to seek out a conflict with the Church by this point. Indeed, when Everett died Dewey pushed for Custer to also take up the mantle of Reverend-Colonel, definitely a notch above his current title of "Defender of the Faith." However, Custer warned Dewey that such a move could trigger a civil war, one which the country would most likely not survive.

    Another huge source of conflict between Custer and his number two man was the fact that Custer was actually quite devout in belief in the Church and legitimately viewed himself as the founder of a coming New Jerusalem. He told Dewey that:

    "I am in a position to be remembered for a hell of a long time as a successful and accomplished leader, maybe one of the greatest of all time. I may one day stand in the same league as Father Abraham and the Prophet. But, unlike Father Abe, I wish to live out my days and die in my bed. I will not risk everything this country has fought for for almost a century due to my friend recommending I topple the oldest currently existing office in the land, the Reverend-Colonel, simply to soothe my ego that I am absolute in every way."

    To Supreme Chief Dewey this was the beginning of the end of their lengthy friendship. To the scheming ORRA commander, Custer now seemed weak and totally under the control of the Church. When Dwight Moody was named Reverend-Colonel to succeed Everett, Dewey knew the opportunity Custer going for one last drive at absolute power had come and went. Moody was by no means tyrannical or even very charismatic, but he was a capable leader for the AFC Church and he most certainly would not surrender his power to the President. This point was further proven by the treatment Custer received from Church officials, where they viewed him almost as nothing in comparison to the Prophet and Reverend-Colonel.

    Dewey found himself very curious about the up-and-coming Wilhelm Sonntag, known as "Bible Billy" Sunday by Church acolytes. He was Moody's number two and he was clearly in line to eventually become Reverend-Colonel himself. The smooth-talking son of German immigrants was handsome, charismatic, and power-hungry, and Dewey feared that, in a post-Custer era, Sunday would become the real leader of the nation, while the Presidency, presumably under Thomas or Margie Custer, would wind up a mere joke in comparison. Dewey even briefly considered an assassination of Custer, his own old friend, to take power himself before Sunday could replace Moody. But this draws to the next very important point on Dewey's life story: he did not wish to become President. He actually viewed himself as inadequate and far too old to actually lead the Union into the next era. If he assassinated Custer and became President, what good would it do him if he himself died of old age within a few years possibly? Instead, he began searching for the next true Strong Man to lead the country. He would find this in the battle-hardened Joe Steele.

    Their friendship at first was more business than true camaraderie, with Dewey inviting the President's adopted son to luncheons at this personal estate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, just to get to know the young man more for political intelligence purposes. Over time, however, Dewey felt out Joe's true feelings toward his neglectful family and hatred of the Church leadership, such as his personal vendetta against his former private tutor, the Blind Christian Gentleman Mr. Tobias, and realized that the next Strong Man might have been right in front of him all along. Joe was always upset that Custer rarely had dealings with him and never even talked to him about one day becoming a powerful man in his own right. All the while, Steele felt as if he would never equal his father's fame or success because Custer never even attempted to teach him statecraft. This period, from around 1900 to 1910, was really when Dewey became a surrogate father for Joe. He also exposed Joe to influence from Public Works Supreme Chief Matilda Richardson, the only co-conspirator in Dewey's plot to assassinate Custer and take power for himself. Upon Richardson's first meeting with Steele, she told Dewey:

    "My lands, when I looked into his eyes I could see the lion inside. If anyone needs to be the next President, it's him, not some political creature of Philadelphia. We need a breath of fresh air. I think Joe could do quite nicely."

    During this same time, Moody was in ill-health. He passed away in 1909 of heart failure. Dewey sighed and was immensely frustrated, as Steele was by no means yet ready to seize power. They needed more time to prepare him and lay the groundwork for his rise. When Bible Billy became head of the Church, Dewey feared his plans might come crashing down after all, dust in the wind of a new era of an imperial Reverend-Colonelship. Sunday was wildly popular with the elite and the people, and his theatrical exorcisms on stage and flamboyant attitude made him known the world over. He was also extremely competent and manipulative, always ready to make others do what he needed done. While in years past, especially during Moody's rule, the Council of Jehovah had been the real policy-making machine and the Reverend-Colonel but a mouthpiece, Sunday reversed that as part of his "New Era of Christianity." He wanted to call the shots, and if the Council wouldn't get behind him he wouldn't get behind them. While in the end the Council ended up cooperating with Sunday, fearing his removal or death could mean an internal civil war in the Church and national instability, this infighting also gave Dewey the precious time he needed to get Steele fully started on the path to the Presidency.

    Thanks to Dewey's brainwashing over the past decade, Steele was now finally convinced that he was the "Man of Steel," a Strong Man ready to rule over the country and lead it into a new century of expansion and victory. The Church would have to get out of the way of the future administration or find itself on the receiving end of ORRA raids against its leadership and the unmasking of the Council of Jehovah. As war broke out in Europe in 1911 and Custer's cancer became apparent, Dewey began "Plan Zephyr." Zephyr was the code-name for an ORRA operation from late 1911 to early 1912 which saw a vast majority of ORRA swear loyalty to a future President Steele. Dozens of officers declared that they would never allow a weakling like Thomas Custer to become President. Despite the Constitutional guarantee of Thomas becoming the highest official in the land, most of ORRA's leadership wanted nothing to do with him, seeing him as a weak and elderly man who would lead the country into chaos and defeat. In Steele, already a war hero thanks to his time in Holy Nippon, they saw greatness. Despite his own family's attempts to overshadow him and leave him out of things, Joe was actually one of the most popular men in the country simply from his own personal charisma and popularity. When the Great World War began and Joe set out for the Californian Black Hand Front in his personal aeroship, he and Patton in Quebec also became the role-model for most of the Union armed forces, securing his place as idol to millions. His campaigns through the Kingdom of California were brutal and bloody, but he never lost a battle. Every advance was hard-won and bitter to the end, but the American Army would eventually triumph. When he ordered the death of every Chinaman and Mexican who resisted deportation to labor camps, he acquired his nicknames "Butcher of the Plains" and "Icepick Joe," both used, ironically, with affection by RU forces. He acquired the "Icepick" name by his personal execution of a Californian general who had refused surrender with, well, an icepick.

    One matter historians could debate infinitely was whether George Custer ever actually feared his own adopted spawn. There is a possibility that he, like his brother Thomas, saw him as an illegitimate threat to their family dynasty and that George only had adopted him so he could play up his angle of "fatherly old man" all while not caring if he ever spent time with said son or if that son was killed in battle. However, it truly seems as if George just basically ignored Joe and didn't even really consider him in any way into the grand plans. He fully anticipated Dewey or Thomas to succeed him and never seemed to consider the idea of Joe holding significant power a real option. He likely expected him to one day become an under-chief of some office or other, or perhaps a high-ranking MDP member, but nothing more. This was a huge mistake. Although, to be fair, no one, not even Dewey or Richardson, could have known the monster that was brooding in the political closet. No one could have had any idea what a President Steele could be capable of.

    When Custer passed that fateful day in 1912, Dewey and his inner circle immediately shut down entry into Point Overlook in the name of "preventing the spread of contagion." Dewey would tell Richardson, in a letter dated July 19, 1912:

    "The old goat is dead. He's actually gone. Such a shame that a man once so noble and strong could become a sickened and weak puppet of the Church. I have not mourned him. The man I knew many years ago, the man who led our March on Philadelphia, was already dead in the spirit, a cuckold of the Council. We need to move ahead with Zephyr immediately. No one in or out of Overlook. Steele needs to win his battles in California and, if we intend on winning or at least finishing this war as one country, no one can know the President is dead. We will have weekly speeches by talkiebox. I'm sure one of his doubles would be 'happy' to oblige us or find out his job just became obsolete. We've used speech doubles before because of his cancer and no one questioned it. We also need written press interviews. We need to make sure the people think Custer is managing this war or morale will plummet with an old fart like Tom Custer in charge and Steele out festering in the Sierra Nevada."

    When Steele received word that his father had passed, he knew his time was coming. Now, with Dewey managing the war in Custer's name, Reverend-Colonel Sunday remained the only major obstacle in his path to total absolute power over the Union. And, thanks to some helpful ORRA spies and surveillance, they began to sniff out Sunday's one weakness: Women. Over the last several years of his rule as Reverend-Colonel, Sunday had put on a show of his total purity and dedication to Jehovah. As God's mouthpiece, he was virtually sinless. The most popular Reverend-Colonel since Burr, America was enthralled by him. And Steele and Dewey certainly recognized this as the huge threat to his power that it was. But, in the Republican Union of the 20th Century, there was no one without sin. Somewhere, deep down and tucked away in the corners of the most private part of people's lives was something that ORRA could find. ORRA agents began a massive operation known as "Plan Judas." Their only goal was to find dirt on Sunday and use it to thwart a potential power-grab from the Church. Indeed, while it may seem strange at first that ORRA was scared of the Church, the Church also operated a huge private defense force of "Zealots" and also used hired private mercenaries. If Sunday moved to take power, he could potentially dissolve ORRA and replace it with Church security forces. This is the main reason why so many ORRA officers and commanders swore loyalty to Steele. They knew a secret war was coming, and they knew they wouldn't be allowed to live if they lost.

    In the late months of 1913, rumors began to circulate within the highest levels of the Church that President Custer might actually be dead. No one had seen him in over a year. The Church did not wish to undermine the war effort either, and so kept this intelligence to itself, but Sunday began to plot a potential power-grab if it turned out to be true. With the war against Europa winding down as the Central Powers left the war, the Council of Jehovah began advising Sunday to prepare himself for "God's call to action." For weeks, the Council meditated and entranced themselves, speaking to the Other Side and asking for guidance. Supposedly, Brother Wolf, the then-highest-ranking Councilman, received word from the spectre of Father Abe that Custer was indeed dead. Sunday ordered his private security forces to ready themselves for potential "national calamity." While the everyday Zealot thought of this as warning about the mutating Beckie Flu virus, it was in reality preparation for an overthrow. With so much of the Army and Navy invested in occupying Canada, Quebec, Greenland, and California, not to mention dozens of former Europan islands across the Pacific, and a growing revolutionary threat in Holy Nippon, the Zealots were one of the most powerful armed groups in the American heartland and perfectly positioned to take over. Many important Union officials were, effectively, "knighted" by the Church as Servants ("Sers") of Christ, and with that honor came a personal handful of Church-paid Zealot bodyguards. If Sunday had a yearnin' for a purgin', he could order those same Zealots to turn on those who did not support him and do away with dozens if not hundreds of potential enemies this way in one night, slitting their throats in their beds. This concept was one of the reasons why Steele hated Zealots and kept his own private security detail which he named the "Wolf Pack."

    As California collapsed, Icepick Joe knew the time was drawing nigh. He seized power and announced that he would succeed his father, flagrantly violating the 1881 Constitution. Originally, Sunday held talks with Thomas Custer for the Zealots and RUMP to fight together against ORRA and Steele's loyalists. However, the kidnapping of Margie Custer destroyed that plan completely, leaving Thomas and RUMP solidly under Steele's finger and under close watch by spies to make sure their loyalty remained. Joe wanted to order Thomas to retire so he could appoint a new head of RUMP, but knew he needed his uncle's endorsement to legitimize his power. While several movements against his new administration were growing, such as Headmaster-Marshal Roosevelt's Bull Moose Movement, Sunday remained by far the greatest threat.

    The assassination of Teddy Roosevelt supposedly "amused" Steele. Roosevelt, ever the theatrical, had actually staged his own assassination attempt, with the first gunmen, whose bullet allegedly caught in his folded-up speech inside his jacket, a plant from the Bull Moose Movement. That same day, however, Steele had dispatched one of his Wolf Pack assassins to kill the insurrectionist. The first bullet, from the pistol, was a blank, intended to make Roosevelt seem almost superhuman. However, when Hoover blew his brains all over the platform, that was very much not staged.

    This left Sunday incredibly worried that his chance to take power was slipping away. He warned the Council:

    "Within a week he'll have every single one of his enemies blown to smithereens, by golly. We probably need to move against him publicly, and promptly, or there will be no stopping him. He just had his rival openly killed in front of a huge crowd. What else is he capable of?"​

    Sunday would soon find out. Dewey, in a conversation with Steele on February 24, just a few days away from the Cleansing Month and four days after Roosevelt's death, told him:

    "Joe, we live in a nasty, godforsaken world. It's kill or be killed. There isn't anything in this world for free. Everyone has to fight, tooth and nail, to get what they want, every day, every week, every year. That's what built this country. America is a ravenous predator, the most dominant in the world now that Old Boney has been brought down a notch. And we are surrounded by bumbling, incompetent chicanery and soft-spined left-wing agitators and bloodsucking holy-rollers. The vast majority of people are dumb, ignorant, slothful buffoons who can barely screw in a lightbulb or shoe a horse. But there are some of us, a chosen few, who are fortunate enough to be born into circumstances to put the world's ship back on course. God has nothing to do with it. Greatness is not found in a so-called God but by the strength of your fluids and blood and the fire in your belly to strive, strive, strive every day, as soon as you wake up and before you go to bed. Every generation, there is a Strong Man who appears to lead this country in the right direction and correct the previous generation's mistakes. It is natural selection, as Comrade-Patriots Darwin and Horatio Gibbs wrote about. Your father made a crucial mistake by letting the power of the Church grow so infinitely that here we now stand on the precipice of total civil war. We have dealt with your cousin and uncle. They know their places. Now Sunday is coming. We both know what he is capable of. The time is now. We live in a world of shit. A bubbling morass of death, despair, and destruction where only the fittest survive. Do it, Joe. Do what you were born to do. This is your chance. Destroy your enemies. Show no mercy. If you learn one thing from me, one at all, let it be this: do whatever you have to defeat your enemies and trust no one. The world is yours to dominate, Joe. Carpe Diem."
    As Icepick Joe reviewed the ORRA reports on Sunday's personal habits, he knew he truly was seizing the moment. When the call arrived in Sunday's office on March 1, the beginning of the Cleansing Month, asking Sunday to meet Steele in Martha's Vineyard for a sit-down, Sunday gladly accepted. He figured Steele was now about to ask for the approval of the Church, or at least something along those lines. Sunday even considered the idea of letting Steele remain in office as long as he bowed to Church policy. But that was not what was going to happen. Steele now held all the cards, and Sunday was walking into a hornet's nest....
     
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    SUNDAY COMING DOWN: THE BILLY SUNDAY STORY
  • SUNDAY COMING DOWN:
    THE BILLY SUNDAY STORY
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    Reverend-Colonel Sunday shares a laugh with the press and his police and Zealot security detail in New York during a Biblepalooza event

    The rise and fall of Wilhelm "Bible Billy Sunday" Sonntag is a fascinating study in how quickly someone could fall from the cusp of near absolute power. Born November 19, 1862, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to a Wilhelm and Mary Jane Sonntag. While his mother was born American, his bricklayer father was an immigrant from the Nordreich and a staunch Lutheran and adamant fan of beating his son with a belt. From a young age, Billy's father drilled the Bible and Lutheran dogma into him and would beat him regularly, but his mother would turn around and teach him American Fundamentalism and coddle him and tell him he was special. At school Billy was a very popular student, often the ring-leader in class projects and he was said to always have a girl on each arm. Growing up in the post-Lincoln, post-Great American War Union was tough for some, but not for Billy, and he knew from his earliest days he wanted to be a leader. He would tell his classmates that one day he would be President or a general, but when he officially converted to Fundamentalism after his father died in 1879, when Billy was just 17. His mother would pass the next year from grief. The future "Bible Billy" would write in his diary:

    "They are gone. I am alone. I serve God yet these tribulations are wrought upon me. I follow the Word and my parents are taken. This is truly what it feels like to be in darkness. I know not if I shall come out of this situation with my sanity or my faith. God help me."

    As Billy mourned the loss of his family and even contemplated suicide, his friends plied him with cocaine lozenges to help him get through the pain, starting a life-long habit. But cocaine was not all there was afoot at this time. The political landscape of America was radically changing. Gideon Claywell, the worst national leader since Adams, was bungling his way through an outbreak of Southron terrorists like the White League and a stagnating economy. The Manifest Destiny Party came to Chambersburg and began distributing revolutionary pamphlets calling for the installation of a "Strong Man" to lead the country to a glorious future. Before he knew it, Billy had left school and an offer of a free ride to Harvard from his wealthy uncle to throw himself into the MDP. Every day, Billy would put on his blue uniform and march around his town, an AFC Bible under one arm and a stack of propaganda posters under the other. He plastered his town with so many posters, such as the famous "JOIN THE MARCH" poster, that people began calling him "Posterboy." In 1881, Custer finally crossed the Rubicon and called for a general overthrow of the Claywell government. This was all Wilhelm Sonntag had to hear to rush to Philadelphia. Though he would see minimal action during the so-called Third Revolution, he would adamantly declare for decades that he had been in the thick of it.

