Tu felix Austria... (Interwar Austria)

[Viribus Unitis]

Spoiler

I wanted to write this as a conspiracy theory manifesto... Turns out I'm not wired to write that way, at lest not for this. Might be better with something else. Hearing about the potential terrorist attack in my city certainly didn't help spark any last minute rewrite.

Ender, Gabriele: The Schattenburg Kreis and their Quest for Media Domination, in: Schwarzer Hansjörg (2016): Hidden Treaty Clauses and Conspiracies. How Secrets shaped 20th​ Century Europe, Zürich: Limmat Verlag


Today we know that the Schattenburg Kreis made media dominance one of their primary goals at their very beginning in closing months of the Great War. While their contacts, partners and subordinates certainly didn't know the whole thrust of their scheme, let alone it's scope, they often expanded on this on their initiative and used it to further their own goals. One of the identified members of the inner circle of this conspiracy, Eugen Ruß, used his seed money to purchase a local printing company, with an associated newspaper. From there he quickly expanded out of the local market into Switzerland and Germany.

While Ruß is just one of many, and most knew less about the conspiracy on a whole, his actions were a pattern that repeated often. A local person, often already known to have at least some means, is placed in charge of local newspapers and expands from there. In many countries of the former Habsburg Empire this is often realised via the existing German speaking upper class or more often via people moving back from Austria into their nation of origin. Co-opting an existing owner happened less often, but certainly wasn't unknown. In some cases monetary aid can be tracked back to a member of the Schattenburg Kreis.

Outside the former Habsburg Empire, to little surprise the densest network existed within the break away states from Russia, where new elites were rising, and a silent partner often bought at least some influence.

In the traditional European settler colonies middleman for the conspiracy were most often recent migrants. Especially in the British Empire and in the United States this led to a stronger presence among non-English newspapers, but certainly wasn't limited to them. In fact for a long while well placed contacts were in key positions to manipulate the Associated Press in the US.

From the colonies influence trickled back into their European home countries. Though at last in Britain the troubled economic situation of many newspapers allowed for easy access.

One reason the network stayed unnoticed for so long, was it's low key usage. It was often only when conspirators further out from the inner circle tried to manipulate it for their own gate that pieces of it came to light, but the true extent was mostly missed.

…

Another piece of the puzzle was Austrian domination of the film market. Both private individuals, as well as government actors ensured that a strong local movie making industry existed, that then extended to television as well. Not only were several Vienna production companies early adopters of sound film, there also grew an industry specialised in dubbing film. By the mid 1930s, when sound film had been adopted throughout Europe, it is estimated that more than 60 percent of films for the European market were dubbed in Austria.

A large involvement of several Austrian companies in cinema ownership caused several minor scandals over the years. In 1927 for example, a Vienna produced news reel shown in Hungary caused a minor government scandal. When it was noticed that most cinemas that had shown the reel were through a number of cut-outs owned by Austrian individuals, it grew to a diplomatic crisis. These cinemas were nationalised afterwards, causing a blow to Austrian media influence.

…

While Austria certainly weren't the first to broadcast radio, local innovators and government subsides allowed for a rapid spread of receiver sets. By 1930 an estimated 80 percent of households had a radio, and in some places this had spread across borders. Radio ownership in Switzerland and Czechoslovakia was similarly high, while Hungary, Bavaria and Slovenia only lagged a little behind. Powerful radio transmitters, officially to ensure good signal through the mountains, allowed Austrian radio stations to be received in most of Europe. After the Austro-Italian War, the new Austrian minority laws, and as an acknowledgement of guest workers part in their victory, government stations started to assign certain time slots to foreign language broadcasts, and several private ventures sprung up entirely broadcasting in those.

Großdeutsche politicians were especially scathing of these foreign language broadcasts, deriding them as government sponsored phone calls. If indeed some of the more minor language broadcasts saw some odd usage, Sorbes for example being known to announce engagements and births to their families back home via radio show, to the shadowy Schattenburg Kreis these families tuning regularly certainly was a feature.

Spoiler

Some hints to the future in there. Schattenburg Kreis... Think Bilderberger, but there's an actual conspiracy involved. And as such things go, as the decades go on hints and pieces get out.

 

[Viribus Unitis]

Spoiler

Today is more to complete a month of daily posting. I intend to continue, but maybe not so regularly. Current events have taken a lot of motivation away.

Maria Vonarx: Guest Workers in: Walter Hellbock, Franz Wagner, Heinrich Starhemberg (1999): The Labour Movement and the Austro-Italian War, Wien: Arbeiterverlag

With an economic boom in Austria and many a new factory opening up, soon a constrain on available workers was felt. And that was even with a rapidly increasing mechanisation of the agricultural sector, not to forget many industrialists offering 'harvest holidays' to a shrinking labour pool.

