The Short 30s
Lenin famously once said "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen". However, not even he could foresee that these two things would come true at the same time in the Second Hellenic Republic. Early in the morning on Sunday, 2
nd October 1932, one week after the Venezelists barely clung to power in a close-fought election, a strange electrical signal was detected.
On that day the whole country awoke to a strange new world, seemingly a quiet one. It would only be two days later that they finally made contact with another nation, proving they were not alone, when an adventurous fishing vessel encountered a Regia Marina patrol in the Ionian Sea.
Incredibly, it seemed like the Italians had come from a point almost a decade in the future, from the Greek perspective, and now had access to technologies far beyond the capabilities of the Greeks.
The Bleak Autumn
Over the years of the republic Greece had worked to become mostly self-sufficient when it came to food, so starvation was not an immediate threat, however the government still had to concern itself with running the economy and maintaining order. Pre-Event, the Greek economy was based primarily on tobacco exports to Germany and secondarily on tourism. However, in the aftermath of The Event, the crop failed and the tourists stopped coming. Furthermore, whilst two thirds of the IFN seem to have mysteriously disappeared, Italy remained and decided to claim the whole sum of the debt owed. Furthermore, the branches of Deutsche Bank within the country reached out to the new Hitlerite regime in Germany, meaning that Greece cannot easily escape those debts either.
Whilst The Event took a lot away from the Greeks with one hand, it provided for them with the other. The Republic of Turkey was gone. Taking this as a sign of divine support for the Megali Idea, the government made haste to clear out the cities' slums and found new settlement programs all along the coast of western Anatolia. Furthermore they announced the construction of a new capital city straddling the Bosporus that would be built to the highest standards with the newest designs. These schemes were the fulfilment of the Venezelist desires, and they were also their undoing.
The New World's First Election
The Venezelist project created a new class of peasantry, one that ungratefully paid back its generosity by rallying behind the Farmer's Party, ally of the (monarchist) People's Party. Furthermore, through the creation of the new frontier, the Venezelists removed the threat of poverty that had helped to stifle the trade unionist movement in Greece's major cities. Sensing weakness, the People's Party forced an election. Promising stability and good governance in the wild and uncertain times, the monarchists won. The Venezelist Liberal party was skewered by the bolstered monarchist alliance on the right, and also lost a handful of seats to the emboldened communists on the left, shrinking from the largest party in the lower chamber to being merely third.
The victory of the People's Party was not the end of the story however. The preferred candidate for king, George II, was in exile in Britain at the time of the Event and so was seemingly unavailable. In fact, it seemed like in this new Earth there might be only one divinely crowned king available: Victor Emmanuel III. However, a second candidate soon came to the fore. The most radical monarchists had taken the Event as a sign that the Fifth Monarchy, the reign of God on Earth, was imminent. They rallied behind the general Georgios Kondylis as Regent until the arrival of the Lord. The Fifth Monarchists soon split from the other right-wing parties and made their demands:
- The Liberal Party and the Communist Party should be banned from government
- The abolition of the republic and the proclamation of a monarchy
- Georgios Kondylis shall be proclaimed as regent until the king, whether that be Victor Emmanuel or the Lord, shall be crowned.
Additionally the Fifth Monarchists threatened that should their demands not be met they would carry out a coup. The new prime minister, Panagis Tsaldaris, sought to avoid bloodshed and so acquiesced. However, the debate as to who exactly should be King rages on.
The Kingdom of Greece and the Four Year plan
After the drama of the first few months, Prime Minister Tsaldaris did manage to stabilise the country somewhat. Germany agreed to buy what was salvaged of the years tobacco crop in exchange for industrial equipment and expertise. However Il Duce's ambitions are clear, and so further trade with the fascists is risky. Seeking a counterweight to offer some protection, the Averof armoured cruiser and the Elli light cruiser have been dispatched to Suez and London respectively, trying to find out if the passageway to the Red Sea is still open and trying to find out whether any remnants of the British Empire might remain.
It has also become clear that if Greece wants to survive as an independent kingdom it must industrialise, and fast. To this end the Prime Minister has taken drastic measures, such as pinning the Drachma to the Reichsmark, for lack of anything else, and increasing the rate at which synthetic oil is extracted from our lignite reserves. For now the kingdom is secure, but the Italians want dominion and the Communists and Republicans want revenge. As it says in the Bible; "there is no rest for the wicked".