    After Custer came to power, Billy moved to Shicagwa in 1882, picking up a job as an accounting clerk at the regional MDP office. It was there that he met Barbara Sue Wilkerson, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed all-American Better girl two years his junior who ran errands at the office and took notes. She was the daughter of wealthy railroad tycoon Fritz Wilkerson, and it was love at first sight. Billy was infatuated with the girl and they went to church together regularly. One morning, as Billy drove her back to her home on his buggy, he began talking about several weak points in the pastor's sermon. After a twenty minute monologue about it, his girlfriend smiled at him and said, "Why, Bill, if you think you can preach better than Pastor Jones, why not go preach yourself? I like to listen to you. Surely others would as well."

    Billy flicked the reigns to speed his horse up as he thought about what she said. Maybe that was it! Maybe, rather than President or a general, he was destined to spread the Word of Jehovah and Prophet to the masses. At first he dismissed the idea, because he had not gone to college. He would not take action immediately, instead pondering over the career move for two years. In 1883, Billy and Barbara were married at the Fundamentalist Church of Shicagwa. In 1884, they would have their first child, Anne Elizabeth, who would become Billy's pride and joy. In 1885, Billy finally decided to enter the ministry, applying for an official license to preach from the Shicagwa City Seminary.

    By the winter of 1885, Billy was well and truly on his way. In just a few years, his fiery oratory and showmanship made him well-known all across the Midwest, from Oshkosh to Lewis City. He formed Billy Sonntag's Circuit Riders in 1890, who, despite the name, rode in new-fangled autocarriages rather than horses. Billy cut a dashing figure, cruising and schmoozing from town to town, always wearing a scarf, brown leather trenchcoat, brass goggles, and newsie cap. He was a natural showman, and everywhere he went huge crowds would follow. In some of the backwoods towns he visited there were people who had never even seen an auto before. Now here was a handsome, charismatic, snake-handling, spirit-slaying gentleman rolling through town in a crazy contraption, and this was always sure to draw crowds. As his celebrity grew, people would send word to nearby towns that "Bible Billy Sunday" was on his way. If given enough warning, some towns actually erected polebarns and other buildings to hold him.

    Alas, it was during these first few years of celebrity that Billy began to show himself as someone of less than decent morals. In each town, there would be many, many dinners he would be invited to by local families, and he usually picked the ones who had the most attractive wives. The women would obsess over him so much that they would beg for him to "fill them with the Holy Spirit." Billy would rationalize this as a Pinnacle Man spreading his seed. In order to keep up the insane schedule of sometimes three towns a day, he also fell to heavier cocaine use. During this time he was known to have said, "I carry two things with me: my Bible and a carton of Firebreathers. I'm a hell of a lot less entertaining when I have only one and not the other." Really, Sunday was becoming the forerunner for most popular musicians and and celebrities of the next century, exhausting himself and burning himself out on drugs to fight the exhaustion he felt. Despite his low energy, he never showed weakness, always full of fire and vigor at every stop.

    "I'm gonna fill ya full of fire, full of vigor, and full of the Holy Spirit! Yessir, Reverend Billy has come to town with love in his heart, a snake in his hand, and the Word of God in his mouth. And let me tell ya folks, ooh-wee, there is a real pack of sinners right here. All of us. But with the everlasting promise of sanctification through the Blood of Christ and the Words of the Prophet, I guarantee ya you guys can attain true happiness and fulfillment in duty to God and country! This is a fallen world, full of that nasty little creature called sin, but we also live in the New Jerusalem, given to us by God to build his holy Kingdom! Yessir, sin may get in and crawl right in your soul, but Reverend Billy is gonna crawl in right after 'em and yank him right out and beat the devil out of him with a rounders bat of righteousness, yessir. I'm gonna thrash ya, bash ya, and trash ya, but then I'm gonna build you up. God whispers in my one ear and the Prophet whispers in the other and I just let them take over. You must trust in the Lord Jehovah and believe the words of the Bible and the Four Books! Behold this snake in my left hand! If I get bit I am forty minutes away from medical treatment. I just gotta have faith that today isn't my day. But if it is my time, then the Lord will take me, yessir."

    - Typical Billy Sunday opening monologue circa 1892

    Sunday would deliver his sermons so quickly that it was almost like being at an auction. He rarely rehearsed or planned what he would say, instead preferring to "Let God do the talking." Fired up on Firebreathers, he would prance around the stage, gesturing wildly, his bloodshot eyes feverishly staring down the crowd. The eyes were famous, and many said it seemed as if he was looking into their very souls. His sometimes almost unintelligible sermons would be countered by his magnificently insane rituals he would perform, such as exorcisms and spirit-slaying. In March of 1892, Sunday would draw the largest crowd in Lewis City history with his "Springtime Biblepalooza." Bands and musicians came in from across the region to fiddle and pick and over 40,000 people attended the five-day revival and spiritual music festival, raising well over two million dollars for the Church in donations and offerings. The Council of Jehovah took notice.

    Interestingly, as far as available historic information can tell, none of the Reverend-Colonels were ever members of the Council of Jehovah, securing their point of pride in the fact that no members of the Council had ever been named, this securing their anonymity and freedom to rule as they saw fit as a totally secret society. Sunday rose directly through the ranks to become one of the most powerful men in the country. In 1894, he was named Regional Deacon over the greater Midwestern area. He oversaw a remodel of the Chapel of the New Jerusalem in Shicagwa, where he would preach every Sunday for the next few years.

    His folksy charm, no-holds-barred preaching, and over-the-top bombastic showmanship had brought him this far, and after the appointment to Regional Deacon, he began to use more and more cunning and manipulation to get what he wanted. By this point he already knew he wanted to be Reverend-Colonel, and when the call came in 1898 that Reverend-Colonel Moody was seeking an apprentice, he immediately resigned his post as Regional Deacon to become Church Secretary of Coin and Tithe, leading huge revivals and fundraisers based on his old "Biblepalooza" events. With money rolling in like never before in Church history, the Council informed him he was the next likely candidate for Reverend-Colonel.

    All during these years, Billy would have two more children, Daniel and Job, and would also serve as MDP Bannerman for the Shicagwa area upon recommendation by none other than Horatio Hendrick. These years of unbridled success and greatness were not always happy, however, for the preacher. His cocaine addiction grew more and more ravenous and he also developed a habit for scotch. He had, by now, cheated on his wife dozens if not hundreds of times and he had grown incredibly distant with his young children. Despite all of his personal transgressions, he still seemed to have genuinely believed he was serving Jehovah. But the worst was yet to come. On April 18th, 1902, Military Police responded to a domestic disturbance at the Sunday house in Philadelphia. Billy's wife had confronted him at last about his fornication and addictions and Billy had responded with beating her with a belt, leaving her almost unconscious. At first, the police were about to arrest the wife-beater, but when they realized who he was they dismissed the case and struck it from the records.

    His wife now saw no way out and no way to escape his violent rages. He would, on a regular basis, continue to cheat on her with possibly dozens more women all over the country who were eager for the "Man of God" to "put the fire of the Pinnacle Man in their loins." Finally, on April 18, 1906, Barbara Sue declared she was leaving him and packed several bags to flee to the Tobias Institute for refuge. This would prove to be Billy's final breaking point. In a violent drunken rage, he choked her to death in their living room while their children slept. Silently, with no sign of panic, he put the body in the back of his Colonel Ford and drove her to Cherry Hill, a nearby suburb of Philadelphia, where he buried the body in an unmarked location in the woods. He then proceeded to seek out police the next day and reported that his wife had gone to the department store and had never come back. RUMP launched a kidnapping investigation but never found any leads and, although there certainly were suspicions from detectives, Billy was never listed as a person of interest due to his fame and high ranking in the Church and Party.

    The next few years were incredibly liberating for Sunday. He entrusted the care of his children to nannies and hit the road, evangelizing across the country on a mission to "save one million souls for Jesus and Prophet." His womanizing and power grew ever greater and when he was finally declared Reverend-Colonel in 1909, he saw himself almost as a god. Millions of Americans, most of the country, revered him as a Man of God and a hero. Every stop he made across the country was huge news as people waited with bated breath for the next words to come out of his mouth. Riding high, Sunday had achieved everything he had ever wanted.

    That was when he realized he still felt empty inside and like he had not done everything he could have actually done to succeed in life. It was then he began to formulate a rough idea about potentially using Church clout to seize power over the entire country some day. But that was a far-off horizon. It would take a world war to make him convinced that such a move was possible.

    That brings us back to the current study of his secret struggle against the bloody madman that was Joe Steele in 1914. The upstart President had come seemingly out of nowhere to seize power for himself and ripped it away from Sunday's waiting hands. Sunday hated Steele with a burning passion but he was also extremely pragmatic and utilitarian in achieving his goals. He made an offer for Steele to remain President as long as he always listened to him and the Council on important decisions. Steele seemingly was considering this when he asked Sunday to join him for a sit-down in Martha's Vineyard, a popular vacation spot for elites off the coast of Massachusetts. Chappaquiddick, a small village and sometimes-island on the eastern end of the Vineyard would be where the fate of the Union would lie.

    Steele had prepared a handsome cottage to host the event at, with just enough room for them to sit inside comfortably if they left their security outside. With nothing between the two rivals but a coffee table and some warm tea, the two men finally came face-to-face.

    Joe Steele had just taken a sip of his tea, smacking his lips contentedly, when Sunday broke the silence. "So," he began, "How are you today, Mr. Steele?" Sunday sat at the small oak table directly across from Steele in the parlor of the cottage. The intricate carvings of on the legs and chairs reflected the craftsmanship of men who had spent decades honing their craft. Sunday suspected that the cottage was actually Steele's vacation home.

    Joe didn't respond for a few moments, taking another sip of tea and gazing at Billy with cold, almost demonic eyes. "I am fine. I suppose you wonder why I asked you to come here, eh? I hope you like the house. Our dear late President bought it for me when I returned from Holy Nippon. I call it Tranquility. I come here to think and meditate." Joe took another taste of the black tea, lightly sugared, and appeared quite content. The fact he was possibly on the verge of sparking a civil war seemed to him no different than discussing a game of rounders. In fact, Joe was an avid Philadelphia Yankees fan, and he probably got more worked up over their ballgames than discussing the fate of an empire with the most powerful religious leader this side of the Pope.

    Billy lit a Firebreather on a stick and took a puff of the cocaine cigarette. "It is indeed a lovely home. I enjoy the simple things in life myself, you know. As for why you brought me here at all, I presumed it was over the legitimacy of your administration, frankly. I know you need the Church's weight behind you. You can't get anywhere in this country without our backing. Without my backing."

    Joe chuckled quietly without cracking a smile once. "You might be right, Mr. Sunday. I do need the Church to cooperate with my rule else appear illegitimate." Joe set his teacup down and scratched at the beginnings a mustache on his lip, wiping the tea from it. He was wearing a simple, unassuming blue uniform with a stiff, starched collar. The collar was open, informally, revealing a white crew neck shirt underneath. Joe, with his less-than-impressive mustache and casual attire, didn't look like a man with the power of life and death over millions, but he was in that position nonetheless.

    "I can tell you, Mr. Steele, that, per some conditions, the Church is ready and willing to support your rule," Sunday said, setting his cigarette down to take another sip out of the dainty white tea up. Despite thinking the meeting was going as expected, Steele was being eerily restrained. Something was amiss. Sunday finished his drink and sat it down, patting his belly contentedly. He looked far more rigid and uncomfortable than Steele in his formal suit with tails and vest, a red tie cinched tightly around his neck. An AFC Cross-and-Star was pinned to his tie to compliment the Union banner pin on his jacket lapel.

    Joe looked him straight in the eyes as he crossed his arms, suddenly looking far more dictatorial. "I can tell you, Mr. Sunday, that per my conditions I won't have you taken behind this house and shot to death."

    Sunday recoiled instantly in horror. He knew Steele hated his guts, but such a blatant threat was unexpected, at least today. "Mr. Steele, there is no need to be uncouth. I have not acted against you in any way and I see no reason why you should have me executed!"

    The fascist leader threw back his head and let out a painfully drawn-out fake laugh. Pretending to wipe a tear from his eye, he answered, "Sunday, you 'uncouth' twat, I am no fool. I am not my father. Or my uncle. You cannot conspire against Joseph Steele and get away from it. If you think for a moment that I didn't have agents telling me your every move as you rallied your Zealots for a march on the capital, you are very, very stunted indeed. Only a lunatic would think he could conspire against the Strong Man of the Chosen without being watched like a bug under a lens. And that is what you are, Sunday. A bug. A filthy, decadent, humping dung beetle, scraping by every day on cocaine and the good ladies of the Church. Tell me, did you enjoy murdering your wife?"

    "WHAT?!" spat Sunday, full of both rage and fear. "What on earth are you talking about, you madman?"

    Steele grinned evilly as he relaxed and crossed his legs, taking up his teacup again. "How nice of my uncle's men to not arrest you for such an obvious murder. I said my uncle was a fool, not stupid. If you also think he didn't keep the file of your wife's disappearance and its obvious implications after the Council got you off the hook, you are not only stunted insect of a man but also insane. My uncle was very helpful when he provided me with all the files RUMP has ever had on you. My ORRA boys have been going through your records night and day. You have a very sordid past, don't you?"

    Sunday couldn't believe it. All these years he had spent planning and scheming were being decimated by this upstart orphan. It couldn't be happening. He had everything planned out and now it was all falling to ashes. "I don't know what cockamamie balderdash your goons have been cookin' up, Steele, but I won't sit here and be insulted, threatened, and accused of high crimes. I represent God's Church on this earth and live a steadfastly moral and Christian life."

    Steele suddenly stood up in a flash of a second, reached across the table with a mighty hand, and hoisted Sunday up by the tie, dragging him face-to-face and cutting off his air supply. As Steele spoke, his spittle flecked all across Sunday's face. "You scum. I know all about your affairs with your men's wives and daughters. I have over one hundred women ready to testify about you having your way with them, some when they were as young as twelve. I may be a bad man, but I'm not a child molester, 'reverend.' So if you think that America will follow you in a civil war and not call for you to be drawn and quartered once my papers are done, you are very sorely mistaken, 'reverend.' I will give you once chance, you sorry son of a bitch. And if you work against me or lie to me I will have you torn limb from limb and have your penis preserved in a jar so I can laugh at it every day as I remember the whoring, conceited, tiny little man that you are." Steele finally let go of Sunday's tie, sending him rocking back into his chair and clutching his neck as he struggled to breathe. "I will give you one chance. I need a mole on the inside of my opposition. The highest-ranking Betters of Society discuss their most personal matters and problems with you. You are essentially their father-confessor, as the Papists would say. That's useful. It's the only way you are useful, so keep doing it. And every single time you hear something interesting, you are going to bring it to me. You are going to let me know every word anyone of importance says to you. I don't care what it is or what it's about. If it would make for interesting reading while I take a shit, you will tell me. And you will tell this nation Joe Steele is their legitimate President, ordained by Jehovah to fulfill Manifest Destiny and lead the New Jerusalem or I will have you strangled in your bed. Do we have an understanding?"

    Sunday was white as a ghost, still clutching his throat. Rivers of cold sweat run down his brow and into his eyes. His eyes were lit up in fear. "And... if I do these things I will remain Reverend-Colonel?"

    "Yes, you fool. You can smoke, drink, and whore yourself right to the gates of Hell as a Reverend-Colonel for all I care. You can fornicate all you want and I will look the other way. But in exchange you are going to be my little pet. I ask for something, you do it. Understood?"

    Sunday wanted to crawl in a hole and bury himself. He dejectedly stood up, shoulders slumped, and extended a hand to shake. "You... have a deal, Mr. President."

    A few minutes later, as Sunday exited the cottage, one of his personal Zealots greeted him with a salute outside and asked, "Did things go well, Reverend-Colonel?"

    Sunday lit up another Firebreather before answering. He was shaking. But he put himself together and plastered on a smile, patting the Zealot on the shoulder and answering, "Yes. Yes, by George, we have him right where we want him." At that he climbed into the back seat of his armored Colonel Ford and his convoy drove off. Just as Sunday began to recover from the shock of the meeting, he heard a ticking sound. He looked for the source and quickly found it was a bomb timer hidden underneath the seat. As panic began to set in, he noticed a piece of paper stuck to the timer. He quickly unfolded it and it read:

    "Dear Reverend-Colonel. This is a false bomb. But I could have just as easily had a real one planted. Just in case you think you can trust your Zealots, know you are never out of my grasp. Trust no one, not even yourself. All hail."
     
    CHAPTER 66

  • CHAPTER 66
    A STEEL OATH

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    Reverend-Colonel Sunday announces the Church's support for Steele's Presidency inside the Capitol Building, Philadelphia (March 2, 1914, colorized)

    Joe Steele, wearing a Great American War era-style Union Blue officer's uniform, waved to thousands of admirers, all recently vaccinated from the Beckie Flu. He waved his cavalry hat, adorned with gold braid and a crossed-swords emblem, as he contemplated the future of the nation. His Colonel Ford convertible was making its way to the steps of Independence Hall for his official swearing-in as President-for-Life. All around, people writhed like mounds of cockroaches, desperately trying to get a view of their new supreme leader. The sun shone down from the bright blue cloudless sky but was almost blocked out by the innumerable flags and banners lining the streets, hung from windows, streetlights, and waving on poles as far the eye could see, held aloft and waved by his adoring followers. It was March 5, 1914, and the American Fundamentalist Church and its Reverend-Colonel had just put its weight behind Steele's rule, essentially making his rule undisputed. Steele smiled and blew a kiss to a little girl saluting on the side of the street. She was lucky, he thought, for she was about to get a front-row seat to the future of the world.

