The Leading Spirits: the State of Moravia in the Age of Revolutions

[Chac1]

The urban petit bourgeoisie want to protect what's theirs, and given the spike in crime it makes sense. But the wedge had already been driven firmly between town and country with the child labour act. As to whether it will spark the revolution, well... at the moment it seems to be effectively staving it off. But nothing lasts forever...

I see this is the political through line for this chapter and perhaps many more. Interesting to see your police characters return. These developments with them and the growing power of a mafia-like organization look to provide further suspense.

Thanks for the new chapter.

 

[Lord Durham]

Lots of political maneuvering and machinations going on. Even Fara is getting involved. She's sure come a long way. And nice to see Pep and Bely make some appearances. Great work, as always.

 

[Revan86]

I see this is the political through line for this chapter and perhaps many more. Interesting to see your police characters return. These developments with them and the growing power of a mafia-like organization look to provide further suspense.

Thanks for the new chapter.

Lots of political maneuvering and machinations going on. Even Fara is getting involved. She's sure come a long way. And nice to see Pep and Bely make some appearances. Great work, as always.

Cheers, @Chac1 and @Lord Durham!

Yup, I wanted to get Fara in on the ground floor of politics somehow. The domestic drama between her and Adele was getting a bit stale, and she herself is interesting enough that putting her in these new situations would just be a fun exercise.

We'll see what role the Rodziny plays in the dramas to come. And yes, I agree it was fun to pull my Dragnet expies out for another 'roll'. We'll see if we see more of Pep and Lil in the future. I had been planning to retire them after the Radohov arc, but the game evidently had other ideas!

 

[Revan86]

THIRTEEN.
Today Is a Good Day to Dye
19 May 1837 – 27 October 1838

The nineteenth of May, 1837, was the true end of an era in Moravian politics, for the Cárovná a Kráľovna Lesana Hlinková passed away in her sleep in the wee hours of that morning.

Lesana would leave a mixed legacy. Her father Boleslav, like her grandfather Ostromír, had both been bastions of Moravian conservatism in their time. Lesana had inherited her ancestors’ autocratic and illiberal temperament—she’d long detested the Stavovské over its treatment of her husband, preferred it to act as an advisory body to the rightful monarch, and regarded it as a nuisance when it asserted its own legislative will.

But she’d also been canny and politically-astute enough to keep a well-bred finger to the air. She had, after all, overseen a number of humane reforms that had improved the daily life and lot of the average Moravian by leaps and bounds over what it had been when she’d inherited the two thrones. Property guarantees for women could not have been accomplished without Lesana’s active support. Safety and quality standards for food and per-capita taxation? Likewise; and the whole notion of putting the factory children into schools.

In terms of foreign policy, Lesana had been cautious, conservative, and ‘steady as she goes’. She had retained good relations with both Russia and Britain, and kept all of Moravia’s traditional vassals and dependencies firmly in line… mostly with carrots, but with the stick ready at hand in case of need. Her only real ‘loss’ was that of her stepmother’s association with the Kingdom of Georgia… a minor one in the larger scheme of things.

Lesana was succeeded by her grandson Vasiľ, who joined three other Moravian monarchs who had taken the throne in their tender years: Kaloján chrabrý, Radomír 4., and Prokop posmrtný. Vasiľ had only just barely ‘come out’ into society the previous year, and those who associated with him knew little of his political proclivities. He had undergone the usual officer corps training, and thus had a better-than-basic grasp of military affairs. But other than that, the only thing remarkable about Vasiľ was that he kept a woven čotky upon his wrist, and often passed the knots silently between his fingers. He made himself cordial and likeable to all and sundry among the court, from the peasant abble-rouser Bruno Zháněl on the far left of the political spectrum, to moderate leftists like Anzelm Chládek, to genteel landed ‘reformers’ like Bořivoj Matuška, to his arch-conservative brother Augustín, and back to moderates like Generálmajor Mojmír Čapek Pokorný. Yet he kept himself politely aloof from them all, and gave no grounds even for the appearance of favour to any.

So very few, apart from his immediate family, knew what to make of the young Vasiľ as he bowed his head and received the chrism at the Cathedral in Velehrad. Precious little was known for sure about how he would actually choose to govern. A few wags made the observation that, together with the title, Cár a Kráľ Vasiľ essentially amounted in meaning to ‘Emperor and King King’—in Latin, French and Greek, respectively. But (thanks to his mother) his blood was safely more than half-Moravian: in the eyes of the Stavovské, that, at least, was something to be thankful for.

~~~​

The first real crisis of Vasiľ’s rule was an industrial accident.

Because of the reliance of Podkarpatská (now officially called Moravské Severné Sedmohradsko) on small-scale shepherding, weavers relied on equally small-scale dyeworks located in places like Siget and Maramoroš. These dyeworks were not yet fully-industrialised, although many of them were owned by absentee industrialists or financiers. And they often still used stills and vats to prepare their dyes, which were often derived from local flora like rezeda žltá (weld) and serpucha (saw-wort). The water had to be kept boiling for hours, sometimes days at a time in order to get the right concentration. Add to this that these dyeworks were often poor and using outdated equipment, and a recipe for disaster was already well in the making.

One day in early August, not even twelve weeks into the reign of the tenderfoot C. a K. Vasiľ Hlinka, a massive copper vat—its bottom already corroded green all the way through—burst violently, spewing boiling-hot essence of yellow rezeda all across the workshop floor. Four of the workers nearby stifled and boiled to death, seven others suffered severe burns and scalding, and there were roughly a score of other minor injuries to be reported.

The new C. a K. was swift to spring into action as a result. He immediately ordered that the dead workers’ families and the injured workers themselves be compensated for their losses, and also that a full investigation into the facilities’ adequacy be launched at once. Alarmed by this sudden and intense interest in the welfare of the workers, a few of the Trenčín clique began to fear that a radical had been raised in the Hlinka nest.

But they could soon breathe a sigh of relief. The wording of the royal decree as it came down spoke of ‘upholding established standards’ and ‘maintaining decent public order in our realm’. Within the document itself there was no dangerous or sweeping language to speak of; rather, the language contained within was all very careful and very diplomatically-considered. And appended to the end of the decree, there was a clause worded: ‘the express wishes of the Crown that a competent and well-trained force in the office of civil safety might be established and endowed with adequate funds…’ That seemed to be a cautious endorsement of that rewritten policing act for which Anzelm Chládek was still doggedly trying to round up votes!

It was a long, protracted, slogging campaign, which any lesser parliamentarian might long since have abandoned as hopeless—but it seemed that Chládek’s determination was winning the war. It wasn’t over yet, however. And the new king appeared willing to stick his neck out only so far for it.

Some belated good news for the dyers of Siget and Maramoroš came in the form of a series of new patents, occasioned by the dyeworks accident in Siget. The process of dyeing could now be carried out across a series of stills rather than in a single large vat that had to be kept full at all times while the dye was maturing. Most dyeworks kept the old vats, but for those fortunate enough to afford the new process, the risk of similar accidents fell precipitously. And there were numerous other applications to be dreamt up for this technology, not least in food processing!

~~~​

After yet another round of failed debate in the Stavovské Zhromaždenie, it seemed even to Anzelm Chládek that the time was ripe to throw in the towel on the new policing act. Policing was unfortunately old news by now, and the press had long since lost interest in covering the debates or drumming up support for one or the other side. What was more, the Moravian and Bohemian intelligentsia had begun petitioning for ‘the franchise’, allowing all men with property to have a deciding voice in the disposition of the Zhromaždenie. By now, deadlock seemed inevitable.

But once again, God would see fit to salvage the policing act from total irrelevance.

A group of agitators, backed by the Trenčín clique, squared off in Olomouc against the local garrison. The garrison, made up of reserve soldiers who were neither trained in crowd control nor prepared to face the sort of situation they did, reacted as many forces would do when confronted with a mob. They got into formation as though in the opening stages of a pitched battle. Some idiot threw a rock into their ranks. The garrison commander barked an order which got misheard. A shot rang out. More guns were readied. More shots rang out. Seven or eight people were lying in the street in pools of their own blood. Confusion reigned.

