Wrong Type of Kentucky, Wrong Type of France
October 24, 1926 (Sechserstadt, Deutscher Gewerkschafts-Verein) - June 15, 1937 (London, United Kingdom)
"Religion is the root of all evil. It is a treacherous, and far too often lethal, disease that befalls many people. I have come to eradicate this cancer!"
- Polish "Areligionisme patriotique" dictator Zbigniew Łyżrom, the first leader of his ideology.
The Peace negotiations
After a long and bloody war, negotiations for a peace treaty began in late 1925, after arms had fallen silent in August of that year, in Sechserstadt, Germany. This city was once known, and will likely be better known to people from parallel universes, as Braunschweig. It was renamed after the revolution, in 1912, as it was the city Günther Sechser hailed from and near it, in the steel and heavy industrial areas near it (Peine, Salzgitter,...), the revolution had its origin.
The war had, relatively clearly, been won by the Deutscher Gewerkschaftsverein (DGV) and its allies, namely Spain, the Equal Syndicative States (with a capital now called Eisener, S.D.), the United Kingdom, California and other powers. With some of these other powers, mainly the Kingdom of the Six Sicilies, you cannot determine whether the war was a success or a defeat (at least not yet), as they had both won and lost territory.
There had, back in 1919/20, been three (or two, depending on the definition) main causes for the war: The first was radical French or French-sponsored interventionism against movements for cultural and linguistic autonomy at home and abroad. Most notably, the Basque people were enraged when their pro-autonomy and slightly left-wing leader Iñaki Etxebarria, was, supposedly by pure accident, run over by a lorry in the centre of Biarritz. More fury was added to the basque people, and they rose up in arms, when their "
Ministre pour les droîts Basques, a charismatic and healthy man of 43 years by the name of Bixente Iñnurrategi, who was pro-autonomy as well, supposedly died of "anaphylactic shock after having eaten a meal containing hazelnuts" (so the official claim by the French government). Such interventionism also took place abroad, namely in the Americas, where pro-"Communist" riots in the French puppet states of Florida-Seminole and Texasse were brutally crushed at first.
During the war, despite the battles being rather entrenched, it was not as bad as the "World War One" they talk about in some parallel universes. it seems more like a mishmash between the First and Second World Wars of those universes: Warplanes (first crude, and until the end of the war ever more sophisticated and ever more distance- and load-capable) made out of metal instead of wood soon after the start of the war, but still generally following the Brunner/Higl-developed concepts, and specialised
Rojonos (after the name of a notable construction firm); airships made specificially for the purposes of war (=war zeppelins or war airships in a parallel universe), were used to bombard the enemies, especially their soldiers but also their civilian infrastructure (such a campaign was especially undertaken by the DGV in the later stages of the war against diehard German monarchist and Austro-Hungarian cities, so that cities like St. Pölten, Innsbruck, Bregenz, Füssen, Memmingen, Augsburg or Dachau lay in ruins by the end of the war) into oblivion. These planes and Rojonos became ever more developed, so that a plane could, by the end of this war, fly from for example London to Vienna or Hamburg to Florence without having to refuel, and could throw off deadly fire- and explosive bombs over its target. Night-flight capability was also developed towards the end of the war by the DGV side, against which Austria-Hungary and other powers remained incapable of defending themselves.
However, ground warfare was by far not as advanced as the aerial part of it, the first
Bodenschiffe (lit. earth ships) and
Verstärkte Schlachtzüge(basically a tank on rails) only being developed in February 1925. Despite their late development and crude state (it also had to do with the later development of the automobile), they proved crucial in defeating powers like France as, with such devices, Spanish troops and firepower were able to pass the Pyrenees through the few rail passes that they had, while France was (except for dynamiting rail) defenceless against such vehicles.
But now, peace should reign across Europe, across the entire world. Negotiations, mainly undertaken at Sechserstadt, but also in its suburbs and in Rheinisch-Marxstadt (the city will be better known in parallel universes as Cologne), as well as in Luxembourg and Zurich, proved difficult and lengthy: It took nearly a year (December 4, 1925 - October 24, 1926) to hammer out the diverse peace treaties.
The most important one, concluded in Sechserstadt, dealt with Central Europe, mainly the Deutscher Gewerkschafts-Verein and The Empire of Austria-Hungary. Its main points were:
- Cession of a corridor-shaped piece of territory, plus Slovakia, to the DGV.
- Full recognition of the voting and other basic human rights for the minorities in Austria-Hungary
- Recognition of independence and Universal Workers' Council (UWC) administration of the Free City of Venice.
- Limitation of the Austro-Hungarian army to 300,000 men. Air forces were allowed to a very limited extent, but no naval force was allowed. Instead, a to-be-created UWC naval force should guard the ports of Rijeka, Split and Zadar.
- The Federal Republics of Bohemia and Moravia were to be a fully neutral, but armed, independent state.
- Switzerland was to, once again, be an armed state that was fully neutral, like it had been from 1815 to 1912.
- The German Empire will no longer exist as a state. All its territory is to be ceded to the DGV.
- The Austro-Hungarian Empire is to disavow any and all alliance with the Free state of Poland, the Kingdom of Lithuania, the Duchy of Courland, or the United Baltic Duchies.
