[Continuation] Schwarz-Rot-Gold: An Interwar Germany Quest
- Thread starter mouli
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It really depends on how negotiations go this turn, which is why we overinvested in reparations. I don't think we'll need it, from my understanding it was a financial scheme devised to hide massive rearmament, not necessarily to raise funds.
Trent01
A Fountain of Quest Ideas
On the flip side, it got quite a bit of industrial and military work done with a minimum of hard cash and a paper trail that couldn't be traced by the Allies who were fixated on specie and hard assets in reparations. Combined with our prior outsourcing of arms production to foreign territories, we could make use of that ponzi scheme for our own ends.
But yes, wait for reparations negotiations outcome first. Considering the world seems to be teetering on whether Germany coughs them up regularly, that outcome is going to decide a lot of the world.
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Another big issue with Schacht is his position of deporting all the Jews and restoring Germany to its rightful place on the world stage. Which is exactly what the Junkers wanted, albeit less violent. If we flub Widerstand, we might see a resurgence of Triad supporters.
Turn 2 Results Part I
mouli
Terrible QM
- Location
- United States
Turn 2 Results Part I
-[X] The East Prussian Sore(x2): As with Silesia, the East Prussian border provinces are seeing an insurgency with Polish underground units and the radicalization of the Polish speaking population – we need to get that ended, fast. Part of that is enforcing local law enforcement guidelines and prosecuting those who are acting against the laws of the republic – show that we are fair and different from the Triumvirate putschists who ran the area since March, and we have a carrot. The federal police and army are a stick. DC40. Stabilizes East Prussia a little, as above. Begins the process of the plebiscite, with associated vote options in turn. It is highly recommended this be taken, as the plebiscite will be run this turn come what may. (x2)
Rolled: mouli: 2D100 → 28(6 +22)
Rolled: mouli: 2D100 → 28(6 +22)
Report to the Reichstag: An Overstretch of the Security Forces
Filed by the Interior and Justice Ministries on March 23rd, 1921
Filed by the Interior and Justice Ministries on March 23rd, 1921
We file this report in response to the recent attempts at restoration of order in the East, particularly in areas of East Prussia that are contested by Poland and formerly under occupation by Triumvirate forces. The border areas that were to be adjusted via League of Nations plebiscite were those that immediately abutted the area of Soviet control in northern Poland early in 1920, and thus were also home to a substantial Freikorps and irregular force commitment from Triumvirate high commanders. This was intended to fulfill the dual role of restoration of order in contested areas as well as deterrence against Russian incursions across the border in the name of 'liberating' East Prussia for the KPD. These forces were primarily composed of East Prussian junkers who were too old or too young for conscription into Triumvirate forces, and thus tended to be heavy-handed in the methods that were used for restoration of order. One example of this can be seen in the attached interview with former Major Klaus Hermann Hartwig, who served in the imperial army from 1890 to 1915 before retiring with honors. He notes that a significant influence on the counter-partisan tactics that he utilized in suppression of the Polish Military Organization were drawn from those used by Lothar von Trotha in the East African conflict and the German Army's tactics in Belgium. The question then arises – well and so, now that there has been use of the army's old methods, how effective were they?
The answer, as it turns out, is not very. The PMO has had a ready supply of recruits in those Polish-majority districts on the border thanks to the ethnically and linguistically targeted measures that were pursued by the Triumvirate. While wholesale shooting on the scale of East Africa was deemed unnecessary – and thankfully so, for this is not Africa and we do not need African methods – the commanders in the area made extensive use of hostage-taking, forced quartering and summary execution of partisans. The Poles in turn tended to radicalize in consequence, and the PMO thus waged a considerable campaign in the border zones before its suppression by German border troops in the ending stages of the war – and the start of September 1920.