As it turned out, more people died of being trampled to death in the resulting stampede than were gunned down by the Olomouc garrison. Nevertheless, the commander was placed under arrest, as was the hapless garrison private who it was determined had fired the first shot. The papers erupted in a mounting swell of outrage against the Stavovské Zhromaždenie and at the young king himself… though this time, ‘Radohov’ was not among those voices.

(Part of the reason for this, was that Fara had given birth to another daughter that year—little Nasrin, on 8 August 1837. Maćij loved little black-haired, brown-eyed, milk-and-rosy Nasrin to distraction, and he called her his ‘daughter of the Revolution’… both because her dies natalis coincided exactly with the three-year anniversary of the Brno workingmen’s demonstration, and because Fara had joined the cause before conceiving her. The other part, was that Maćij, Fara and Bruno Zháněl were already working together on a different angle of political attack when the movement for landed franchise began.)

Once again, the new C. a K. used the occasion to push forward the policing act, this time with a tad less subtlety. Vasiľ deeply implied in his public address that if there had been a trained civil force at hand to protect both the demonstration and the general public, that the tragedy at Olomouc would not have occurred. This address provided Chládek’s act a badly-needed shot in the arm, just as it was going in for a fresh round of debate in the Stavovské Zhromaždenie. In the public’s mind, the policing act and the movement for propertied suffrage were tied together.

~~~​

The departure from public life of two of Moravia’s most influential political figures signalled a massive shift in the politics of the realm in the second year of Vasiľ Hlinka’s reign, in August of 1838.

Firstly, on the fourth of the month, Pán Bořivoj Matuška chose to resign his seat in the Stavovské and retire from public life. His reasons for doing so were somewhat vague. He wasn’t exactly an elderly chap. Certain rumours swirled around about his having contracted syphilis, though these of course could not be substantiated. Naturally his brother Pán Augustín was no more forthcoming about the actual reasons behind his brother’s retirement than anyone else connected with the man. But stepping in to fill the vacancy in the Stavovské was none other than Generálmajor Mojmír Čapek Pokorn‎ý. Once again, the young C. a K. Vasiľ made all of the correct noises of regret that Matuška had chosen to retire so early, expression of wishes for his good health, and welcome of his military-veteran replacement at the head of the landed gentry estate—yet he stayed firmly aloof of any particular faction in the legislative body.

Two days later, Fr Havel Čech suffered a sudden, fatal coronary. This was somewhat unexpected, as the good Orthodox clergyman had always seen fit to take care of himself and steered clear of any unhealthy vices. At a Zbor following the death of its senior spokesman in the Inner Zhromaždenie, Archbishop Denis 2. (Otčenáš) of All Moravia and the convoked bishops of the realm appointed the towering, oratorically-talented, stentorian-voiced Fr Mikuláš Haduch of Spíš to fill the vacancy. C. a K. Vasiľ welcomed the new appointment warmly, though again was meticulously careful to avoid making any public show of favouritism.

Haduch’s appointment, prompted though it was by a wholly-unexpected tragedy, coincided with a large-scale ‘push’ from within the Moravian Orthodox Church to bolster the cause of the SSRBM. Although as a priest, Haduch very pointedly avoided speaking about foreign affairs (unless it was to condemn any bloodshed anywhere, including of non-Christians by Christians!), he nonetheless found himself to be the face and voice of the SSRBM’s activities.

The pressure group, which had a very potent presence inside the Orthodox Church as well as in the nascent labour movement, continued to take great umbrage at the tyrannical policies and gratuitously sanguinary public repressions of the Sulṭân of Asturias against his own people. Asturias having once been the centre of a movement for political itjihâd—the sort of beacon for liberal thought that the Archiduché souverain uni d'Amérique could only dream of being—the obscurantism, cruel public punishments and intransigent despotism of Siwār 3. ibn ‘Ayān felt to many reform-minded Europeans like insult added to injury. The SSRBM, despite its alliance with the conservative Orthodox clergy, provided precisely that outlet within the Two Realms.

And that outlet was a very literal one. The SSRBM bought space amounting to half the pages in the Pražské poštovské, dedicated entirely to the cause of opposition and resistance to ibn ‘Ayān’s reign of terror in Hispania. Soon the slogans of the SSRBM were upon the lips of everyone from the hairdresser’s salon to the stalls of the open market, from the public coaches to the halls of the Stavovské. The press was a powerful tool indeed—it was a pity that the Orthodox Church had so long resisted it as a medium to spread its message!

And to the long-suffering senior member of the Inner Zhromaždenie… at long last, the C. a K.’s nudges had brought him the victory he had sought for three whole years.

On the twenty-seventh of October, 1838, the final vote took place on the floor of the Stavovské Zhromaždenie. 163 ballots were cast against. 204 ballots were cast for. Pending the signature of the seventeen-year-old Vasiľ Hlinka, which no one in their right mind doubted would be forthcoming, the Civil Security and Policing Act of 1835 (in its third revision) would become the law of the land.

It had cost Anzelm Chládek some of his closest friendships. It had cost him countless nights worth of sleep. It had cost him the colour of his cheeks, and the colour of his hair and muttonchop whiskers. But his Herculean labours to place a professional police force on the streets of Moravia’s major cities, at the last, had not been in vain. Perhaps now the shopkeepers could sleep safe enough from the Rodziný that their attention might be turned to other matters.

 

[Lord Durham]

RIP Lesana. She had a good reign. Will there be statues? Vasil appears wise beyond his years. Are his decisions all his, or does he have good council?

 

[Revan86]

RIP Lesana. She had a good reign. Will there be statues? Vasil appears wise beyond his years. Are his decisions all his, or does he have good council?

Lesana was quite the character, yes! As for statues - there already is one in Warsaw... and there may be more yet.

Vasiľ is a hard one to get a bead on. He is ideologically moderate, and temperamentally tactful, that much is clear. And he's young. He does have certain preferences and biases, but he was raised knowing that his entire succession was the result of the legislative removal of his father Bonifác from the line. That was bound to leave a mark on him.

Up until now, he's been forced to rely on his mother's advisors: with the reformist petit-bourgeois Anzelm Chládek being the sole surviving member of that inner circle now that Fr Havel Čech is dead. We'll see what happens from here!

 

[Chac1]

Thanks for the latest chapter. In agreement: the new 'Emperor and King King' has started out quite well. No doubt we will soon see what happens with these reforms.

 

[Revan86]

FOURTEEN.
Enforced Charity
18 July 1839 – 1 November 1840​

Despite Fr Mikuláš Haduch’s appointment as the official liaison of the Moravian Orthodox Church and the chosen spokesman of its interests within the Stavovské Zhromaždenie, it quickly became apparent to the court at Olomouc Castle that Haduch’s influence was negligible when weighed against that of the Church’s worldly benefactor—Augustín Matuška.

Matuška held no official position within the Church: he was a plain-collared member of the laity, not even a tonsured reader. Yet his unofficial sway in Churchly circles could not be overstated. C. a K. Vasiľ was still rather too young to understand the sordid bed-games and power-plays of Augustín’s elder brother Bořivoj (recently retired from public life). And even if he could, Bořivoj’s… appetites were not the stuff of general knowledge even at court. And the younger brother, much more straight-laced and jealous of the family reputation, aimed to keep it that way. It couldn’t be said that he had a difficult job of it. Although there were certain things he did not mention, his open candour and forthrightness otherwise made a positive impression in society, and improved his family’s public standing immeasurably.

It was therefore not Fr Mikuláš Haduch, but Pán Augustín Matuška, who took the place of Fr Havel Čech in sessions of the Inner Zhromaždenie.

The thirty-six-year-old Nitra landowner, sporting a long pepper-dark beard already sprinkled through with a fair amount of salt, easily made himself a fixture of the new C. a K.’s court life—particularly after the early retirement of Anzelm Chládek. As he entered the audience chamber together with his colleagues Aristid Bernal and Radim Šimko, he found the two of them standing at the shoulders of the Cár a Kráľ, examining the painted portraits of two fresh-faced young débutantes.

‘To speak quite frankly, milord,’ said Šimko, ‘I’d say that Bildt is the prettier of the two.’

‘You’re barking,’ Bernal raised his eyebrows. ‘With that jawline? She looks almost manly! Nisa’s is much better proportioned.’

‘If you don’t count the bridge of her nose,’ Šimko retorted.

Pán Augustín recognised the two young ladies in the portraits, the moment he saw them. She on the left was Madlen Bildt—a young Pruthenian lady of a notable noble house in Baltic Sweden. And she on the right, Halyna Rychnovská-Nisa—naturally, of the ruling family of Galicia, being one of the granddaughters of Kniaz’ Vasilko 6. Of course the reason they were being presented to the Cár a Kráľ was that he might choose one of them as a bride. He cleared his throat.

‘You have an opinion, Pán Augustín?’ asked Vasiľ. The C. a K. ran a hand through the beginnings of a respectable-looking russet chinstrap beard.

‘I do indeed, vaše Velíčenstvo, but it would not concern her looks,’ the nobleman folded his hands piously. ‘The thing to consider when taking a wife, liege, is her character. Is she demure, deferent? Does she have a steady temper? Does she go to church, and make confession regularly? Would she take good care of your children?’

‘Rather hard to tell that from a girl’s portrait,’ Vasiľ remarked wryly.

‘As it happens, I do happen to know both of the families in question, and the reputations of the two young ladies portrayed here.’

‘Well, don’t keep us in suspense, man!’ exclaimed Bernal.

‘Allow me to commend,’ said Matuška, ‘young Miss Madlen Bildt to you, liege.’

‘Truly? And… the fact that she’s not a Slav…?’ asked Vasiľ with a vague wave of his hand.

He tried his level best to keep his voice neutral, though he couldn’t quite keep an ironic tone out of his voice. Yes, he was well aware of how he came to be sitting on the throne in his father’s place.

Augustín Matuška jutted out his bearded black chin. ‘Things have changed in the Stavovské. The elements which most objected to your father’s succession are on the outs. The last holdout of that tendency, Čapek Pokorn‎ý, is nearing retirement, and we can be assured his faction won’t pose any impediment to your, um… progeny. But I can speak to Miss Bildt’s character: she is a reserved, mild and thoughtful sort of girl. I think she would complement you quite well.’

Vasiľ cast a jocular glance across at Bernal. ‘Three traits that nicely counterbalance a jawline of such prominence, wouldn’t you say?’

‘It is, of course, your Majesty’s decision to make,’ Bernal acknowledged with a gracious nod.

Arrangements for a pre-nuptial meeting with Miss Madlen Bildt were made.

