And the much requested prologue!
1 January 1836, Nürnberg
Konrad von Hohenzollern waved to the man at the front door as he entered the popular café. As usual, the waiter had a cup of tea and a copy of the newspaper ready for him. The title of the newspaper – Vox Imperatoris – didn’t grate on his nerves as much as it used to. The newspaper had been founded by his uncle Friedrich, who at one time had been Consul of the Holy Roman Empire. Now, there was no Holy Roman Empire; just the Republic of Germany.
A different man might have been bitter at the situation. His family had risen from Barons of a small castle in Schwaben to Holy Roman Emperors. For hundreds of years, his family had been known throughout Europe and indeed the world. Every German still knew the Hohenzollerns, still loved the Hohenzollerns – but the rest of the world had forgotten, it seemed. The family home had collapsed by way of a sinkhole, the family lands in Canada had long since been appropriated by Canada’s government, and most of the other privileges once given exclusively to the premier family in Europe had disappeared. The Hohenzollerns had precisely two things going for them in 1836. First, they were the hereditary rulers of the capital of Germany, Nürnberg. As Stadtholder von Nürnberg, Konrad sat in the Conclave of Stadtholders, the body which oversaw the domestic affairs of the Republic of Germany. Second, he was also the titular head of the German Catholic Church (although, in point of fact, this only entitled him to name the Archbishop of Nürnberg and replace him if necessary).
Konrad von Hohenzollern wasn’t entirely as helpless as all that, of course. He was one of the wealthiest men in the world. Even more importantly, he had achieved this wealth entirely on his own, via prudent investments and carefully calculated risks. When his father Gregor had committed suicide, he left his two sons with no money. Maximillian had chosen to join the Roman Catholic Church. It was then-Archbishop Maximillian’s decision to forbid the burial of Gregor in consecrated ground that had caused the split between Rome and Nürnberg. Now Konrad’s brother was a Cardinal, and some insiders wagered he might become the next Pope.
While the future Pope had many… unwanted descendants running around the world (Maximillian’s oath of celibacy had come well after most of the damage was done), Uncle Friedrich had disavowed Maximillian, and so the true Hohenzollerns now were Konrad’s children. Friedrich, the oldest, was a General in the Republican Army. Samuel was a diplomat, having served all over the world, and a respected historian. His youngest child, Katherine, had never married, but was an invaluable assistant to her father. Between Friedrich and Samuel, Konrad had four grandchildren – Friedrich had a son named Albrecht, who had turned 21 just a few short weeks ago, and Samuel had two sons and a daughter – Michael, Friedrich, and Sara. The Hohenzollerns were in no danger of disappearing.
That didn’t mean that Konrad didn’t have some residual resentment over his family’s fall from their exalted position. His new home – built on the ruins of Schloss von Hohenzollern – was hardly a shack, but neither did it command the city as it formally add. Thankfully, most of the family catacombs were undamaged in the collapse, where every dead member of the Hohenzollerns – apart from Gregor, who had wished to be buried in a church cemetery – was interred. Konrad had a powerful sense of history, and visited his ancestors regularly (always saving his uncle for last). Not a small part of him would have been delighted to be named Kaiser once again, but he had long since accepted the realities of the situation.
Part of those realities meant dealing with the politics of the Republic. Four parties, at present, vied for power in the Republic of Germany. The oldest party, by lineage, was the New Society of Gentlemen. Directly descended from the Gentlemen’s Society founded almost 200 years ago, the New Society was dedicated to keeping the traditions of the Empire alive in the form of a Republic. Its most extreme leader – Leopold von Baumgarten – had died shortly after Friedrich von Hohenzollern, and with Leopold died the dream of restoring the monarchy.
The second oldest party was the reactionary Imperialist party. Formerly known as the “Young Bavarians”, it openly advocated the restoration of former lands in Canada and elsewhere, not to mention reinstalling the Kaiser. Only they did not want a constitutional monarchy – they wanted the old absolute monarchy of the Holy Roman Empire. While Georg Friedrich von Arnim-Boitzenburg led them, the Imperialists were only committed to the first part of that mission; in essence, the Imperialists shifted to the right while the New Society stayed put.
The third party, the UAI, was formed by two of the greatest families in the Holy Roman Empire – the Ungern (formerly von Ungern) and Asch families. It was devoted to keeping a firm eye on the economy of the Republic and having an army powerful enough to defend against attack but not powerful enough for “foreign adventurism”. At one time, the party had tended towards outright pacifism, but now that was properly the province of the Alliance.
The fourth and final party was also the most radical. “The Alliance of Commoners and the Middle Class”, or simply the Alliance, was an attempt to counter the original Gentlemen’s Society. It sought to provide a way for the wealthier members of the Empire to buy patents of nobility. Over time, it drifted to the left. It was the home of the outright republicans (like Eneko Mendoza) in the Empire or those individuals who sympathized with them. They had two concrete goals: the absolute abhorrence of war in all its forms and minimal interference in private enterprise.
All four parties had a base among the populace. The Imperialists were the preferred party for a great number of military officers and the most conservative elements of the population. The New Society could call upon the peasantry for their base, as they favored agricultural and rural parties. The fact that the Hohenzollerns had almost always been a member of the New Society further bolstered their support. The UAI housed most of the educated elite and middle class. The Alliance was purely for radicals and pacifists.
