Remove ads

Little Polish Eagle: A Springtime of Nations Quest

Reader mode

Scheduled vote count started by DanBaque on Jul 15, 2024 at 5:55 PM, finished with 32 posts and 15 votes.
  • [X] Plan Get Legibility To The State, Idiot
    -[X] [1] Reorganize the reorganization of the Voivodeships as primarily constituencies associated with the seats of the Senat, fitting to cultural-historical borders when unable to fit to dioceses of the Church, and with Voivodes as correspondingly governing internal and cultural affairs.
    -[X] [2] Set those Voivodeships atop a relatively more rationalized federal structure, with Prowincje/Provinces as parallel, oft smaller, circles encompassing the regional Sejmik assemblies and the electoral colleges of the lower assembly of the Sejm, and thus operating with some minor legislative power of the purse in collecting taxes.
    -[X] [3] And then place the real power in the French style military and administrative Departments and Department-level councils of state faithfully executiong the will of the national Sejm via its Council of Ministers and adhering to cross-sectional districting based on population.
    -[X] [4] Formulate all this on a renewed anniversary census and cadastre, structures as in prior plans, tying registration to greater civic participation in the patriotic fervor of officially crowning Napoleon as Franciszek Kazimierz I, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania and etc..., Duchy of Warsaw no longer the Commonwealth's legal name
    -[X] [5] Immediately back down on any saber-rattling and send diplomatic missions reassuring Russia, Austria, and Prussia that this is all in ceremonial pretense and not a new claim on their lands (for now).
    -[X] [6] Do spend some significant portion of the state's funding into expanding the plans for trade and technical institutes and agricultural colleges and firming up a broad base for the university system, doling out the grants of royal societies and the honors of royal knighthoods towards both academia and mechanical sciences
    -[X] [7] Integrate the political-territorial census and surveying efforts and the promotion of the sciences together in a project to raise up a new class of officers adequately trained in topography, combat engineering, artillery trigonometry, and such, as the most critical long term weakness in the kingdom's officer corps as veteran line officers age and retire.
    -[X] [8] Unleash these officers on the modernization of the forts and on the modernization and improvements to the land in general that may be applied to crown estates and such as a model, and in so doing firm up the finances of the royal household if nothing else, offering cash prizes and meritorious awards for successful marsh-draining solutions and the like.
    [X] Plan: A Modern Caesar
    -[X] Decisively settle the position of the bishops by legislating that they aren't nobles but that the church will receive a guaranteed number of seats in the upper house to distribute as it sees fit, try to get the Pope's blessing for this plan.
    -[X] Roll out a generous program of university scholarships but make it contingent on the recipients enrolling as officers in the National Militia after they finish their education.
    -[X] Work with the church to improve public literacy by setting aside funds for clergymen to organize Sunday schools for those interested in bettering their lot.
    -[X] Use the new liquidity granted to the national government to embark on a sustained campaign of infrastructure spending to provide work for the common man.
    -[X] Establish a series of royalist government funded newspapers that serve as a mouthpiece for the government and the king.
    -[X] Negotiate with local elites and the church to split with them costs of constructing poor houses that will care for the sick and the elderly.
    -[X] Reach out to the Austrian government to negotiate a comprehensive trade settlement that will make it easier for Austrian investments to flow in but also establishes some protections for fledgling Polish industries.
    [X] Plan 1841, a fine year to right some wrongs (3nd version)
    -[X] [1] Reorganize the reorganization of the Voivodeships as primarily constituencies associated with the seats of the Senat, fitting to cultural-historical borders when unable to fit to dioceses of the Church, and with Voivodes as correspondingly governing internal and cultural affairs.
    -[X] [2] Set those Voivodeships atop a relatively more rationalized federal structure, with Prowincje/Provinces as parallel, oft smaller, circles encompassing the regional Sejmik assemblies and the electoral colleges of the lower assembly of the Sejm, and thus operating with some minor legislative power of the purse in collecting taxes.
    -[X] [3] And then place the real power in the French style military and administrative Departments and Department-level councils of state faithfully executing the will of the national Sejm via its Council of Ministers and adhering to cross-sectional districting based on population.
    -[X] [4] Formulate all this on a renewed anniversary census and cadastre; use this first turn of surveying to also do general modern surveys of the land.
    -[X] Reach out to the Austrian government to negotiate a comprehensive trade settlement that will make it easier for Austrian investments to flow in but also establishes some protections for fledgling Polish industries.
    -[X] [6] Making use of the modern surveys, create plans for a modern system of traffic - which roads need to be improved and how much, where should new ones be built, where should railways go etc.
    -[X] [7] Embark on infrastructure works, primarily focused on Utilities - keeping our public safe and healthy is critically important.
    -[X] [8] Expand on public schooling with the creation of schools for future members of the bureaucracy.
    [X] Plan: Cadastre par masse et nature de cultures
    -[X] Emulate Napoleon I in a land registry, to administer taxation by distribution of land accounting for crop mass and type.*
    -[X] Use the first year's collection of the tax to finance public improvements, both building roads and canals and providing employment as laborers and surveyors to the uneducated and educated classes respectively.
    -[X] Assign state resources to the voivodes, and thus the provinces, based on size of this tax base - with more productive provinces gaining more state investment.**
Click to expand...
 