~~~

What Pán Augustín Matuška had said was true. The Stavovské Zhromaždenie was indeed changing. There was a movement to enact formal representation for the Moravian Realm’s gentry class. This movement was far less a demand from the grassroots, than it was an acknowledgement of the changes in institutional makeup which had already been happening gradually since the Asturian War. This enactment would essentially grant recognition to the factional formations that had already congealed for the most part into de facto political parties.

Ironically, this meant that both the constitutional-democratic ‘faction’ (led by Russo-Moravian intellectual Gerasim Hulán) and the traditionalist-autocratic ‘faction’ (led by Generálmajor Mojmír Čapek Pokorný) were acting in accord on the question. Both of them would benefit broadly from this recognition. Pán Augustín Matuška made some noises of dissent from the law at the urging of the Church, which feared that it would fragment Moravian spiritual and civil unity. And a certain degree of scepticism of these reforms was also advanced by the likes of Bruno Zháněl and Maćij Rychnovský (as ‘Radohov’), not because it was moving too quickly, but because it was yet another sham ‘reform’ meant to paper over the marginalisation of the great bulk of Moravia’s working people. Gerasim Hulán dismissively called the two of them the Novokomenskistov or ‘neo-Komenskists’ (after the ill-fated early 17th-century radical advisor to Kráľ Otakar 2., Ctibor Ignac Komenský)… to which Rychnovský penned the reply:

Hulán calls us neo-Komenskists. Why stop there? We are very much in the spirit of the original Komenský, who was loyal to the bone, to the bitter end of the rope from which the Regency hanged him. So let Hulán call us neo-Komenskists—I welcome it! But what would that make him? Would that not make him a neo-Kafendist? Is he suggesting Vasiľ will meet a similar fate as Prisnec?​

That was apparently a word too far. Maćij was forced once again by the Censoriate and the Praha police to issue a retraction and an apology to Gerasim Hulán. But because the spirit of his op-ed was ‘loyalist’ in its defence of Vasiľ from the Zhromaždenie, he was not pressured further under the law.

But the real opposition to the new representation law came from the factory owners… in particular, the young Bohemian lumber-pulp-and-paper magnate Justin Veselka, the owner and majority shareholder of Bohémsky prémiový papier.

Veselka was, very much like the king, quite guarded about what he chose to say in public. He had a knack for saying the right things to the right people, which often got him what he wanted in the end. As such, to most people, he was simply a well-heeled, well-connected, respectable businessman with a knack for philanthropy. He even offered the young C. a K. to assist in founding a university in Siget out of his own considerable private funds.

But for those who knew him personally, it was a different matter. Veselka had been a first-hand witness to the workers’ demonstration in Brno on 8 August 1834. The sight of the gathering mob and their anger had impacted him deeply… in an adverse sense. He detested worker movements, and feared more than anything a repeated disorder at home in Praha. He donated generously to the police force in Praha, as well as to private contractors and detectives who specialised in infiltrating and putting down nascent organising drives among industrial labour. Veselka opposed the new representation law for precisely the opposite reason as Rychnovský and Zháněl did. Whereas the two ‘neo-Komenskists’ deplored the exclusion of workers from the proposed political reforms, Veselka feared precisely that the reforms could extend to them.

The young C. a K. received with grace Veselka’s petition to keep matters in the Stavovské the way they were and had been… but he wasn’t inclined to act on it. There were bigger matters brewing.

~~~

Another rebellion was busily brewing against the Sámiráđđi in the far north… and once again the epicentre of the rebellion was the territory of Pohjois-Pohjanmaa in north-central Finland. This time, the disaffected element was not the intelligentsia in Oulu, but rather the landowners, who continually baulked against the Sámiráđđi’s insistence on the preservation of traditional common use for hunting and fishing.

This time, Vasiľ sent the elderly Generálmajor Mojmír Čapek Pokorný to nip the rebellion in the bud, sending him straight up the Finnish coastline from Saint Petersburg. The rebelling general Jååǥǥar Hass, with his limited manpower and nigh nonexistent artillery, had little choice but to allow Čapek Pokorný to land a short ways south of Oulu… and the engagement that occurred afterwards was decisive and disastrous for the aristocratic rebels.

The Moravian Army wiped out practically two-thirds of the rebellious landowners in the initial volley of artillery and infantry shot. Hassi was forced to retreat nearly as soon as he had arranged his troops for their hopeless resistance, and naturally Čapek Pokorný gave chase. There was little glory to be had in such battles, and Čapek Pokorný was clearly miffed at his skills not being put to the test.

The greater damage was to Sápmi’s pocketbooks. The poorer vassal went into default during the Aristokráhtaid vuostálasvuohta, and only the quick capitulation of Hassi once he saw the situation was hopeless saved the Sámi government from utter embarrassment at its lack of preparation.

~~~​

At this juncture, as well, one of Bruno Zháněl’s demands began at last to be taken seriously in the Stavovské Zhromaždenie. Most small bowers, let alone serfs, had no savings and no wealth—many of them were also in debt to the local landlord for the basic necessities of life. The idea of small-volume lending through the postal system began to catch on… which, if implemented properly, could prove to be a true lifeline for the rural folk.

But the representation law—despite the strong support for it among both the landowning class and the intellectuals—was foundering (much to Justin Veselka’s delight). The Russo-Moravian leader of the constitutional-democrat faction in the Zhromaždenie, when the question was put to him of what the new law would actually accomplish, was placed immediately on the wrong foot. Hemming and hawing, Gerasim Hulán found he could not advance the case of the 1839 Representation Act’s necessity without making it sound unduly radical and alienating Čapek Pokorný’s traditionalists, and he could not defend the Act by appealing to parliamentary precedent without losing interest for advancing the Act among his own constituency. There was no question but that the law was a mess, trying to appeal to too many people and trying to package a recognition of the status quo as some kind of bold reform.

And then there was the revelation—long hinted at in Radohov’s pamphlets and excoriations of the Moravian Army—that Čapek Pokorný had been indulging in the very worst and most flagrant forms of graft, bribery and favour-peddling in order to scrounge up votes for the new law. Despite the initial head of steam the 1839 Representation Act had built up, the blasted thing seemed to stall on the tracks at every turn.