Workers were needed, and so the Austrian government started to look abroad. Even with the Social-Democrats no longer in power they did manage to retain some power, and used it to exchange strong labour protections and right, for an opening of the market for foreign workers.

As it worked out in the first few years, this often meant that recent migrants that had returned to their birth nations in the aftermath of the Great War once again returned to Austria. In the labourer districts of Vienna it was once again common to hear Czech, Hungarian or Yiddish.

There were several tiers of guest worker. Someone born within the former Cisleithanian part of the Empire and could show at least rudimentary German had nearly complete access to the Austrian labour market, providing he could show that he had acquired a residence. They were in most respects equal to Austrian labourers. Czechoslovak citizens were even more privileged due to bilateral treaties between the governments, allowing for easy access to dual-citizenship and reduced deductions on their wages, provided they could show that they paid for a cheaper Czechoslovak pension fund. Judging as fractions of their total number however the South- and Welsch-Tyroleans were the most common guest workers, having been a common labour force in wester Austrian for well over a century at this point. Italian could be commonly heard at every large construction project in Vorarlberg and Tyrol before and after the Austro-Italian war.

A group that was similarly common were eastern Jews. Due to spotty counting during the last few census of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, the record of this group were incomplete. Many a Yiddish speaker had been put down as German, leading to some confusion. There was already a strong established Jewish community especially in the Austrian cities and nobody was looking at the documents provided by guest workers too closely, allowing tens of thousands of eastern Jews, not just from the former Austrian lands, but also from former Russian areas, into Austria.

On a second tier of migrant workers were citizens of the former Hungarian half of the Empire. They had to provide a letter of employment in addition to their residency, in order to get a work permit, but this wasn't an insurmountable obstacle. Via treaty citizens of the German Free State of Bavaria were treated the same as Hungarians. Croatians were the most common in this category, the somewhat difficult relations between Austria and Hungary in the decades after the Great War causing some restriction from the Hungarian side on migrant workers.

People outside these categories could apply for work permits as guest workers as well, but the simple fact, that they were considered after those two already limited slots for them. Additionally there were more restriction on length of residency and acquiring permanent residency, making it more difficult. Those measures were at least in some part aimed at preventing them from gaining Austrian citizenship.

When the Austro-Italian War broke out, a general conscription was introduced. While more than half a million Austrian man were exempt due to war necessary professions, it still drastically reduced the labour pool. The Austrian government would offer up additional tens of thousands of slots for guest workers to replace at least some of those workers for the duration of the crisis. While of indeterminate duration, a high pay and other perks attracted hundred of thousands of people to the offer.

 

[Viribus Unitis]

Spoiler

Has it been a week already? So it has. My mood's no longer so dark as it had been after the terrorist attack last week, so I'm writing again, though even more scattered than before. Not just this thing there, but several other snips that are unlikely to ever grow to the point where I'd show them.

Good work, I wonder if we can get an in depth view of the companies that benefited off the McGuffin. I assume there must be some mention of it. I get that some of it will be unfulfilled but I am a glutton for the 'giving radio to the romans' trope.

Click to shrink...

So we've seen some products featuring, but arguably the only company we've seen a bit of is in mining. It's a bit difficult, because so far I've not put too much research into delails. If I pick up a OTL company, be that a big one like Puch or Steyr, or a small one I'd have to do serious research to stay somewhat plausible. It's actually more likely that we see an ATL company in depth sooner - a rival for IBM. That one I've got some notes on, just need to put it into a readable format. Though all of this is less 'giving radio to Romans', most what we see is more 'having Romans build steam engines'. The ASB tech is kept low key in the background.

Austriae est imperare orbi universo. It is Austria's destiny to rule the whole world.

Click to shrink...

AEIOU. Friedrich III's old motto. We'll never know what it really stood for. Though considering some of his actions, the scribbles by another hand in his book proclaiming "Alles Erdenreich Ist Österreich Untertan" might have something to it. Though world conquest isn't in the notes for the future of this TL - and probably not realistic in any way without mind control or similar devices.

Dear Susanna,

11.5.1929​

Since our harrowing escape from Istria things have quieted down. We haven't seen any direct action for a while, nothing big anyway. There were a few loosened rails on a railway bridge south of Padua, but that might as well have been fatigue with the current volume passing over them. Or at least the volume before that troop train derailed. There might also have been a few removed or turned street signs and similar mischief, but nothing big. For once the radio was truly our most used tool.

