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

J. Passepartout: As irl he had three children with Katherine O'Shea, but they didn't do anything (publically) noteworthy. And hydrogen all the way.

prussiablue: As you will see there is method to his madness (and it is partly an admission of game reality). Still lets hope it keeps going.

BBBD: Well that would be terribly uncharacteristic for the PIPC! :rofl:

CatKnight: Um, Pascal Aiton is (indirectly) responsible for Daly's death. Re-read Part 81.

And for the last time no! I intend for this Canada to have a future!

Vincent Julien: Who said anything about contributing? Belaouf is a student of the Tarkin doctrine ( "Rule through the fear of force, rather than force itself."), and zepplins are perfect for this. It is vastly more important that Canada appear than that she actually be strong - though whether this is for the benefit of foreign observers or Canadian ones is another question...

Jape: I fear people are to be dissapointed: this AAR is likely going to continue being internally biased.

coz1: [Cryptic]Always assuming there is a next election[/Cryptic] . Oh and good call on Russia!

Part 85: The Emergency (1914-1916)


Laws are silent in time of war. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

No one in Canada had really expected war in Europe; though in hindsight politicians fell over themselves in a rush to declare they had known. In fact no one was more caught on the hop than the PIPC. Plans to push for alliance with Russia were hurriedly shelved, as no one really wanted to risk being caught between this clash of the titans (France, Russia, Serbia, Bosnia and Romania vs Germany, Austria andItaly - Britain stayed neutral).

After a few days meetings in early August it was decided unanimously that the Empire would remain neutral - move that, after some initial hesitation, the Imperial Palace endoresed. Though Prince Michael was intimately involved, with his brother being the head of one of the major combatants, he was too loyal to his adopted homeland to go to war Canada neither wanted, needed nor could afford.

On the 18th of August, Belaouf bluntly informed the Cabinet that:

"... in a conflict of this scale normal non-beligerency is not enough. Extraordinary measures are needed... More than 45% of our trade flows through the combatants. There are 4.5 million Canadians of largely French descent - many relatively recent arrivals, who can we can hardly expect to stand idly by if France does badly. And there is our longstanding friendship with Russia. It is possible though unlikely, that we could eventually face impossible pressure to intervene - unless we take steps to prevent it.

Gentlemen, we must face facts: a state of emergency exists, and will exist in Canada for the duration of the war."

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The first of these "extradinory measures" would be introduced in September: censorship of all war stories to be strictly enforced with heavy fines and prison penalties. If this was unpopular enough (and it was), the next measures were vastly mores so: trade unions were to be suspended for the duration while public meetings of more than 100 people were simply banned altogether. A new reserve police corps of 40,000 was to be set up to aid the regular police in their duties.

These were breathtaking moves and many liberals (including the Empress and the Prince Consort!) were utterly aghast, but Belaouf would not be moved. He threated (in private) to collapse the Goverment if any move was made to rescind or water down his laws. It came as something of a shock to those who only knew the dashing, eloquent Belaouf from the Front Benches or the Opposition to confront this creature of ice and fire in the Cabinet Office. An iron will, a ferocious temper and an utter willingness to do what was neccessary was sufficent to quash internal opposition, for the time being.

And events seemed to proving him right as the war was going very badly for the Entente...


Then the nightmare scenario: there was revolution in Russia.

prussiablue: I believe the Police Reserve would like a pleasant chat with you Friend-Citizen!

Patrick O'Harte: I know! Germany always seems a bit overpowered in my games...

GhostWriter: The Germans (and Italians) are also beating up France quite handily. This isn't a good war for the Entente.

Vincent Julien: Actually having played on, Germany gives them an amazingly generous (and completely unrealistic) peace: not nearly so bad as Brest-Litovsk in OTL! For the sake of sanity this AAR assumes that the peace was similar to OTL, if earlier.

J. Passepartout: We are to return to the Imperial Palace shortly, but in general he has kept quiet (in public).

Why, and the reason the throne has been so politically inactive lately, will shortly be revealed.

CatKnight: Again the Palace view of things will be covered shortly. Patience please!