With order restored on the border, then, one might ask: What is left? We have yet to fully restore order in the contested districts, with voter intimidation rife and the PMO having recently bombed the police station in Ortelsburg last week. The Freikorps and Grenzschutz in the area have in turn resorted to reprisals on suspected PMO collaborators, along with a policy of sabotaging the plebiscite through the use of intimidation, ID checks and checkpoints and other means that have irritated the French Army representative in the area. While East Prussia is not degenerating into the chaos that we feared, its situation remains uncertain – the PMO still being able to operate and the Grenzschutz engaging in disproportionate retaliation means that the vote is not likely to be as smooth as we wish.
Underhanded tactics may be required.
Vote at turn end, three votes to make in total this turn.
-[X] Labor Rights Enforcement (0/100): Now that the SPD have passed their labor rights bills, a framework has to be set up to allow dispute resolution and the enforcement of those guidelines through the courts and the government. That falls to the Ministry of Justice, and it means a massive expansion of the old labor division due to the scope of the legislation. It will be expensive. 5 Budget per assigned die. Sets up a labor rights board and agency under the MoJ. Mollifies left-SPD a little, stabilizes the western parts of Germany a little. Industrial unrest eases somewhat.
mouli: D100 → 9696
Close enough
mouli: D100 → 9696
Close enough
Twenty Five Years: A Retrospective
Taken from Vorwarts, February 13th, 1921
Taken from Vorwarts, February 13th, 1921
Before the Great War, the labor movements of Germany had only just freed themselves from the chains of outlawry with which the governments of the empire had attempted to suppress them, but at the same time as we all know from bitter experience, never rose high in imperial governance. The structures of the old imperial state prevented any expression of proletarian grievance and prevented the masses from influencing policy, by design and by action of the elite class. Yet the movement grew, from the socialist unions of northern Germany and the East to the Christian comrades of the Ruhr to our more radical comrades in the Rhineland, the movement grew to encompass the millions of workers in Germany by the eve of the Great War.
The war changed all that. The war forced the socialist unions as well as the Christian ones into the arms of the state, into supporting the war effort to preserve Germany from the consequences of a victor's peace imposed by the British and French. We did our utmost to do that, and we failed. This patriotic policy divided the movement, and the resultant 'wild' strikes from workers and organizers who opposed an accommodation with the state were increasingly troublesome for the war effort and the party as a whole. This split would fester and grow into the splitting of the old SPD, the formation of the errant USPD and the more malevolent KPD whose rising in the west made the civil war far worse than it had any reason to be.
In 1918, at the time of the peace, though, that was still in the future. The Revolution had dethroned the monarchy, demolished the elite structures that kept any trace of mass influence on state policy, and allowed the Party to promise a fundamental rebalancing of the role of labor in society and the economy. That was derailed by the peace of 1919, the Spartakusaufstand, and the civil war that followed in 1920, but with the war's end the time has come to deliver…
Continued in Gustav (II)
-[X] Reorganizing the Reichsbank(х2) : The Finance Ministry handled the Reichsbank during the war, but that has to be avoided now that the peace has come. We need a proper governing board and regulations for the Reichsbank, and we can use the Reichsbank as an autonomous regulator of monetary stability rather than doing it from the Finance Ministry. The issue is recruitment and organization – the civil service is thin on the ground and overstretched. Roll determines quality, sets up the Reichsbank upper echelons. It is highly advised this be done within the first few turns.
Rolled: mouli: 2D100 → 101(34 +67)
[Hidden roll for [redacted] on table: Nat 1]
Result: Schacht
Rolled: mouli: 2D100 → 101(34 +67)
[Hidden roll for [redacted] on table: Nat 1]
Result: Schacht
Berlin, 1921
Hjalmar Schacht is a man under a cloud that he feels is perhaps undeserved. He has always been something of an outsider, named as he is for an American and now working as a business-friendly economist in the government of the SPD. He is a man to whom grievance has come easily, yet the charges against him are not that hollow. Schacht knows this, which is why he was so quick to take his party leader's offer of a prestigious post in the Reichsbank – running the Reichsbank – rather than continue to attempt to 'make it' in the more lucrative world of German commercial banking. For it was Hjalmar Schacht who funneled army occupation funds through his old employer, the Dresdner Bank, and it was for that scandal that the SPD and Zentrum moved to block his candidacy – the DDP made sure he got it, and for that the banker knows that he owes them a great deal. For all that he might disagree with Hugo Preuss, for the moment Schacht will be a good soldier and work to stabilize the economy. Once that is done, then he will have some more freedom, or so he thinks to himself as he moves into a tiny office in the Treasury and begins a process of phone calls, barked orders and chain-smoking.