    As the caravan of vehicles came to a halt in front of Independence Hall, the drums got louder and the bells pealed out all over the city. Not far away, the Liberty Bell was clanging up a storm. What had one day celebrated the overthrow of a tyrannical king now celebrated the coming of a tyrannical king. With the backing of the Church, and thanks to Sunday's previous cuckholding of the Council of Jehovah, Steele was now virtually unopposed. There were some ardent opponents left, such as the leftovers of Roosevelt's Bull Moose Movement, but his very public assassination had left little energy behind the movement. While the government listed his death as "an attack by insidious anarchists," most could connect the obvious dots and knew Steele had had him killed, and that was what Steele wanted. He knew it was obvious. He knew that almost anyone with half a brain would realize he was the only one who had the motive and the means to organize the hit. But he didn't care. He wanted to show people that, in Steele's America, treason would not go unpunished. The survival of the fittest was over, and the true Strong Man was made manifest to all in the form of the steely-eyed man now walking up the steps to Independence Hall.

    Over all hung the haunting sounds of The President's Own, the best-trained military band in the world. As Steele entered the building a tenor was belting out "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," and the crowds were joining in. Some even held effigies of Teddy Roosevelt, mockingly adorned with a hole in his straw head, making the likenesses look like donuts with mustaches. One little boy held aloft a sign that read, in his own childish handwriting, "DEATH ALWAYS TO TRAITORS." Even inside the Hall, the sounds of the crowd made it almost impossible to even concentrate on anything. Security uneasily surveyed the area, anxious to get the ceremony over with. Finally, in the Meeting Room, Steele found peace. The original colonial-era tables, adorned with red-white-and-blue bunting, were all empty but set for the feast that would follow the inauguration. Sitting behind the desk at the front of the room, the location from which the Declaration of Independence had been drafted in over a hundred years prior, was Billy Sunday, glumly biting his nails and watching Steele enter the room and walk his way. Sunday would administer the oath of office in about ten minutes.

    Sunday rose from his seat and saluted, "Mr. President, I trust you are ready for the show?"

    Steele saluted back half-heartedly and answered, "Of course, of course, formalities and all. Nice to see you're in such good spirits in the face of supreme defeat, Reverend-Colonel." Steel grinned wickedly, enjoying Sunday's misery.

    The preacher looked down at the old oak floor. "Yes, of course, sir. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go address the people." Sunday bowed slightly and then left the room to head outside. Sunday couldn't believe the scope of the crowds outside. He had not seen anything like it before. Even his own ascendance to the Reverend-Colonelship years before had not been anywhere close to this energetic or size. He realized he had to play along. The American people honestly deserved Steele, he thought. They knew Steele had Roosevelt killed but everyone pretended that that idea was absurd. It was like their brains couldn't handle the thought. Even worse, Sunday was pretty sure that most of them even liked it. They had been told Roosevelt stood for degeneracy and weakness and they wished him dead for it. They approved of his assassination. While Sunday had considered a last all-or-nothing attack on Steele, he knew that, in all likelihood, the people would probably rip him into tiny shreds before Icepick Joe would even have to lift a finger. Sunday sighed and opened the door to speak to the masses. He put on his happy face and took to the podium.

    "My fellow Americans, all hail! It is my utmost privilege on this beautiful sunny day to do something which has not been done since 1881. It is my highest honor to administer the oath of office to the next President of the Republican Union. Not just any Strong Man will take this oath and stand before you. Not just any war hero or adventurer will recite the solemn pledge. No, for the man who will be reciting it shortly will be the absolute Strongest Man in the Union, possibly the strongest that has ever lived. When it comes to Joe Steele, there is no doubt in my mind that he is the best man for the job and that he has been chosen by God to fulfill our sacred Destiny. Joe Steele is one of the humblest and most sincere men it has ever been my pleasure to meet. A living testament to the wise words of the Book of James, Chapter 4, Verse 10, which reads, 'Humble yourself before Jehovah your God and he shall lift you up.' My fellow Americans, three days ago I appeared before the entirety of the Union government at the Capitol and told them why I was backing Mr. Steele and why he was the legitimate leader of this our cherished country. I referenced Matthew 20:26 when I said, 'Whoever wants to become great among thee must be thy servant.' Ladies and gentlemen, truly the Union has no greater or more loyal servant than Joseph Steele. This rock of evangelical faith and family values first served his country in Holy Nippon and survived his aeroship being shot down in hostile woodlands. Upon picking themselves out of the wreck, they found themselves completely surrounded by the Shinto hordes. Armed with only a grinder gun and with ammunition belts thrown over his shoulder, he decimated the heathen attackers on the ground and saved the lives of not only himself and his crew, but also that of the Sky Marshal, our beloved Comrade-Patriot, Warren Harding, who stands behind me today holding the Bible upon which his former junior officer will swear his sacred oath."

    Warren Harding nodded behind him upon his name being mentioned and bowed slightly as applause rang out. In his right hand was Aaron Burr's first personal edition of the AFC Bible. The clapping echoed for miles, as thousands of eager fascists hooted and cheered. It was the first major public gathering since the outbreak of the Beckie Flu, and the newly-vaccinated crowds were feeling triumphant, both in the war and against the Flu. The Cleansing Month was going off without a hitch so far, better than Steele, Goldstein, or Finch could have ever dreamed. As Steele came out of the door of Independence Hall, the crowds were almost hysterical once again. RUMP officers carrying Roman-style shields formed a wall to keep the crowds back a flower petals and roses were thrown over their heads. Steele smiled and stopped halfway to the podium as the band struck up "Hail to the Chief" and the Liberty Bell again rang out. Finally, he reached the podium and shook hands and saluted Sunday and Harding. There were two other men on the platform. One was Dr. Midas Goldstein, already a legend for the success of the vaccine, and the other man was ORRA Supreme Chief Dewey. Finally, Matilda Richardson also gazed proudly at what was essentially her son. Dewey, ever dignified, properly saluted Joe and and then shook his hand heartily, followed by Goldstein. Elderly Richardson saluted the new President before giving him a hug. "I want you to know, Joe," she said, "I'm very proud of you. Go be the Strong Man you were meant to be."

    Finally, as the crowd and music quieted, 20 soldiers in Colonial dress and powdered wigs blew trumpets to announce the beginning of the ceremony. As they played, Harding walked forward and presented the Bible, a wrinkly red leather AFC Standard. Sunday turned to face Steele.

    "Mr. Steele," Sunday began, "Are you ready to take the oath of office of the highest position in the Union?"

    Steele smiled at him, knowing how miserable the preacher must be. "Yes," he said calmly, "I am."

    "Place your right hand on the Bible and raise the other, sir," instructed Sunday. Steele's calloused hand slid over the book, a silver ring bearing the Union Eagle glinting in the sunlight. He was truly ready now. Dewey and Richardson smiled. Sunday then administered the oath of office.

    "I, Joseph Steele, do solemnly swear upon the Holy Books of my deeply-held Christian Fundamentalist faith that I will preserve, protect, and defend the Republican Union of America and will, to the best of my ability, seek to maintain the purity of its people, institutions, culture, and the precious Pinnacle Blood that runs through our veins. So help me Jehovah."

    As soon as Steele was done, Sunday said loudly, "Congratulations, Mr. President!" with as much of a false smile as he could muster before saluting.

    Immediately, an Army officer standing to the side of the platform screamed "ALL HAIL THE ATHELING, PRESIDENT, AND PINNACLE MAN!" At that, every single man, woman, and child present raised their hands in silence. Tens of thousands of people gave the fascist salute to the new dictator. The eerie silence went on for a good ten seconds before, once more, the Liberty Bell rang out, signalling every other bell in the city to begin the celebrations. Down the block, ORRA officers in colonial dress fired cannons into the air, a twenty-one gun salute. The band struck up "Yankee Doodle" as loud as they could as the people cheered wildly again. Finally, Steele motioned for everyone to calm and he delivered his inaugural address.

    "I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. We have been through the dark days of adversity and we now stand in the light. The Empire is on the run, the liberal Papists flee with their tails tucked between their legs. In coordination with the Central Powers, we dealt a knock-out blow to a bloated regime well past its prime. However, as I have said before, the Central Powers left the war on terms beneficial to the Empire. That is unacceptable. But, even in the face of such a betrayal, our people have fought on, wiping out the Bonapartist menace in the Americas completely while also making headway in the Pacific. But even in these days of victory, there were many of you who feared for our future upon the outbreak of the Flu, the passing of my beloved father, all hail, and the continued insurrection in Holy Nippon. But even though many fears of setback hung over us like a fog, through it all was a beacon of Jehovah's eternal promise to the Prophet: 'Manifest Destiny shall heal our wounds and sorrow, for God our Lord has set us above all other nations.' Stand strong, true free men, against the storms the world and the devil may hurl at our dear country, this New Jerusalem. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, forever.

    "Furthermore, unlike the cowardly Europeans, the Britannic Union and the Confederation of the Carolinas stand strong with us, fighting on. As long the dastardly Irish scum continue to fly their absinthe-soaked banner of degeneracy over the Emerald Isle, we shall never make peace with the Empire. We stand with our sister-regimes' war goal, which is the crippling of the Bonapartist Continental System for all time. As long as Ireland continues to fight on, my administration will never consider peace with the Imperialists.

    "Proof of God's eternal light, our country has been blessed with the Cleansing Month, a program planned by my father but currently being carried out in his memory. Millions of Americans, regardless of status in Society, are being vaccinated against the Beckie Menace, perhaps the only threat greater to the Union than Bonapartist tyranny. We did it. The Anglo-Saxon Teutonic race cured the worst plague in a thousand years. With Jehovah's help, there is nothing we cannot accomplish. No plague too deadly, no foe too aggressive. Truly, it is my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, for the Lord of Hosts is with us! Yesterday's goals become tomorrow's history.

    "As our national project, the restoration of the Pinnacle Bloodline, draws closer to its conclusion, and as we continue to assert our will around the world, we must also be careful to not fall to enemies from within. Even as our blood runs purer than ever before, even as we triumph over our enemies, and even as we celebrate the conquering of the Flu, there are still elements within our society and even our government that oppose God's divine will and plot destruction and anarchy from their positions inside the deep, dark corners of state. We must be cautious, now more than ever, against letting degeneracy, Popery, anarchy, or degeneracy from taking hold inside our precious Union. As long as I breathe, the spread of this Luciferian agenda will be crushed. At no point should the average man lie awake at night worrying if his neighbor is a Catholic idolater. No Yankee mother should fear the pollution of her children's minds by left-wing agitators. Although our crime statistics are low, any crime at all in God's Kingdom is entirely unacceptable.

    "With this righteous mission from Jehovah fueling the fire in my belly, my first official act as your oath-sworn President and Atheling will be the implementation of what I have called the Focus on the Family Act. Working together with our loyal RUMP, ORRA, and military heroes, we will conduct a purge of sorts upon the sinners among us. Earlier today, I signed the Focus on the Family into law, legal as soon as I took the oath. With this program, I created what we have called 'Redemption Maniples,' which are military units where lawbreakers may save their careers and lives. Beginning today, those Betters arrested for such offenses as buggery, degeneracy, adultery, robbery, refusal to work, and other despicable acts will be given a single chance to retake their place among the Betters of Society by serving in the Redemption Maniples. While this initial crackdown may seem harsh, it is in fact a mercy. Instead of letting Betters fester in the prisons of our nation, never useful again and living off taxpayer eagles, they will be allowed to redeem themselves. For Jesus Christ showed mercy upon the least of the people of Judea, why should the New Jerusalem not follow the example of our Heavenly King? But as it is merciful to sinners it is also unwavering in its defense of our nation's virtue. While before adultery was treated as a personal issue, between a family and Jehovah, it will now be publicly treated as a high crime and felony. America's families are the heart of our nation, and the debauched hedonism and lackadaisical approach to the institution of marriage which is practiced in other realms has no place here. Just as we shall bring stability to the world, so to shall we bring stability to the family unit. Indeed, we cannot have one without the other. The Focus on the Family Act will apply to every American Better, regardless of status or position, and will be implemented as swiftly as law enforcement can accomplish.

    "With these words, America, I leave you today. I seek to bring order, prosperity, wealth, and safety to us and to future generations. The state of this fallen world demands action by God's Chosen! America calls for action! We humbly beseech Almighty Jehovah to lead us, this and every day, and to use us as the instrument of his will, amen and all hail!"


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    Soldiers and citizens celebrate Steele's inauguration in the streets

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    President Steele watches as ORRA troops march by

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    Stereoscopic slide of RUMP officers on parade
     
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    BEHOLD A PALE HORSE: THE CLEANSING MONTH


  • BEHOLD A PALE HORSE:
    THE CLEANSING MONTH

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    Inferior ghetto-dwellers in New York City line up to be vaccinated against the Beckie Flu


    Johnny get your shot,

    Get your shot, get your shot!

    Put that flu on the run,

    on the run, on the run!

    Health and Wellness for you and me,

    And every Son of Liberty!

    Hurry, right away!

    Go today, no delay!

    Make Uncle Joe glad

    to have had such a lad!

    Tell your sweetheart not to whine,

    and tell her to step up next in line!

    And we won't stop Cleansing until that Flu's on the run!

    - "Johnny Get Your Shot," the official talkiebox jingle of the Office of Health and Wellness

    The implementation of the Beckie Flu Vaccine Program was stunning both in its thoroughness and its speed. Never before had anything of the sort ever been achieved in human history. And the Republican Union wasn't about to let such a thing come and go without using it to its utmost advantage. While Steele had just announced his Focus on the Family Act, its groundwork had in fact been laid in secret by Dewey and especially Richardson. Richardson had, decades earlier, been the creator of the "Separate Worlds" policy, which legally banned Inferiors from living in areas close to Betters. Now, she would see this program brought to its next level by her protege, Joe Steele. Every single person in the Union received a "Societal Identification Number" as they were vaccinated, enabling the government to properly keep record of its patients.

    However, this was also an easy way for the government to permanently identify its citizens. Those identified as Betters of Society were given SINs beginning with the letter "B," for "Better," while those identified as Inferiors were given SINs beginning with an "I." While he was not quite the first to receive the vaccine (beaten by several hundred military test subjects and Camp 222 prisoners), President Steele honorarily became Citizen B-1. Most other citizens were given a randomly-generated SIN. Each SIN number came with a small leather booklet containing a photograph of the person in question and featured not only their SIN number but also birth date, physical description, birthplace, and medical information. This caused some discontent with some citizens who viewed it as intrusive, but no one publicly called it out as totalitarian and most happily accepted salvation from the Flu. Another new rule stated that every citizen must carry their SIN booklet with them at all times and always be ready to show police and authorities the information at all times to "deter illegal foreign aliens, enemy agents, spies, false Betters, and crime of all sorts."

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    Example of an early SIN number booklet

    But even as the Societal Identification Numbers were issued and reports of the Flu began to plummet around the nation, something else, even more sinister, was at work. As agreed to at Kissimmee, three-quarters of Inferiors were scheduled to die by vaccine poisoning during the Cleansing Month. The poison used, developed by Goodyear Laboratories in rural Chersonesus under a top-secret government contract, was created to show no ill effects for a good month or two after inoculation. Millions upon millions were scheduled to die. Curious newspaper reporters wrote stories about the sudden boom in the manufacture of "mobill oven trucks," despite the vaccine's unmitigated success. Many of these reporters quickly found themselves in ORRA interrogation chambers before long and were ordered to "forget whatever it was that you didn't see." In reality, the Union Office of Health of Wellness (OHW), newly formed from the old Office of Influenza Management, was preparing for the massive die-off of Inferiors that would follow the Cleansing Month. As starving, sick Inferiors piled up in droves for the inoculation, it was clear that most of them, considering their then present medical condition, would not need a very large push to get them to fall over into the waiting arms of the mobill oven drivers. As millions of Americans finally felt safe for the first time in years, even Inferiors, national stability was greatly enhanced. In many ghettos, ORRA and OHW offered the Inferiors the vaccine in exchange for standing down from rioting or rebelling, proclaiming, "President Steele has decided to bring about a new era of safety and security by gifting the lowest elements of Society the ability to freely work, shop, and travel without the fear of the terrible disease known as the Beckie Flu." By mid-March, most Inferior and anarchist groups inside the Union had laid their weapons down and agreed to live in peace in exchange for the vaccine.

    Of note, there were two ghettos that rejected the vaccine offer. The first was the Oakridge City ghetto, near Doubleday, Appalachia (formerly Louisville, Kentucky, before the Union General Abner Doubleday captured it for the Union during the Great American War). An Inferior council of elders had proclaimed the People's Republic of Oakridge, a semi-Beutelist commune, and they had wisely decided that the government's offer had to have some catch. In their minds they were valiantly holding out against tyranny and were scraping by by farming just enough grain to feed their 10,000 people. While many were close to starvation and meat was extremely scarce (many Oakridge dwellers were known for their taste for rat, mouse, snake, and raccoon meat), they decided that the Union government was never to be trusted. What followed was one of the most blatant and brutal massacres in Union history. For two weeks, a standoff dragged on. Every day, ORRA officers approached the crude battlements of the commune and begged the Inferiors to surrender and be vaccinated, with the promise that all crimes would be forgiven by the President in exchange for their complacency. Every morning the militiamen on the wall would deny the offer, pledging to stand on their own without any help from "a pack of ravenous wolves." Finally, 57 year-old local ORRA commander Rusty Hancock, son of former President Winston Schofield Hancock, received orders from Goldstein himself. If Oakridge would not accept their generous terms, then it would be put to the sword.


