'The Patriot's Sword': The Republic of Canada

CatKnight: Well, if you want too.

J. Passepartout: It's cool. Just I hope some of my characters are real enough that people feel for them.

Oh and Aiton isn't goverment approved: the Ligue Patriote was a secret gang of young reactionaries (mostly sons of old Ligue members) that Aiton ran on the side - ilegally.

coz1: I'm sure Parnell will get all the rest he deserves.

Part 82: Belle Epoque and the Bonapartes (1906-1912)


Though Graham ultimately suceeded in passing a new suffurage Bill (extending the franchise to all men over 21 and all women over 30) and though Canada had a youthful female ruler Canadian upper class society remained little changed during the later Edwardian Age.

In personality and outlook they perhaps resembled the new American aristocracy than their British counterparts. A Compte was often a former steel tycoon or politician, and as a rule they were less hidebound and reserved than the tradtional European nobility. They were also less intellectual, tasteful and dignified, very fond of flashing their new wealth around.

The standard bearer for the younger fashion and fad driven nobility was not, as might have been expected the Empress Joséphine - though young and pretty she was too serious and hard working to be a celebrity. Fortunatly her younger sister stepped gleefully into the role. Victoria-Beatrice was born a little too early and highly to be a movie star, but she ended up being friends with a Canadian girl of much the same age who was about to become one the first: Florence Lawrence.

Victoria-Beatrice was fascinated by the emerging medium of cinema and funded her own studio: Duchesse Films in Quebec, hoping to attract filmakers from there base in Brooklyn (and later California) to Canada. Thereafter her butterly attention soon flitted away to her next project but the studio lasted and for a while Montreal vyed with Los Angeles for the title of movie capital of the world.

Despite all this Victoria-Beatrice still managed to find time to have a second daughter: Helene Clementine Mercedes Saxe-Coburg (19th February 1908) and a son Louis Charles Philippe Saxe-Coburg (2nd December 1909) - the later a worry till it was determined he was free of the family 'affliction'.

Joséphine, sadder and tireder than of yore was genuinely delighted for her sister, but it only served to draw attention to her own lack of success in the family area. Since the birth of her beloved Napoleon-Alexander she had only succeeded in becoming pregnant once, in 1909 and had miscarried at five months. What was she to do if - God forbid - Napoleon-Alexander became sick?

prussiablue: I believe so yes (as Louis I of Canada), followed by his mother and her daughters. Hopefully it won't come to that.

J. Passepartout: Perhaps... though a little odd in the 20th century!

coz1: Hmm, yeah hadn't really thought of it that way before...

Fiftypence: I doubt it. Joséphine and Michael are smarter and better educated than Nicholas and Alexandra, and though religous would sooner look to a Bishop than a mad monk.

GhostWriter: Well it's a known fact that busts were only invented in the 30's by Howard Hughes. As for the suffarage, I'm sure it will be equalised soon enough.

Part 83: Belaouf's Run (1907-1911)


As a rule, men worry more about what they can't see than about what they can. - Gauis Julius Caesar


Jean Belaouf was not a natural liberal (to say the least), and a chasm divided his Canada from that of Prime Minister Graham, yet this unlikelest of men would end up an ally... for a while at least.

The PIPC could (and did) congratulate themselves on eating into the Conservative vote in the 1907. There was little sympathy for the larger party in the Imperialist ranks - the Conservatives were largely seen as dull, grey besuited men, in thrall to business and industry, unmindful of the danger to throne and country from the Socialist/Communist menace. A party of yesterdays men. It might take another decade or two but Belaouf felt in his bones that he could role them up - he just had to starve them of the oppurtunity to prove themselves.

The West Indies Industrial Act (1908) calling for the establishment of a fabric factory in the Bahamas and a rum distillery in Jamaica, aswell as thousands of miles of track in the Carribean was strongly oppossed - not only by the Conservatives whose main power bases in Canada were very loathe to see much money spent on the new possessions (especially given their Liberal composition), but also by many Liberals, nervous in Ontario and Quebec marginals. Belaouf held his nose and ordered the party to side with the Liberals: it was no skin off his nose if voters all ready liberal stayed Liberal and it would mean a few more discontented conservatives would, inevitably shift over to the PIPC (which did indeed seem to be the more strident voice of the right these days).