What did he do? He sat on his chair and smoked in his little dark room which still smelled of old floor cloths. Did he read letters? No, he read no letters. Did he write letters? No, he wrote no letters. He telephoned a great deal – he telephoned in every direction and to every German or foreign place that had anything to do with money and foreign exchange as well as with the Reichsbank and the Finance Minister. And he smoked. We did not eat much during that time. We usually went home late, often by the last suburban train, travelling third class. Apart from that he did nothing.
-Secretary of Hjalmar Schacht, Fraulein Steffeck, when asked about her work at the Reichsbank. (quote taken from wiki)
-Secretary of Hjalmar Schacht, Fraulein Steffeck, when asked about her work at the Reichsbank. (quote taken from wiki)
-[X] Securing Expertise: The DDP and its leading lights have had the bright idea of ensuring that the Reichsbank and Finance Ministry are not our only sources of economic information by setting up an institute for the study of what some in England are calling the Business Cycle. The so-called Berlin Institute for Business Cycle Research is to examine economic data and produce policy recommendations, in addition to acting as an institute of higher education. DC15, costs 5 Budget, improves quality of economic information. Slight concession to the DDP.
Rolled: mouli: D100 → 62
Rolled: mouli: D100 → 62
Grand Opening: The Berlin Institute for Business Cycle Research
Taken from the newspaper Volkswacht
Taken from the newspaper Volkswacht
The Berlin Institute of Business Cycle Research opened this Monday, both to a fresh intake of students and for its first open house, an introduction of the institute and its missions statement to the public. The Berlin Institute is a small place at present, an institute headed by Dr. Ernst Wagemann with no more than a dozen faculty and a similar number of students who have relocated from other universities in Germany, but it has potential to grow. Its missions are inherently suited to the current economic and political climate, being the study of the economic boom-bust cycle, the factors influencing economic boom-bust cycles and inflationary pressure, and the applications of this research to state policy. The last mission statement is the most salient, for the current administration has a deficit of expertise thanks to the war and the civil war devastating the ranks of government. Any informed policy will likely draw from the Berlin Institute for data and supporting evidence, at least informed policy made by the Treasury. The Reichsbank with its newly independent comptroller Hjalmar Schacht is another domain entirely, concerned with the currency of the Republic and not with economic planning per se.
A New Source of Worry: Uncertain Missions from Berlin
Taken from the newspaper Vorwarts
Taken from the newspaper Vorwarts
The Ebert Government has, apparently due to the uncertainty of the economy and pressure from the more bourgeois elements of the cabinet, acceded to the creation of a private policy institute in Berlin. Named the Berlin Institute for Business Cycle Research, it intends to 'study the German economy with respect to boom and bust cycles' and use those studies as aids in the planning and enacting of rational economic policy. While on the surface this is to be applauded – after all, rational economic planning would also mean investment in the working class rather than further handouts to those that own the factories – this can also mean very different and more concerning things. This was the same rhetoric used to justify the armaments program of 1917 and the attendant repression of labor, all in the name of rationalization for the common good. The Berlin Institute is staffed by those that have not had to labor in the war plants or the trenches, and their policy prescriptions will in all likelihood have a differing definition of 'common good' than the common people will. This newspaper is ready to be pleasantly surprised, but it cautions the Chancellery to keep the economists on a short leash and prevent a cult of expertise from developing around national economic policy.
AN: Short update today to get my hand in, so to speak. Larger ones over the weekend. Not the best update I've written, but something is better than nothing and this is half the turn.
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Big oof there, we might be forced to engage in some shady dealings in the near future. Silesia I am not worried about losing short of losing control of the area, the vote was favorable to the Germans despite Polish meddling. East Prussia is a bit more sensitive I think.