    "Under no circumstances whatsoever is the nascent commune of Luciferian hillbillies to be allowed to continue spitting in our faces. The vaccination effort is already far too behind in this area. Crush them utterly. Make. Oakridge. Go. Away."

    - Dr. Midas Goldstein, Supreme Chief of the Office of Health and Wellness, March 20, 1914

    Far be it from Rusty Hancock to make waves, he immediately followed orders to the letter. On the morning of March 21, a final plea was made for the commune to dissolve and accept ORRA and OHW officials into their midst. A final rejection was the anarchists' answer. At 9 am, that same morning, ORRA artillery pieces commenced bombardment of Oakridge Commune. Instantly, the defenses were crumbling. The weak walls and fences that had been erected stood no chance against the heavy shells and mortars of ORRA. By 9:15, the defenses were mostly down and ORRA troops were rushing into the holes, bayonets forward. Every single man, woman, and child inside the city was put to the sword, a final furious punishment for daring to oppose the government. Over 10,000 Inferiors were listed as "liquidated" by the government forces before the entire town was set alight and burned to the ground. Hancock rode in personally on his Appalachian Walker horse and surveyed the destruction. Lighting a Morton's Finest, he took a deep breath before telling one of his adjutants, "Don't let it bother you none, son. We tried. We tried like Hell. But when you mess with the bull, you get the horns. Play stupid damn games, win stupid damn prizes." After a week-long cleanup process, bulldozing equipment came in to level the city. Oakridge was completely wiped off the face of the earth, its very memory erased. The Appalachian governor, Marc Antony Johnson, enacted a law overnight that actually made it illegal to even mention the former town.

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    ORRA Commander Russell "Rusty" Lincoln Hancock, perpetrator of the Immolation of Oakridge

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    ORRA and Health and Wellness officers inspect the corpse-mounds in Oakridge before its total destruction

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    Inferior homes are torched during the Immolation of Oakridge

    The entire time Oakridge was under siege, another Inferior commune was rejecting the government's offer of forgiveness and vaccination. This time it was the Trinity City Industrial Community of Texas, a ghetto just ten miles away from the capital of the state. Governor Oscar Campbell personally arrived on the scene as several thousand Inferiors rejected the "generous" terms given to them. Worried that allowing the standoff to drag on could escalate civil unrest, Governor Campbell called up President Steele personally and asked for permission to handle the problem his own way. "Don't disappoint me, Governor," warned Steele, before granting his permission. Campbell ordered his combination of ORRA, RUMP, and OHW forces to assault the town, ordering that every single man who resisted was to be put to the sword immediately. Over the course of about twenty minutes, Campbell bungled the operation spectacularly, vastly underestimating the tenacity of the rebels. By the end of the day, Governor Campbell himself and twenty of his men were taken prisoner and held hostage by the Inferiors. Roger O'brian, the head of the commune, then instructed for government forces to respect Trinity City Industrial Community's sovereignty or Governor Campbell would be put to death.

    This would backfire extraordinarily. Instead of attempting to negotiate the return of the Texas governor, Steele ordered ORRA forces to shell the town with artillery and gas rounds. When ORRA commander Joshua Branch asked Steele if he was sure of the decision, Steele replied, his voice ice-cold, "I told that man not to fail me." Most of the town was shelled and poisoned with mustard gas, and Governor Campbell was among the casualties. Steele appointed Branch as Emergency Governor, with his reason simply being, "He didn't fail me." Branch rounded up the survivors of the commune and had them promptly hanged for treason against the state, earning him the nickname "Hangem' Branch." Branch would become a pet favorite of Steele and it would not be the last time the world would hear of him. At only 30 years of age, he had a long career in front of him still.

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    Texas Governor Joshua Roy "Hangem'" Branch

    Steele had basically ordered the execution of a state governor, and this did not go unnoticed by the rest of the government at large. Newspapers were totally silent, however, simply reporting that Governor Campbell had died and had been replaced. For those not in the government, military, or security forces, there was nothing strange going on. Most Texans were completely unaware of the whole situation, a marvel of ORRA's control of information. But inside the government, panic was beginning to spread. The Focus on the Family had not yet been fully implemented, and if Steele was willing to kill a sitting governor simply by allowing himself to be captured by terrorists, all bets were off on what he'd do to people he personally despised. Jubilation in Philadelphia at the arrival of a Strong Man began to turn to fear and terror as every insider and politician began to make notes of what to do and what not to do to avoid raising Steele's ire.

    One of the only other notable insurrections or resistance movements against the vaccine and SIN program was the New Canaan Riots, where several hundred ethnic Mexicans (some of the very last ones to remain in the state) tried one last time to stand against the Yankees, only for New Canaan Governor Samuel Lyndon Johnson to brutally crush them in a day with only a handful of RUMP officers from Metropolis, the state capital, acting before ORRA or OHW even arrived. Johnson had crushed the final Mexican independence or nationalist movement in human history, further wiping out what remained of the bloodline. After consulting with Steele, Johnson was given permission to stop the administration of any vaccine, poisoned or not, on ethnic Mexicans. Instead, he was told to simply ignore them as the Flu ravaged their numbers. Steele claimed "Natural Selection will take care of the Mexican Question just fine at this point." Johnson and Texas's Branch both would become the first recipients of the Steele Cross, a new and extremely impressive medal given only to those favored by Steele.

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    New Canaan Governor Sam Johnson

    Despite a few instances of armed insurrection, the Cleansing Month was going pretty well for the government. Propaganda spread rapidly about how well the vaccine was working and about the "safety and joy" it brought to everyone. But the true purpose of the vaccine would soon be revealed to all when the first weakened or infirm Inferiors began to show symptoms of poisoning toward the end of the month. Still, news was not spread by the papers, which were strictly under observation by ORRA, but by word of mouth. In Shicagwa, around March 26, Inferiors began to report feeling light-headed and weak. Just 24 or so hours later and they would be dead. In occupied California, labor camps began to reporting a mass die-off of Chinese and ethnic Mexicans, further wiping out what little remained of the once massive Mexican nation. So much information on the Cleansing Month was censored that very little information was able to be recorded by historians, and many of the accounts of this genocide were masked under secrecy. At any rate, the reports of illness and death began to pick up around the end of March and early April. Millions of Inferiors were dying.

    The ghettos became ghost towns, bodies lying in the streets. Inferiors knew they must have been poisoned, but the effects of the poison prevented most from doing anything about it. There were about 20 percent of Inferiors who received the normal vaccine, and to these Inferiors came the job of trying to hold together their communities or organize resistance to the government. But the government was prepared. Steele issued Executive Order 85 on April 2, ordering a general muster of the Custer Youth for civil defense purposes. Steele addressed the nation on April 3.

    "My fellow Americans, patriots all, we stand in awe at the vengeful fury that Jehovah has laid down against the Inferiors of Society. Truly, we serve a just and noble Lord. Yesterday, I received reports that there has been an explosion of deaths among the Inferiors following the success of the Cleansing Month. Some say that this was organized by my government. This is nothing but a worthless conspiracy theory created by those who have too much time on their hands. Though the current plight of the Inferior is welcome and is clearly God's righteous judgement, neither myself nor the government is involved in this event in any way, shape, or form. Yesterday, at around two o'clock in the afternoon, it was reported to me that millions of Inferiors have become gravely ill and are actually dying. This is not the work of my government, nor even of man. This is an act of God, proving the strength of our fluids and Pinnacle Bloodline once and for all. Whilst the Betters of Society have gratefully received their vaccines against the Beckie Flu and are currently prospering at the cusp of a new golden age for the nation, the Inferiors are experiencing a reaction to the medical miracle. Informally, many are calling this 'Infee Blight.' Their weak bodily systems and unsouls cannot handle the powerful ingredients of the vaccine, blessed by Jehovah. Sadly, this vaccine seems to be the final proof of our inherent superiority, as if there was any more room for doubt. God's will has been revealed, and it is now up to us to watch his righteous fury punish the iniquitous.

    "After the reports pertaining to the Infee Blight were brought to me, I decided to take immediate action to ensure stability and security for the nation during this time of judgment. I signed Executive Order 85, requesting that Headmaster-Marshal Coolidge summon all Custer Youth over the age of 14 to immediate and short-term military service. Due to the fact that so many of our troops are currently occupying former enemy lands, there is a slight shortage of available manpower to deal with the instability the Blight may cause in the ghettos. This call to arms will be very short, and America's children will be back with their parents quite soon. However, in order to control the situation, we need as many able-bodied hands as possible. The ghettos currently fester with the dying and civil order must not be allowed to break down into pure anarchy. Order will be maintained, with an iron fist."

    - Excerpt from Joe Steele's talkiebox address to the nation, April 3, 1914

    Following Order 85, several million Custer Youth reported for action the next day, with many more showing up over the coming days. It was clear from the start that Steele wanted to use the crisis to test the loyalty of the CYB and to see if forty years of brainwashing and indoctrination had made them fanatical enough to wade into a festering ghetto and clear the corpses out. He would not be disappointed. Many of the CYB cadets proved to be as fanatically loyal as the most rabid ORRA officer. These children were the third generation to be raised by the state and were totally willing and even excited to answer the call to arms. Mobs of children took to the streets, waving torches and flags, singing, "We are coming, Uncle Joe, 300,000 more!" Steele was more than impressed with the show of loyalty, supposedly remarking to Coolidge, "Give me a million Custer Youth and I could storm the Vatican."

    When the Custer Youth marched into the ghettos, equipped with gas masks to defend them from the "Infee Blight," they handled themselves stoically and eagerly served as a "cleanup crew." Their entire lives, from the earliest days of preschool, they were taught that the Inferior was basically an animal. Now they got to meet that animal face to face. OHW crews also showed up in force, driving the mobill oven trucks to dispose of the dead.

    Over the course of the first half of 1914, over 75% of America's Inferior population died in the largest genocide campaign in human history. The threat of the communes was now over, as there were no longer enough Inferiors to fuel separatist movements. What remained of the fragile Inferior under-class, however, redoubled in their absolute hatred of the Union. From the ashes of the Cleansing Month would rise a new generation of Illuminati terrorists, willing to do whatever it took to kill as many Yankees as possible. However, in the rest of the world, not much was known about the Infee Blight, and news reports to the outside world were limited. Even foreign dignitaries and personnel were lied to and deceived about how bad things were getting.

    But the work was not done yet. Beginning in late March and early April, facilities in the Britannic Union and the Confederation of the Carolinas began production of the vaccine. Interestingly enough, the Carolinas were supplied with only the standard version of the vaccine, but Britannia was provided with the two different versions, one intended for Betters, and the other for those of Irish blood. The war in Ireland continued to stretch on, with no end in sight, and Churchill hoped that the vaccine would finally give his nation the boost it needed to take the Emerald Isle. By early summer, the Europans and Germania had reverse-engineered the vaccine and announced they would begin production themselves by September. However, no news came from Russia, which still continued its struggle against Europa. Caesar Napoleon IV hoped, like Churchill, that the vaccination effort would finally give him the edge to push the Russians back and liberate all of Hungary....
     
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    CHAPTER 67

  • CHAPTER 67
    ALL THAT ENDS IS NOT WELL
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    Russian Prisoners of War photographed in Greece following a mass surrender to Allied forces

    The Great World War had, by early 1914, stretched into its fourth year. For almost half a decade, the people of Europe had been plunged into chaos, bloodshed, and warfare on a scale unseen in human history. Millions of people, both military and civilian, had lost their lives. To top it off, the New Black Death and the Channel Anthrax Disaster were still ravaging the continent. Though peace had been made between the Central Powers and Europa, at long last, the war was not over. Indeed, the main opponent of Europa still fought on as Tsar Viktor forced his men to continue marching into the withering rifle and artillery fire at the besieged Hungarian capital of Budapest. Though he put on a brave face and never stopped talking about inevitable victory, Viktor was nervous. In China, he had made great headway at long last against the southern factions that opposed his toddler puppet Emperor, Puyi. But in Europe, on the Budapest Front, the war was becoming untenable. With peace having arrived between Germania and Europa, this allowed more Europan troops to reinforce Budapest. So many times, the Russians and their League allies had been terribly close to taking the city, but every time, the Austrians, Hungarians, and Italians remained firm in their steadfast defense. Italian Arditi, elite armored troops, were among the most celebrated heroes of the war. Their motto was "Not one step back," and they had proven they lived up to their words at Budapest.

    Despite the initial collapse of Europan defenses during the June, 1912 Offensive by the League, the same rout which saw a young Adolf Schicklgruber boil with rage when he saw the Europan forces flee, the Russians had not achieved anymore breakthroughs. The spread of the Flu, especially its later mutated versions, crippled the League's forces. In early 1914, America and the Fascist Sphere were successfully vaccinating their citizens and programs in Europa and Germania weren't far behind, but Russia had no such research or programs. Instead, in what some viewed as a miracle, the plague blunted the Russian spear and ended their advance for good. Time and time again, the Russians attempted a breakthrough. In the winter of 1913, Viktor began what he called "Operation Sunset," which he viewed as a last-ditch effort to take Budapest. After breakthroughs in China, where warfare had remained somewhat more mobile, crack Russian troops from China were sent to the Budapest Front to counteract the reinforced Europans. Sadly for them, this mostly just enabled the siege to go on for even longer, rather than Europan reinforcements simply chasing the Russians out of Hungary altogether.

    Now, in March, 1914, during the same time as the Cleansing Month in the Union, Europan troops launched a new offensive and finally smashed the Romanian and Bulgarian troops outside Budapest. Though the Russians radically remained loyal to the Tsar's orders of "no retreat," the other League troops fled for their lives. They had fought and died for months upon months. It was time to leave. At the tip of the Europan attack was none other than Adolf Schicklgruber, furiously blasting away and gutting every Slav that stood in his way. When the initial advance stalled on the outskirts of the city, Schicklgruber took a blood-stained homemade Austrian flag out of his pack, tied it to his rifle, and led what would go down in history as the "Charge of the 29th Infantry." This was the final advance against the League at Budapest. As the recently-promoted young corporal rallied his men, he stepped into legend.

    "We festered in that hellhole over almost two years. We almost had them broken. But some of our men were turning back. Our advance was stalled. But then came our breath of fresh air. Despite it all, here was our corporal, a bullet through his left arm, personally throwing himself into the battle, waving his colors proudly, killing Russian soldiers left and right. His orders rang out loud and clear, his voice carrying over the ungodly, gut-wrenching sounds of battle. We pressed on, rallying behind the 'Little Corporal,' as we called him. We pressed on and we chased every degenerate Slav out of Budapest forever, and it was all thanks to that strange little man with a mustache and a flag. I have no doubts that, if it were not for Corporal Schicklgruber, the Russians would have pushed us back into the city and continued their offensive, perhaps winning the war. Adolf Schicklgruber saved Western Civilization. And that is why he is worthy of the Imperial Legion of Honour."

    - Private Hermann Goering during his testimony at Corporal Schicklgruber's medal ceremony in Vienna, May, 1914

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    Photo of Schicklgruber (far left) with his Austrian and Bavarian comrades shortly after the Salvation of Budapest

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    Italian troops march through the shattered ruins of Budapest

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    Austrian soldiers begin the final assault on Russian positions outside Budapest. Over one million Allied personnel and civilians perished during the two-year siege.

    The Russians were now broken, falling in with the other Slavs as their will to fight on buckled at last. When news arrived in St. Petersburg that the Europans had finally broken the siege, Viktor flew into a rage and killed the messenger in cold blood with his bare hands in front of his entire general staff. As the screaming and delusional Tsar wept, his hands still wrapped around the messenger's throat, his generals, one at a time, left the room, leaving the heir to the Khans and the Scourge of God in a pathetic heap on the floor. It was over. Everyone knew in Europe that it was finally over. Unless they wanted Europan troops to push into the League itself and take territory away, a peace would have to be reached. There were even fears now that the Central Powers would declare war on Russia to cripple it forever and to seize Karelia and St. Petersburg. Viktor desperately had tried to dominate the world. His flags now flew in Southern China, the various warlords and factions defeated and Nanking under Qing control. His armies had carried him to glory unseen in Russian history. And now here it was, collapsing on the western border, the League cracking like an egg that had been squeezed for too long.