During the last few weeks we were able to observe the advance of our comrades, and a surprisingly large number of volunteers, across the Veneto1​. Again and again the Italians found themselves bypassed, ambushed and pulled into battle where they were locally severely outnumbered. And it wasn't just at the diffuse front-line, small units moved out from their recently conquered bases south of Welsch-Tirol2 ​disrupting movement, laying ambushes and preventing them from amassing enough forces to do something decisive about those bases.

While the Italian media and more so their radio still followed the government lines, downplaying all that happened, the mood on the ground was different. The civilians were restive and the morale amongst most army units was low. There had been an instance when faced with the traditional garb of the Schützen near Bassano nearly a hundred Italians surrendered to less than half their numbers. Of course if they'd known that we were in the treeline behind them, and that there were four Libellen nearby looking for targets that surrender might have been even faster.

That free roaming had changed yesterday. Under radio silence and escaping reconnaissance both by us cavalryman and aircraft the Italians had amassed a significant force that had counter-attacked and trapped elements of 7th​ Division against the Livenza river. We had received the unenviable task of retaking a bridge near them, in order to get reinforcements to them.

When we neared the bridge it turned out that the counter-attack wasn't the only thing headquarters and their radiomen weren't fully up to date with. While the small village around the bridge obstructed our view, the firefight ongoing wasn't something you'd miss. On an unspoken signal we left our remounts behind and sped up towards the bridge. Machine pistols at the ready we turned around the corner, seeing a couple of Italians facing off against a quartet of tanks of all things. With us appearing in their backs, rendering the superstructure and pillars of the bridge useless as cover, the fight was over quickly.

After the first tank crossed the bridge it's commander told us in bad German: "Was last cavalry charge. This is future."

Rudolf took over from there, his Czech far better than the German of the Kapitán that led the tank platoon. As it turned out their radio had broken and their navigation skill left something to be desired. We quickly made contact and got orders to hold there for now.

The four tanks, two at each end of the bridge, surrounded by horses grazing made for an odd picture. One of the crew members of the tanks even produced a camera to document that. Though we had seen ourselves that horses were still the most common means of transport in the Regio Esercito, and ourselves were trained to fight primarily dismounted, there were still some dedicated cavalry units out there. It just turned out that neither the Austrian nor the Czech Army had too much use for them any more. Horse feed made up a lot of the supplies we carried, and had actually been airdropped for us more than once, so I could understand why they were going out of fashion.

It wasn't too long until the expected reinforcements turned up, the rest of the Czech tank company with some attached infantry and artillery. So we started to lead them north, horses off road, tanks on it, playing the role of pathfinders. As we approached we ran over, in at least one case literally, some small detachments of blackshirts. When we then appeared in the back of the regular Italian army units, they were quick to surrender.

Talking to some of the prisoners we learned some disturbing information. While we had known that there were quite a few fanatics in the ranks of the blackshirts, they apparently recently had taken that to new heights. Propaganda material was distributed amongst them, talking about how socialist and other undesirables made the regular army weak, undermined their fighting power. And that the only solution was to purge those elements. It all boiled down to the fact that there were blackshirt units that had started shooting regulars who tried to surrender, or who simply according to them voiced defeatist thoughts.

As I grow wary of fighting, of killing, it turns out that it is the same with our enemy. It was a fight over the pride of a dictator, over a region of people who were violently suppressed, but it since had increasingly been over the image of strength of the regime. And it brought the worst out of that regime in turn.

I hope that this mood spreads far enough so that we might gain peace soon enough, so that I might return to you, and enjoy the spring back home.


I miss you,

Alois


1​Technically Friaul and Veneto

2​Trentino, "Welsch" as in other, in this case meaning Italian speakers; same root as Wales in England for example

Spoiler

There might, or might not be some "story" snipped preceding this, showing more of fighting in Friaul and Istria. That is if my brain will cooperate and produce that one. "Textbook" snippets as always don't care about being in a proper temporal sequence too much. Also, as currently in my notes, this is 5/8 of "Dear Susanna" if anyone cares.

 

[Viribus Unitis]

Spoiler

Maybe not quite the kind of company history envisioned...

Gregor Zacher (1942): 100 Jahre J. Zacher's Chemikalienfabrik, Wien.

J. Zacher Chemikalienfabrik was founded in 1842 as an import company for pyrethrum based insecticides. With "Zacherlin" they grew quickly, producing 600 tons a year by 1873 and sold them in their own shops not just in Austria, but also Paris, Amsterdam, London, New York and Philadelphia. In 1880 Johann Zacher retired and handed the company to his son Johann Jr. Under his leadership the company continued to prosper and expanded into care and cleaning of furs and carpets. He also rebuilt the factory and a new flagship store, the Zacherlhaus, in Vienna's first district.