He'll be a competent steward for the Reichbank, I don't expect him to cause mich trouble for now. But he has some unfortunate political views which may cause trouble later on.
This will prove useful. As long as they don't subscribe to the Austrian school or something.
Glad this went smoothly, thanks for letting us finish it this turn! Would have been a pain to have to throw a dice here again.
Don't worry about it! The quality is great as always, even if it doesn't measure to your lofty standards (as self imposed judgments often do). Glad things are going relatively well (besides East Prussia ofc). Will eagerly await for the results of Widerstand and the negotiations, here's hoping they go well!
I take back my previous optimism about the Nat-1.
mouli
Terrible QM
- Location
- United States
At present his main clash with the state is over worker protections and his far more pro-business views. The government is, in his opinion, going to render German exports uncompetitive. Clashes on nationalism come later. It isn't that bad yet, he isn't working to topple you or something.
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As far as nat 1s go, it's not that bad. Imagine getting one in East Prussia? I'd imagine it would involve the French getting uppity, which is never fun for Germany lol. He's competent at least.
- Location
- United States
Well, this is unfortunate. East Prussia isn't as big a deal as Silesia, but giving up land here is still going to suck politically. That being said, messing with the plebiscite is also hardly ideal, and I think we were all hoping some sort of relationship could be salvaged with the Poles. What a mess ...
This should help with the SPD's credibility, although it'll hardly be a panacea. Knocking it out in a single turn is certainly pleasant.
Well, he's hardly ideal, but I was expecting a lot worse from a nat 1. We can deal with people bickering with us about worker's rights, what's important is that the Bank is lead by someone competent, and insofar as I can tell Hjalmar fits that bill.
If there's one thing Germany needs right now, it's detailed and skilled economic expertise. It doesn't sound like we'll have that immediately, but this is a good start.
Charles Dewitt
A Paladin With No Self Confidence
- Location
- Middle of Nowhere Appalachia
I'm not sure what to make of a 100 followed by a nat 1. But it could be much worse I suppose...
Long term observer here that only (very) recently created an account to participate in this quest. I look forward to seeing where this turn leads us, especially regarding the Reichswehr...
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Turn 2 Results Part II
mouli
Terrible QM
- Location
- United States
Turn 2 Results Part II
-[X] Reparations(50): We can pay back the reparations in kind as well as cash, although that means risking the destabilization of the economy as we take commodities out of circulation to hand them to the French. While the Allies have agreed to an incentive payment of five marks per ton of delivered coal and are willing to heavily credit us for deliveries of machinery, they also want hard currency. Badly. And the French Army has made noises about marching out of its bridgehead to the Ruhr if those demands are not met. Reparations are to be paid as follows: Up to twenty Budget, it is one-for-one and paid in hard currency/specie. After that it is paid in coal and in kind, at one-for-five rate of exchange. Allocate budget as a write in. Example: Paying twenty-five Budget gives 20+(5x5)=45 paid reparations. Paying over the total reduces the reparations to pay later on. The more reparations are paid, the more resentment builds up over their payment.
Autopass
Autopass
The Belgian border is patrolled, but only lightly. Why bother, when the Allied armies are on the Rhine and Germany is demilitarized? So this railway crossing from Germany to the land it once occupied is manned, in the dead of night, by no more than two sleepy infantrymen. The Customs men are long since asleep, the barriers lowered for the night and the infantry raising them up for one single train and no more.
It's not as if there's much traffic from Germany in any case. The war saw to that. The same war that left the Belgian side of the border a devastated ruin, a flaming wreck of a nation that had sat supine under a jackboot for four long years. Perhaps the soldiers in the guard-house are from Louvain, that city with its great university library now left in ashes by German artillery and all too many of its houses have empty seats at the table every evening. Perhaps the Belgian border troops are from Antwerp, that great seaport of the Channel that was bombarded by the Royal Navy when German submarines used it to slip into the sea and harry London's merchant fleet. Perhaps the border guards are from Ghent, or Liege, or Brussels, or a dozen other towns and cities scarred by the War. By Germany.