Remove ads
Turn 2 Update
  • Threadmarks

    • 1841 in Poland​

    Administrative reforms were the main continuance of the Marshal's premiership, modifying the past year's reform towards a more effective state. The voivodeships' borders were adjusted, and their powers were specified and in some areas expanded. Below them was the provincial system, if often they were parallel rather than explicitly below. The powers of the new provinces were set up over taxation, but only in some small cases.

    The main power was meanwhile reoriented into a true liberal-style set of departaments, organised around military and administrative efficiency with some adherence to population. The effect of this was to cause confusion and expand budgetary costs first of all. The feared weakening of the administration was stopped, but three new threats emerged. First of all was the cost of paying so many new, irrelevant, bureaucrats and state offices. The government was accused of corruption and of evading meritocracy by their enemies, and by those who didn't get in. Whether true or not, it was undeniably a waste of public funds, made more striking by the lack of high public spending throughout the year.

    Second was the rise in authority of the 'useless' nobility, of those who were technically representatives of the state but had little actual power. They complained when things did not go their way, and complained that they did not have enough competences to their name. It was a tug of war over powers and responsibilities that had been engendered, and not merely a two-sided one, but three.

    Third was the increasing dependence on the state by a class of ne'er do wells. Politicians with little ambition for work, middle class men who only wanted government sinecures, and all sorts of relatives were increasingly seeing the new administrations as their path to lifetime security. Usually more educated and politically active than the rest of the population, if angered by the state they might well respond with conspiratorial energy and sedition.

    Marmont's response to the fears of rebellion was a grand plan to strengthen nationalism by renaming the state and monarch. Napoleon was to become Franciszek Kazimierz, and Poland to be reestaablished in its old titles. This plan, most aggrandising in its scope, was immediately vetoed by the King as soon as he found it, and the Prime Minister only survived because of his loyal intentions with it. The King had no interest at all in giving up his famed father's name, the name that by itself rallied both love and hate in quantities beyond any save Christ's.

    As for the reestablishment of the Commonwealth and its titles, it was rejected. What was the point in so severely damaging foreign relations, in risking breaking the peace treaty that had established the state, for a symbolic act of no purpose or advantage? To have to give up all foreign freedom of action and commit entirely to reassurance for a pretence anyone could see through? As it was, the Polish nation's diplomats were focused in any case on outreaches to all three states with tones of honey in order to maintain independence longer.

    More successful were other movements, in part thanks to the increased importance of the Departements. With a church concordat, the bishopry were relegated to their birth status- noble if so, not if not so- but had their proportion of the upper house made certain. This disappointed many Frenchmen who had hoped for a more radical Napoleon, but made sense for Poland and its situation. Appeasing the Catholics relaxed that side of the opposition and strengthened the prime minister's own position notably.

    It also made working with them on programs of literacy easier, as Sunday schools were organised. Intended for both adults and children, they found an important part of the population eager to learn, but noted comments also of the lack of time or energy for it. How to resolve this was an open question, of course. It was also difficult to find exact statistics for literacy.