However after the Great War the company faced a difficult future. Export tariffs and competition from the growing chemical industry cut deeply into the core business. The company floundered for two years, before Johann Jr. teamed up with chemist Eduard Sandholzer. A recent graduate of the University of Innsbruck, Sandholzer managed to convince Zacher, that if one can't beat them, one should join them. Together they set up a basis to produce synthetic insecticides and textile cleaning solutions.

By 1925 they managed to mass produce a sulfonamide they then marketed as "Zachamid". It became the widely available antibiotic drug, though by 1928 IG Farben started to compete. They had found out that the active component was sulfanilamide, a chemical they had patented in 1909, unaware of it's medical potential. Still Zacher managed to retain a large market share in the antibiotic market, not at least due to their successful research into penicillin. By 1933 they managed to mass produce this new antibiotic drug.

Not just branching out into pharmaceuticals, Zacher also stayed true to it's roots. Since 1935 Dichlordiphenyltrichlorethan is it's newest insecticide, already in use to fight malaria in several parts of the world, while the Austrian government regretfully still hasn't allowed it's use domestically.

Spoiler

Of course, OTL they never quite recovered after WWI. Even diversification didn't help, by 1933 ski bindings were their premier product. By 1948 Gregor shut down the company.

Also: Maps coming up. Not good ones, but maps.

 

[Viribus Unitis]

Should be confusing. This is from all the way back, Franzerl des Panzerl, Part 4.
Red line is where Moss travelled. Green lines are Austrian irregular movement, in this case Schützen. White is the Austrian Army, with red dots denoting sites of combat. The black dots thrown in there are Italian artillery batteries, the one in the middle, yet unengaged is the one between Sterzing barracks and railway station, then to the south of the city. Today it'd be inside of the built up area, if anyone checks google maps or similar.



A bit less busy. Red line is again Moss's movement, up to Verona, south of the map edge. Also some cities in there as black dots, and three white dots denoting important strategic narrows. All three should have been mentioned in the text of the Franzerl parts.

I also finished, but not yet uploaded, the immediate post war settlement map. For me it's deep in that uncanny valley, a shape you know well, but even out of the corners of your eyes you know that something's wrong.

 

[Viribus Unitis]

I see, I see, yes, this is good. I have to wonder though will the there be more changes in tech advancement maybe some countries will invent stuff they wouldn't have done?

Click to shrink...

I haven't given too much thought to it. I see innovation as a process in most cases - even if we put the lable on it at one certain point. Just taking the post from yesterday OTL Fleming "invented" penicillin, but the use of the fungus was documented before that. It was brought to a usable form by a team. Or the mentioned Sulfa. OTL IG Farben/Bayer released it in it's more complex form, while already having produced the active component for over 20 years, not knowing it's medical use. Here I used it to get around patents, that were about to expire anyway. Might also have butterflied the US Sulfa craze away, delaying the FDA if I read Wikipedia right - but that's not my usual sandbox so someone else might weight in?

One of the things that will soon be "invented" outside of Austria will be the armoured personal carrier. It will be people looking at the advantage Austria had in the fighting here, and building on it.

I also don't understand why more people are not getting involved with this story. It is actually quite interesting.

Click to shrink...

AH is niche on SV. I'd also probably have more readers if I went with something else but the niche again "Austria" in the title. Say "Creating a Danube Federation" (well, if I ever get that far, only kinda wrong) or "Vielvölkerkerker Mk II" (Oh, there will be the caricatures, and the odd nationalist with a grievance, but it was somewhat exaggerated OTL, and would be more so when it comes to the "Mk II").


Anyway, on with the programming:


Furlan, Martin (1954): The Austro-Italian War and the Wider World, Triest: University Press

League of Nations

Having grown out of the Paris Peace Treaties, the League of Nations was often considered something of an Entente power club. Additionally events like the Corfu Incident strengthened the view, that is was there to extend the power of the big countries within it.

While it was laid down in the founding treaties, that attacks on a League member should be militarily answered by all members, with the already known League inefficiencies nobody expected any big decisions to be taken before the Assembly meeting in September. So it was something of a surprise, when the League Council was quick to condemn Italian aggression against Austria by the 16th​ of April. Thirteen of the fourteen members voted for the resolution, with Italy forced to abstain as it was involved in the conflict.

While there were accusations of bribery, this theory nowadays is contained to Italian revanchist and neo-fascist circles. This theory was mainly based on the fact that the 11th​, the day Mussolini was shot, the Austrian Consulate in Geneva had held a dinner party for the League Council representatives of France, Britain, Japan and Canada. This had been a long-standing tradition, since the negotiations in 1922 Austria attempted to keep up good relations with the representatives, even if relations were strained with their home governments.