At the end of the day, the fact remains the same. The infantry remain tense on border duty despite the victory, despite the reparations coming in, despite it all, out of muscle memory and bitter lessons learned over four bloody years. The night is cold and silent, and the younger of the two border troops can almost imagine the rattle, the rustle and soft whistle of wind through bones, so near to the electrified wire fence that the Germans built on the Belgian border. To keep the occupied labor inside.
The train comes in like a great black herald of the damned, whistling fit to burst one's eardrums and immense in the silent night. The barrier is raised and the train slows almost impossibly so, its immensity coming to a smooth halt with the caboose perhaps twenty meters from the border post.
Inspection is the terse demand made by the Belgian infantry, the younger man with bayonet at the ready and his older comrade not half as tense or nervous. The older infantryman boards and pokes around, a trunk begrudgingly opened for him by the German train guard revealing glittering gold stamped with the Kaiser's face.
The old soldier's hand slips to his rifle-strap on seeing that face. Perhaps he lost a sister, perhaps a mother, or a brother or father or son. He gazes at the bright gold for a long moment before nodding at the German and getting off the train, waving it on with its cargo of little golden Kaisers, Wilhelm come to Belgium in more comely form than 1914.
The two border guards sigh for a moment and light up a smoke, a relief from the cold night air. And so the spring rolls on.
-[X] Federal Police Reform (Urgent) (0/100) (х2): The French have demanded that the federal police lose their armored cars and their heavy weapons, and want the green uniforms changed out for blue as green is too close to camouflage. We also have to expand the federal police and deploy them in force in East Prussia and Silesia, perhaps folding some of the to-be-disbanded response units into the army or into border patrol troops attached to the Interior Ministry – either way, the disbanding will be slow-walked to keep Germany together, but made enough of a production out of to keep France happy. 5 Budget per assigned die, mollifies France a little, stabilizes East Prussia and Silesia a little. I will roll for police atrocities, as the federal police (or Sipo) tended to be heavy handed.
mouli: 2D100 → 30(29 +1)
Major Atrocities, DC raised to 60 due to nat 1: mouli: D100 → 6161
mouli: 2D100 → 30(29 +1)
Major Atrocities, DC raised to 60 due to nat 1: mouli: D100 → 6161
Report to the Reichstag: Federal Police Demilitarization Progress
This report is intended to inform the Reichstag on progress made by the Chancellery on the demilitarization of the Sicherheitspolizei (hereafter SiPo) and their reorganization as a purely civilian federal constabulary. This began in response to French demands at Treaty negotiations for a demilitarization of the SiPo, with the current makeup of the federal police – complete with armored cars, heavy weapons and brigade-level organization – deemed to near to the sort of organization that an army would have and therefore not in compliance with the Treaty of Versailles. The demilitarization and reduction in force of the SiPo was deemed to be best approached as a gradual process, and outright disbandment or hurried disarmament were decided by the Reichstag and Chancellery to be suboptimal. As the French have already levied separate objections to the existence and makeup of the Grenzschutz units intended for border patrol, we cannot simply fold the militarized components of the SiPo into the Grenzschutz and be done with it.
Instead, a phased reduction in force has been planned and begun in the western regions of Germany nearer to the Allied military's zone of occupation. Arms and armor formerly attached to SiPo commands are to be stored for later use. Multiple uses ranging from sale to the army have been mooted, but the government has decided on a plan of arms caches and arsenals attached to military district commands, under SiPo oversight. Rural Landespolizei are to act as sentinels for Inter-Allied Military Commission inspections and to aid in concealment of arms caches. Paramilitaries such as the Black Reichswehr are to act as heavy support for a disarmed or demilitarized SiPo.
Some among the SPD have raised the notion of a volunteer Landwehr akin to the Napoleonic era, perhaps in an attempt to proletarianize what was earlier viewed as a primarily bourgeois achievement. Such a Landwehr would not be possible as an organized, chartered arm of the state and would have to be formed 'bottom-up' using either political parties or associated organizations. The Reichswehr would have the final say on which paramilitaries are to act in support of the army. As a result, the so-called Volkswehr concept has promise in that it would open up a far broader base of reserve personnel for national defense, but it would undermine the traditional primacy of the Prussian officer corps – who even now dominate the Black Reichswehr to an astonishing degree.