Part 86: Twilight (1916)


. . . then black despair The shadow of a starless night, was thrown Over the world in which I moved alone. - Percy Shelly


In years to come the reasons for the total collapse of the Russian Imperial Armies would be blamed on just about everyone from jews to Poles to boneheaded aristocrats. In fact in large part the deficency was in morale: the forces of the Tsar had none. So when 4/5ths of the German army (and 2/3rds of the Austrian invaded Russia the Tsarist forces just melted away. A million men surrendered in the first six moths of the war, and hundreds of thousands more simply deserted. Everywhere nationalist groups welcomed the advancing Germans as liberators, almost hsyterically glad to be free of the Romanov yoke.

Still the disastorous military situation, however awful, could not have caused such a swift and total collapse had not the authority of Nicholas II been completely underminded. From his horrible mistake of taking personal command of the war effort from the beginning (there by becoming linked with every defeat in the public mind) to the vile influence of the hated Rasputin everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.

A year and a half, 4 million casualties (more than 3 million of them from surrenders) and several panicked evacuations later and Russia - as an independent country had almost ceased to exist. Only Persia (ironically Nicholas's great success of his reign, annexed less than a decade previously) was intact and the Imperial Court, more or less in exile, 'ruled' from Tehran for a few months in 1915. But the romanovs could only rule from Russia and the Tsar evacuated with himself and family to Vladivostok, that Russian enclave at the end of all things. Though not for long. A shaky Duma meeting, ashen-faced in occupied Petrograd to work out some sort of deal with Berlin declared Russia a Republic on the 22nd of January 1916. Certainly there was doubt here who was to be blamed for losing the war (and perhaps the country).

Humbly Nicholas II abdicated on behalf of himself and his son and began the painful process of going into exile. There was never any question that his family would go to Russia - his dear brother and his sister in-law had been sending letters of growing urgency for him to come, and he fully intended to go. Yet he felt he had to wait somehow, to see Russia through the peace deal. It was a duty thing (and secretly he admitted to himself that he would never be able to look his brother in the eye). So as the Imperial Family boarded the Canadian barque St. Laurence to bring them to safe harbour, he informed them that he had to wait to finalise certain transfers of funds, ensure the safety of some minor Romanovs. He would follow shortly.

His family never saw him again.


As appalling as all this was it was a boon from fortune herself to Jean Belaouf. From now until the end of his career his destiny would be Canada's; they were as one.

On 29th March he forced through a bill banning the Socialist Party (and dozens of other splinter groups) and ordered the arrest of thousands of suspect editors, writers, lawyers, teachers...

"It has been brought to my attention by sources beyond reproach that a conspiracy to overthrow the Empire is lurking in Canadian society; too long have we allowed the cancer of Marxism the freedom to spread its lies, in an attempt to destroy the country from within - as happened with Russia. It shall not happen here."

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The following day Graham resigned as Prime Minister, to be replaced by a dreary Ontario-based non-entity named Peter French, who had been an MP for twenty years and had never risen to anything. Though it was never proven, certain rumours of the time suggested that the ICC - and therefore Belaouf - had something on Graham and others in the Cabinet.

But then some people will say anything.

Fiftypence: For the moment I think he's happy enough with a tame PM, content to pull strings, but of course that could change.

prussiablue: Don't count on it.

Vincent Julien: :rofl:

CatKnight: Cheer up, there is still time for good to beat evil.

Part 87: The Ivory Tower (1915-1916)


In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

No one in Canada suffered more from the war than Prince Michael. In the beginning he had quite confidently believed that Russia with it's nearly endless resources would eventually wear down the Germans. The fall of Warsaw (in September 1914) had rattled him, but it wasn't until the Battle of Vilna in early October of that year that the full scale of the Russian disaster became clear when nearly 300,000 troops, cut off and abandoned surrendered to the Germans. It was the beginning of the end.

Early on he had favoured peace out of loyalty to his dear wife's people: simply this was not Canada's war and he could not in good concsience try and persuade his wife to fight for her brother in law against her cousins. And later on...

He had begun writing letters of slowly increasing urgency begging Nicholas to send his wife and children at least to safety in Canada. He knew his older brother too well to ask him to go, at first, but after the abdication he began including Nicholas in his epistles to come. The black dogs of depression began to pervade on all aspects of his life - though thankfully he had his beloved son and his wife, a true pillar of support and understanding.