It was far more that the media storm that was orchestrated by Austria aided them. There were graphic pictures of Matrei on the cover of most papers, the small damage to Innsbruck by artillery fire was widely reported on, even if exaggerated by clever angles on the photographs, as well as pictures of Italian troops non too gently occupying Lienz. The near unprecedented Austrian Army provided to journalists, going as far as embedding foreign reporters within combat troops, as well as carefully selected pictures and film distributed for free world wide, dominated the perception of the war in the international press. A counter narrative was presented in Italian papers as well as a small amount of international ones that were sympathetic to the fascist ideas, but especially in those confused first days before Italo Balbo took over Italian leadership, even those narratives were very diluted.

It was Romania, under pressure of it's fellows of the lose coalition called the 'Little Entente', that brought further sanctions to the table. The initial idea was a full embargo on Italy, but this was whittled down over two weeks of negotiations to a simple embargo an arms and ammunition sold to Italy. Noteworthy according to the protocols an extension of those embargoes to Austria wasn't considered, despite their successful counter offensive they were still considered the victim.

While this embargo didn't significantly affect Italian war making ability, them having a domestic industry and robust stockpiles, it prevent a crash conscription program similar to the one Austria was undertaking.

When it became clear that the Italian leadership in Rome intended to continue fighting this war to the end, despite repeated calls for negotiations not just from the League, and several military setbacks, by mid May calls for a naval blockade and an embargo over a larger list of war making and war supporting cargo were growing louder. After the Italian representative finally stormed out in anger, a resolution for this was decided on on the 21th, with several nations agreeing to provide ships for this endeavour. While the French and British provided the largest contribution, other nations chipped in. These were Germany, Portugal, Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. Albania offered to participate, but would require some ships, as their two German surplus minelayers had just been decommissioned, and their new ships were still under construction in Venice.

While there were several letters of complain, mainly from US merchantmen, the blockade proved to be reasonably effective at preventing arms from reaching Italy, even with the obvious problems. The Yugoslav Royal Navy, having nothing heavier than a light cruiser in service, mostly stayed in their ports, as Italian battleships regularly steamed out of Taranto up and down the Adriatic to provide coastal bombardment. Still under the mandate their lighter units were used to crack down on their domestic smugglers and to harass ships leaving Albanian ports.

Similar difficult was the situation in the Aegean Sea. Here several shooting incidents happened between the Greek and Turkish Navy in the waters around the Dodecanese islands, the most famous probably the exchange of fire between the Greek battleship Lemnos and the Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim south of Kasos. While both ships retreated with only minor splinter damage, over the course of the two month embargo Greece claimed two submarines and a torpedo boat lost, while Turkey lost one destroyer.

These events shifted discussions towards the post war world, Italy already being carved up by bystander nations while the fighting was still ongoing on the ground. Concrete territorial concessions were of course only discussed in back rooms, but the rumours were, that only Britain and France would receive anything but scraps. With a chance of concrete spoils on the horizon, by mid June France and Yugoslavia shifted from a partial defensive mobilisation to a more general one, intending to bring the Italian leadership to the negotiation table by force.

Spoiler

With the second to last post out of chronological order anyway, and the last post actually spanning up to 1942, I decided that the spoilers in this can be allowed.

 

[Viribus Unitis]

Spoiler

Something new today. Not quite what I intended to write about the Friaul/Istria campaign, but what my muse gave me.

Aus dem Schützengraben zu den Sternen, Part 1

30.4.1929​

Oberstabswachtmeister Felix Haas once again check his men. The Oberleutnant was back at the ramp, still eager to be first to fight. It was good for the spirit, not that they'd need it. This wasn't the Great War, he remembered the fear they'd all felt when the order came to go over the top once more. Some days he could still feel the karst stone splinters in his back. This time around however they'd already blooded themselves against the Italian in the Gailtal, and his Zug hadn't taken a single casualty. Oh there had been scraps here and there, but training had told during the confused night fighting they'd been involved in, and they'd all been ready again for this mission.

Rationally he knew that when they'd arrived, the Italians had already been on their last legs, cut off from support, pressed hard over the last couple days before, they'd probably hadn't even had a warm meal in days. But in practice this meant that morale was high anyway and they'd need that. Hold until relieved were the orders. They'd be short on artillery, expected to take and hold the target, no fancy manoeuvrers, just straight up fighting. And shock and awe.