    In this regard the anniversary census proved a godsend. Integrating into it the main aspects of interest for the expanding state and military, it was among the most modern censuses of its time. It found the average rate of property (dazzlingly unequal), the proportion of gender (almost equal), and that of children and men of army-age. Literacy, as it turned out, was in the higher range of twenty percent, which was bemoaned by the enlightened French immigrants and seen as a matter for improvement.

    More investment into education was also forthcoming for the third formation. The Marshal finally paid some attention to the military, which had begun to complain after their support of his rule. University scholarships increased by a hundred a year in the fields of science and philosophy, with the requisite that all those granted them would then enroll in the militia as officers. The meritocratic system that the military applied to these meant that the crop of future soldiers was to improve, slowly but steadily as time passed, and ensure a basic spine for the militia.

    All these manifestations of support, opposition, and otherwise had made the existing situation clearer for Auguste and the King. The church, and thus the catholics, were happy with Marmont. The military wanted more funding, and their demands to be taken care of. The liberals were frustrated but appeased by reforms. The peasants wanted the totality of serfdom ended. The bourgeoisie wanted continued stability. The nobles were quite content as is. And all of them wanted support for foreign rebels.

    Well, not foreign. Polish and Lithuanian. The matter was a thorny one, in which the government's policy was to do as little as possible (to keep the Great Powers happy) and as much as possible (to keep the people happy). Some had sarcastically called this dialectical, but it was simply the core trouble at the heart of Poland. Outside the country, furthermore, opinions were also divided. The nobility, which had always been the heart of uprisings, feared the end of serfdom. The peasants were uncertain if they truly cared. Many others wanted universal suffrage, or had more radical demands. As a state, it was in the advantage of the government to obtain as much control over the secret societies and conspiracies that ruled the nationalist world, but this was impossible.

    Thankfully, for now, no one was lighting the powder.

    Foreign events

    Peelite era begins in the United Kingdom, only mildly shaking foreign policy but scuppering tarriff policy and starting off the beginnings of law and order organisations. Slight economic crash due to the Afghan collapse. Census of the British islands shows Ireland's population standing at eight million.

    Despite on-the-ground deals with the Qing, the British Navy continues to assault several coastal cities and islands.

    After Britain refuses to give up an escaped ship of slaves to their American traders, first multilateral treaty for the suppression of the African slave trade signed, Poland a signatory but not France.

    First regulations for child labour in France, and in mining for children and women in Britain.

    Please write a plan for the new prime minister to follow in his third year in power, following these rules:

    1) A maximum of EIGHT distinct points within each plan.
    2) A limit of each point to a single, concise sentence.
    3) Any further explication of plan points to be separated from the vote itself and moved into the body of the post.
    4) If no vote gains a majority or clear plurality, I will do a 'coalition' of choices as I have just done in this vote. From now on, order your planks in order of desire.

    Example vote:
    [] Marriage to the Sea
    - [] Create an inland lake to get a coastline.
    - [] Fund a new officers' school for naval seamen.
    - [] Pass laws giving officers tax exemptions.
    - [] Reform the administrative borders in line with church diocesis.
    - [] Declare Jesus Christ Emperor of Europe.
    - [] Have a swimming competition in the Vistula.
    - [] Publish irredentist maps showing Moscow as a part of Lithuania.
    - [] Pass laws limiting the amount of vodka to be drunk by any one person in a day.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • 1842 Stats
  • Threadmarks
    • ​

    Napoleonic Kingdom of Poland in 1841

    Government

    Government Type: Napoleonic Constitutionalism
    Governing Document: Constitution of 1807 (amended)
    Head of Government: Prime Minister Auguste de Marmont
    Head of State: HM Napoleon I of Poland
    Legislative Majority: None
    Church and State: Freedom of Conscience
    Bureaucracy: Appointed
    National Stability: Medium

    Demographics
    Population: 5.3 million
    Population Growth: 1.8%
    Cultures: Polish, French, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Other
    Religions: Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Judaism
    Pensions: Terrible

    Foreign Affairs
    War and Peace: Peace with Russia (1832)
    Alliances: N/A
    Defensive Pacts: N/A
    Military Agreements: Austria
    Naval Agreements:
    Trade Agreements: Austria, Ottoman Empire, United Kingdom