As usual with such laws, it was saved on account of three distractions.

The first of these was the attempt by the young C. a K., driven by idealistic considerations, to prepare the expansion of Moravia’s system of charitable religious hospitals into the Carpathian realm… which was still by comparison poor, underdeveloped and underserviced. Carpathian men and women lived shorter lives, and the C. a K. was convinced that his southern and easternmost subjects would benefit strongly from the adoption of Moravian institutions of care for the sick. Given that Vasiľ Hlinka was the sovereign of both realms, and the relatively fewer impediments to his rule in the larger and poorer of the two, Carpathia’s nobles had little choice but to submit to the demand. This very public imposition, however, did dominate the debates in the press for several months in the middle of 1840.

The second such distraction was the monumental development of a new substance that would revolutionise the mining industry. It was in fact a monk, Brother Valentín (Doležal), who was (on behalf of the Moravian Orthodox Church’s many charitable hospitals in the city of Bratislava) documenting a process for synthesising a drug that he hoped could help alleviate heart disease. Brother Valentín had found a process whereby the ‘sweet principle of fat’ could be ‘fortified’ in a precisely-measured tincture of oil of vitriol and spirits of nitre—the latter of which could be rendered easily from animal fertiliser.

The initial results were quite promising, when it came to the dissolution of vascular plaque and the alleviation of pain in patients with chronic heart problems. But Brother Valentín noted with grim dismay that the thick, dense, sweet-spicy oily solvent was, in his own words, ‘violently unstable, with a temper like the Evil One himself—those who place it too close to open flame do so at the risk of an eye or a limb or a life, so ferociously does this potion react to heat or friction’.

This description quickly caught the eye of Florián Babiař, an engineer in the employ of the Kovový konglomerát západne Haličie. The KKZH had long been looking for methods to more quickly excavate and explore new veins of ore, because they were processing heavily in Vislania with some of the older veins of hematite in the region already beginning to tap out. Babiař booked a carriage and a train to Bratislava, to ask the monk about the process of making this ‘potion’ of his, which he had descriptively dubbed dusíkatý sladkotuk—which would be rendered into English as ‘nitrogenous saccharine oil’. Once the process had been adequately related to him, Babiař promised the monk an appropriate percentage compensation, and set to work creating the stuff… to be deliberately detonated in the hopes of pulverising stubborn face-rock in the mines.

And the last distraction, of course, was the wedding of the young C. a K. Vasiľ Hlinka to the still-younger Fröken Madlen Bildt of Baltic Sweden. The pre-nuptial interviews between the C. a K. and his prospective bride had gone well indeed—Pán Augustín Matuška’s recommendation had been a well-measured one. The soft-spoken young blonde who was to be the Empress of Carpathia and Queen of Moravia certainly looked the part! In person she was actually far more fetching than her portrait had made her—she had a certain grace and gravity of movement, bestowing on her an elegance that no mere static depiction could render.

While these three new developments arose and captured the attention of the classes, Gerasim Hulán and Mojmír Čapek Pokorn‎ý put aside their differences and quietly began canvassing votes in the Stavovské Zhromaždenie for the next time the 1839 Representation Act came up for consideration. With any luck, there wouldn’t be any more setbacks on the road to legislative progress.

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

Another rebellion was busily brewing against the Sámiráđđi in the far north… and once again the epicentre of the rebellion was the territory of Pohjois-Pohjanmaa in north-central Finland. This time, the disaffected element was not the intelligentsia in Oulu, but rather the landowners, who continually baulked against the Sámiráđđi’s insistence on the preservation of traditional common use for hunting and fishing.

I think the time has come to set the Sámi free, they're only becoming a nuisance for Moravia...

 

[Chac1]

Thanks for the new chapter. Very much appreciated the story about the discovery of nitro.

I think the time has come to set the Sámi free, they're only becoming a nuisance for Moravia...

SGE has an interesting idea here. Is keeping the land worth the trouble? I do find it interesting that the revolt was led by the Sámi "aristocrats."

At this stage, would be interesting to see a map of all the holdings of the empire, perhaps as a way of understanding the reason to keep these territories.

 

[Revan86]

I think the time has come to set the Sámi free, they're only becoming a nuisance for Moravia...

Thanks for the new chapter. Very much appreciated the story about the discovery of nitro.


SGE has an interesting idea here. Is keeping the land worth the trouble? I do find it interesting that the revolt was led by the Sámi "aristocrats."

At this stage, would be interesting to see a map of all the holdings of the empire, perhaps as a way of understanding the reason to keep these territories.

You have a valid point, @StrategyGameEnthusiast. They are certainly quite a bit of trouble. Whether more trouble than they're worth... that's actually another question.

@Chac1, from a gameplay perspective it's not actually about the land or the tax base. Sápmi has Russia as a neighbour; that makes them fiercely loyal, and in 1.7.x, a major benefit of loyal vassals is mandate speed, as well as prestige bonuses and power ranks. They actually also help keep Carpathia in line, even though Carpathia doesn't have an independent head-of-state.

I'll see about those maps!

 

[Revan86]

FIFTEEN.
Záškrt
12 December 1840 – 7 August 1841​

It was a winter that would haunt Fara’s memory with grief for the rest of her life.

It began cosily enough. Fara was sitting in front of the fire; one tawny shoulder bare of her chemise with her youngest daughter Daria (nearly a year old now) suckling at her breast and cradling off to sleep in her lap, while she herself kept working through the draughting exercises in the final Imperial Russian Reader, meant for upper-level students in their preparations for university. Her handwriting had improved remarkably, and although her compositional skills would remain fairly basic lifelong, she was at last growing capable of expressing herself in correct, respectable Russian prose—and developing her own independent taste in literature. Unfortunately, she could still only enjoy Ḥâfiz recited in her mother’s tongue; she hadn’t found a Russian translation of his that did him justice.

And that was when she heard the cough from upstairs—and it wasn’t one of Josef’s normal coughs, either. Softly disengaging Daria’s snoozing mouth and laying her gently in the chair before the fire, then with an operose motion bundling her bare flesh decently back into her nightgown, she took up her kerosene lamp and strode up the stairs. The cough was coming from Zusana’s room.

She went over to the bed where her and Maćij’s fifth child (now seven years old) lay. She could feel the heat of the girl’s damp fever even before her hand brushed Zusi’s forehead. Zusi’s dark brown eyes, though open, had a worryingly dull and listless look, and her neck had swollen considerably. There was no question but that she was quite seriously ill.

Zusana was by no means alone. A wide-scale outbreak of záškrt, or the ‘Flemish cough’, had swept through Magdeburg in December of 1840, and it had spread inexorably up the Elbe valley toward Drježdźany. The hospital system in Bohemia was overtaxed, and the local authorities had failed to act quickly to prevent the spread of the contagion. As a result, many homes were afflicted with new cases of the Luxembourgish disease—which did not discriminate at all between rich or poor, German or Sorbian, young or old. But it was worst and deadliest upon the young.

That was because the ‘Flemish cough’ attacked the neck and throat hardest and worst. The lymphatic nodes under the patient’s jaw would swell up into a bull-neck—and inside the throat, the disease would cause a thick greyish membranous film to form. This was bad enough in adults, but in young children it could constrict the airway so thoroughly that the child would suffocate. And there was little that even doctors could do to prevent the course of the disease (which would later come to be classified as diphtheria), except prescribe water and bed-rest, and ensure that other potential patients were not exposed to the ‘night air’ that was causing the illness. And, of course, pray.

And Maćij and Fara did pray—along with the rest of Drježdźany. Among twenty thousand cases of the Flemish cough in the winter of 1840-1841 in the capital of the Sorbian Archduchy, over 1,300 resulted in death.

Josef, whose lungs were already weak from childhood, succumbed first to the illness. The eight-year-old died on the evening of 20 January 1841. On the morning after that, on the 21st, the soul of Maćij and Fara’s elder, ten-year-old son Rostam was claimed. Although her cough had been the first to come, Zusana hung on longer.

‘Madar, motâsfem,’ Zusana rasped tightly through her occluded airway. ‘I’ve let you down.’