He glanced forwards into the cockpit again, as the glider quietly sailed though the night. In towards the east there was the first hint of dawn, but it'd take a while to fully appear. With some luck the defenders of the railway bridge and the city of Latisana would be asleep when they arrived, silent as owls.

Noticing his stare the gilder pilot announced: "Five minutes."

Felix nodded, and louder repeated it into the cargo compartment, filled with forty men and most of the equipment they'd need for two days of high intensity combat. They'd trained for that often enough, glider assault, followed by take and hold. Twice a year, scheduled once for snow and once for mud it seemed like.

The man stayed calm. Some checked their gear, other silently prayed. They'd probably be Unteroffiziere themselves soon, if rumours for the expanded Army were true. Though he'd also been informed that the core formations would be kept together for as long as hostilities lasted. It'd be better for moral and cohesion.

Then the lights turned red, signalling final approach. And then the glider shuddered as it set down on the ground, breaks squealing, announcing their arrival to them and the world at large. Still, the breaking run was short, and they were off. Felix's voice hurrying them on, even as they went through the drill trained a thousand times. Oberleutnant Schwarz happily led the charge towards the bridge, firing his machine pistole at the four Italian guards that were still fumbling with their full length Carcano rifles. Looking up, in the low light he could see another glider parked at the other side of the bridge. From the unhurried movement they hadn't run into any large problems either. The road bridge, some two hundred meter south, didn't seem to have guards either.

"Peter" Felix called out, "Your up."

They had several people trained in sabotage and ordnance disposal, but Lukas Peter had a particularly devious mind when it came to placing them. If anyone could figure out if the bridge was rigged to blow it was him.

Meanwhile he signalled the Zug at the other side to move south. They'd clear the road bridge. The radio man should already have sent the clear signal, meaning the two gliders carrying their gun battery should be on their way to reinforce them.

If intelligence was right, there shouldn't be any units guarding the city itself, but there might be a small number of combatant nonetheless. The Blackshirts had transitioned into military units, but there might still be individuals, or even non organised resistance as well. It was always a danger. Still, if everything went as planned, then they'd only have to hold for a day, and then everything between the Tagliament and the Tore should be under Austrian control, though planning had made concessions that Udine itself might hold out longer.

Spoiler

What didn't seem to fit in, that's a company of the 1st Infantry Guardregiment you see there. They pride themselves to be the elite of an already well trained army, though several other Regiments would dispute that claim. That's also whey they were put on the spot, with the furthest forward deployment.

 

[Viribus Unitis]

Spoiler

I wanted to post that piece on the stock market crash in New York today. I've written and rewritten that one several times and it just won't click. So here is something different.

Meierhofer, Gebhard (1979): Militia and Volunteer Fighters in the Austro-Italian War, Vienna: Amalthea

Spanish Volunteers


Spanish volunteers were found, as with many other countries, on both sides of the Austro-Italian war, though in far more even numbers.

When de Rivera took power in a Mussolini inspired putsch, the right wing applauded. When he didn't manage to solve all of Spain's problems they quickly tired of him. Continued compromises with the socialists under his dictatorship didn't help his standing.

So when war broke out these right wing groups were those in Spain who flocked to the Fascist cause, hoping that closer relations with Italy or military intervention would bring de Rivera around to their view on how Spain was to be restructured. They recruited heavily among the army, but also those that felt personally disadvantaged by the government.

Less than a week after the conflict started a regiment, mostly armed by army surplus, was shipped off to Genoa on Spanish Navy ships.

Austria also attracted Spanish volunteers. They mainly drew from three very different groups. Socialists, separatists and legitimists.

Socialist were mostly brought there through international contacts. Both Italian exile socialists as well as agents of the Austrian Social-Democratic Labour Party were fishing for volunteers amongst their networks. Austrian Secretary of State, Julius Deutsch, was quoted that they'd provide arms and training for future struggles to those that volunteered, though he would always deny doing so.

In Spain there was a significant overlap between Basque and Catalan separatists and socialists, so word soon reached those circles as well. More so, the plight of forcefully italianized South Tyrol resonated in those communities, where similar assimilation policies, even if less extreme, were in place.

The third group usually wouldn't really fit in with the first two. Amongst the foreign nobles living in Spain were the Habsburg family in exile. Empress Zita was quick to react, and through her networks gathered both financiers and volunteers for an endeavour of her own. While the ultimate goal was a Habsburg restoration, it was accepted that this was unlikely and settled on restore and protect it's old borders. This intersected with a Spanish nobility among whom a certain Habsburg nostalgia had risen in recent years.

Just how these groups found together is contested, but find together they did. Since a large part of funding came from the legitimists, the Regiment received the name "Carlos I".