The progress of disarmament has been as planned in the west, with the French representatives in western Germany willing to attest to compliance with treaty demands. In the east with its ongoing insurgencies, progress has been far slower – and the east will require more work than the west, due to the larger deployments of SiPo in the area. Further work is required, and a rapid withdrawal would lead to further incidents such as the Allenstein post office siege of last month – and the possibility of them going worse. The post office siege was defused with the arrest of the Polish partisans who had seized the central post office in the town, rather than the local garrison commander's preferred option of an urban assault supported by mortar fire in the city center.
Koenigsberg
March, 1921
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler is a man of few words, or at least of few words that are wasted. Every one of them has a purpose, even if they do not meet their mark. His coat is torn, his face is pinched and his eyes dart from the street ahead to the Baltic at his side as he walks along the promenade, a new look and a new setting for Goerdeler who did his degree at Tubingen. He pauses to check his watch, and nods to himself as he walks on more slowly – there are fifteen more minutes before his next appointment and plenty of time to get there. There is no need to hurry. It ill befits a candidate for mayor of Koenigsberg.
And there is much to think about besides.
The same madmen that raised a flag of revolt not a year ago have left, fled or rejoined the state that destroyed them in the field. Yet the government of East Prussia is not yet restored to sanity, to peace and freedom from the heavy hand of Ebert in Berlin. The newspapers still bleat with unctuous words of 'peace, land and bread', the editors speak of 'new management', and dependable old Hugenberg seems unable to do much about it at the moment. Some of them, of course, are terrified. The army, the same army that listens to Ebert in Berlin, is what protects them from the bombings and the reprisal raids carried out by the Consul Organization.
Goerdeler remembers the bombings. He suppresses a shiver for a moment, one that isn't coming from the cold Baltic breeze. He shakes his head and walks on, self-control asserting itself over the memories. There is a ways to go yet. Goerdeler walks with quick choppy steps, the march of someone long in the army. He served on the Eastern Front, on the same border that is now aflame from Poles and Jews causing unrest in Germany. He was there in 1917, with von Below and the XVII Army Corps, and he warned them of the Diktat to come – the only way to keep the east was the destruction of Poland as an effective state.
He shakes his head, berating himself for being premature. The Polish eagle so near to Danzig is preferable to the Red alternative. Perhaps things are better this way.
The docks that he comes to are packed, flat-capped dockworkers coming off the early-morning shift. Longshoremen and overseers and clerks, the odd chandler or crewman on the scruffy Baltic steamers, all of them shaking his hand or slapping him on the back as he forces a way through the crowd to a makeshift podium. Someone's piled two crates on one another, and ex-Captain Goerdeler climbs his way to the top before looking out at the crowd. Crowds are familiar, the nationalist dockworkers cheering him on – cheering the lone sane nationalist in the mayoral election – as familiar in their thick quilted jackets as the others who always walk with Goerdeler through life, through war and peace alike. Even absent the dockworkers or other constituents, there is Germany walking with him. There is stooped old Friedrich II with a veteran's haunted gaze, ascetic von Hardenberg with his quill and his laws, and Bismarck towering above them all with a knowing, arrogant gleam in his eye; there is Cicero in the shadows and Cato behind him, whispering, "I would not be beholden to a tyrant". And what a tyrant there is, in Berlin waiting to be born…
There were madmen here says Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, a finger pointed across the Baltic, and they ran. The crowd roars something, and he holds up a hand. Silence. There were madmen here and now they are dead or gone. The Reds in Berlin, the ones who signed the Diktat, call us comrades now that the madmen are gone. The madmen called us comrades as well. I ask you, people of Koenigsberg, are you their comrades?
The crowd jeers, and Goerdeler smiles as he speaks on. There is hope for the future yet, perhaps.