Fara gripped her daughter’s hand hard, her eyes rimmed with red from the otherwise-inexpressible exhaustion and tears she’d said over her two sons. ‘Nonsense,’ she told her. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong, my sweet one. Just get better. God will help you.’

But the help that God would give to Zusana would come in the hereafter. She gave up the ghost on the 24th of the month.

Of the others in the Zwinger who became ill, Archduchess Adele survived—though slender and delicate of frame, she was far too stubborn to be killed from such a disease. So too did Maćij’s younger sister Anna. And of Maćij’s children, Šahrazade and Nasrin and little Daria all made full recoveries. Still, the duty fell to Maćij and Fara to make the necessary arrangements. Although the graveyard at Cerkej Symeona Čudowneje Hory right in town was open to them, Maćij (being more of a traditionalist and a Romantic than he would ever publicly admit) opted instead to inter Rostam and Josef and Zusana, as was his birthright, alongside the ancient Rychnovsk‎ý kings at the Dóm sv. Gorazda in Velehrad[1].

Three sombre black carriages bearing three small black coffins made the journey southeast through the snow and through the barren black linden-lined country roads of Moravia. And Fara and Maćij rode with them. Fara alternated between heaving wretched watery sobs into Maćij’s shoulder, and sitting silently, sullenly, stonily inconsolable with her hands clenched together in her lap, together with a pain still too raw and searing to express.

For his part, Maćij spoke little to her. That was better than saying too much to Fara that she simply didn’t need to hear… and also far better than saying nothing at all. Rather, Maćij reassured her (in word and in gesture) that he loved her, that none of this was her fault, and that she could always come to him to talk when she was ready. Together, the grieving mother and father went to the churchyard at the Velehradský Dóm and committed their two sons and daughter to the earth.

~~~

‘By the divinely-bestowed grace of Vasiľ Hlinka, Emperor of Carpathia and King of Moravia, the Representation Act of 1839 is now the law of the Moravian Realm,’ intoned Pán Augustín Matuška before the Stavovské Zhromaždenie, that same week. ‘The parliamentary procedures detailed therein are hereby adopted for this assembly; may Almighty God guide us.’

‘Amen.’

The convocation of the Stavovské Zhromaždenie saw the formation of three formal political parties out of the cliques that had been growing in the body up to that point. The Kavárna Křenová faction—so called because of the establishment where many of the members of the faction went to smoke, drink coffee or stronger things, play cards and billiards, and discuss the issues of the day—organised itself as the Národní strana (NS) or ‘National Party’, though they were often simply called the ‘Conservative Party’. The party’s formal leader in the Stavovské Zhromaždenie was Radim Šimko, but it was well-known that Pán Augustín Matuška was the one with the reins in hand.

Gerasim Hulán led the Divadlo Reduta faction, which was largely comprised of intellectuals and socialites of the sort who frequented cultural venues like the opera and the theatre. This faction organised itself quickly into the Ústavní demokratická strana (UDS), though they often went by the moniker ‘Liberal’.

And finally there was Justin Veselka’s party—the sort of practical men and men of business who made sure things ran smoothly in the nation’s centres of industry. Usually these men met at their own private clubs, in a sequential rotation. But they banded together as the Strana voľného obchodu (SVO) or the ‘Free Trade Party’.

The so-called Novokomenskistov did not immediately form their own party in the Stavovské, though there were members of the Kavárna Křenová set who had working-class sympathies and were open to Zháněl’s and Rychnovský’s ideas. Not a few of these were clerics which had ties to the old Johanit movement, which had always lent a sympathetic ear to the case of the poor and downtrodden. Their cause wasn’t helped, however, when the beleaguered Bruno Zháněl retired from public life for good, leaving the representation of the rural folk in the Stavovské in the hands of the much less-sympathetic Radim Šimko. In fact, it was a major setback to their cause.

It was rather Gerasim Hulán, in an attempt to build support for his party, to put forward the case that the poor and struggling of Moravia’s suburbs and tenement towns were being ill-served by the government.

‘It’s a shock—I dare say, a disgrace,’ Hulán held forth, sweeping a dramatic arm before him out in the general direction of the street, ‘to see the filthy state of the once-pristine Moravian countryside. Little wonder the outbreak of Flemish cough in the northwestern regions managed to spread as far and as fast as it did! The squalid—I repeat, squalid—disarray of the outskirts and the filth in which the less fortunate of this country are compelled to live brings a tear to the eye! …’

‘And how much time do you think Master Hulán has bothered to spend in said outskirts?’ Radim Šimko gave a wry whisper aside to Aristid Bernal.

‘And that is precisely why,’ Hulán pounded a fist on the bench before him in conclusion, ‘the respectable men of this country must see fit to select a Stavovské Zhromaždenie that will broach this problem in a respectable manner, roll up our sleeves and set to the true work of achieving results!’

‘He can’t possibly mean himself in that selection,’ Šimko continued to whisper impishly. ‘When has that white-fingered half-Russian pansy so much as handled a shovel, or touched a plane or a square?’

‘Or settled accounts in an honest trade,’ Bernal muttered back.

Issues of sincerity aside, Hulán did have a gift for oratory. It was a fine speech, and it was one which Hulán’s colleagues would faithfully report to and see propounded afresh in the press. But even among those not entirely content with the predominance of the Matuška family in public life and the ascendancy of the NS, Hulán’s address failed to cause much of a stir. The very parliamentary reforms that Hulán had promoted had proven popular enough among a certain set that otherwise, more people were content than prior for things to remain as they were.

That wasn’t to say that Hulán didn’t have a point. Dissatisfaction there was, aplenty. There was a new demand for dusíkatý sladkotuk, or DST, in mining operations all around Moravia. And there was a new method by which spirits of nitre, a critical reagent in the production of DST, could be derived: the ammonia-soda process. As a result, the explosives factories of Bytom in Sliezsko constantly had positions open for anyone willing to work there, and the C. a K. himself had expressed an interest in pouring state funds into their expansion. But in Sliezsko, there was enough discontent that such public works could proceed only at a nearly-halved pace.

In Sliezsko, too, there was a problem unique to the First Moravian Army barracks, that was causing significant discontent inside them.

When soldiers left their barracks on drills and exercises, they took with them (because they were spoil-proof) their rations in tins. Tinned food being both a luxury and a novelty at this point, most of the soldiers were proud to do so… until the time came to actually open the damn things. Knives, bayonets, cavalry spurs, horseshoes—the ruin wrought upon standard-issue equipment solely in the effort to get bellies filled was turning out to be a quartermaster’s nightmare. A formal complaint was lodged by the desiatnik in charge of Sliezsko’s garrison directly to Čapek Pokorný, requesting a plan of research toward developing a can-opener for distribution to Moravia’s hungry and frustrated troops.

~~~​

The C. a K. very wisely refrained from making any public statements of preference between the Národní strana, the Ústavní demokratická strana or the Strana voľného obchodu in the upcoming elections, to be held between the twenty-first and twenty-fifth of July. He wasn’t the sort to burn bridges. But those who knew him personally understood his preference for working with the people who had been advising him over the past four years of his rule. And if there was one outcome he was dreading, it was a victory of the free-traders. After all the subtle nudges he’d given to get the Policing Act passed, he had little desire to work with a man like Veselka who wanted to bring back the gendarmerie and policing-by-garrison, however similar they were in temper.

Vasiľ Hlinka needn’t have worried. The returns were clear and sweeping: the vast majority of the electorate had opted for a status quo ante government, with Matuška’s party dominating the exit polls in a landslide victory. Of the 371 seats in the Stavovské Zhromaždenie, 273 were filled with Kavárna Křenová types (or people eagerly desirous of an invitation); 84 went to constitutional democrats and Hulán loyalists; and the remaining 14 were filled by Veselka’s free-traders.

Pán Augustín Matuška returned to his office in triumph… and perhaps a good bit of complacency as well. Retrospect is always perfect, and everyone is a political expert after the fact. But there could be no way to know for certain whether, had Matuška been more circumspect and cautious in the wake of the 1841 election returns, he would have avoided the fatal blunder that he was about to make.