Similarly the PIPC supported the goverment during the Bosnian Crisis (also 1908) by encouraging a concilitary line, while the Conservatives had wanted to back Russia. The Liberals and the PIPC naturally had different reasons for their attitudes: respectively based on a belief in both pacism and international dimplomacy and an unwillingness to been seen to favour one side until Canadian self interest pointed who to chose. This was quite immaterial to being seen to back the goverment of course.

The great hope of course was to make the PIPC seem more palatable to the Liberals as a future coalition partner by these and other incidents: the 1911 election looked likely to leave another hung parliament, and would hopefully give Belaouf the balance of power.

Then he'd be on his way at last.

prussiablue: True.

J. Passepartout: Heh. That might have been interesting though, in a flashback sort of way...

coz1: Well he isn't that old (only in his 30's). He could afford to wait till the iron was hot.

Jape: This isn't sufficenly alternate a history for Stalin to be charismatic!

As people have presumably noticed we are speeding up - for a reason I assure you! I intend to finish before New Years Day so we are about to head into the final arc. Watch this space...


Part 84: The Uneasy Peace (1911-1914)


Certain signs precede certain events. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

As it turned out Belaouf's strategy was well founded: the Liberals suffered a dip in the polls in the 1912 election and whilst remaining the largest party (with 44% of the vote) Graham had little choice but to go into power with a coalition, and so succesful had the PIPC been in supporting certain measures that they were seen as a marginally more reasonable partner than the Conservatives - who to be fair were larger (and thus in theory less controlable) and who had moved away from the Liberals since the days of Parnell.

It had been a relatively low key campaign, overshadowed by two deaths from opposite ends of the political spectrum: Etinne Daly's assassanation, which gave a mild boost to the Socialists, and much more importantly the death of Charles Stewart Parnell, 1st Duc de Alberta.

The Grand Old Man of Canadian politics had been in declining health for some years before his death on the 26th of November 1911, passing away peacefully in his sleep. Aside from his obvious political legacy the former Prime Minister of Canada, founder of the Liberal Party and once Presidential-candidate left behind a series of well read memoirs, published posthumously in which he admited that he had changed his mind on the monarchy vs. republic question and had for the last two decades of his life become something of a dedicated monarchist. He was, per his request, buried in Ireland but he would always belong to Canada.



In the new Goverment the PIPC held three Cabinet posts: Minister for Justice (Jean Belaouf), Minister for War (Gautier Moran) and Minister for Foreign Affairs (Louis Delamater), broadly in keeping with the PIPC plan of respectively: the destruction of organised "malcontentism" (criminals, socialists and trade unions - not necessarily in that order) domestically, millitary build-up and a pro-Imperialist policy internationally.

It was a policy that produced mixed results. Belaouf increased the ICC to a full 80,000 men (making very careful to weed of the 'unsound' in the application process - more than a few old hands from the Ligue de Quebec ended up in the smart navy uniforms of the constabulary). Canada would be won back for law and order and if the police were sometimes a little overzealous - well that was all to the good surely in a country as suffering from the criminal element as Canada.

Meanwhile Gautier Moran (another half Irish/half Franco-Canadian son of a Fenian) had less success. A proposal to increase the peace time army from 6 to 10 divisions was turned down, while the navy proposals languished - Canada entered 1914 still lacking a modern warship, and a suggestion of buying a comission from the British failed due to reasons of cost. In one area however he managed to pass through quite a radical proposal: the creation of an Imperial Canadian Flying Corps. The performance of reconnaisance aircraft in one of the endless American interventions in Mexico and the succesful crossing of the English Channel by Blériot had dramatically raised the stature of this new device and Canada. More impressive yet was the awesome figure of the zepplin, almost as fast as the fastest plane, much higher and further flying and capable of delivering bombs unto the very heart of the enemy - Moran wanted to order 3 of these behomeths (and secretly intended to copy the designs and 'home' produce a Canadian version), though ultimately only 1 would be delivered before international events intervened...

It was in Foreign Affairs though that PIPC policy made the least progress; a much hoped for renewal of the alliance with Russia was thwarted by the isolationist elements in the House - and the poor reputation of Imperial Russia in Liberal circles. Prince Michael may have been 'Canadianised' in popular feeling, but there was little appitite in Canada for possibly being dragged into war with them.

All of which would some come to ahead when the events of the 28th June 1914 became known in Montreal...