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Springtime of Nations II: A European Republic Quest

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Yeah, okay, fine. Crisis update imminent.
Scheduled vote count started by Etranger on May 26, 2023 at 10:07 PM, finished with 87 posts and 53 votes.
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WAR!

WAR!
WAR!
Etranger said:
Yeah, okay, fine. Crisis update imminent.
Scheduled vote count started by Etranger on May 26, 2023 at 10:07 PM, finished with 87 posts and 53 votes.
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CRISIS: The Roman Revolution of 1889, Concluded
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    • CRISIS: The Roman Revolution of 1889, Concluded​

    - Threaten Austria with war if they don't back down.

    Austria backs down.

    Russia's national self-confidence is unshakable; their army's legacy is one of victory after victory, only slightly marred by the Crimean War. Their soldiers are innumerable, their lands vast. They probably wouldn't have even flinched.

    As for France and Britain, well, they have their own vast empires, their own legacies of conquest. Their routine dealings with the German republicans have left them complacent, indeed pleased to allow the so-called 'radicals' to check the absolutists in the east. It's unlikely they would have taken the threat seriously.

    But what Austria is forced to remember is five weeks of utter calamity. Of having their army refuse to respond in time, of moving sluggishly when it did, and of being completely humiliated when it finally joined battle. A loss so decisive that it was seared into the collective psyche of a generation, a wound only just beginning to heal.

    And so they alone are the ones who take the Germans seriously, who know that the naked threat is completely sincere and that the Republic will back it up with force of arms. And even with their Russian and Scandinavian allies, they're not ready for that. Not yet. So they concede.

    It's a grudging sort of concession, wherein they modify their ultimatum to a guarantee of the Pope's safety, a "that far and no more" statement tacitly accepting the new reality, but it's a concession nonetheless.

    And without Austrian intervention, no one is going to lift a finger on behalf of the beleaguered Italian royals.


    King Umberto is present at the moment when the Kingdom of Italy ceases to exist, just a scant few decades after his father declared its existence. He watches from a nearby hill, just outside Rome, as IV Corps' right flank disintegrates beneath a bayonet charge by the Red Legion's VI Corps, and then as the center begins to unravel, and then the panicked flight of the men, and then his horse is racing off the battlefield ahead of the flood of uniformed soldiers, led forcefully by one of his grooms. He watches it all in a daze.

    A week later, he is aboard the royal yacht as it steams away from the coast, watching as the port of Livorno is seized by red-shirted rebels and the crimson banner is raised over the city. He watches, for there is nothing to be done, and it is all over.


    By the end of the summer, Italy is whole once more, this time as the Italian Republic. Their red-green-red flag symbolizes the two red 'arms' of the Red Legion protecting the 'green' of their homeland, and it flies from Turin in the north to Palermo in the south. The Triple Alliance is reforged, no longer an uneasy defensive agreement but a full-throated republican unity pact, binding Germany, Spain, and Italy against the forces of reaction.

    The only holdouts are in Sardinia, where the Savoyard kings sit in uncomfortable exile, and in the Vatican Hills, where Papal workers frantically build walls around their new sovereign 'city'. But for the first time in a century, a freely-elected Senate sits in Rome, and from it flows radical and socialist laws that aim to abolish the aristocracy, grant freedom to the oppressed, and mobilize the whole of the nation against the imperialist powers.

    And in foreign courts, where once the German Republic's so-called 'play-acting' was met with laughter, there is now only a thoughtful silence, as diplomats and statesmen are forced to reckon with the idea that perhaps there is real substance undergirding that martial demeanor, as well as a genuine willingness to see it unleashed upon the world. Such people must not be taken lightly, nor dismissed as cranks. They must be handled... carefully.
     
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    • COWARDS! WE'LL RIP YOUR FUCKING ARMS OFF! YOUR KING AND NOBLE'S BLOOD WILL RUN THROUGH THE STREETS!

    i am very saddened vienna won't be liberated from imperialist tyranny
     
    Lord_Abaddon said:
    COWARDS! WE'LL RIP YOUR FUCKING ARMS OFF! YOUR KING AND NOBLE'S BLOOD WILL RUN THROUGH THE STREETS!

    i am very saddened vienna won't be liberated from imperialist tyranny
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    The workers of Vienna were among the most admirable revolutionary battalions in '48, and I'm sure given the loss the Empire just took will make their wishes known again soon enough.
     
    We reconcile at last our principles with our venerable sibling of that great year in human history, 1848. O, fortuna.
     
    Do we have any sort of mandatory military service? And if so, how long is it? I'd like to see if we could implement something close to what the Swiss do OTL.
     
    I feel like the fact that the moment Germany secured guarantee of peace with France and Britain, we immediately going full jingoism is going to be case study on the important of balance of power. At least Austrian is smart enough to back down.

    On another note, nice to see Japan going down a less authoritarian route. Hopefully their civil government will have easier time with their millitary.

    And that's a lot of commissions we are establishing. On one hand, better coordination, on the other bureaucratisation, but a at least they seem to be elected?

    Also, can you all tone that jingoism a little bit down? I feel genuinely disturbed here.
     
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