    As Europan forces began to steamroll over and recaptured Hungary, the League of Tsars called for an emergency conference in Bucharest, Romania. King Ivan III of Grand Serbia, King Alexander of Greece, Tsar Melchior of Ruthenia, Tsar Timotei III of Bulgaria, and Tsar Andrei I of Romania were all in attendance and had to decide how to move forward. Noticeably, Russia was entirely snubbed and weren't in the least bit welcome to attend, despite Greece's Alexander insisting that Viktor should be, as Viktor was his only friend. The Council of Bucharest took place in early April and Andrei, the 26 year-old Romanian absolute monarch, stood up at the table during the first day and announced, "At last, the Balkans have a backbone! Down with the Russian oppressor!" Rallying behind the charismatic and likeable Andrei, the League voted to remove Russia from their alliance and sent envoys to ask for peace with Europa, with Greece abstaining from the vote. Finally, on May 1, 1914, Europan ambassadors were received at the Imperial Palace in Bucharest to sign the Treaty of Bucharest, ending hostilities between the League and the Continental Alliance.

    - CENTRAL POINTS OF THE TREATY OF BUCHAREST -

    1. The League of Tsars admit defeat and responsibility for the war, humbly asking the people of Europa and the Continental Alliance for their forgiveness.
    2. The League of Tsars will completely pull out of Hungary, Dalmatia, and all occupied areas along the Adriatic Sea, effective immediately, returning all prisoners, spoils, loot, and any and all pillage to their rightful owners. If owners cannot be found, they shall be donated to the restoration of Budapest and Hungary.
    3. The League of Tsars will pay reparations to the United Empire of Europa in the amount of (15 billion Dollars), due to be paid off in full by no later than 1928.
    4. The League of Tsars will denounce the Russian Empire and its monarch, Viktor I, and will sever all ties with it completely and for all time.
    5. The Tsardom of Ruthenia will be allowed to continue to exist in exchange for a yearly tribute to the United Empire of Europa. This tribute shall be (500 million Dollars) per year for twenty years, until the date of May 1, 1934. It will also be required to help rebuild devastated regions in Hungary with manpower and architects. If payment should not be made within six months of the appointed time every year, the Continental Alliance shall consider it an act of war upon the whole of the Alliance.
    6. The wealthy city-state, the Viceroyalty of Constantinople, will send builders and funds to be agreed to at a later time to assist in the renovations and restoration of Hungary and will evict all Russian citizens and the Russian-born Fourth Viceroy of the Realm, to be replaced by a candidate of Serbian blood.
    7. The Kingdom of Greece, being one of the main causes of the war, shall be removed from the League of Tsars and its neutrality shall be enforced by every signer of the Treaty of Bucharest. King Alexander, one of the bloodiest and most loyal servants of Viktor, shall renounce his claim to the throne or shall be removed from power by the League and the Continental Alliance by force of arms. Greece's Parliamentary rule shall be reinstated and relief will be administered to the nation by the other members of the League to restore stability and living standards.
    8. The Mediterranean Sea shall be a neutral zone for all nations, with all nations having control of the twenty miles of sea off their shorelines. The Pillars of Hercules shall be open to all nations and its neutrality will be enforced by the combined forces of the Continental Alliance and the League of Tsars.

    The Treaty of Bucharest was harsh on the League in some ways, but relaxed in others. Perrault's common-sense was easy to see in the document. While costly reparations were demanded of the League, the League was allowed to continue to exist, mostly as a buffer for whatever potential nightmare would come out of Russia in the future. Ruthenia was allowed to keep its independence, which surprised and even outraged many, but the cost of occupying it and subjugating it once again would have only destabilized the Empire and the League both. However, even Perrault wasn't generous enough to let King Alexander remain monarch of Greece. After eight years of civil war and helping to spark the world war, King Alexander, House of Marinos, found himself now the latest victim of the Marinos Family Curse. Without Russian help, he was nothing. On the morning of May 20, 1914, the Greek Koinovoúlio, the outlawed Parliament, once again returned to war-torn Athens. Alexander and his entourage already were on a train bound for Constantinople, where the Viceroyalty had agreed to let him live out his days in peace. When Parliamentary forces entered the Royal Palace, they found the royal crown sitting on the floor in front of the throne, charred and burning papers scattered all about. It was over.

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    Photo taken of the deposed King Alexander of Greece shortly before his official abdication

    While almost the entirety of the Treaty of Bucharest's 200 clauses were written as punishment for the League, there was one which stood out as an olive branch from Paris. Neutrality on the Mediterranean Sea, formerly nicknamed "Lake Bonaparte," would be enforced by all nations. This was an interesting concession, and definitely was warmly welcomed by the League. However, most all the other clauses were against the League.

    Russia, meanwhile, knew it was beaten. With the League turning against it, Viktor finally broke down and asked for a white peace. He asked the Allies and the League for a total cessation of hostilities. He wrote a lengthy letter for Caesar warning of the untold devastation and bloodshed that would be visited upon both sides if an attempt was made to unseat him from power. While at first Caesar wanted to push on and force the League itself to fight against their former master, Perrault contained the situation. Fearing a loss of the Holy Land, Suez, and thus India itself, he persuaded Caesar that a ceasefire might be the best conclusion possible. The League had been broken, he claimed, and there was no way they would welcome Russian control anytime soon, or perhaps ever. While Russia was a menace to Western civilization, it was clearly more interested in Asia. Russia had not even conquered territory in Europe since the war had begun, instead acting through puppets. The whole thing had been Viktor's personal vendetta to burn Paris. Now that sacking Europa was not remotely possible and his own rule's stability was likely on shaky ground since his generals knew he was not invincible, the Allies agreed to a white peace on June 1, 1914, signing the Treaty of Constantinople. The war in mainland Europe was finally over.

    Now, the only places the Great World War raged on were in the Middle East and Britain. As Britain prepared to inoculate its population against the Flu and readied a new attack on Ireland, the Muslim alliance in the Holy Land was beginning to fall apart. The battle for Jerusalem was supposed to be a quick victory and knockout blow to Christianity in the region, but Egyptian forces had begun mutinying in the face of absent paychecks and Persian troops were raping and pillaging Iraq, a supposed ally. Instead of a knockout blow, Europa could once again move troops to a more needed area. As the summer of 1914 dawned, the world would watch thousands of battle-hardened Europan troops land on the shores of Palestine. Chevalier Cyrille Coste, the Grandmaster of the Knights of Jerusalem who had so steadfastly held the Holy City in the face of unimaginably bad odds, could breath a sigh of relief. Help was finally coming....
     
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    CHAPTER 68
  • CHAPTER 68
    THE RELIEF OF JERUSALEM

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    Black African troops are inspected by cuirassiers in northern Egypt, 1914

    As the dust began to settle in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Britain remained at war. In the Holy Land, the Knights of Jerusalem and what remained of the embattled Europan colonial army continued to fight on to the death. Chevalier Cyrille Coste, Grandmaster of the Knights of Jerusalem, was steadfast in his belief that God would provide for his men. Even in the darkest days of 1913, following the signing of the Tehran Pact between the revolutionary Islamic State of Egypt, Jabal Shammar (which had recently unified most of Arabia), Iraq, and Persia, Coste still told his men that defeat was not an option. Through their bravery, they Grand Realm of the Levant held out against all odds, retaking the Suez Canal in early January from Egyptian troops and once again securing the gateway to Imperial India. Despite the initial success and momentum against the Imperial colonial forces by the Muslim alliance, the truth was that the Tehran Pact was a delicate thing, with infighting breaking out almost immediately along ethnic and sectarian lines.

    The Pact would finally crumble in February, 1914. Persian troops were shot by Iraqi forces after supposedly raping and pillaging their way across the country as they headed toward the frontlines of the Levant. Persia was furious about the incident and Ahmad Shah demanded the Iraqi Royal Government apologize for the deaths. When the Iraqi King Abdullah III received word of the Shah's demands, he had the entire Persian diplomatic team beheaded and declared a jihad on the Persians. Persian troops already in Iraq and on the frontlines were shocked when their Iraqi comrades began to mow them down from behind. Iraq and Persia were now at war.

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    Flag of the Kingdom of Iraq

    Meanwhile, in Egypt, the flow of weapons and equipment from Persia was now cut off by Iraq. As Egyptian forces retreated from Suez and ran back to Cairo, many began to question Field Marshal Qadir, who had been absolute dictator of Egypt since his overthrow of the colonial government back in August of 1913. While before he had rallied the poor and zealous Muslims of Egypt to his cause, he was now being viewed as a madman by most thanks to his brutal and bloody public execution of any citizens who opposed his views. By the time the spring of 1914 arrived, Egypt was cut off and running low on everything it needed to sustain itself. Riots in the streets called for Qadir to step down and allow an elected parliament to draft a constitution, but Qadir responded by massacring his own people in the streets. Open civil war began, with the Qadirists facing off against both populist and Beutelist movements but also increasing inroads from Levant Imperial troops and some Egyptian citizens who welcomed the Imperials back with open arms.

    When the Treaty of Bucharest was finally signed on May 1, 1914, bringing an end to most hostilities in mainland Europe and the various colonies in Africa, Europa could finally turn to rescuing the Knights of Jerusalem. African troops finally were able to focus on Egypt. Squeezing the Egyptian forces between the Levant and Libya, Napoleon was confident, and with good reason, that the Egyptian government's days were numbered. He would be proved correct when, in early June, Qadir fled Cairo with his loyalists and attempted to find passage into Arabia, ruled by the Kingdom of Jabal Shammar. Surprisingly, the Kingdom decided that the Tehran Pact was quickly becoming a disaster and arrested Qadir upon his arrival before turning him over to Europan authorities as a good-will gesture for peace. Jabal Shammar exited the war on June 20, the newly of-age King of Jabal Shammar, Saud bin Abdulaziz, announced his nation would be withdrawing from the Pact.

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    King Saud bin Abdulaziz of Jabal Shammar


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    Flag of the Kingdom of Jabal Shammar

    The Egyptian government completely dissolved and Europan troops finally marched into Cairo. Now resupplied, the Europan Army made quick work of what few enemy forces remained in the region and sent the Persians packing. Iraq was devastated by the Persian invasion, something which it would not soon forget, but Persia decided to finally pull out, leaving King Abdullah to fight another day. The Persian attempt at restoring a Muslim caliphate had failed utterly, humiliating the Persian government and Shah on a grand scale. It was over. On July 20, 1914, the Tehran Pact was officially declared dissolved and Persia asked for terms with Europa. Morale in Europa, despite the loss of the Rheinbund and the North and South American colonies, still rallied in the face of this great news. At the Damascus Conference, Persia was forced to give up Oman and Yemen, which became a unified Europan satellite state dubbed the "United Arab Emirates," further strengthening Europan control of the Red Sea and the Gateway to India.

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    Europan troops reenter Cairo

    Despite the overwhelming odds, Europa had held its own against the Tehran Pact, a shoddy alliance built on shaky ground that simply could stand up to the power of a recently rebounding Europa. Even rival powers such as Germania felt no love for the Pact, fearing a return of a caliphate and a united Middle East. Turkey, conspicuously neutral throughout the entire Great World War, had also rebuilt its military in the face of "Persian aggression" and a military junta ruled from Ankara, always fearful of a Persian attack. They were thankful when the Europans held the line and pushed them back. An interesting "what if" of the war was the oft-proposed idea that Turkey join the Allies, which could have seen an earlier fall of both the League and the Pact, but which was ultimately unnecessary for Europa to secure the final peace. It is very likely, however, that Turkish weapons and ammunition were smuggled into the Levant to help defeat the Pact.

    All in all, the Middle Eastern Theatre of the war was not the largest or bloodiest, but was extremely influential in shaping the future of the Middle East. Not only had Egypt been retaken by Europa, Persia, formerly an ascendant power since the Russo-Persian War (1888 - 1890) had been gravely set back in its dreams of empire, losing not only prestige and men, but also its holdings on the Arabian Peninsula. And now, as the 1920s dawned, Jabbal Shammar increasingly would exert influence in war-torn Iraq. And even as the smell of gunpowder still hung in the air, the Kurdish tribes of Iraq began to call for independence. It was clear that, though the Great World War was over, more conflict was still on the horizon for the Middle East....
     
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    CHAPTER 69
  • Again, thanks goes to Time Enough and and The Congressman's excellent EU chapters, upon which some of this is based, and yes, the title is a HOI4 reference. lol

    CHAPTER 69
    DIRECT RULE FROM PHILADELPHIA

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    Nipponese ORRA troops, so-called "True Believers," observe a town in central Nippon that had been recently attacked with gas and artillery

    In 1914, the British Isles were still a whirling nightmare of anthrax, poison gas, bombings, and death, but across the world another island chain was in a similar situation. The death of the Holy Nippon Protector-General, John Splendidfaith, had sent shockwaves across the American protectorate in September of 1913. For the last thirteen years, Splendidfaith had been the rock, the foundation of modern Holy Nipponese society and culture. Under his rule, he had established the "Empire of the Risen Son," where Spiritual Marxism and Fundamentalism combined with elements of the old ancestor worship, Shinto, and formed a uniquely Americanized culture and people. Thousands of Nipponese teenagers were half-American, their invader fathers long ago returned home to the mainland Union. Most Nipponese had accepted their place in the Fascist Sphere, but among the older generation and among some of the youth as well, a resentment boiled. Nippon had had a long and proud history, stretching back thousands of years, all without much contact with the West. For decades and centuries they had lived without interference, save from the odd Portuguese or French vessel sailing in to be met with arrows and drawn swords. And now, as the ashes of the Great World War still smouldered across the planet and - in some locales - still raged on, the people saw the keystone figure holding up the Protectorate government wither and die. The Last Shogun, the Holy Warrior, was gone.

    When news of Splendidfaith's death hit the general public, many were very sad and sorry to see him go, as though he may have been a Christian convert, he still held in his heart a deep love of his people and merely wished for them to follow "the righteous path of the Wise Prophet and the Risen Son." A majority of the country by now professed faith in the Fundamentalist Church of Nippon, but this also included those who continued the old ancestor worship in the name of "Spiritualist Marxism," meaning these official numbers were off a bit, at best. But, at the turn of the century, Charles Marx himself - now aged and hobbled by gout - would crisscross the nation and inspect old temples, conversing and meditating with priests and monks. To Marx's alleged astonishment and Splendidfaith's total delight, the weathered old spiritualist declared, after months of study, that the Nipponese had been the first to truly discover Spiritual Marxism, but they had lost the ancient scripts that the Prophet Burr's riddle-like texts supposedly indicated Jesus Christ's visit to the island during Bible times. Truly, the Nipponese were the Lost Tribe indeed.

    "By Jehovah, this Eastern tribe of Israel is more spiritually aware than our beloved Union was until just a few decades ago! This 'Sheen-to,' as they call it, is very much similar to Spiritual Marxism. They may have lost their connection with Jehovah and the direct Word of God contained in the Holy Scriptures, but the angels and spirits of their ancestors watched over them, as they now do the Jewish people across the world, readying them to receive salvation in the End of Days that shall herald the New Jerusalem. By the Prophet, all hail his name, we truly did discover the Eastern Jews!"

    - Charles Marx on the ancient practice of Shinto

    Marx's following book - tragically his last before his death in 1905 - was titled The Curious Case of Sheen-to: How The Eastern Jews Summon the Other Side. It immediately became a best-seller in the Union, Australia, and Holy Nippon itself. It caused an explosion in the popularity of Nipponese fads, kimonos replacing dressing gowns in many households. Nipponese restauraunts also became popular in Oregon, where some Nipponese had fled during the Union-Nippon War years earlier. The Council of Jehovah would unanimously vote that the Shinto faith was simply an early, misguided version of the AFC Church's Spiritual Marxism, retaining remnants of the Pinnacle True Faith but needing the glory of the Prophet Burr to restore the blessings of Jehovah to His long lost Eastern Tribe. While the entire visit by Marx had been hatched by Splendidfaith, President Custer, Reverend-Colonel Moody, and the Council of Jehovah for nothing more than propaganda, it very much made an impact and made Americans more accepting of Nipponese and vice versa. Their practice of Shinto was now technically permissible and even somewhat encouraged by the AFC church, and temples became vibrant again (although now sporting crosses and steeples). However, snake-handling and other unqiuely American rituals also entered into play. Shinto priests were replaced with Reverends, clad in black and sporting their signature white collars. Many of the reverends were political agents sent by the Union government to observe the people and to make sure they kept in line and conformed to the new norms of society. Every reverend in Holy Nippon and all evangelists associated with the Fundamentalist Church of Nippon were on direct payroll from the AFC Church

    The economy too had boomed since the Americans took over, with Charles Goodyear Iwasaki launching his Three Diamonds (Mitsubishi) Company in 1902 in emulation of the great American factories he had seen in his sojourns to the "Holy Land" of America. Iwasaki was the second-most important loyalist in Nippon and he wanted to succeed Splendidfaith as Protector-General. "To open up the Mongoloid steppes to Nipponese people," he claimed, "The Nipponese must build up their economy and prepare for any eventuality. God's light, the Risen Son and the Prophet, must be spread across Asia and the Inferior driven out and into its rightful place as cogs in the industry of Pinnacle Nippon, hard work freeing their souls from eternal torment and allowing them the peace of the Void in death." The Three Diamonds Company became one of the largest companies in Asia and manufactured everything from guns to canned goods. If you were anybody in Holy Nippon, you worked for Iwasaki. Iwasaki founded his company on his home island of Shikoku, and the bustling locale quickly took on the English name of "Diamond Island."