-[X] Across the Alps: While we haven't had much contact with the Swiss and the Austrians, we can at least spare them some attention while reaching out to Italy – Italy wants arms and is willing to trade in kind and in a small amount of hard currency, while we have artillery to dispose of. Heavy artillery, already mothballed and in storage for transport. I think that we can make a deal, says Gustav Krupp, and the Minister is inclined to believe him. Sells the heavy guns to Italy. Roll determines payment. Payment floored at 5 Budget one time, and the rest of it in food or in Italian assets.
Rolled: mouli: D100 → 6
Italy Stability/RE rolls, 2d100 (One PSI, one royalist): Hidden
Payment is the bare minimum. Food/barter goods delayed in transit.
Rolled: mouli: D100 → 6
Italy Stability/RE rolls, 2d100 (One PSI, one royalist): Hidden
Payment is the bare minimum. Food/barter goods delayed in transit.
To the Foreign Ministry, to whomever this may concern,
I send word on behalf of the Arms Disposal Commission from the sunny slopes of the Tyrol. The arms that were to be disposed of have been sold to the Italians and contact has been reestablished with old friends in Austria, but things on the southern border remain a shambles. If anything, Austria has it worse than Germany at the moment – while we may have our starving and our freezing thousands, Austria does as well – and it does not have an empire or a nation to aid it in feeding and housing them. And Italy is no help in the matter there.
The Po Valley is aflame, and the anarchists have seized or sabotaged most major rail links from the Brenner Pass to the South of Italy. The Italian Army has begun to mobilize to crush what is a growing insurrection now that cordons have proven ineffective, but the difficulty of moving the arms we sold to the mustering zones at Ferrara render payment either paltry or slow. I would advise an aid mission to Austria soonest and arms to Italy if possible under Treaty restrictions, to avoid the south going Red.
We have not made much money from this deal.
Sincerely,
Gustav Krupp
Sensationalist, but perceptive if one reads the report attached to the letter. Krupp underestimates the Italians, though – the South of Italy will not turn Red easily, and troops from there have come to crush the insurrection.
-Addendum from the Wilhelmstrasse to the so-called 'Krupp Report', April 1921
AN: I will be dropping all projects save this and Creative Destruction, with a reboot of my Warhammer quest in the works maybe in the future. I plan to decouple somewhat from SV and spend more time IRL, now that COVID restrictions are lifted. I won't be off the site entire and this project will possibly be the only one updating for a while, but I think it'd be bettter for me to scale back writing quests.
I'll log in once a day or maybe twice a week. Questions should tag me.
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- UTC+0
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Wow, I think this turn can be described pretty accurately as "the bare minimum", those rolls were very much not cooperating! I love how the nat 1 raised the DC for atrocities but we promptly passed it by one though, so it's not all bad 
Anyway, glad to see this updated, great writing as always! I hope your reintegration into society post-covid goes smoothly, I'm a bit jealous honestly (my age group in my country has not been vaccinated unfortunately), but hope you do well!
Anyway, glad to see this updated, great writing as always! I hope your reintegration into society post-covid goes smoothly, I'm a bit jealous honestly (my age group in my country has not been vaccinated unfortunately), but hope you do well!
Those dice. At least the low ones hit in areas that we can come back from.
Charles Dewitt
A Paladin With No Self Confidence
- Location
- Middle of Nowhere Appalachia
Crudely put, but not wrong in the slightest...
Though I'm mostly just happy I caught the update on time for once.
Charles Dewitt
A Paladin With No Self Confidence
- Location
- Middle of Nowhere Appalachia
- Location
- United States
What an incredibly apt way of putting it.
On a further read, it's not a disaster - at least SiPo managed to avoid further pissing all over the eastern situation. But at this point we need to hunt down whoever enraged God, for clearly, something has occurred to bring down his wrath in such an undeniable manner.
God either hates the Republic or is giving all His luck to the Bavarians. Clearly holding a session of the Reichstag in Munich would get us His favor.
Found a video that sort of encapsulates the reactions regarding the rolls.