    War
    Army
    Type: Professional Army
    Training: Adequate
    Quantity: Small
    Equipment: Medium
    Morale: High

    National Militia
    Type: Regional Militias
    Training: Adequate
    Quantity: Medium
    Equipment: Low
    Morale: High

    Navy
    Type: Riverine
    Training: Low
    Quantity: Tiny
    Equipment: Low
    Morale: Medium

    Infrastructure
    Fort Quality: Low
    Fort Quantity: Medium
    Seaport Quality: N/A
    Seaport Quantity: N/A
    Roads and Canals: Low
    Railroads: None
    Public Utilities: Critical

    Finance
    Treasury: Adequate
    Debt Ratio: Low
    Credit Ratio: Large
    Tax Income: Small
    Tariff Income: Tiny
    Principal Creditors: Austria (Medium)
    Principal Debtors: Domestic (Medium)

    Education
    Schooling: Religious (80%), Private (15%), Public (5%)
    Literacy Rate: 27%
    Literacy Growth: Minimal
    Education Quality: Low

    Stats
    [None/Critical/Tiny/Minimal] / [Low/Small/High] / [Adequate/Medium] / [High/Large/Low] / [Ideal/Huge/Booming/Maximum]
    Stats in bold are improving, stats in italics are declining.
    Note stats are in respect to your capacities, not on an European scale.
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • [] Plan 1842, start of a better time (DRAFT)
    -[] [1] Create and empower an anti-corruption department, whose members should be beyond reproach (and for whom, if found to be corrupt, the punishments should be much harsher), tasked with ensuring that no officials waste state money or sleep on their posts.
    -[] [2] Create a comprehensive survey of the land, its current uses and future potential.
    -[] [3] Making use of the surveys, create plans for a modern system of traffic - which roads need to be improved and how much, where should new ones be built, where should railways go etc.
    -[] [4] Embark on infrastructure works, primarily focused on Utilities - keeping our public safe and healthy is critically important.
    -[] [5] Reach out to other nations about sending a few officers as observers, primarily focused on understanding the uses and hurdles of state-of-the-art weapons.
    -[] [6] Have a committee, making use reports from these observers, create a plan for the future procurement of equipment of our armed forces (what do we have, what do we need, what would be nice to have, what should be avoided...).
    -[] [7] Create a national newspaper.
    -[] [8] Create a national institute for the study of medicine and health care.
     
    It feels like half of the planks of every plan just don't work out that well.

    Since this is a year by year administration instead of a 2 to 4 year administration, maybe we should simply accept small adjustments year by year. Stuff like increasing military funding by 2%, introduce a cap on rent at 50%, etc. If we try to abolish serfdom in a single year without building up to it it's likely our coalition will implode. It's already fragile.
     
    [X] Plan Trains, Trains, Trains, Trains, Trains, Trai-
    -[X] [1] Use Census and Cadastre data to embark on a major project of building up the interior lines of communication of Poland and linking up the roads and canals of the nation, focusing especially on a rail lines connecting Krakow to Warsaw and Warsaw to Lublin, though the majority Crown- and National Bank- owned joint-stock enterprise of the Royal Polish Rail Company
    -[X] [2] Have the military work hand-in-hand with the Royal Polish Rail Company directing service alongside hired French and German contractors as part of the general plans to grow the ranks of military engineers and to build of cadres of inspectors able to beat the militia into shape.
    -[X] [3] Tie into the flagship infrastructure initiatives expansions of a national postal service, and offices of the census, land deeds, patents, and the like, in order to perpetuate the success of this census going forward as well as provide Department level input into sufficient make work Provincial and Voivoidate contributions
    -[X] [4]Use the economic bubble of land speculation and heavy construction to push forward and indeed expand the programs of using distressed and marginal estates as new campuses, laterally moving spare lots from the railway's reasonably hefty tracts of land into new vocational schoolhouses and gymnesia feeding into the planned colleges and renewed universities, with the financial chicanery beefing up their endowments to match.
    -[X] [5] Standardize and broaden the connections of Voivoidships and the Senat, through the convening of new and revived orders of knighthood and heraldic courts of honor, granting some of the prestige of their ancestral peerages and of helping bring tithes to and distribute alms with the Catholic, Lutheran, etc... Church, in exchange for their jurisdictions supporting the various land trusts acquiring the rail right-of-way
    -[X] [6] Also regularize the convening of Provincial Sejmiks in conjunction with relevant assemblymen of the national Sejm and various others, to help locally distribute the post and national and provincial gazettes and oversee the establishment of chambers of commerce and agricultural societies and such, processing local towns into railway stops as they feed into the great work.
    -[X] [7] Use the pragmatic sideways refocusing of patriotism through the forms of domestic chivalry and grandeur to also double-up o properly Napoleonic orders of merit for excellence on the battlefield, in arts or sciences, and in general making significant contributions to the country, acting as something of a redistribution of the social capital of honor back to (some of) the masses and buttressing the position of naturalized foreigners and Jews and the like within high society.
    -[X] [8] Oh yeah, modernize the forts in the eastern border
     