    However, this blatant Westernization and Anglicization was not welcomed by all. Many of the older generation still dreamed of a restoration of the old system and religion, before modernity had destroyed their honorable and ancient way of life. Many began to plot a restoration of the Imperial Family, now living in Peking, who tolerated guests of the Qing and their Russian overlords. The current heir, Yoshihito, was debilitated by mental health issues, however. During a meeting with representatives of the Dutch government he proceeded to go on a two hour long speech about the wonder of trains, much to their confusion, and he spent a meeting with a Qing Chinese delegate playing with his dog and talking to it as if it were a person. During the earlier days of the Great World War, Yoshihito had tried to convince Viktor and the Russian government that he should back a movement to restore the Imperial family. Viktor flatly denied this request, claiming he would never wish to face off against both America and the Allies. Viscount Saitō Makoto and Prince Kan'in Kotohito began to desire skipping Yoshihito in the line of succession in favor of Shige, his sister and the only other surviving sibling. She was also far more charismatic and likeable. In the old days of the Divine Emperors, a woman could never become empress. But now, in the modern age and with the Empire now a very European-style political institution, she seemed the best candidate. Unfortunately, she had moved to Paris in 1910 to further her education, just in time to be caught in the middle of the exploding powderkeg as war broke out.

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    "The Mad Emperor" Yoshihito, 1900

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    Kan'in Kotohito, 1908

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    Emperess Shige, 1900

    During the war years, Shige became far more vocal and political, realizing the cult following she was gathering about herself and claiming that she alone could restore the monarchy in Nippon and chase out the Yankee invaders. When the Great World War neared its end she set sail for China, to be reunited with her insane brother in Peking. Following a brief few days of peace, conflict arose when Shige announced she was taking up the mantle of empress-in-exile, ignoring her addled brother's rightful claim to the throne. This sparked a major incident in Peking, with the several thousand-strong neighborhood of Nipponese exiles rioting in the streets in support of either candidate. The incident was enough for the Qing government to demand the Nipponese Imperial Family leave the country. For a short time they found refuge in Dutch Indonesia. But on November 20, 1913, two month's after Splendidfaith's demise, Prince Yoshihito was found dead in his office, a seppuku dagger in his gut. Shige now rallied the remaining loyalists and plotted a secret return to the homeland to take advantage of the chaos Splendidfaith's death had caused. She anticipated an oppressed people eager for her return, sick of American influence and heresy.

    She would learn the hard truth in January, 1914. Riots had been a huge problem in the nation for months as the nationalists opposed to Yankee influence marched in the streets. The American government was furious and vowed total annihilation of riot leaders. However, when Shige returned in secret to lead a revolution, she found a broken and disorganized rabble. Over the next several months, she had to win over the anti-American factions and establish her dominance among them. By April, she was leading a full-on insurrection against the government. Bombs detonated in train stations, Holy Nippon police found themselves hanged on streetlamps or gutted in back alleys. All over the country, rumors spread that Shige was preparing to march on Edu. The Empire would be restored and the Christians brutally dealt with.

    That was when President Steele cracked his knuckles and said enough was enough. He had long born a total hatred of the Imperial Family and any and all who opposed American rule in Nippon. He personally had fought in the Nippon-Union War, cutting his teeth in battle. That conflict had made him the man he would become. It made him Joe Steele. And he wasn't about to let some renegade empress show up and take over. In his mind, most Nipponese were traitors, too tainted with Mongoloid blood and influence to be redeemed, no matter what the Church said. In his mind, a "yellow is a yellow is a yellow." To deal with this new uprising, Steele got hold of one Arthur MacArthur, commander of ORRA forces in the Pacific, and asked him to deal with the problem at hand.

    "I want you to take whatever you need, use whatever force necessary, and by any and all means pacify the Nipponese ingrates. We brought them back into the fold, we taught them right from wrong, we restored their blessing in the eyes of Jehovah, and they repay us by striking, rioting, and armed revolt. I will not tolerate it any longer. Kill every last man, woman, and child who dares to betray the Union. We showed the Inferior communes who resisted the Cleanse no mercy and we will show these yellow traitors no mercy!"

    - President Steele to Commander Arthur MacArthur, May, 1914

    MacArthur sailed out from the Goodyear Islands and landed in Holy Nippon on July 4, 1914. In the time it had taken him and his forces to arrive, a full-on civil war had erupted, with Three Diamonds factories burning and Iwasaki fighting the rebels with his own personal bodyguards. Government forces were under siege and were becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the insurrection. The New Illuminati and several anarchist movements also once again sprang up in Nippon, sometimes fighting alongside and at other times against Imperialists. Shige had stormed Edo and planted the Imperial banner once more. She announced that a new era had arrived, one which would restore home rule to the island and purge the foreign invaders forever. Alas, it was not to be. In what would become known as the Rape of Edo, the first battle of the 1914 Suppression of Nippon, dozens of Yankee warships opened up a vicious barrage on the city, setting much of it on fire. Aeroships flew overhead, spewing gas and bullets. The Imperial anti-air guns had been disabled by the naval barrage, leaving the city a wide-open target. Cheering and laughing, thousands of ORRA troops came ashore in metal gunboats. Almost all of them were trained and professional killers, ready to do make necklaces from the ears of dead Imperials. They proceeded to butcher anyone who stood against them. Over 30,000 people were slaughtered in the first several days, with even women and children butchered in the streets like animals. Several divisions of Australians, under the command of General Percy McDowell, also arrived to join in on the mayhem, with American troops dubbing them the "Kangaroos," or "Kangas" for short, in what would prove to be a lasting nickname. As ORRA, loyalist, and Australian troops marched on, hundreds of bodies hung like rotten fruit on the cherry trees. One militia group of 200 pro-Shige villagers were made an example of, having their intestines pulled out and wrapped around their heads. All over Nippon, similar landings were occurring under orders from MacArthur. He told the men under command to pillage, burn, loot, and rape, saying, "Beelzebub himself is in control of this country, and it is up to us to put him to flight. Death always to traitors!"

    The will of the people to revolt was not broken upon the Rape of Edu. However, the Holy Nipponese Civil War's conclusion was beyond apparent already. The Imperialists had no chance. Too many were living comfortable lives and were happy with the status quo to revolt. Too many feared the barbarism of ORRA, even the units made up of their own countrymen. Some very much resented the attempted return of the monarchy. The Nipponese spirit was finally broken when the Empress was captured on September 23, 1914, attempting to flee once more to Qing China. After being beaten and humiliated, audio recordings of her announcing the permanent dissolution of the Imperial government were broadcast all over Nippon via talkiebox, including in public centers. After this, she was forced to participate in a Roman-style Triumph March through Philadelphia on November 18, appearing in chains with much of her staff and remaining family as Joe Steele looked on triumphantly from an overhead balcony. Thousands of Yankees, from pasty-white Germans to coal-black Negros gathered around to throw popcorn and fruit at the "imperialist whore." Even small children cheered and clapped as ORRA officers bludgeoned the members of the chain-gang. The humiliation was complete. Steele was sending in more and more ORRA troops everyday and the Nipponese Protectorate forces were salvaged into the new "Army of the Risen Son," consisting of only the most loyal and devout pro-American soldiers.

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    Australian "Kangas," some as young as 14, pose for a unit portrait in Holy Nippon during the 1914 Suppression. Some of these young warriors were part of the "Australian Eagle Scouts," a paramilitary student organization similar to the CYB.

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    American and Holy Nipponese officers inspect the bodies of executed revolutionaries

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    One of the most famous images from the Nippon Suppression of 1914, this photo of a weeping baby amid the wreckage of Edo was published in Europe to showcase the barbarity and slaughter of the Suppression

    Despite now still being a minority, the "True Believers" purged all remaining elements of the old ways out of society. Where before they had sought a slow "Anglicization" program, now the government cracked the whip. Nipponese, as a language both written and spoken, was to be banned for any civil, legal, or military matters. Nipponese would also no longer be taught, "In order to purge Holy Nippon of any and all Mongoloid corruption and to grace it with the New Hebrew, English, of the Anglo-Saxon Chosen." English would become the only official language accepted in Holy Nippon. Instead of placing Iwasaki in charge of the government as Splendidfaith's replacement, as many had predicted, Steele, in his hatred of the Nipponese, declared MacArthur to be Dictator-General of Holy Nippon. Along with bringing the forced Beckie Flu immunizations, the government also forced every citizen to register a SIN number. Over the next years, MacArthur would establish one of the most successful and competent police states in the world, spying on every single man and woman as often as possible. Children were forced to join the Custer Youth and go to American-run schools which literally erased history. In these new books, the old ways of Imperial Nippon were depicted as barbaric and monstrous, while the Americans were the noble heroes sent by Jehovah to reunite the Tribes of Israel. Despite MacArthur essentially governing the islands himself, he was sure to make clear that he by no means acted without Steele on any important matter. Rather, he said in early 1915, "I am no President or emperor, I am a Dictator-General. I serve at the pleasure of the President. Holy Nippon is under direct rule from Philadelphia, not from myself. I merely humbly carry out the instructions of Party, Atheling, and President to the utmost of my ability." However, in the event of some catastrophic event, like severing of contact with the mainland Union, MacArthur knew he himself would assume total command of Holy Nippon.

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    Dictator-General Arthur MacArthur

    The most drastic measure taken to deal with the rebellious islands, however, was what followed the Rape of Edo. The furious Americans gleefully burnt the entire city down, just as their fathers had burned down Mexico City during the Immolation of Mexico, and they did this with many other rebellion strongholds all across Nippon. In its place, over the next two decades, they created Steeleport, the new national capital and bustling center for the American protectorate. Most placenames in Nippon were anglicized by the Holy Nippon Office of Culture. The nation was broken up into four parts, with the large northern island of Ezo becoming the State of Splendidfaith, with its capital city being Jubilee, formerly known as Obihiro. On mainland Nippon, known as Honshu, the northernmost area became the State of North Nippon, with the old city of Sendai becoming Franklin City, after Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, whose death had led to the failure of the American Constitutional Congress so many years before but whose life had helped spark the American Revolution itself. The Kanto region was directly to the south of North Nippon, keeping its Nipponese name but its capital (both state and national) becoming Steeleport, as mentioned earlier. Finally, the rest of the country became South Nippon, with Nagasaki, a hotbed of American loyalists, becoming Butterworth, after Nathaniel Butterworth of the Goodyear Enterprises Pacific Fleet which had brought the first American contacts to Nippon in 1870.

    All in all, the bloodbath that was the Suppression of Nippon served as a reminder to the world of the brutality of Joe Steele and the ruthless extent he would go to secure American interests. Though some in Europe voiced outcry over the atrocities, the truth was that the Great World War had made war criminals of the majority of European nations. The world watched in helpless silence as the Nipponese were totally broken.
     
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    ILLUMINISM: THE QUEST FOR A NEW ORDER
  • illuminism-jpg.458262



    "I wish to do what the heads of the ecclesiastical and secular authorities ought to have done by virtue of their offices."

    - Adam Weishaupt, founder of the original Order of Illuminati

    The year 1776 saw not only the birth of the Old Republic, the United States, but also saw the birth of something more mysterious in Europe. On May 1, just two months away from the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Adam Weishaupt formed the Order of the Illuminati in the Electorate of Bavaria, at its famed University of Ingolstadt. Weishaupt hated the Catholic clerical class, especially the Jesuits, and viewed state religion as a whole as something which did nothing but hold back mankind from achieving true Enlightenment. The Enlightenment Era of the 1700s directly preceded the rise of Napoleon the Great from obscurity to Empire and the birth of the Republican Union and its church. The Enlightenment was built upon the idea that mankind had much improved since the Middle Ages, and that improvement to perfection and true happiness was possible. Immanuel Kant, famed Prussian thinker, argued that the ultimate outcome of mankind would be peace and universal cooperation between all nations, or perhaps even a one-world government. However, as late Pax Napoleonic Nordreicher philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would say in his 1872 work The Birth of Our Tragedy, "Kant, for all his positive traits and genius, was, at heart, a misguided apologist for organized religion and could not see the inherent weakness and corruption it bridled society with throughout all of human history. Only Weishaupt saw the reason behind our tragedy, that being the entrenched clerical bourgeoisie and close-minded fools in Paris, Vienna, Rome, and Philadelphia." Weishaupt was himself a deist, and was uncertain on God's existence, but did not actively campaign against religious faith, but rather its meddling with matters of state, which he thought should be entirely secular.

    When Weishaupt originally formed the Illuminati, it went by the name of "The Covenant of Minerva," after the Roman goddess of wisdom, equivalent to Greece's Athena. The group, at that point only about five members strong, took the Owl of Minerva up as their personal symbol. In 1778, the group at last changed their name to the Order of the Illuminati, sometimes called The Sons of the Enlightenment. By the end of that year there were 30 members with the lowest rank being, simply, "Novice." The next rank was "Servant of Minerva," and the highest and most secretive rank was "Illuminate." It was during this time that the group first attracted the attention of Freiherr Adolph Franz Ludwig Knigge, a minor noble from the Electorate of Hanover. For a time, Knigge used his personal fortune and thirst for enlightenment to spread the Illuminati across Central Europe, with one lodge being set up all the way in Russia and another organizing itself in Madrid. This Kniggeite Era of the First Order of the Illuminati saw Weishaupt's power reach its zenith, with nobles and learned men all across Europe answering to him. Supposedly, even future Vice-President and eventual Treason Trial defendant Alexander Hamilton was a member, establishing the New York Lodge of the Illuminati in 1790.

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    Cover of a 1788 Illuminati pamphlet

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    Knigge

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    Adam Weishaupt

    However, things were going downhill back in Europe. Knigge fell out with Weishaupt when Knigge proposed a "Godless society" at a 1790 meeting of European Illuminati. He declared that the Illuminati should seize power in the Kingdom of France, now buckling under a wave of riots and revolution against King Louis XVI. Knigge declared that man could be perfected and so too could government, and he viewed France as the first locale at which an Illuminated Republic could be set up. Weishaupt, head of the Areopagus, or ruling council of the Illuminati, decried this as the fastest way to get the entire organization shut down. Weishaupt preached that violent revolution was not the way forward, but winning over hearts and minds with logic and reason was the ideal path forward. After correspondence between Illuminati were read by authorities, the then-Elector of Bavaria Karl Theodor grew worried that a revolution was building against him here in in his own nation and announced the criminalization of the Order of the Illuminati and called for the arrest of all its members. On May 1, 1791, the anniversary of the Order's foundation, Bavarian soldiers stormed the Grand Areopagus in Ingolstadt and arrested Weishaupt and twenty members, who were in the midst of a ceremonial "Cremation of Care," where they would burn symbolic items before a statue of a Minerval Owl. Accused wrongly of human sacrifice, black magic, conspiracy, and treason, Karl Theodor had the Illuminati thrown into his dungeons while he decided on their fate.

    But the wave of arrests was not the end. As the Areopagus rotted in a moldy jail, Freiherr Knigge was making his escape along with his own loyal Illuminati brothers. More arrests occurred all over Europe as suspicion of revolutionary, republican, or secret organization reached its height. For two years, nothing was heard from the European Illuminati. In America, Alexander Hamilton took complete control of the brotherhood and declared himself "Grand High Minerval of the United State Illuminati" and purged the organization of non-Federalists. He would later use his secret society to propel himself and John Adams to the Presidential Mansion and it would ultimately be wiped out by Willard Crawford after his 1801 revolution. But in Europe the experiment seemed to be over. A rival secret society, the Jacobin Club, were assuming power in France and on January 21, 1793, they executed King Louis. Several months later Knigge and his followers actually traveled to France to fight in the Vendee War, an uprising against the revolutionary National Convention. Knigge and his men allied themselves with the Convention and the Jacobins, as Knigge thought they desired the same godless secular government he did. Meanwhile, to show zero toleration of revolutionary ideas, the Elector of Bavaria had the imprisoned Illuminati executed by firing squad. Weishaupt and the First Order were dead.

    The future of the French Revolution greatly depressed Knigge, as it gave way to mindless bloodshed and chaos, with the revolutionaries turning on each other and the failure of the leaders to provide a stable government leading to the rise of Napoleon the Great and a rebirth of Catholic imperialism on a scale greater than ever seen before. Knigge wrote to his friend Franz Louis Adler upon Napoleon's 1804 coronation as Caesar and said, "Alas! Our plans, all our valiant efforts, have been thwarted by the Jesuit menace! Our ancient and wily foe have destroyed not only our Order, but also the best hope Europe has had at achieving true enlightenment." Fearing for their lives, Knigge and a handful of his supporters quietly moved to the Italian island of Elba in 1805 as Napoleon issued a warrant for Knigge's arrest. It would be from there that Knigge would begin work on his masterpiece, The Light Goes Out, or, the Fall of the Order of the Illuminati. In this book he described the intentions of Weishaupt, himself, and the Gran Areopagus, even through all their differences, toward building a brighter world based on the principles of the Enlightenment. He described the sorrow he felt at the demise of not only the French Republic but also the fall of the United States, "The two grand experiments of illuminated minds." Knigge, now in deep depression, lived out the rest of his days on Elba, dying in 1812 at 60 during the climax of the Grand War for the Empire.

