Chapter 34. Before the Unification of the Realms
February 1940, Anne's Realms
The Campaign for the Unification of the Realms (Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Serbia)
Immediately after the signing of the
Athens Agreement, which
de facto puppetized Greece, and while the Romanian King and Queen were travelling abroad, Anne's subjects began to agitate for Unification.
The campaign was started suddenly and vigurously all over the Realms in a well organized manner and involved all strata of the society, from the
de jure rulers (Regent of Hungary Miklós Horthy, Regent of Slovakia Jozef Tiso, Tsar of Bulgaria Boris III, King of Yugoslavia Peter II), governments, politicians, officers, priests, intellectuals, all the way to the common people from the cities, towns and villages.
It involved public declarations supporting the unification, appeals and petitions, continuous propaganda in mass media, demonstrations and marches with slogans and singing, collecting of signatures, etc. As usual, to make the whole charade more believable, there were small groups of counter-demonstrants who were weakly calling for the continued independence of their countries. Of course, they were allowed to freely express their dissent as the police protected them from the Unionists.
The foreign media, who was free to witness the events and talk to the people, unanimously reported the presence of a massive and genuine desire for the unification of the five countries. By far the most given reason for the unexpected friendship between nations who used to hate each other was in the vein of:
Together we are stronger; instead of five small countries, we're a great power, able to defend itself against our larger, stronger and more populous neighbours.
Similar actions, albeit on a reduced scale, because they were really spontaneous, took place in the Romanian Occupation Zones in Croatia and Greece but, because of the opposition of Italy, it was ultimately decided to leave Croatia and Greece out of the Union, at least for the time being.
On the leap day, the five governments officially caved in to the international pressure and, instead of simply merging the countries, they scheduled simultaneous Unification Referenda for the 24th of March. The neutral countries were asked to send observers to oversee and assess the fairness of the referenda.
11 January - 27 February 1940
The Second Royal Tour (Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom, United States, Japan, LoN Geneva Headquarters)
Anne's trip had several purposes:
- to confuse and startle everybody with incongruent and odd behaviour;
- to continue to provide plausible deniability about the situation in her realms;
- to mend the already tense relations with the Entente;
- to acquire international recognition for the Unification of the Realms;
- to engage in some last minute shopping (mostly various commodities but also some weapons);
- to buy small (and cheap) overseas territories (colonies) located on the continental mainlands;
- to convince Franco to join the war at an opportune time;
- to be away from home during the occupation of Greece;
- to see her royal relatives in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium;
- to travel, relax and have fun before Romania's entry into the war.
Anne also wanted to visit France but the French Government refused to issue an official invitation as it considered Romania a potential enemy after its role in the conquest of minor Entente powers Yugoslavia and Greece.
11-14 January 1940, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
The Romanian monarchs were received by Queen Wilhelmina at the Royal Palace of Amsterdam and spent most of their time there with Crown Princess Juliana and Prince Bernhard with whom they had excellent relations.
The meetings with the Dutch Government of Prime Minister Dirk Jan de Geer were cordial but less warm. Instead of flatly refusing to sell Suriname, De Geer opined that the United States would veto the transfer of the colony, citing the
Monroe Doctrine. However, the Netherlands agreed to sell important amounts of rubber and spices from the East Indies. After all, Romania had to spend its last reserves of hard currency which would become useless after the start of the war with the West.
15-19 January 1940, Brussels, Belgium
Anne and Mihai were not very close to Leopold III but the talks appeared to be fruitful. Both Leopold and the Belgian Government agreed to sell Ruanda-Urundi but the transaction was blocked by France as the
League of Nations Mandates were deemed to be non-transferable.
Belgium agreed to sell large quantities of ores from the Congo, including pitchblende. It was probably needed for the superb stained glass of the Romanian churches.
Anne shocked Leopold three times. The first one was her purported reason for acquiring Ruanda-Urundi. When asked by Leopold, Anne said with a straight face that she wanted to build a spaceport there as it was close to the Equator and the centrifugal force would aid the spaceships at takeoff. When Leopold expressed his wonder, Anne apparently misunderstood him and, instead of explaining how Romania was supposed to build spaceships, she took a piece of paper and a pencil and began to draw a diagram and fill the rest of the page with complicated equations pertaining to spaceflight. A flabbergasted and certainly overwhelmed Leopold did not press the issue further but a team of Belgian physicists later confirmed that Anne's demonstration was indeed accurate.
The second one was a casual mention of Lilian Baels as the future wife of Leopold, which unnerved him so much that he failed to deliver any rebuke to a deviously smirking Anne.
The third one was Anne's abrupt inquiry whether the Belgian Royal Family and Government would relocate to the Congo after the looming German conquest of the country. Visibly irritated, the King stated that, if invaded, Belgium would successfully defend itself with the help of its allies. Anne quickly apologised and changed the subject.