    Hellteddy said:
    While I like most of the ideas, not doing anything regarding serfdom is kinda sad :V
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Don't worry, All shall be made legible to the state in Due Time, its just that my bourgeois state-building favors benefiting the few wealthy financiers and industrialists and co-opting the aristocracy as just more important than freeing the staving masses from cruel bondage :V
     
    [X] Plan Trains, Trains, Trains, Trains, Trains, Sewage?
    -[X] [1] Use Census and Cadastre data to embark on a major project of building up the interior lines of communication of Poland and linking up the roads and canals of the nation, focusing especially on a rail lines connecting Krakow to Warsaw and Warsaw to Lublin, though the majority Crown- and National Bank- owned joint-stock enterprise of the Royal Polish Rail Company
    -[X] [2] Have the military work hand-in-hand with the Royal Polish Rail Company directing service alongside hired French and German contractors as part of the general plans to grow the ranks of military engineers and to build of cadres of inspectors able to beat the militia into shape.
    -[X] [3] Tie into the flagship infrastructure initiatives expansions of a national postal service, and offices of the census, land deeds, patents, and the like, in order to perpetuate the success of this census going forward as well as provide Department level input into sufficient make work Provincial and Voivoidate contributions
    -[X] [4]Use the economic bubble of land speculation and heavy construction to push forward and indeed expand the programs of using distressed and marginal estates as new campuses, laterally moving spare lots from the railway's reasonably hefty tracts of land into new vocational schoolhouses and gymnesia feeding into the planned colleges and renewed universities, with the financial chicanery beefing up their endowments to match.
    -[X] [5] Standardize and broaden the connections of Voivoidships and the Senat, through the convening of new and revived orders of knighthood and heraldic courts of honor, granting some of the prestige of their ancestral peerages and of helping bring tithes to and distribute alms with the Catholic, Lutheran, etc... Church, in exchange for their jurisdictions supporting the various land trusts acquiring the rail right-of-way
    -[X] [6] Also regularize the convening of Provincial Sejmiks in conjunction with relevant assemblymen of the national Sejm and various others, to help locally distribute the post and national and provincial gazettes and oversee the establishment of chambers of commerce and agricultural societies and such, processing local towns into railway stops as they feed into the great work.
    -[X] [7] Use the pragmatic sideways refocusing of patriotism through the forms of domestic chivalry and grandeur to also double-up o properly Napoleonic orders of merit for excellence on the battlefield, in arts or sciences, and in general making significant contributions to the country, acting as something of a redistribution of the social capital of honor back to (some of) the masses and buttressing the position of naturalized foreigners and Jews and the like within high society.
    -[X] [8] Modernise the sewage networks in the major cities, leaving room for future expansion

    Those forts will be fine, right, haha? Meanwhile utils is at critical and I am scared we'll get a Cholera or Dysentery outbreak if we ignore it too long
     