Fearing unrest and organising socialist and separatist military formations, the government under de Rivera started to crack down on organising volunteer units. They were to be arrested and dispersed, so that they could not create trouble, though known agitators were kept longer. Forewarned "Carlos I" crossed the border to France shortly after that proclamation, and took far longer to arrive in Austria, than their fascist counterpart took to arrive in Italy.

The Regiment received surplus equipment that Austria had bought from Switzerland and a similar abbreviated training as many of their own conscripts. They served as a garrison unit in Bergamo, where they were more welcome than the Austrians themselves. In this duty they faced Italian units twice, that were trying to imitate Austrian behind the line attacks.

After the war was concluded, they they like many other volunteer units participated in the victory parade and received decorations. During this stop over one of the unit members caused a minor crisis, being revealed as the then sixteen year old Otto von Habsburg.

Spoiler

Anyone who actually knows pre-civil war Spanish politics, please correct the mistakes I've certainly made here. Like many other countries it's internal politics are a bit of a mystery to me. What I'm especially worried about is if the fascist could receive this much support from Army and Navy - I hope that they are proto-falangists was something that was clear.

Coming soon: (because it amuses me)


Josef Gygax: Mecenary. An Autobiography

Born to wealthy parents in Neuchatel, Gygax was a soldier in the payment of 11 states, fought wars on all 5 continents and finally retired into life as a crime boss. Read the astonishing story of his life right here!

Spoiler

Unless that stock market piece works out. Then maybe only soonish?

 

[Viribus Unitis]

Gygax, Josef (1974): Mercenary. An Autobiography, Unpublished Manuscript

I grew up in a live in privilege. My father was a pharmacist originally from Bern, while my mother was a daughter of the Suchard family, known for their chocolate products. With a successful business of their own, I never really lacked anything. Not even during the years of the Great War, as a kid it was just normal for me, though I would later learn that many others had to go hungry every now and then during that time, while I just didn't have access to more exotic treats.

While the canton itself was part of the Romandie, the house I grew up in and the school I attended were German. Yet I learned French from the kids I used to play with in the streets of the city, and then later learned Italian and Latin in school. As a kid I didn't notice so many things, it was normal to me. Mixing German and French was just usual, so I wasn't surprised that I would speak more than one language at the time. It was normal after all, though many others didn't show the command I had acquired.

After I graduated school I served in the Swiss Army, as was expected from ever abled body man. My mother would have liked me to defer service in favour of University, joining my older brother studying pharmacy, she always was the ambitious one in the family. I had however struggled often enough in school, so that I didn't want to continue that. I wanted the adventure that was the army, something different than I'd known before and I was right. I enjoyed my time in the army, even if looking back I must admit that the reputation was a bit out of proportion to what it really was. Even back then the army peddled the myth that their mere presence had kept Switzerland out of the Great War, when the truth was that they hadn't been in a serious fight since Napoleon. And it showed often enough if one learned where to look. Still, the training I received there stood me in good service for my life.

When I got out of the army and still showed no inclination to higher education, my mother started nagging me about taking a hand in the family pharmacy. She had already managed to grow my fathers work to three different shops, not just in Neuchatel itself, but also in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Something had given her the idea that it could grow from there, to a major importer and exporter of pharmaceutical products. It wasn't for me, or so I thought at the time at least. Look at what I am doing now.

Still, I managed to escape her control. I caught up with an old acquaintance from the Army and he got me a job with a bank in Zürich, just to complete some stereotypes. This move east got me out of my mothers immediate influence. In fact she even approved, saying it would provide me with useful skills for the family business. Now if only I could find a nice girl with the right connections.

Girls certainly were on my mind, but I'm certain the ones that found themselves in my company weren't the sort my mother would have approved of. In fact the entire crowd I hung out in the city was not to her taste. They were a rough crowd. From the mountain valleys mostly, lesser sons who would not inherit the family farm. Sent to the city where they would work in a trade where strength was more important that brains.

We drank the nights away, parties like no tomorrow and were always on the look out for girls. We'd find new locations every so often, become a staple of the night live for many, be they bankers like me or students on the look for a good time on a night out, but the core remained a rough crowd. Looking back it might have been my presence that gave them the veneer of respectability, that attracted those wealthier, that financed some of our fancies. In fact over the time there, I'd been the silent backer of more than one dive bar, before the police found a reason again to shut them down again. The money made there, both legitimate and not, served me as a starting capital for my following plans.

I grew restless there as well. While the endless parties were thrilling, they had lost their lustre with time. It was a coincidence that the war between Austria and Italy started at the time.