20-26 January 1940, Madrid, Spain
Despite the very warm reception, the negotiations with Franco proved extremely difficult. Anne was ultimately unable to convince him to join the war against the Entente, even when offering him the rest of Morocco, parts of Algeria (Oran), Andorra and French Catalonia. In fact, Franco mistrusted Anne and was convinced that her tales of a rapid fall of France were nothing more than wishful thinking. When she asked Elaine to help her, the guardian angel said that she had more important business to attend, much to the chagrin of the young queen.
However, after heavy bargaining, Franco sold Río Muni (the continental part of Spanish Guinea) for an undisclosed but surely large amount of gold. The small island of Annobón was also included but the large, economically viable and densely populated island of Fernando Pó was retained by Spain.
More about Río Muni (renamed Romanian Africa) in a future chapter.
The Romanian Monarchs laid flowers in Majadahonda where two Romanian volunteers died fighting for Nationalist Spain in the Civil War.
27-31 January 1940, Lisbon, Portugal
Although the talks with Salazar took place in a cordial atmosphere, almost nothing was achieved. He was categorically against the sale of any Portuguese colony and the amount of goods sold to Romania was minimal.
In a bizarre turn of events, Anne proposed that Portugal join the proposed Danubian Federation as a first step in the rebirth of the Roman Empire. Obviously, her odd proposal was politely turned down.
1-12 February 1940, London, United Kingdom
The reasons for the prolongued visit of the Romanian royals to the United Kingdom are obscure. Clearly unwanted, as the British Government refused to send an official invitation, Anne and Mihai entered through the back door, being invited by the British Royal Family, presumably against the advice of the Prime Minister. Nonetheless, Anne and Mihai eventually met with Chamberlain, Halifax and Churchill, but the meetings were short, tense and ultimately useless.
The fact that the Romanian monarchs spent twelve days of leisure at the Buckingham Palace while attending little to no diplomatic meetings, and this during an ongoing World War, was seen as bizarre. Anne's behaviour was especially odd. She spent an unordinate amount of time with fourteen years old Elizabeth and ten years old Margaret, walking, riding, playing, chatting and teaching them various martial arts such as fencing and archery.
Allowing young girls to play with longbows in the Buckingham Palace gardens was extremely unwise as it was clearly proven by the freak accident which almost cost the life of Winston Churchill who was hit by an errant arrow shot by Princess Elizabeth.
More information in the next chapter. As always, please feel free to speculate.
13-17 February 1940, Washington D.C., United States of America
The Romanian King and Queen spent most of their time buying various goods in bulk quantities: trucks, tractors, locomotives, canned food (including large amounts of SPAM), chocolate, coffee, cocoa, tea, etc.
The meeting with President Roosevelt was short and uneventful. Anne behaved exemplarily and made a good impression on the American President.
18-20 February 1940, Tokio, Japan
After being received by the Emperor in a short official ceremony, Mihai left Anne as the Emperor's guest and spent most of the following days conferring with representatives of the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy.
Behind close doors, Anne told the Emperor the future history of his Empire: the attack on Pearl Harbour, the rampage all over South-East Asia and the Pacific followed by the implacable American comeback and the utter destruction and ruin of Japan. The belated Soviet invasion and the American use of atomic weapons against Japanese civilians were also mentioned.
The Emperor smiled politely without believing a word and, presumably, thinking that Anne was crazy. Anne needed Elaine's help, badly. Because an Abrahamic Angel would be out of place in Shinto Japan and because Elaine did not want to impersonate Amaterasu or some other kami, she simply helped Anne walk on the ceiling while remaining invisible herself. The Emperor was obviously impressed but still uncommitted. What effect, if any, would Anne's stunt have on Japanese's policy remains to be seen.
More information about Japan in future chapters.
22-28 February 1940, Geneva, Switzerland
The Romanian monarchs attended the League of Nations meeting and King Mihai addressed the plenum, presenting the case of the
Union of the Realms as small countries banding together to safeguard peace and stability in South-Eastern Europe.
After complicated negotiations, the League of Nations affirmed in a resolution that the Union would be recognized only if validated by free and fair referenda overseen by international observers.
Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Turkey, Portugal, Ireland, Egypt, Iran and Uruguay agreed to sent representatives to oversee the referenda scheduled for the 24th of March in Romania, Hungary, Slovakia (with Carpathian Ruthenia), Bulgaria and (rump) Serbia. Presumably, the dissolution of Yugoslavia was thus implicitly acknowledged.
In a separate resolution, the League of Nations declared that the Mandates were non-transferable and, thus, Belgium was not allowed to alienate Ruanda-Urundi.
29 February 1940, Bucharest, Romania
After seven weeks abroad, Anne and Mihai returned to Bucharest to prepare for the forthcoming
Unification of the Realms and the subsequent invasion of Turkey. However, Anne needed to rest, as she was already eight weeks pregnant with the heiress to her thrones.
My writing has been slow during the latest two months. Therefore, I chose to wait and have a substantial cache of chapters already posted on AH.com before posting them here. This way, we will, presumably, have a smoother update experience in the following weeks here on SV.