    Last edited:
    [X] Plan 1842, start of a better time (2nd version)
    -[X] [1] Create and empower an anti-corruption department, whose members should be beyond reproach (and for whom, if found to be corrupt, the punishments should be much harsher), tasked with ensuring that no officials waste state money or sleep on their posts.
    -[X] [2] Create a comprehensive survey of the land, its current uses and future potential.
    -[X] [3] Making use of the surveys, create plans for a modern system of traffic - which roads need to be improved and how much, where should new ones be built, where should railways go etc.
    -[X] [4] Use Census, Cadastre and survey data as well as the plans made under [3] to embark on a major project of building up the interior lines of communication of Poland and linking up the roads and canals of the nation, focusing especially on a rail lines connecting Krakow to Warsaw and Warsaw to Lublin, though the majority Crown- and National Bank- owned joint-stock enterprise of the Royal Polish Rail Company.
    -[X] [5] Reach out to other nations about sending a few officers as observers, primarily focused on understanding the uses and hurdles of state-of-the-art weapons.
    -[X] [6] Have a committee, making use of reports from the observers from [5], create a plan for the future procurement of equipment of our armed forces (what do we have, what do we need, what would be nice to have, what should be avoided...).
    -[X] [7] Standardize and broaden the connections of Voivoidships and the Senat, through the convening of new and revived orders of knighthood and heraldic courts of honor, granting some of the prestige of their ancestral peerages and of helping bring tithes to and distribute alms with the Catholic, Lutheran, etc... Church, in exchange for their jurisdictions supporting the various land trusts acquiring the rail right-of-way
    -[X] [8] Also regularize the convening of Provincial Sejmiks in conjunction with relevant assemblymen of the national Sejm and various others, to help locally distribute the post and national and provincial gazettes and oversee the establishment of chambers of commerce and agricultural societies and such, processing local towns into railway stops as they feed into the great work.
     
    Last edited:
    An Anti-Corruption Department? Is that something that was known in this time period? I don't think even the Police existed back then. Plus, it doesn't say who is going to be recruited to run it and that is of primal importance to the politics.
     
    Corruption rn is more a problem of bad corruption not aligning properly with the direction of the state and with the friction of different power structures rubbing wrong against each other, with the open political offices and civil society of the Provinces and Voivoidships and the Sejm and everything being just a lot of hot air, instead of sources of productive corruption. I figure steadily chipping away at the problem building up the positions as respectably only half sinecures, along with a steady build up of public education and professionalization of bureaucracy through the military-administrative class, would be the way to do it.
     
    Last edited:
    bookwyrm said:
    Corruption rn is more a problem of bad corruption not aligning properly with the direction of the state and with the friction of different power structures rubbing wrong against each other, with the open political offices and civil society of the Provinces and Voivoidships and the Sejm and everything being just a lot of hot air, instead of sources of productive corruption. I figure steadily chipping away at the problem building up the positions as respectably only half sinecures, along with a steady build up of public education and professionalization of bureaucracy through the military-administrative class, would be the way to do it.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    We could use it tactically to whack people who don't align with our projects. Since everyone is likely to be corrupt to some degree we can pick and choose.
     
    Magnificate said:
    An Anti-Corruption Department? Is that something that was known in this time period? I don't think even the Police existed back then. Plus, it doesn't say who is going to be recruited to run it and that is of primal importance to the politics.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Laws against bribery have been a thing since ancient times. The 19th century was exactly the time when things like "public interest" became, well, a thing.

    There's also not really that big of a connection between the police and the proposed department? The police, in general, is tasked with ensuring public safety and solving crimes, from petty theft to murder. This department would be more something like an office of internal auditing. The chain of ideas from "people are misusing the funds we give to them" to "lets get someone to check their books" is really not that long.

    And...well, I don't know the Polish society at all that well that I could pinpoint who should staff such a department, especially not during this time, and in this fictional world, so...leaving that up to the best knowledge of the character seems like the way to go? And, well, making it clear that this is a position that will be under scrutiny for the same things they are set to spot, and will be held to a high standard...

    Nyvis said:
    We could use it tactically to whack people who don't align with our projects. Since everyone is likely to be corrupt to some degree we can pick and choose.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    And this, yeah. Having an instrument for whacking people that annoy you is great for a dictator totalitarian state concerned Monarch.
     
    though I imagine the processes of the anti-corrupt initiative would be somewhat better grounds as through like, a Court of Auditors or an Comptroller-General something, a judicial or quasi-judicial office that can go through cases of notable corruption from end to end
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top