Chapter 38: Ideological Boundaries (Feb 1925 – Aug 1929)
On February 27 of 1925, the sudden rise and dominance of Fascist government reached its crescendo. In a covert move of cooperation between the North German Federation’s Fascists and the government of Brabant, the German Fascists used the military to seize control of the country, capturing all non-fascist members of government that they could. At the same time, the Brabantian Army marched into the borders of the NGF, joining up with the German one and declaring the two countries reunified.
Within both nations, a tremendous wave of support and nationalistic pride washed over the people – the unity of the old Empire of Brabant had been restored, yet now it was more powerful than ever under the new German fascist union.
Internationally, the response was mixed. Bavaria was massively opposed to the union, but the country was in no shape to declare war and lacked the allies necessary to even do so. They even appealed to Livonia for a dual invasion to reestablish the terms of the 1902 Treaty, but Livonia was forced to refuse due to the crisis that was consuming their own country.
Aquitaine was greatly concerned by the move, but didn’t want to risk pushing the Fascists around them into an alliance, so they remained at peace. Pomeranija was concerned over the possibility of the Germans attempting to integrate their country as well, and immediately began seeking allies.
The political crisis of 1925 in Livonia was the final result of the escalation in tensions between the increasingly radical right and left wing factions of the country. The leftists still held the majority of the country’s political power after many decades of rule, and were hugely opposed to the conservative ruling policies. However, the biggest cause of the crisis was the Livonian Party of Fascists, which the Conservatives had refused to condemn.
Over the course of the year, the Fascists had been organizing militias across the country in order to protect both their unions and political power. In reaction, the leftist wing of Parliament had attempted to pass a law banning the use of militia by political parties or unions. This created a split within the conservative party as well – some of the moderate members agreed with the ban, but it was opposed by the radicals.
After the ban was narrowly passed, the Fascists instead mobilized the militia across the country and attempted to seize power. The size of their ‘armies’ was quite immense, and full scale combat broke out in many regions across the country.
Immediately, the young King of Livonia was forced to invoke emergency powers, taking temporary control of parliament. Klavess II had been coronated only five years ago, but the 38-year-old King was now thrust into a position of power than a Livonian monarch hadn’t held since the constitution was first adopted. He had been a vocal supporter of the Socialist party’s solutions for the financial crisis, but his role had been largely symbolic up until now.
However, emergency control was necessary now that parliament was unable to operate – several members were afraid to travel, while others were missing and several of the Fascists were actively part of the rebellion. Immediately, he ordered the arrest of all Fascist leadership for the duration of the conflict, including the remaining members of parliament.
Over the next month, Klavess communicated with the Socialist Party’s leadership to change several government policies as well: taxes were lowered to pre-crisis levels, the tariffs were ended, and unemployment subsidies were significantly raised to help increase the spending power of Livonians and (ideally) pull Livonia decisively out of the recession.
Elsewhere, Genoa was actually being attracted to Fascism as well, despite their rivalry with Italy. The Communist government was still in control, but was enormously unpopular among the people – already, two different coups had been attempted within the country, but so far neither of them had succeeded.
Isbania also had a decent fascist minority within their country, although overall the country was split evenly between the four main parties.
By November, the Fascist revolt in Livonia had been crushed, and the party was formally banned. Immediately, huge blame was placed on the Fascist party for undermining Livonian democracy, with many going as far as to blame them for the entire financial crisis in the first place. In addition, Klavess ended the alliance with Italy’s Fascists, declaring them leeches of Livonia’s support and ideological enemies.
A snap election was called in December in order to reestablish Parliament, and Klavess II actually campaigned within the election as the socialist candidate for Master of Parliament. In January, the results came in, and the Livonian King was now also head of parliament. Support for even the conservative party had plummeted after the crisis, and now the Socialists and Liberals controlled a big majority of the seats.
It was a strange situation for a democratic country to be in, but the constitution hadn’t disallowed members of the monarchy to also be part of parliament. Klavess’s action during the crisis had earned him enormous popularity with the public (especially those who leaned left) and many Livonians were excited by the idea of a stronger ruler with a large parliamentary majority on his side after a decade of indecision and argument.
Now that the alliance with Italy had been broken, Livonia would need to pivot its diplomatic alignment to protect against the Fascists. To start off, a protective alliance was formed with the Czechs, who had been previously ignored by Livonia due to their communist government (which had been in charge since the country’s losses to Bavaria and Bulgaria.)
There was a decently sized Fascist movement even here, being further supported by Italy. Livonia worked to counter this movement with their own support for the ruling party.
Towards the end of 1927, Bavaria and Pomeranija formed an alliance and declared war on the newly-unified German state, in a final effort to destroy the country and retake their land. Livonia remained neutral in the war, but sent financial support to Bavaria to support the invasion.
However, the Germans were able to secure an alliance with Norvegija, much to the surprise of the other Europeans who had long discounted the northern state. It wasn’t entirely clear what agreement had been made between the two to create such a move, although there were certainly nationalists within Norvegija who were weary of dependence on Livonia, especially after the ripples from the financial crisis had damaged their country as well. Of course, the Livonian occupation of Stockholm was also controversial, even though at this point the region’s non-immigrant population identified much more with Livonia than Norvegija.
In 1928, the series of wars between the two Indian powers finally reached their end, with Kanyakubja annexing a huge amount of Talakad’s inland territory along their border. The sudden weakness of Talakad began attracting the attention of the colonial powers as well.
After just over two years of warfare, the North German Union was able to succeed against Bavaria and Pomeranija, as a result of both the country’s newfound industrial might and support by Norvegija. In the end, Pomeranija was forced to cede even more land, pushing them back to their old pre-industrial borders, and Magdeburg was once again taken from Bavaria.
Livonia had been recovering financially since Klavess and the socialists took control, so now he started focusing funds on expanding the military in reaction to the growing Fascist threat. Ultimately, his goal was to secure the rest of Europe (and the world) against the influence of Fascism, so a large military would be necessary to scare them away from starting another Great War.
The first Livonian tanks were also constructed at this time, although in small quantities – the majority of industrial resources in the army were put towards the Livonian Air Force, as well as the continued development of new naval assets.
After a decade of uncertainty and chaos, new boundaries were beginning to emerge – Livonia’s political crisis had pushed the country to the left, resulting in the termination of the alliance with Fascist Italy and the recent push for military growth – especially now that the Germans had become a serious threat.