The far smaller country, Austria was looking for volunteer fighters wherever they could. While they managed to make inroads with some groups, like German nationalists or ardent socialists, to actually send real volunteers, I quickly learned at my day job that they would pay those volunteers. Base pay wasn't exciting. As I understood it, it was the base pay one of their recruits was paid, not too bad for that position compared to what one got in the Swiss Army, but it still lacked the combat and deployment bonus and all those other additions that a men in the Austrian Army received.

It was however then that a payment scale started doing the rounds. Normal payment was low. But if you brought a rifle it would go up. If the rifle chambered a military round already in their burning trash pile they called logistics you'd get double that. Fully equipped and with a rifle that fired the old or new Austrian cartridges, or the German Mauser one and you'd actually approached something you might be able to live off. It was the bonus if you brought some buddies with you that got me thinking. I had some rough friends, all of them already trained to handle a rifle and who would have been the type not to show any hesitance during the Landesstreik.

Spoiler

I think that is the longest single snippet I've posted until now? So Switzerland once again enters the conversation. And he's in the market for some mercenary work. Who'd have thought? Reading through it I should have probably put a few footnotes in there? On the other hand google is two clicks away... If anyone of the fifteen or so that actually keep reading have strong feelings either way, I'll take this into account.
On a different note I added a few dates to earlier "story" snips. I hope that helps with orientation. This one lacks that because it covers a long time, but I'll add dates to later pieces of "Mercenary" as well.

 

[Viribus Unitis]

Spoiler

Okay so I'm not an economist. I understand the basics, but it's more of a black box to be, I can work with cause and effect, but the moving parts? Yeah, no idea. So I've read about the Great Depression quite a bit the last few weeks. And I don't really understand it. And it seems so do few others, because just about every school of economic though has it's own pet theory or three of how it happened. So yeah, I know some of the moving parts. I know that I know little enough. But as it turns out, for plot reasons I want a depression, and since I'm the author I'm gonna get one. But similarly I'm aware that I pulled several important looking cogs out of the Rube-Goldberg machine and put in magnets, wires and duct tape in other parts. So who knows what would really happen, if this wasn't a narrative? Dumping that much gold on the market, not once but twice in a decade should have interesting effects on the gold standard at the very least.

Hafner, Gregory (1999): A simple introduction to 20th​ century world history, Chicago: Scholarium Book

Economic Crash

The world economy wasn't the most stable in 1929. In the end all it took to tip it over the edge was war in Europe.

After the Great War the USA found them selves the new leading economy, and more importantly the leading lender of money. Both Britain and France were deeply in debt and relied on German reparation payments to service those. After German Hyperinflation is was mostly the Dawes plan, and the US loans that came with it, that kept the German economy afloat, and thereby able to pay preparations.

In the meantime consumerism in the US was at an all time height. The consumer economy expanded massively, and the stock market reacted accordingly. It appeared that that growth was without limit, that the US had entered the final chapter of eternal prosperity. In this climate more and more investments were also taken outside of the US. European companies still recovering from the Great War war seen as a good growth opportunity. This went that far, that some people even took up loans, in order to use the money to then invest.

There were experts that only months earlier had warned that the market had overheated, that it was due for a course correction, but few listened to them, the fate of those predicting disaster everywhere.

When news of renewed war in Europe arrived in the US it caused a short dip, but the market recovered for a few days. Speculation is, that it was the picture of the burnt out Ford dealership in Innsbruck on the cover of New York's Evening Post on 18th​ April that caused the panic selling.

It is said that this was caused by the small investor, not the professional. The small worker who had hopped for some quick money for a fridge or a car, who now saw his life's saving going up in fire and vanishing on the stock market floor.

Markets were down 9% on Friday and would fall another 12% on the following Monday. Large emergency investments by leading US banks didn't stop this trend, like it had on a smaller dip several weeks earlier. The panic then spread worldwide, with all stock exchanges reporting a downward trend. It was the large emergency purchases by the Austrian government that halted the fall. Since their "buy out" of the war reparations it had been long speculated that their gold mines stayed similarly productive, a large amount of mined gold simply going into storage. Confirming those theories, it wasn't just gold but silver as well that was used for most of those purchases. Due to the urgency of their need they were focused mainly on the central European countries, though Britain and France profited as well, supplying rarer equipment.

With many European companies retooling for war production, the US consumer industry recovered for now.

But the shock sat deep. While the market levelled out, there were still indicators that not everything was fine. The construction sector lagged significantly over the summer of 1929, and consumption was down, likely due to he fact that small investors had lost disproportionally during the crash.

All this were signs of bigger problems yet to come.

Spoiler

Still not fully happy with it, but better than what I had for more or less the last month...