    But as history would have it, that was not the end of Knigge's legacy or that of the Illuminati's either. In the middle of the 19th century, anarchism and the followers of Meinrad Beutel became the main political faction opposing the world's status quo, be it imperialist or fascist. But this often bloody and violent terrorist movement against the powers that be was off-putting for many intellectuals who saw it as pointless and self-serving, exactly the opposite of the shared and glorious future promised by the Enlightenment. While the Enlightenment espoused separation of Church and State and freedom of the press, the Anarchists often became no better than the imperialists and fascists they sought to overthrow. Meinrad Beutel and Leonhard Troki's horrific adventures in South America in the 1830s ended with the leaders' deaths and saw anarchism, the Fifth Way, become far more radical and violent than ever before. While Beutel wished to truly bring freedom to every single man and woman, this philosophy simply could not sustain itself. Even as Beutelists took power in Brazil during the Great World War of 1911-14, it was a variant movement named Eduism under a charismatic leader, exactly the opposite of the self-governance promised by Beutel.

    But as Beutelism bore the brunt of public vitriol and fear, a new movement was forming in the shadows. The legacy of the Illuminati was not forgotten. Despite its near-worldwide ban, Knigge's The Light Goes Out was wildly popular with a new movement of esoteric mystics of the later half of the Pax Napoleonica. Chief among these rabid fans was a Saxony-born philosopher and writer named Friedrich Nietzsche. Born on October 15, 1844, into a staunch Lutheran family, Friedrich was ingrained with Christian ideas from an early age and could recite many Bible verses when he was only four. Friedrich's father, Karl, died of a brain hemorrhage in 1849, however, leaving Friedrich and his mother Franziska to live in Naumburg with extended family. Eventually he moved to the Helvetic Confederation, a part of the greater Napoleonic empire, to attend the University of Basel. In 1867, he would become a professor of philosophical studies there, the youngest in the school's history. This period was the happiest in his life, but it would not last long.

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    Friedrich Nietzsche

    A Second Great Pogrom began in nearby Bavaria in December of 1867, the second since the Hep-Hep Riots of 1818 that had forced the Marx family to flee to America. The antisemitic wave rolled over Switzerland as well, with a riot breaking out at Basel University and leading to the deaths of two Jewish students. This violence greatly depressed Nietzsche, who saw it as the fault of not only the Imperial government for not standing up for the rights of Jews as guaranteed by the Napoleonic Constitution, but also the fault of Catholicism. But nothing was done. Europeans greatly suspected Jews of allegiance with the Republican Union and also viewed them as Christ-killers. But it would not stop in just the Catholic regions. 1867-68 would see an epidemic of pogroms and persecution of Jews in response to the growing Yankee power since Lincoln had restored the South to the Union. They viewed the loss of the Southron nations as the act of a "despicable alliance between the heretical Burr-worshipers and the Christ-murderers." This greatly shook Nietzsche's formerly strong faith. He began to see religion as a cruel way for men to excuse poor treatment and abuse of one another and claim to be doing God's will in doing so.

    "Why would a just God allow such madness? If there is a God, why would he sit idly by as this world is coldly descending into tyranny on a scale yet unseen in all of history? If to sate the desire for internal peace and fortitude you thirst, then believe, as the fish takes the bait in its mouth only to be killed and eaten. If you wish to be a servant of light and reason, then believe not, and live for knowledge and brotherhood with your fellow man."

    - Prof. Friedrich Nietzsche to his friend August Ludwig Keller, 1870


    Nietzsche would leave Basel in 1870 to travel the world for real meaning and purpose, with the intention of eventually making the world a better place. He traveled all the way to India, Nepal, and Tibet to discuss matters with the leading mystics there. While he did not believe in a God, he did believe in a spiritual realm that he claimed was proven by the seances and spirit-talks he attended in the Orient. He became a friend of Spanish mystic and "warlock" Sebastian Gonzales, who convinced Nietszche that the only way to achieve true enlightenment was to purge the mind and body of "spiritual corruption," programmed into every human since birth to believe in some faith or another. Gonzales taught that the world must be wiped clean, all the forces of man and his faiths must be overthrown for the true Superman to arrive. In a sort of reversal of the Yankee Darwinist Strongman Theory, Gonazalism said that mankind can be perfected, but not by pure bloodlines of a certain race nor by creating a Biblical kingdom, but rather by the elimination of prejudice, racism, xenophobia, and intolerance from human society. Nietzsche seized upon this idea instantly as the answer he had been looking for and moved to none other than the little island of Elba to write a treatise on his new philosophy. He had chosen the island because it was now known the "Isle of the Enlightened," and descendants and several very old members of the First Order Illuminati still made their homes there. It was there that Nietzsche finally was able to read The Light Goes Out, by Knigge, and the German noble's ideals of a fair and equal society, free from the constraints of religion, would form the other half of Nietzsche's belief system. In The Birth of Our Tragedy, Friedrich's first full-length book, he would discuss the "abortion of the Enlightenment" and the "cruel farce society has become."

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    Spanish mystic and warlock Sebastian Gonzales

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    Nietzsche Seeking Truth by John O'Hara (1900)

    "Only through removal of the backward and superstitious practice known as religion can mankind achieve true enlightenment. God did not 'create' man, but rather man created God as a justification for his own instinctual need to persecute and slander one another. Man, himself, is equal to the highest deity. Man, himself, governs this world. Man alone can choose his own fate, whether to become the pompous and bloody Jesuit, the cruel and nefarious Yankee so-called Strong Man, or the enlightened and noble Superman. Every soul is divine, the only thing separating us from common swine and beasts, and every soul is a gift from the Aether, the netherworld where spirits reside both before and after death. After every man ascends to this mortal plan from the Aether at birth, he may choose his destiny. A true Superman knows that the Enlightenment's flame has been extinguished, but also is keenly aware that it may be lit again with the fire of a thousand suns, burning bright for eternity until the universe dies. Mankind can bring about a perfect new world order free from tyranny, murder, and war, and can build a future of peace, advanced technology, and social justice for all."

    Friedrich Nietzsche in his masterpiece The Birth of Our Tragedy (1872)

    Nietzsche greatly feared a world war that would dwarf the Great Wars for the Empire. He saw the system of shifting alliances, radical regimes, and pompous bureaucracy as inevitably leading to a catastrophic future war that could end all life on earth. A popular quote attributed to him from this period was published in the Stockholm Gazetter: "I know that first world war, the Great Wars for the Empire, was fought with musket and cannon, but I fear a third world war will be fought with sticks and stones." In 1876, Nietzsche would create on Elba a small secret society that took up the mantle "Second Order of the Illuminati." They pledged themselves to the "Enlightenment of man, social justice, and an end to religious tyranny." From this humble start would come huge changes. The Second Order, unlike the First, did not publicly declare their existence but rather held it to the highest secrecy, with no official papers or records outside of a new Grand Areopagus on the island. Nietzsche's followers meditated and contemplated the universe while doing drugs such as opiates, marijuana, and absinthe, much like the Council of Jehovah in America. Most who knew of them considered them isolated quacks who would die out, but when no one was looking they spread to the Swiss Alps and opened up a second cloister there, high up in the mountains. By 1895, many Second Order cells were spreading across the world. But that years also saw Nietzsche's death by a brain hemorrhage, just like his father before him.

    In Friedrich's place stepped Otto Werner, a Jewish-born Prussian mystic who was much more heavily involved in the occult than even Nietzsche. Unlike Nietzsche, who primarily concerned himself with bettering humanity and helping it avoid a catastrophic future global conflict, Werner took leadership over the Areopagus with the idea to sponsor the birth of new Second Order cells and eventually to finally accomplish Knigge's dream of armed insurrection against the status quo and overthrow the bourgeoisie. Werner was also a huge proponent of Gonzalism and he took it to its next level and said that armed revolt by the people was the only thing that could "purge the universe" of its "contaminants" and bring about the Superman. He described contaminants as being poverty, greed, bloodlust, racism, all religions, and war. Only through revolution could the governments finally be able to stop the endless cycle of religious wars and bring about the Second Enlightenment. Although most experts at the turn-of-the-century were confident and worried a global war could break out at any time, Werner said he had "consulted with the Aether" and had been informed that war was nigh. In 1905, he reformed the secret society as the "New Illuminati," dedicated to bringing about societal change and revolution as quickly as possible. He began to finance movements all over the world, including in Inferior ghettos in America. Horatio Hendrick's raid on an illegal printing press in Sandusky, Ohio, was the first time the society had been brought to the Yankee government's attention. It would not be until after the Great World War, however, that the New Illuminati would finally come into the limelight of the world stage.

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    Otto Werner

    In the ashes of Europe, as the Hohenzollern-Wettin family barely clung to power in Germania, the family line almost wiped out by the war and New Black Death, a whisper arose among discontent veterans, the homeless, some of the well-educated, and the downtrodden. That whisper was "Revolution." Over the course of the post-GWW era, the Illuminist movement would truly begin. Well over a century since Adam Weishaupt had founded the First Order in Bavaria, a banner depicting the Minerval Owl would be raised in Berlin. Shots rang out. People fell. The Illuminists marched on....


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    POST-WAR EUROPE: SOUTHERN GERMANY
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    Map of the World, 1915

    POST-WAR EUROPE:
    SOUTHERN GERMANY

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    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.

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    Flag of the Nassau Free State

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    Wilhelm Friedrich, last Prince of Nassau

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    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.

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    Flag of the Grand Duchy of Baden

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    Grand Duke Karl Friedrich II the Great

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    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.

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    One of the original flags first flown after the Versailles Concordat

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    King Wilhelm II of Wurttemberg

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    Queen Pauline of Wurttemberg

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    "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.

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    Flag of the Kingdom of Bavaria

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    King Rupprecht of Bavaria

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    Teufelhunden shock troops patrol Munich circa 1925

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    Bavarian nationalist and war hero Hermann Goering wearing a traditional Bavarian hat
     
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    POST-WAR EUROPE: GERMANIA

  • POST-WAR EUROPE:
    GERMANIA

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    Members of a Lutheran Veterans Militia await the arrival of Illuminist mobs in East Prussia

    Kaiserin Regent Erika had brokered the peace of 1913 with Europa after the death of her husband, Kaiser Eitel Wilhelm, from the plague. The only heir to the Germanian throne was Prince Helmut Wilhelm, barely a year old, who had been sick from birth. Erika valiantly led her nation during this time of crisis, despite a poor reception by the general staff and the protest resignation of Reich Prime Minister Wolfgang Kapp, the man who had wanted to fight all the way to Paris. Despite losing her husband and having to deal with potentially losing her only child, she personally oversaw many of the aspects of the Versailles Concordat and sought to turn the Nordreich into a strong, united Germania. Despite her best attempt and what amounted to victory in the war, with the seizure of the Rhineland and Swedish occupation of Denmark, the economy was on the edge, unemployment was up, and millions were dead. The death of the Kaiser, as well as Europa reasserting its dominance over Eastern Europe despite the losses in the west, had triggered a sense of great unease among the biggest banks in the Reich, in particular the Reich Imperial Bank itself.

    At the Berlin Stock Exchange on August 12, 1914, a sell-off began when rumors hit that Crown Prince Helmut Wilhelm had died, leaving the throne without a direct heir. Also, according to the same rumors, Wolfgang Kapp was supposedly rallying his supporters for a march on the capital to create an emergency government. While the Prince was still alive at this point, he was only just barely. Panic gripped the nation, and victory began to turn into defeat. Kapp was not actually preparing for a march on Berlin, but when he heard the news about the prince he began to strongly consider asking Generalfeldmarschal Ernst Schloss, hero of the Battle of Hamburg and the most popular man in the country, to come to Berlin to lead a provisional military government and demand that Erika step down.

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    Wolfgang Kapp

    Not only was the economy collapsing as the Reichsmark devalued by the second, the situation was about to become even more horrendous. Ernst Schloss was extremely loyal to Kaiser Eitel Wilhelm and the Imperial family and considered the Kaiserin to be the only legitimate leader during the time of crisis at hand. He reportedly said, "Now is not the time for vengeful power moves. Now is the time to concentrate on the task at hand: saving the economy and stabilizing the nation. I will not take up arms against the Kaiserin. I will defend her until death. Gott mit uns." Now, with Kapp's plot known, Kaiserin Erika declared him an enemy of the state and a traitor. Ironically enough, Erika had secretly considered stepping down from the regency for one of her husband's only surviving relatives, his uncle Georg Friedrich, but now she was determined to not leave her job unfinished. As the Crown Prince lay gasping for air in his mother's arms, she ordered Schloss to arrest Kapp. The economy stabilized a little bit from its insane free-fall when news came that Helmut Wilhelm was still alive, but when troops began to march to Leipzig, Kapp's home and also the locale from where he was currently plotting his rebellion, the stock market collapsed like a glass house. Social order was next. Catholics that remained in the occupied former Rhinebund, such as those in Munster, Westphalia, once more took to the streets a desire to force the Germanians out of their homes. The poor and homeless all across the Reich began a wave of crime and looting. The Reich was collapsing.

    On August 20, 1914, the news finally was public. Crown Prince Helmut Wilhelm had passed away in his mother's arms. The Hohenzollern-Wettin family was on its last legs, devastated by the New Black Death and with few members worthy of ruling. Georg Friedrich announced he did not desire the throne and thought it would be a mistake to remove the regent at a time of such turmoil. On August 21, Kapp's "Free Army," or "Freikorps," hardened veterans of the frontlines, were still locked in and surrounded in Leipzig by the Army under Schloss. Kapp declared the "Free City of Leipzig" and declared that "Leipzig, Free Germania, will never accept the current situation in Berlin. The country is falling apart. The Reich is in mortal danger. We are infested with Beutelists, Illuminists, and anarchists, and we have a little girl on the throne. If attempting to save the Reich makes me a traitor, then so be it. I stand proudly with fifteen thousand traitors who served the Reich nobly in battle against our enemies. And, if God is with us, then we shall march on Berlin and restore order." The day after Kapp's speech was printed in the papers, at six in the morning, the crack of dawn, on August 22, 1914, the Army fired on the Freikorps following a brief scuffle on the outside of Leipzig. Men who had just fought together against the most powerful empire in world history were now mowing each other down in the streets. It was a bloody debacle and a massive embarrassment. Schloss fumed at the outbreak of violence, screaming, "Reichswehr does not shoot Reichswehr!" The generalfeldmarschal had never intended to use lethal force. He was content to let Kapp shoot his mouth off and simply starve him out of the city. Now Germania was plunged into civil war.

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    Some of Schloss's Army troops strike a pose during the Leipzig Putsch

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    Freikorps volunteers advance under fire against government forces

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    Grand Duke Leopold


    In the east, all the way in Konigsberg, East Prussia, one of the last surviving Hohenzollern-Wettins took notice. His name was Grand Duke Leopold Lothar von Hohenzollern-Wettin, younger brother and only surviving sibling of Eitel Wilhelm. Despite many in the government loathing him, the 28 year old Grand Duke was the true legitimate heir to the throne, and he announced on August 30 that he was the true Kaiser of Germania by law and only his coronation could repair the country. This had the precise effect of making an already complicated civil war into an absolutely nightmarish war of succession as well. Overnight, Leopold's loyalists took control of East Prussia and forced out his sister-in-laws supporters at gunpoint. Outraged at this attack with not even an attempt by the Grand Duke to negotiate or work things out in a civilized manner, Kaiserin Regent Erika announced she would not step down when she took to the airwaves and addressed the nation by radio:

    "Citizens of the Reich. My people. The volk my husband, our beloved Kaiser Eitel Wilhelm, loved with all his heart and soul. I come to you on bended knee to ask for your help. Despite our victory against the Bonapartist aggressors, we have been plunged into economic turmoil and civil unrest by the death of... the death of my son, Crown Prince Helmut Wilhelm. Now, instead of respecting the rule of law or acting as a gentleman, my former Reichsminister, Wolfgang Kapp, has taken up arms against the government in Leipzig, in what can only be called a clear-cut and undeniable act of treason. This old goat has said so himself, declaring himself a traitor with pride in his voice and arrogance in his heart. In the east of our Reich, my brother-in-law, Grand Duke Leopold Lothar, has also taken up arms against the rule of law and declared my regency void. While he may legally be the true heir to the throne, he is an incompetent and despised man across the Reich, from Finland to the Rhine, and his unprovoked assault on Reichswehr and government officials in East Prussia will not be tolerated. What ruler takes up arms against his own people? I do not intend to die a regent. I will become a dowager. But not today. I will not leave my husband's victory to turn into defeat because of traitors from within. I will not stand idly by as the highest ranking members of the government defy the law and spit upon the Reich. My fellow citizens, the Reich is in danger! The Reich is on the cusp of tearing itself apart, something which the mightiest empire in human history was unable to do, though for three years it tried. Citizens of the Reich! The time of peace is over! The fight to save Germania, our beloved fatherland, rages on once more from the streets of Danzig to the Thuringian forest! From Bremen to Silesia! Men and women of Germania! Do not tolerate treason! Fight on! For the security and future of our children, and for a Reich that will stand one thousand years!"