Often confused or convoluted with the Treaty of Sechserstadt is the, just as important and in some aspects even harsher, Treaty of Turin imposed on France by the winning powers of the United Kingdom, the DGV, Spain, and others.
It contained quite a few points that were quite a bit harsher than the Sechserstadt Treaty:
- France has to recognise the independence of the Neutral Republic of Occitania and the Free Corsican Republic
- Its army will be restricted to 100,000 men. No air force is allowed, a navy is only allowed to go up to 20 nautical miles off the coast and only to consist of lightly built ships.
- France is to take the main blame for the war, along with Austria-Hungary. France unjustly crushed the "national self-determination" movements in Catalonia and Euskadi.
- The full and total independence of Catalonia and the Great Patriotic Republic of Euskadi will be recognised.
- France has to introduce a Republic, the Emperor and King of the French has to abdicate. No nobility titles are allowed anymore.
- Brittany must be demilitarised. Corsica will be an independent state, but there will be a referendum in between fifteen and twenty years of time about whether to join France, join the Kingdom of the Six Sicilies, or remain independent.
- Occitania is barred from uniting with France.
This treaty and its consequences would have profound effects on the remaining Second Republic of France...
France:
The war had ended with armed Sechserists founding
Syndicats Populaires which did indeed rule for periods of weeks or even months over several cities, most notably Lille, Rouen and Reims. However, with the troops coming home, right-wing patriotic conservative
Libertéens formed in order to restore order. And they murdered two of the most notable
Marciennaiste agitators for a Marciennaist-Sechserist takeover in France: Martina Marcienna herself and her accomplice Charles Dutroux. This mostly ended the hopes of communist takeover in France, as the first constitution-writing body of the to-be-infamous Angers Republic convened in said city. Its first, pretty strongly powered, President was William Carannes (Parti des Travailleurs Democratiques, PTD). He officially took the oath of office on December 16, 1926.
But soon enough, instabilities showed: The PTD had already split into two parties (the majority "normal" PTD and the PITD), and then, the infamous
Coup Delamatanne attempt by an association of Libertéens, old elements of the Grande Armee, and other right-wing and far-right forces, was nearly successful: The legitimate government had to flee to Saint-Etienne, and Arthur Delamatanne and his cronies had taken over control in Paris. However, they didn't reckon with the immediate, effective and radical action of PSF, PITD, PTD, and the French workers, who called a general strike on March 18, 1928. It was very much successfull in making Delamatanne and his cronies abundantly clear that they had little support in the general population, and the would-be-leaders had to give up after four days, restoring the legitimate government around Carannes.
After this failed coup attempt, reparations became a hotly debated topic in the Angers Republic: France could not possibly pay all those reparations, and if it did not, the victorious powers threatened occupation of Pas-de-Calais down to Lille, Rouen and other important industrial cities. Nevertheless, 1929-31 showed the method of
Résistance passive being employed by the workers in the main mining areas of the country. Promptly, the allied victorious
Nordseebund powers threatened occupation to force the workers back to work and France to pay their annual indemnities in coal, steel and other goods. This didn't fail, however, hyperinflation ensued due to the high war costs, the costs of fighting the revolts, and the reparations to be paid and their harsh enforcement.
Onto the scene comes
Mathieu Lacassagna, a Piedmont-born (admittedly directly over the border) Occitan and French double national who had quickly risen to the forefront of the
Parti Marxiste Et Égalitaire Patriotique(PMEP).
Mathieu Lacassagna, leader of the PMEP, at one of his first speeches that were widely recognised by the public. October 14, 1930.
This party, originally founded by Michel Antoine Cousier, was at the beginning absolutely ignificant, but it is characterised by the fiery anti-religious, anti-Sechserist and Marxist rhetoric. Mathieu Lacassagna put the blame for the last war and the French defeat with the following Turin Treaty wholly on "being stabbed on the back" by the "Christian Sechserist conspirators who wanted to overthrow our government". He was strictly against all religions and built on the "ideals of the French Revolution of 140 years ago". He reviled the Gregorian calendar because it was "built on the foundations of the pest of religion", the only cult that would be allowed under him would be the Cult of Reason. Also, he followed a skewed interpretation of the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich engels, which was supposed to say that the class struggle will end with the Proletarian Class not only establishing Dictatorship of the Proletariat, but all following "reason" and, with the help of the leader of the Proletarian Class and their vanguard party, automatically - or by the will of everybody - adhering to the
volonté generale. The monarchy was another frequent scapegoat of Lacassagna.
On July 14, 1931, he and his followers, assembled in Lyon, planned first to take control of Lyon and then, in a quasi-military manner, establish a "March to Paris" ousting the Paris-based government. This failed dramatically when the police forces on the streets of Lyon opened fire on the armed marchers, killing three. Lacassagne, however, was nearly completely unharmed.
By surprisingly mild courts - at least as far as the far right (The PMEP, although having a far-left sounding name, were mostly classified as far right or as "indeterminable") is concerned - Lacassagna was sentenced to five years in hard labour prison. However, due to extremely generous, even outright sympathetic, guards and judges, he only served nine months of this sentence and, during this, he was allowed to write his famous and infamous book:
La Tromperie, in which he presented his ideology. At the same time, it is some sort of autobiography, but mainly a book describing his ideology and plans for the future: Make France great once again, without religion and under his own ideology, with him as the leader of the vanguard party of the proletariat class.