---

[1] Slovoľubec—Maćij’s ninth-century ancestor, indirect namesake and progenitor of the Rychnovsk‎ý line, was buried in Olomouc alongside his wife Matylda… and later the last of the Rychnovský kings, Prisnec 2. It had been rather the first Rychnovsk‎ý king of Moravia, Bohodar 1., who had first been interred at the Dóm sv. Gorazda in the same grave as his aunt-wife Blažena. The Rychnovský plot and mausoleum at the Dóm in Velehrad also contained (as was known) the remains of Pravoslav and Marija, Radomír 1. hrozn‎ý and Raina, St. Jakub and Eirēnē, Eustach stavíteľ chrámu and Dolz, Tomáš 1. and Ricciarda, Bohodar 3. and Czenzi, Radomír 3. and Lucija, and quite a few others. Bohodar 2. was laid to rest at Čáslav. Kaloján’s remains were, according to legend, buried in Mount Gerlach. Prokop and Helene found their rest together furthest afield, in Luleju in Sápmi.

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

Tragedy befalls Macij and Fara, will it harden Radohov's resolve?...

 

[Revan86]

Tragedy befalls Macij and Fara, will it harden Radohov's resolve?...

Perhaps. Perhaps not. In the more immediate term, it alters the Sorbian line of succession.

Also, per the request of @Chac1 ...

MAP OF EUROPE IN THE YEAR 1840

Political entities in the MJeF (Moravian Empire) are in golden yellow. So, not counting Scottish Iceland on the far upper left. ​

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

Sweden not being in Sweden, likewise with Scotland...

#megacampaignthings

 

[Revan86]

SIXTEEN.
The Vivid, Ephemeral Political Career of Wulfram Joyce
7 August 1841 – 14 August 1842

The Kavárna Křenová, in Brno of the early 19th century, was more than just a café. It was more than just a club. It was more than just a political establishment for Moravia’s conservatives. To be sure, it was all of these things, but more than that: it was a symbol.

The ul. Křenová was an east-west street on Brno’s east side, running between the brand new railway station, over the Násep Ponávky, and out toward the respectable working-class neighbourhood of Černovice. Symbolically, Křenová was the first stretch of road running between Brno’s Mesto, its historical town square, and the ancient town of Velehrad. Overlooking this inaugural route eastward to the spiritual core of Moravia was the Kostol sv. Joachima a Anny, dating back to the sixteenth century, seated on the northern side of ul. Křenová with the altar facing east, towards Velehrad.

The Kavárna itself was a stately edifice constructed in the ‘Moravian Baroque’ style that had been ascendant in the 1780s. The exterior featured broad panel windows and high columns, while the interior was characterised by high vaulted ceilings and timber-frame panelled walls, lending it an elegant atmosphere… that is, if one liked the cloying pall of Oriental water-pipes. There were tables set up for dining, drinking and playing cards, as well as billiards and backgammon.

The owner was a bold, stout, broad-shouldered, sanguine Eastern Roman of middle age named Filimon Eleftherios. Despite his brash demeanour, Eleftherios had a remarkable knack for nosing out deals in fine coffees and teas from the areas of the world where they grew best, and the ordinary clientele of Kavárna Křenová were happy to enjoy the benefits of his mercantile talents. It was unknown what his connexion was to the Matuška family, but it was broadly assumed that there was one. He was on first-name terms with Augustín, and the arrangements made for hosting private dinners and party business were conducted with a degree of casual nonchalance as to suggest an association of longstanding trust.

When Augustín came out into the main hall one day in early August after his electoral triumph, he was in good humour and high spirits, and he found Filimon Eleftherios deep in conversation with a tall, clean-shaven, grey-avised man with hard, square features and leathery, well-tanned skin. Eleftherios, as usual, was animated and voluble in his discourse as was his habit, while his older, darker, taller and slenderer companion listened closely and added a thoughtful word or two there to keep the conversation flowing. Eleftherios, seeing Matuška, waved him over.

‘Augustín! Here—’ he turned to his companion, ‘—is one of the great Moravian statesmen of our time, a real young pistol, Augustín Matuška, the grey eminence of the Stavovské. Augustín, may I introduce to you Mister Wulfram Joyce?’

‘Very glad to make your acquaintance, sir,’ the tall, stark-faced man greeted the Slovak statesman.

‘Joyce here was just telling me some excellent stories about his earlier diplomatic career in the Southern Cone. Which country was it you hailed from again? British Brasil? Didn’t you say you lived in Grand-Para?’

‘I’m Argentine, sir, in truth,’ Wulfram corrected Eleftherios good-naturedly. ‘But you’re right, I did spend quite a fair time in Grand-Para. Lovely city. Lovely people. Frightful neighbours. Things would be much better for them, to be sure, if they had a firm steady hand to guide them, of good family…’

‘I see you and I are of a very similar turn of mind,’ Augustín Matuška smiled beneath his bushy black beard.

‘Just as I was saying to Mr Joyce myself,’ Eleftherios nodded with a wide-jowled grin. ‘I’d imagine the two of you would have a lot to discuss!’

The aristocratic Orthodox parliamentarian and the Argentine diplomat indeed hit it off quite well, as they settled down to Arabic coffee and a water-pipe. They discussed all manner of international and Moravian domestic affairs, and the more they did, the more common ground there seemed to be between them. Both men took a rather dim view of the expansion of the franchise, both men were desirous of a more autocratic system of government, and both men were eager to revive the simpler and more direct ethics of holier and richer past times. It even turned out to be the case that Mr Wulfram Joyce was an Orthodox Christian!

‘If I may be perfectly candid with you,’ Joyce mused, blowing out a lungful of hookah smoke, ‘I truly do believe Moravia to be Europe’s last best hope against this democratic disease. Moravia fought a war in Asturias, and won, and this is something to be celebrated. But the malady in remission there, has wormed its way in among the East Geats, and in Burgundy—even the naval dictatorship in Luxembourg is giving into the demands of the rabble. And despite assurances, the Mother Country isn’t far behind them. The might of the Macsens is waning under Henry 9. Some fresh inspiration is needed.’

‘Yes,’ Augustín nodded. ‘I hope that I can coax our Cár a Kráľ into growing more of a spine against Hulán and his party.’

‘All this fuss about elections,’ Joyce let out a dry chuckle. ‘Oh—don’t get me wrong. I’m chuffed your party won. I’m just saying that in a healthier system it wouldn’t even need to be questioned.’

‘I say,’ Augustín interjected, ‘would you be interesting in staying on a little longer in Brno? Quite bluntly—our party could use strong, forthright men like you, and I’d be happy to put in a word for you personally. We’d make sure your expenses are attended to. And you’d have more or less a free hand to, shall we say, spread the good word?’

‘That’s a delightful offer,’ Joyce gave Matuška a broad, toothy smile. ‘And I’d be happy to accept.’

~~~​

‘He’s made himself quite the fixture of your court,’ said Madlen, née Bildt (now formally Cárovna-manželka Magdaléna Hlinková of Carpathia and Moravia), to her husband as she looked out the window of the Brno royal residence into the courtyard. ‘I’d keep a close eye on him if I were you.’

‘Oh? What’s he done?’ asked Vasiľ.

‘All wholesome and correct things, so far,’ Madlen’s tone waxed a trifle ironic. ‘Charitable associations, patriotic societies. He’s done quite a few events in your honour, Vasiľ. But you need to remember that he is a foreigner.’

‘So are you,’ Vasiľ pointed out.

‘That’s different,’ Madlen retorted. ‘You married me. You brought me here. I’m not looking to steer the ship of state, I’m just a… passenger. Wulfram Joyce has an… agenda.’

Vasiľ changed his tone diplomatically, placatingly. ‘I understand, Lenka. As it happens, actually, I already agree with you. I’ve assigned some persons to keep an eye on Joyce. Including some from the military—we’ll see how that goes over.’

‘Really?’ asked Madlen. ‘Who?’

‘One of the captains in the Second,’ said Vasiľ.

Madlen considered, then suddenly grinned. ‘You’re not as mild and easygoing as you like to let everyone think, are you? I mean, you’re actually thinking two or three steps ahead.’

Vasiľ shrugged and spread out his hands. ‘It’s actually something of a balancing act. I don’t want to let people think I’m stupid, otherwise they’ll shut me out of these decisions without me knowing it. But I also don’t want them thinking I’m smarter than they are… otherwise they’ll start actively colluding and working against me. If I do it right, people will obey me, while thinking it was their own idea to do what I want.’

Madlen shook her head and clicked her tongue with a slight smile of admiration. ‘Interesting. And—if I may ask—whose idea was it to have you marry me?’

‘I, uh… let Augustín Matuška take the credit for that one.’

‘You devious dog,’ Madlen chuckled affectionately as she put her arms around her husband’s shoulders. But before she sat down next to him, she turned serious once more. ‘I do mean it about Joyce, though. He puts on a plausible show of amiability, but his temper is deadly vicious.’