This resulted in an interesting cauldron of political froth. The UAI and Alliance could work together on some occasions (although the New Society and the Imperialists were much closer), and when Georg Friedrich von Arnim-Boitzenburg became Consul in 1821, they united. The Consul had wanted to see a vast expansion of the Republican Army and to aggressively spread the revolution to the rest of Europe. While the Consul’s powers were fairly limited by the Constitution and reforms over the years, he was still the head of state for the Republic, and his outspoken speeches in favor of a “world united by rifle and cannon” worried every single member of the Assembly and Conclave. The problem was that there was no way to remove a Consul once in power. Even if he couldn’t declare war by himself – and the Assembly would never have voted in favor of any such declaration – it was becoming increasingly clear that the British and the Poles were unwilling to let such outspoken provocations go unanswered. Very, very quietly, the rest of the world slowly began to expand. There was even talk of an unofficial coalition against Germany.
The UAI and Alliance used their combined influence to put a member of the Alliance in as Foreign Minister, as a signal to the rest of the world that the Consul was nothing more than a blowhard and did not represent the true political opinion of the German people. That was when the Consul, not to be outdone, tried to appeal directly to the military, to rise up against the “counterrevolutionaries” in the Assembly and Conclave. (The absurdity of a nobleman – who insisted on the “von” in his name – defending the revolution occurred to everybody but him.)
This was all in 1823. The army quickly rejected Arnim-Boitzenburg’s call to arms, but the Assembly and Conclave had to act before he thought of something else. They voted – with almost 95% of the vote in both houses – to abolish the position of Consul, effective in 1825. Arnim-Boitzenburg was told in no uncertain terms that he could either shut up or go to prison. He elected for the former. With no Consul, there was no clear head of state for Germany – a problem that had never been eliminated, although the Chancellor had acted as such in an unofficial capacity.
The 1825 elections, the first without a Consul in the republic’s history, were hotly contested. For a brief moment, the New Society lost critical ground, as they were largely blamed for Arnim-Boitzenburg. That gave the UAI the largest party in the Assembly, and with some political horse trading, they brought along the Alliance in a coalition. It was a fragile coalition, but a neutered New Society and discredited Imperialists could provide little effective opposition. Konrad himself was the Minister of Finance, the only member of the New Society to have an important position. The Alliance got one too – Simeon Asch (who had defected from the UAI) became Foreign Minister.
He was, without question, the worst Foreign Minister in the republic’s history. He immediately proclaimed “complete non-interventionism in foreign affairs for Germany.” The New Society and Imperialists, smelling blood in the water, refused to support a vote of no confidence, and the Alliance itself obviously had no interest. The result was Chaos and the disappearance of many former German allies. France absorbed most, but not all, of her former territory – only Brittany remained outside of France’s orbit (that, of course, and the land held by Germany). Poland looked mostly to the east, while Norway grabbed a few choice parcels in the Baltic. Granada and Castille both snapped up lands in the Iberian Peninsula.
Yet all of that was overshadowed by Great Britain. The absorption of Wales and Ireland was expected; what was unexpected was the annexation of England. The English settlers, who were oppressed by years of Scottish domination, had been steadily moving to the New World, where they could enjoy the right to exercise their privileges as they wished. Germany had, unofficially, supported this maneuver, even to the extent of sending covert arms shipments by way of Canada. Konrad von Hohenzollern continued this tradition, but in the end, without direct military intervention, England was doomed, and the British Empire (as it was now called) now controlled most of North America and significant parts of the African coastline and India, not to mention Kamchatka and a few bits and pieces elsewhere.
Even the Alliance found this difficult to stomach, for whatever their opinions on war, a few of them were Anglophiles and genuinely admired the courage it took to set up a society far from home. There were quiet whispers that Simeon Asch would resign; these whispers did not, however, reach the ears of Asch himself. The Alliance was trapped – the UAI distanced itself from the coalition it had built, even changing their name to the “Union of Allied Interests” to avoid the repercussions. The 1829 election was a landslide in favor of the New Society; so much so that Konrad von Hohenzollern became Chancellor.
However, Konrad could not repair the damage that had already been done. Funding an uprising by the English was the best he could come up with, but it was much more difficult to smuggle weapons and money into British-controlled England than it had been in an independent England. Worse, Canada had made its own peace with the new British Empire and refused to act as conduits. The tiny USA volunteered; instead, that had gone horribly wrong as well, and the British had annexed the small island nation. (The USA had been loyal, not mentioning Germany’s involvement, but that didn’t mean there weren’t suspicions.)
Konrad threw himself into developing a stronger industrial base for the Republic of Germany and improving the army. More importantly, he made it clear that he was improving the army, which made it very, very difficult for further annexations to take place. 1833’s election showed a slight gain for the UAI, but the New Society and Imperialists still held onto power easily, and Konrad von Hohenzollern looked forward to a quiet second term.
That was the Somerset Incident happened. The final province in the British Isles not held by the British Empire was the province known as Somerset by the Germans (and Plymouth by the British). The Stadtholder of Somerset, having been promised riches beyond his imagining, “sold” the province to the British Empire. Before Germany could react, the British Empire had seized their former province, established a new garrison, and took over the shipbuilding facilities that had once been the pride of Germany. The New Society and Imperialists screamed for war. The Alliance, just as loudly, screamed for peace. The UAI, seeing a chance to perhaps regain its former power, simply stayed quiet and waited to see who would prevail.
Konrad von Hohenzollern, no fool, knew that Germany needed time to evaluate the situation before it dove into a war it didn’t understand for it reasons it could not comprehend. And so, on 1 January 1836, Konrad von Hohenzollern exercised his power as Chancellor to call for early elections.
It would be a very interesting six months.