At 31 Joséphine had grown in a mature and principled young woman. She had not been able to have a child come to term since Napoleon-Alexander, which had sadded her but over the years she had come to terms with. The young Crown Prince was a true delight: very handsome, though he would likely always be slender and lacking in height, he displayed a keen intellect and natural curiosity with a tendency to daydream - something of a mystery she wryly felt as none of these qualties ran strong in the Bonapartes (not since Napoleon the First and Greatest at least), Romanovs or Saxe-Coburgs! His health was always going to be a concern, but considering his condition it was far better than she might have feared - especially compared with his luckless cousin Alexei when that sad figure arrived temporarily at court in 1916.

Joséphine had been hit hard by the war and it took a lot out of her to shore up her husband. Deeply preoccupied she reluctantly signed the new laws in - she was privately greatly distressed but her commitment to constitutional monarchy was an article of faith to her. To intervene in the democratic Parliament was alien to her very philosophy and the one man who might have talked her into it was a gray, prematurely aged man watching his birthplace crumble and his brother lost. Gravely she listened to those MPs from all parties (and there were moderates even in the PIPC) who sought private audiences with her. How could she intervene though? To overide the public will... what liberal monarch could do that and look herself in the eye?

But somewhere, in a far corner of her mind she may not even have been aware of, an Imperial Eagle showed a wing and waited for her time.

prussiablue: True, but it's very hard.

Jape: Yes! :wacko:

Vincent Julien: Pessimist!

J. Passepartout: Keep reading.

coz1: True, good analysis. And thanks.

Part 88: Crisis Point (1916-1918)


Nothing succeeds like success. - Alexandre Dumas

An election was due to happen in 1916 - very irritating for Belaouf, but he felt insufficently strong (for the moment) to try and manufacture a reason to stop them. Not that he was worried about the PIPC vote - he had one of the most loyal core vote of any party and he campaigned heavily on a vote friendly 'Red Scare' programme that did play to a lot of conservative (indeed Conservative) voters. The collapse of Russia had rattled many a moderate.

Unfortunately the Liberals had not exactly done there bit - a third of the party refused point blank to have anything to do with the PIPC and they split, with the bulk of it following Belaoufs creature French - the allure of continued power was too great for many, and there was an unfortunate tendency in the Liberal Party to look to the party leadership slavishly, a legacy of Parnell's rule.

A bitter election later and the Coalition was returned in late 1916 with a somewhat reduced share (and a 58 seat strong schismatic Liberal opposition led by Lomer Gouin). The balance between the Liberal and PIPC wings of the coalition had been altered, with the latter now nearly in equal numbers to the Coalition Liberals. Despite this it was useful to keep French around as figurehead, so Belaouf decided against becoming PM.

In the first half of 1917 with peace arriving in Europe (in fact the Russian Civil War would errupt into full force before the end of the year, but in Canada no one could have forseen this), the Goverment came under some pressure to reverse some of the more stringent Emergency Laws and help the country return to normal again. These calls died down in August when half of Vancouver was burnt down by "rioting Socialist sympathisers" (in fact almost certainly agents provocateurs composed of the Reserve Corps), which gave him breathing space enlarged by the unexpected but welcome appearance of Lenin in Moscow the following month. Still it wouldn't last - desperate measures were needed.

The Coercion Act, drawn up over the Winter of 1917/18 authorised the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in moments of "extreme danger to the nation" (ie. whenever the PM decided it). It took a suprisingly difficult time to force it through the Houses, with many even on the goverment benches too squeamish to enforce it.

Then came an utterly unexpected blow... the Empress refused to give her signature until she could have it discussed by the Council of State, her advisory body to determine whether it was constitutonal or not. A reserve power of the throne that was, in and of itself completely constitutunal (albeit rarely exercised), without the huge legal implications of straight forward Imperial Veto.

Belaouf ground his teeth in anger. As 'merely' Minister for Justice he was not in the Council and would have to rely on his stooge Peter French to toe the party line. Just what was Joséphine playing at?

[Note: The Canadian Imperial Council of State is based on the Irish Council of State and performs an identical function]