~~~​

That temper took awhile to manifest itself. Wulfram Joyce soon found a niche working alongside the diplomatic corps to boost the image of the Moravian monarchy abroad.

There had been a minor incident with the representative from Bayern which had caused some frictions with Landfried… but no one took much note of it. Such ‘incidents’ were common with him. Landfried did not have the best ability to manage himself. And Joyce proved himself useful in numerous other ways.

He landed a small diplomatic coup which, though it didn’t have much practical use, was nevertheless showy and appealed to that significant part of Moravian society which still viewed far-off Taugats through a rose-tinted lens. The small state of Wu—which would come to be called by later dynastic historians as Če-Wu (浙吳)[1]—had become involved in a dispute between the Japanese Shōgunate and the Anachak Lao, and the play had nearly gotten to the point of a Lao invasion of the small Chinese state. Thankfully, a last-minute action in early February of 1841 by Mr Wulfram Joyce as a neutral arbiter, requested from Moravia by President Léo de Croÿ of Luxembourg, had brought Laos and Wu to a face-saving agreement that staved off what would have been a disaster for Wu. Prince Čou Čchang-Po of Wu acknowledged the debt that his country subsequently owed Moravia.

Wulfram Joyce’s outburst of temper the following summer, however, proved to be doubly fatal.

The presence of a captain of the Second Army in his entourage, Kapitán Prokop Mlynář, proved to be enough of a nuisance to him that he complained of it to the adjutant to the Chiefs of Staff. Of course, Mlynář, acting as he was under the direct orders of the C. a K., could not disavow his own order, and no more could the Chiefs of Staff.

Wulfram Joyce finally let out a stream of invective at Mlynář himself.

‘I will not, I refuse, to have your lumpish shadow trailing me everywhere I go! Aroint and for good, you farthing-fingered fustilarian!’

‘Sir, you have it from Pán Mojmír Čapek Pokorný himself, that—’

‘I don’t care if the orders come from Christ God! You will no longer show your unmuzzled mountain-goat face before me, you filthy, carrion-picking highwayman!’

Now, anyone who knew Prokop Mlynář well would have started to back off at this juncture, because what Joyce was saying about him came rather too close to truth. Mlynář was indeed a Rusin former oprišek of Moravian Northern Transylvania, who had entered the army by way of the long hallowed tradition of mountain bandits being regularised as border-troops. And because he had this experience among the opriški, few men even among the regular military ranks would dare to cross him like this. But Joyce, a foreign diplomat with little experience in Moravia, did not know this. He was venting his rage and didn’t care what came of it. But for now, Mlynář was maintaining his cool.

‘Mister Joyce, let’s clear this up. If you would kindly—’

‘Are you still here? Let me make it perfectly clear to you!’ Joyce took one of the gloves from his hands and flung it down at Mlynář’s feet. ‘Either you go now and never show your miserable hide before me again, or prove the ill-gotten scrap-tin on your chest against me with whatever weapon you choose. Else, I will own it before the world that you’re a coward undeserving the title of “man”.’

Everyone around them was watching with bated breath. Mlynář himself froze, stony-faced, for several seconds before he reached down and picked up Wulfram Joyce’s glove, holding it in front of his face.

‘Tomorrow,’ Mlynář told him simply. ‘Eight o’clock. Pistols, thirty paces. Right here on the Město.’

The C. a K., when he heard of the duel, made no effort to intervene. And that was as good as a death sentence for Joyce.

Wulfram Joyce, despite the mixed ancestry which he shared with many other British Argentines, was no Tristan Franklin. The man had been bred to diplomatic office, and his sole acquaintance with powder and shot had been ‘sporting’—against marks with nothing of the sort of their own to wield against him. Mlynář, on the other hand, truly had led a bandit’s life.

Joyce found that out to his cost at 8:03 AM on the morning of 14 August 1842, when he was shot dead on the Brno Město.

~~~​

The incident was not only deadly to Joyce’s life, but also to Augustín Matuška’s career in the Stavovské Zhromaždenie. Joyce had been one of the rare cases in which Matuška had stuck out his neck openly to bring a new member into the Kavárna Křenová inner circle of the Národní strana. And he couldn’t even blame Eleftherios, who himself had only met him that day. No—there was no question about it: come next election Hulán’s liberals would gleefully hang Joyce’s corpse from Matuška’s neck like a dead albatross, and he would deserve it. Matuška was not about to let it come to that: he tendered his resignation from the Inner Zhromaždenie that very day as well as from the leadership of his own party.

And he gave in to the will of the Church on the matter. Fr Mikuláš Haduch would have his turn in the limelight as the formal leader and face of the party, and as the man who would represent the Orthodox Church’s interests in the C. a K.’s cabinet.

---

[1] The Chinese Empire of Ta-Šun 大順 had by this time shrunk to the northwestern inland provinces of Kan-su, Šan-si and Ning-sia, for which reason it was by this time dismissively referred to as Si-pej 西北. Several other states had taken control. The Anachak Lao ອານາຈັກລາວ had taken control of much of the southern Chinese coast, while the territories of Če-ťiang and Tchaj-wan fell under the sway of Če-Wu. Other Chinese polities to emerge at this time were the state of Ťi-Liang 己梁 with its capital at Čung-čou, and the state of Ta-sia 大夏 with its capital at I-čchang.

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

Thankfully, a last-minute action in early February of 1841 by Mr Wulfram Joyce as a neutral arbiter, chosen by President Léo de Croÿ of Luxembourg, had brought Laos and Wu to a face-saving agreement that staved off what would have been a disaster for Wu. Prince Čou Čchang-Po of Wu acknowledged the debt that his country subsequently owed Moravia.

Hold up, why did Moravia get the favour if Luxembourg's President chose the arbiter?

 

[Revan86]

Hold up, why did Moravia get the favour if Luxembourg's President chose the arbiter?

Moravia is landlocked, and Luxembourg controls the Philippines. What I had in my head was this notion of the Luxembourgers looking at the situation and saying 'It'd be bad for business if Laos controls the entire southern Chinese coastline plus Taiwan', and subsequently asking for a non-interested party to hammer out terms for a peaceful settlement. That scenario was unclear, sorry about that.

I updated this to 'requested from Moravia' rather than 'chosen'.

 

[Revan86]

SEVENTEEN.
Medicine, Miscarriage and Mechanisation
9 October 1842 – 6 April 1844

It was a full year after the loss of a daughter and two of their sons to the ‘Flemish cough’, that Fara felt she was ready to try again for another child. Maćij was gentle with her, tender, sweet… and thorough. Fara learned for certain that she was pregnant, after reading about Wulfram Joyce’s much-publicised diplomatic voyage to Manila—five months before he was shot to death in a duel with an infantry captain in the streets of Brno.

Fara had no issues with her pregnancy at all, apart from the usual morning sickness in the early months and the odd cravings toward the tail end of that. But there came a day when the baby stopped moving in her womb. Concerned, she called the midwife and the physician, who examined the baby—and then gave her the worst of news.

Labour was induced. The pain was all the worse for Fara knowing that the end result would not be joy but sorrow. The pitiable thing was hardly the size of a head of cabbage. It had been a boy.

Fara was beside herself with grief, anguish—even rage against God and herself. Maćij again stayed with her, as did their five surviving daughters. Maćij again had good judgement: he stayed with her, hugged her, and listened to whatever she said, and said little. And then he made the suggestion:

‘We should give him a name.’

‘What’s the use?’ sniffled Fara dejectedly. ‘He’s gone.’

‘He isn’t gone to you,’ Maćij spoke gently. Fara glared at him. Mac put his hands up slightly, and said nothing more for a couple of minutes after that. At last she spoke.

‘You’re… you’re right, ‘azizam. I’d… I’d been thinking of naming him Javâd.’

‘Javâd,’ said Maćij. ‘That’s the Iranian name for Gad, right? The son of Jacob by Zilpah in the Bible?’

‘I suppose… he was to have been my “trooper”.’ Fara’s shoulders shook.

Maćij hugged his wife close to him and let her release all her tears onto his shoulder, as noisily as she desired. He stroked her long, curly black hair and whispered into it: ‘Javâd he is, then. Javâd.’

They buried Javâd Rychnovský at the Cerkej Symeona Čudowneje Hory right there in Drježdźany.