    As conflict erupted and trucks rolled into Berlin with weapons and supplies, yet another movement was afoot. Otto Werner and the New Illuminati saw the breakdown of social order as the perfect cocktail of suffering and conflict that could usher in the start of the "Second Enlightenment," a People's Revolution. With so many conflicting forces inside the Reich and the everyday citizen starving on the street, the Illuminist People's Party began to march, torches in hand, through Warsaw, in what had been, once upon a time so many years before, the nation of Poland. So long suppressed culturally, religiously, and linguistically, their rage at the failure of the government to provide for the common man boiled over into rebellion. On September 28, 1914, Werner addressed a crowd of sixty-five thousand people and declared that the old system was at an end.

    "The era of corrupt aristocratic regimes, fascist police states, religious zealotry, and failed Beutelist states is at a close, a close which should have come with the American and French revolutions of the 18th century. The Enlightenment brought back the ideals and dreams of the ancient Greek and Roman republics. Ideals of equality, justice, and freedom. The freedom to live your life as you saw fit, pursuing happiness. But, due to corruption and aristocratic ticks, those revolutions ended with failed states and a reascendance of the plutocratic bourgeoisie feudal lords. Men and women who thought themselves superior and you inferior. Oligarchs who thought you were stupid animals, fit only to serve their wicked, decadent ways! We have witnessed centuries of religious governments infested with zealots and demagogues rip the world apart at the expense of the common man. Centuries of oppression in the name of faith and leader. That is over, effective today. Today we begin a march to restore the ancient ideals of the Enlightenment. Today we seek not war nor the spoils of conquering our neighbors, but the ascendance of light and justice across Europe. We want freedom, and we will have it or death. We will no longer accept the status quo of a backward world, which so long ago had potential to enter a new golden age. The Illuminst movement shall sweep the land and bring liberty to a land too long oppressed. We take up arms not to kill or devastate, but to cleanse Europe of the religious ticks which have burrowed under our skin and become fat and bloated on the blood and toil of the working class. Today we remove the zealous fools who led us to the slaughter of the Great World War! Today we begin our fight, a fight against religion and oppression! Join the march or get out of OUR way, because the Illuminist People's Party is going to Berlin! Every man a god! Death to the status quo!"

    -Otto Werner

    With chants of "Every man a god!" echoing through Warsaw, the Army fled north as angry mobs pillaged and ransacked homes of the rich, the nobility, and the clergy. The police and some members of the army attempted to restore order but found themselves drastically outnumbered and were ripped to pieces. Waving red banners depicting the Owl of Minerva, the ancient god of wisdom, the revolutionaries stormed the Warsaw Palace, home of the old Polish monarchs, and ripped down the Germanian flags and massacred the guards. Next they assaulted the prisons, freeing thousands of political and even military prisoners of war, such as over 500 Frenchmen still awaiting a return home. With cheers they set fire to the churches and the banks, with worthless Reichsmarks littering the cobblestone street. Werner and his leadership set themselves up in the Warsaw Palace and the next day proclaimed the People's Illuminist Republic of Poland. In his radio address that same day, Werner warned the European monarchies, "Today, Poland. Tomorrow, the world! Every man a god!" The world stood on edge as Germania shattered. In one year's time the mighty European empire had gone from victory to dissolution and economic catastrophe. The Germanian Civil War was underway....

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    "Every man a god!"
    Illuminist revolutionaries celebrate the fall of the Warsaw Palace, 1914
     
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    POST-WAR EUROPE: RUSSIA

  • POST-WAR EUROPE:

    RUSSIA
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    Members of the Moscow Free State uprising

    The state of Russia in the post-war world was dire. Not only had Viktor promised supreme victory and a sack of Paris, famously stating that "Cossacks will ride to Brittany," Russia was also kicked out of the League of Tsars forever. For years he had built his own legend, a saga of reincarnation as the Great Khan, who would lead the peoples of Eurasia to peace and domination under a single banner. For years, ever since his return home from the war against Persia, Viktor had craved absolute control. Despite his brutal tendencies, he really had seen himself bringing about a Pax Viktoria, where Eurasia was firmly under his control but also free of serfdom, and dreamed of a stable land for the rearing of future generations. It had been his destiny... or so he had thought. Like the Republican Union, his doctrine with which he entered the war declared that his victory was preordained, and that defeat could not even be imagined. When that defeat came, it hit like a ton of bricks. The Russian people's morale plummeted. They had fought and died, suffering over 5 million combat casualties on the Hungarian and Balkan Front alone, not even counting the Chinese Civil War or deaths from the Plague. It was as if God himself had struck Viktor down. Immediately, Russian citizens began to spread rumors that Viktor was a false savior and only used them for his own glory.

    One of the main reasons for the Russian Civil War that was rapidly approaching was the fact that the former serfs, freed by Viktor himself, were now somewhat educated and worldly, mostly of the so-called "Kulak class." While Viktor had been off rampaging, a silent minority was forming that were educating themselves on the ideals of the Enlightenment era of the 18th century. One among these was a formerly semi-literate farmhand named Nikodim Maksimov, who now worked in Moscow as factory foreman and who had also now become a prolific reader of the great minds of centuries past. While the situation in Russia continued its deterioration after the war, Maksimov began to aspire to greater things. He viewed Viktor as a blow-hard tyrant and genocidal madman, and viewed his "liberal" reforms as simply a way for him to rally support for his vainglorious wars. Maksimov's brother Nikolai had been killed at Budapest, at the age of 25. Now, the 29 year-old Nikodim desired revenge. After reading the works of the great minds of the last two centuries, especially Knigge and Nietzsche, he realized he was in agreement with their philosophies. The year was 1914, and Russia was about to implode.

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    Nikodim Maksimov

    The crash of the Berlin Stock Exchange in August had devastated Germania and led to a multi-faction civil war. In Russia, there wasn't even a crash. It was just total defeat. The Allies hadn't needed to sanction or punish Russia for its part in the war. No decades of repayments, no surrender of land. The Allies knew full well the result of a Russian defeat. The economy was absolutely devastated. It cannot be understated how crippling losing the war really was. The entire economy was based around the war, and the defeat spelled economic doom. To pay for the war, taxation was levied to absurdly high amounts and war bonds were also issued. Now, those bonds were as worthless as the Imperial ruble itself. The war had also seen Viktor's implementation of the Army First policy, which saw the vast majority of grain and meat supplies going to fuel the military. In late 1914, millions of unemployed, often wounded, veterans flooded back home, some of the last to be released from Europan POW camps. They arrived in a broken, shattered nation on the cusp of anarchy.

    Maksimov was not alone. Millions of veterans and the poor were out in the streets begging while the rich nobility cloistered in their mansions, patrolled around the clock by armed guards. In late September, when the Illuminist uprising in Germania was well underway, news finally hit that the downtrodden and the lower classes had joined with the philosophers and intellectuals to overthrow religion and the state. Millions across Russia viewed the Warsaw revolt as an amazing, even beautiful thing. In the fires of Illuminism burned hope for the masses of suffering Russians. Their faith in the church and the tsar had been shaken to its core. They viewed themselves as expendable pawns. Now, with boiling rage, they followed Warsaw's example. On October 1, 1914, Maksimov led a general strike at the auto factory he served as foreman at. Ulyanov Motors of Moscow had been the biggest supplier of vehicles to the army during the war, and its CEO, Vlad Ulyanov, was known as "Uncle Cyka" by his employees. When news of the strike reached Vlad's desk, he ordered his company goons to go beat the strikers down. It turned into a bloodbath. Within minutes of the thugs' arrival, gunshots were heard and a riot erupted, leaving some 20 workers dead. Fearing an all out revolt, Viktor ordered General Alexander Kerensky to close down Moscow and declare marshal law. This was the beginning of the October Uprising. For the next month, Maksimov led any who would follow in his revolt. Vlad Ulyanov fled the city under government protection just as the main factory completely fell to the rebels. Declaring the Moscow Illuminist Worker's Free State, they raised an owl flag above the imposing, soot-stained factory and dared the government to come in after them. One of the local police stations was overran on October 20, by Maksimov's men and they raided the armory, finally securing some heavier weapons.

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    Vladimir Ulyanov, in a painting set in front of his personal UMM garage. Ulyanov was one of the richest businessmen in Europe and profited immeasurably from the war, but he was known for treating his workers like dirt.

    On October 31, Viktor ordered Kerensky to crush the rebels. "Proceed, no matter what danger, and kill every traitor you see." It was clear that the tsar very much feared a general revolution at this point. As rumors spread of rebel cells in various regions, from Karelia to Ukraine, Viktor's sanity, or what little remained of it, began to vanish completely, as he sat in St. Petersburg sweating out his and the nation's fate. Kerensky's assault on the factory was an atrocity, with Maksimov and his men being butchered with axes and bayonets. Kerensky and his men then hung the corpses along the streets of Moscow on the gaslights. What was supposed to be a warning to any potential revolutionaries now became a rallying cry. "Remember Maksimov!" was heard all across the land, his story being told and retold countless times by traveling radicals, each new telling making the legend grow bigger and bigger. In mid-January, 1915, the revolution truly began. Citizens of Moscow, mostly veterans, took up arms against Kerensky's emergency rule and began to assault government buildings. Before long the mobs were upon Kerensky himself. Placing him under "citizen's arrest," the Illuminist-inspired rebels marched him to Krasivaya Square, in front of the palatial Kremlin, and commenced with a mock trial that ended with him being beheaded for all to see.

    When Europe found out about the revolution, panic became terror. First Germania was falling to Illuminism, and now here was its direct neighbor, one of the largest empires in earth's history, also blazing hot with Illuminist flames. Napoleon IV said of the event, "Cheering for Viktor's downfall is foolish. Better the devil we defeated then a wave of of populist Jacobin radicalism." The final clincher was, however, when newspapers ran headlines about Saint Basil's Cathedral. On the night of January 28, radicals set the ancient building on fire, and by morning most of the building was destroyed. In Ukraine, Nadia Holub, a disciple of Grand Master of Illuminism Otto Werner, arrived back in Kiev from her exile in the Helvetic Confederation. The 30 year-old had published "Luciferian propaganda" during the war, which were newsletters that called for an end to the war and for the establishment of a true constitution. Now radicalized from her time with Werner, she became "Mother Ukraine," leading some 15,000 marchers through Kiev waving flags and burning the homes of the rich. Churches were looted for gold and jewels before being torched.

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    Nadia Holub, Ukrainian Illuminist and nationalist

    Viktor fled St. Petersburg on March 2, 1915. The situation was hopeless. The entirety of the European portion of the Empire was collapsing and cannibalizing itself. Admiral Alexander Kolchak, the Tsar's chief military advisor since the sacking of General Anton Denikin following the loss of the war, said of Viktor's flight, "So this is how it ends. Hundreds of years of glorious history only for this braggart showman to flee like a dog with his tail between his legs. He goes to lick his wounds in Mongolia with the subhumans there. We must fight to the last man to save our motherland. Holy Mother, God save Russia." The Admiral learned of Viktor's flight a mere hour after it began and immediately moved to secure St. Petersburg. Well-respected by most of the general staff and the government, Kolchak ordered an immediate emergency council to form a new government. It was quickly decided that Kolchak would take power as Prince Regent of the Empire. Viktor II, the crown prince, had followed his father into exile, along with the rest of the Imperial family. Kolchak addressed the nation by radio on March 4, 1915.

    "Citizens and patriots of Russia! It is during dark times such as this that the Empire has proved itself century after century! From the ancient times to now, the Russian people have never faltered or slackened in their drive to a glorious future. But such things are not freely given. Millions of dead later, the Great Patriotic War is done! Our sons lay slain and buried in mass graves. Citizens! The fault for our suffering lies with one man, and that man is the Tsar. One day ago, the so-called Scourge of God fled from the capital dressed as a commoner and headed east, toward his beloved Orient. The bloody and treacherous demon led us to disgrace and indignity at the hands of the Papist scum! His meddling in the Orient and the bombastic and unfathomably dimwitted management of the war lost us millions of sons. It lost us command of the League of Tsars. It lost us everything. It made us question who we were as a people and society. But now is not the time to back heinous, atheistic, Luciferian revolutionaries that wish to destroy our nation from within. Now we must fight for our survival! Not conquest or for glory, but for our grandchildren! The government has named me Prince Regent of the Empire, but I seek to be the chief servant of its people. I do not want this position, and the responsibility that now rests on my shoulders is near-crippling. But I have been on knees in prayer! I have placed my fate in the hands of Almighty God! Citizens and patriots of the Empire! We must purge our lands of the cancer within! Death to the traitors! Death to Viktor! Long live the holy Motherland! Urah!"

    - Admiral Kolchak, Prince Regent of the Russian Empire (March 4, 1915)

    Kolchak did indeed win over many who hated the Tsar but were still devout Orthodox Christians and patriots, an element of society that was terrified of the growing Illuminist outbreak. In Karelia, a revolutionary committee of Illuminists took control of the state duma in Petrozavodsk on March 10. But Kolchak rallied his supporters and had General Pyotr Wrangel lead a force of some 15,000 men to stamp out the fires of revolution in the northern region. Wrangel did as he was told and destroyed the moderately-sized Illuminist militias and hanged the leaders of the rebellion. In order to keep Karelia and the other separatist-leaning regions of the Empire under control, Kolchak knew he had to do something. On April 20, 1915, he announced an arrest warrant for Viktor, declaring him an enemy of the people. Finally, on April 27, he called for a council of the government once more. The next morning, he announced the end of the Russian Empire and the abolition of the monarchy. He would now become emergency supreme chancellor of the newly-christened Russian Federation. Now, states and territories within the old Empire could become de facto independent entities but would still bow to St. Petersburg at the end of the day. Celebrations erupted in many cities, seeing it as a calm and logical answer to the pleas for reform without destroying the foundations of society itself. Wrangel installed himself as emergency governor of the Karelian Republic on May 4, 1915. Slowly but surely, areas still loyal to the old ways and the Orthodox Church began to declare themselves as Republics within the Federation. Crimea declared the Crimean Republic on May 15, followed by Komi and Mordovia later in the month. But these claims of sovereignty were not unchallenged. All across Russia, Illuminism was spreading like a plague. Moscow remained steadfastly loyal to the revolution and was quickly arming and sending troops to fight against Kolchak's "Holy Knights," as he called the Federation Army. In Ukraine, Nadia Holub declared herself "Protector of the People" and launched a massive invasion of the Crimean Republic, slaughtering the meager defenses set up by Igorek Borisovich and executing the emergency governor himself. The summer of 1915 would see unbelievably savage battles between the Federation and the Revolution. Smolensk would see a bloody fight where Federation forces only just barely prevented a huge force of revolutionaries from seizing St. Petersburg, largely thanks to a volunteer force of soldiers from as far away as Sweden, Portugal, and even a tiny handful from the Republican Union. Northern Russia, as far as Komi, held out under Kolchak's banner, but the rest succumbed to the Revolution.


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    Supreme Chancellor Kolchak of the Russian Federation

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    Pyotr Wrangel, Governor of the Karelian Republic

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    Flag of the Mordovian Republic

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    Flag of the short-lived Crimean Republic

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    Flag of the Karelian Republic

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    Flag of the Komi Republic

    The war would continue to rage for several years. 1917 would see the capture of the Tsar in China by mercenaries. Viktor was shipped to St. Petersburg on an armored train. However, that train came under assault in Siberia by Illuminists. In the world's strangest game of "capture the flag," the revolutionaries kidnapped Viktor for themselves and began the march to Moscow, only for them, in turn, to be attacked by Kolchak's men. The disgraced monarch was once again seized by the Federation and he finally arrived in St. Petersburg. In a massive show trial, Viktor was condemned to hang for treason, cowardice, desertion of duty, destroying the Russian state, and abuse of the people. On July 13, 1917, Viktor was marched to a gallows to meet his fate. It reportedly took over ten minutes for him to finally die. He was not allowed last words. The Imperial family itself was spared death, but Viktor II was permanently sent to a Siberian labor camp and the rest of the family, including his two sisters, was exiled to Turkey and forbidden from ever returning to Russia. The Hannoverian and Romanov bloodline was to live to see another day, despite the entire world turning on them.

    However the same could not be said for the Federation. Despite valiant effort and much sacrifice, the power of the Revolution could not be held back forever. Illuminist troops seized Komi and Mordavia in 1918, signally the beginning of a long end for the Russian Civil War. With the rise of Oleg Volkov, another student of Otto Werner, through the ranks of the revolutionary army, the Illuminists finally had a leader. After years of fighting, Supreme Chancellor Kolchak watched from the balcony of the Chancellery as fires burned bright on the horizon. He had done his best. He had fought on in the face of the impossible. As Illuminists laid siege to the building later that day, September 1, 1920, Kolchak gathered his men for one final attack. At high noon, the Supreme Chancellor received communion with his men before riding their horses out of the gates of the Chancellery one last time. After that final glorious charge, the Supreme Chancellor lay dead on the cobblestones, still clutching his sword. The Russian Civil War was over. Volkov and his troops burned the Chancellery, the old Imperial Palace, was burned to the ground. Huge mobs walked the streets, burning Bibles, posters, crucifixes and anything relating to the Empire or the Federation. Minervan Owl banners hung from every streetlamp. The history of the Illuminist People's Republic of Russia was just about to truly begin....

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    Oleg Volkov, Protector of the People of the I.P.R.R.

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    Polish Illuminist volunteers fighting for the I.P.R.R. (circa 1920)
     
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