~~~

In the Antean Mountains of the western Southern Cone, grew a tree which the native people called cascarittes, with narrow magenta flowers with white hearts. The native Kitchua people of Equatoria and Peruchia had long regarded the tree as sacred, as a bearer of holy power. The men of able body and stout heart braved the relatively narrow belts on the slopes of the high mountains where it grew. (The cascarittes would stifle in jungles less than 4000 feet above sea level, and few plants at all could grow above the tree line 6500 feet above sea level.) With gratitude to Inti, the Sun under which it grew, they scraped the bitter bark of the cascarittes tree in small quantities and brought this ‘bark of barks’, this cinna-cinna, back to their villages. There, the elders who had the knowledge of its right use would mix it with spring water and sweet ocah syrup in order to offset the unpleasant flavour.

This cinna-cinna concoction, bitter bark and sweet syrup and spring water, would be given to ill people suffering from chills or high fevers. The British Franciscan and Jesuit priests who observed this tincture in action described its effects as no less than ‘miraculous’, and attempted to work out for themselves where this tincture came from. When word of these ‘fever-trees’ reached the British governors of Equatoria and Peruchia, they invaded the villages of the Kitchua at gunpoint. They interrogated the elders. (And many of them ‘disappeared’ when they would not give up the secret.) They interrogated the mountain-climbers and forced them to lead them into the mountains where these trees grew. (And many of these climbers did not come back, despite being able of body and sure of foot.) And once they found the ‘fever-trees’, they began sending lumbering expeditions to find the trees and cut them down, so that all of the bark could be used.

The fever-tree tonic was particularly useful in counteracting the effects of the ‘mal-aire’, the tropical fever which caused deaths by the hundreds of thousands among British colonists in the Southern Cone. It was only in the 1840s, however, that the proposal of taking the seeds of the fever-tree and transplanting them to the volcanic mountain slopes in places like Sunda and British Batavia, where they could be more aggressively harvested by a larger population of amenable locals, began to acquire a degree of purchase among the colonial authorities. The resulting product, which came back to Europe in mass quantities from the British East Indies, was marketed for its curative properties as ‘quinine’ or ‘tonic water’.

In Moravia, however, this tonizačná voda had little use in supporting colonial projects or combatting tropical diseases. For the most part, it was a novelty item which could be found in clubs and gentlemen’s parlours. The taste was particularly agreeable, it was found, when mixed with Luxembourgish juniper liquor and lime juice, and served in a highball over ice. (This was how the sacred medicine of the Kitchwa people entered the culture of Moravian tipplers as the ‘gin and tonic’ by 1842.)

The first sewing machines and fully-automated looms also entered service in Moravian textile shops in Varšava that same year. The women who worked the mills were particularly intrigued by this patent invention, this heavy round cast-iron contraption with its broad plates and motorised belted wheels. It promised to save a significant amount of time and labour. The initial trial runs were disappointing, but after a few of them got the hang of running the thing, they discovered that it could—with a certain crude regularity rather than with artful skill—thread, point and prod a needle through a single or double layer of wool fabric with a regular straight stitch!

(Several of the veteran Vislanian mill-girls dourly warned that once machines could replace the work of human fingers, those same fingers would soon find themselves out of jobs and holding alms-bowls in the streets… unless they banded together against the mill bosses to keep their jobs. But the younger mill-girls were far too enthralled with the whirring spin and quick action of the new machine to give much heed.)

Mechanisation was not merely affecting civilian production, though. The conundrum which had come of preparing and packaging canned food, and thereafter developing a can-opener for the army to save wear-and-tear on materiel, had led the Moravian Army to departmentalise a separate Office of Production and Circulation Processes. This new Office was in charge of implementing newer, mechanised solutions to the provision and distribution, precisely of implements like can openers, as well as ammunition, uniforms (machine-cut and -sewn), boots and other equipment.

This new development unfortunately did mean that the armed forces had to give ground even further to the industrialists in terms of their political agency, and the SVO made significant inroads particularly among the junior officers attached to the new logistical office.

In truth, though, it was the Moravian United Front’s emphasis on knowledge-sharing, and the free exchange of practical and intelligent men across the borders of Carpathia, Drježdźany, Bayern and (to a lesser degree) Sápmi, that made all of these technical and procedural advances possible… or at least, that made them expedient. It was helped by the fact that Rúfus Rychnovský was at heart more of a researcher and an engineer than a feudal lord, and his interest particularly in hydrology and geology made him a remarkably useful contact for projects in exploration, metallurgy and the applied sciences.

Vasiľ Hlinka was still very young, but he was beginning to understand that managing an empire involves, not so much one large whip in hand, as many small threads connected both to each other and to him. And, being naturally observant and tactful, Hlinka quickly cottoned onto the fact that with the right mixture of gentle nudging and decisiveness, he could pluck those strings to make sure that they were playing his tune.

~~~​

‘Papa,’ came the voice of Maćij’s sixteen-year-old daughter from the hall.

‘Yes, Šahra?’ asked the Arcywójwoda’s son. ‘What is it?’

‘A man just called,’ Šahra told him as she appeared in the doorway. ‘He’s in the parlour now.’

Whenever he caught sight of his eldest daughter nowadays, Maćij was consistently struck in the heart with the knowledge of the too-quick passage of time. It seemed like only yesterday that Fara was bringing her in a tiny little bundle up the steps of the Zwinger, in their first journey to their home! And yet now, here she was: with a fashionable chignon of black hair (her mother’s bequest to her) done up above a creamy-pale face and neck (her father’s) and the fashionable dress of an upper-class Sorbian social débutante. When had all of that happened?

Maćij had no complaints. Despite a pale complexion so far removed from her mother’s, her fond father saw all the best parts of Fara in her: the long, intelligent nose; the deep, doe-like, bewitching brown eyes; and of course that heart-melting smile. Temper-wise, she was both perceptive and clever, with a somewhat satirical and sceptical eye that did make for a contrast from her mother.

‘Oh? What kind of man is he?’ asked Maćij.

‘“Why, of mankind,” sir,’ Šahrazade quoted to him, with an impish smirk.

Maćij grinned. ‘“What manner of man?”’

‘“Of very ill manner. He’ll speak with you, will you or no,”’ Šahrazade pulled a stiff pose that might indeed well have belonged to a Malvolio of the stage, were it not for the facetious twinkle of her eye.

‘No, let’s have the truth of it, now,’ her father said indulgently.

‘Well, he’s no Viola, and no Sebastian either,’ Šahra owned. ‘He’s actually like to be closer to your age, with red hair and a beard—a thick tangled ginger thing nearly as big around as the rest of his face! He was actually quite polite when he came in, though his did seem like important business.’

‘Did you ask his name, at least?’

‘“Eberhard Kubik,” was how he introduced himself,’ Šahra noted shrewdly. ‘And he did want to speak to you, not Dźěd. That makes me think he must be one of your political friends.’

‘Mm. Very good, I’ll speak with him. Thank you, Šahra.’

Maćij stood and was about to walk past her toward the parlour when she arrested him with a hand.

‘Wótc,’ she said, ‘don’t worry so much about Mamá. I don’t think she’ll ever truly “get over” losing four of her children. But she’s strong. Just keep believing in her and being there for her. And… look, if the two of you need to get away for awhile… don’t worry, I can handle things here.’

‘Well, thank you for the advice, Dr. Rychnovská,’ Maćij told her, a trifle brusquely. But he also stroked her hair to show that he had listened to her and taken what she’d said to heart.

As Maćij Rychnovský went to meet Eberhard Kubik over business, he reflected that his daughter wasn’t merely clever but also wise. There was much in what she said that made sense. Without knowing it, Maćij made space in his mind for the idea of “getting away” together with his wife for a time. It might be just the thing the two of them needed.

 

[StrategyGameEnthusiast]

When will the tragedy end for poor Fara and Macij?