Chapter 8: The Popes Ultimatum (1886-1889)
The Industrialisation of the Papal States went on but it was not enough to keep its ranking and soon the Pope had to see his country as the last of the eight great powers. His only comfort was that the secondary powers were still a long way behind.
Dropping out of the great powers was one of the Popes nightmares so he started to think about what could be done about his worsening position.
September 28th 1886 the navy was once again strenghtened by building 11 transportships.
The Popes navy now consisted of three Man'o'War, four Frigates and 14 Clipper Transports. The navy was split into three parts:
- The main taskforce which consisted of the warships and five transports.
- Five independent transports to support the maintask force.
- And the last four transports which were to support the four regiments that was stationed in Madagascar. The route to Madagascar was a long one and during a war the warships were needed to protect Italian part of the Papal States. This was later expanded with one more transport.
On the exact same date Persia was included in the Papal Sphere to supply the Papal factories with more consumers.
The breakdown of the Papal Sphere at this date looked as such:
- Papal States: 5,34 mil.
- Papal Sphere: 13,21 mil.
Papal Sphere:
- Korea: 3,42 mil.
- Egypt: 3,42 mil.
- Sokoto: 2,11 mil.
- Argentina: 1,42 mil.
- Persia: 1,29 mil.
- Peru: 0,97 mil.
- Chile: 0,58 mil.
Giving a good market to the factories in the Papal State however could get even better, we need to try and take a bigger mar
January 12th 1887 the first social reform in the Papal State was enacted, "We can not call this a paradise if we do not help the poor!" the Pope stated.
Unfortunatly this was not enough to quell the peoples thirst for social reform. They wanted more, a lot more, and they showed this by emigrating from this gods nation on earth. The population was in decline, during three years nearly 100.000 workers emigrated to America. The only positive thing the Pope could hang on to was the increasing amount of socialists in the Papal States, "It must get better, if i can pass some reforms" he thought to himself.
June 29th 1887 the city of Palermo was electrified as the first in the Papal States. "Let there be light," The Pope declared, and there was light. So much light infact that if you stood outside the city you would think the houses along the main road was on fire.
Some months after the first electricity Expressionism was discovered increasing the prestige of the Pope. He now began to plot a very, very secret plan. Not even the Popaphant knew about what was about to happen as the Pope was locked up in his study to finish some documents. However it was all disrupted by a very special christmas present, that the Pope on one hand detested and on the other thought of as quite refreshing. The Ottoman Empire declared war on Egypt with the intention of taking Lebanon. "Egypt must suffer, but it should be by our hand" the Pope declared and accepted the Egyptian call to arms.
It would take two months before the Papal Army arrived in Egypt with the order to atleast achieve status quo. This was due to the soldiers being on christmas leave and the Pope thought very highly of this particular holiday.
The Egyptian Army was non existant so the Papal forces were doing most of the fighting.
The first battles were fought in March. Unfortunately an unknown Egyptian commander took charge even though the Papal army was atleast ten times larger than his own. This heathen commander then led our sons into a meaningless charge. The Pope was furious. Everything that could be kicked was kicked except the Popaphant. Had the Popaphant been alive it would have fled the Papal Palace as fast as its legs could carry it. The Popes eyes were shooting lighting and the words that came from his month were not fit for a Pope, even the tough coal miners would have paled by the language used in that moment.
The next day the Egyptian general was nowhere to be seen, non had seen or heard him leave. It was said in the camp that gods fury had made him disappear. The rest of the Egyptian Army did not disappear however they never left the camp either.
The Papal Army was now the only ones resisting the Ottomans, however they fought with an unseen fury as if they had been possesed.
Even though the Ottomans had more than double the numbers and the Papal forces were a long way from home they defeated the Ottomans in a series of battles.
The enemies main army was now defeated and it was only time before the remaining soldiers had been fought down. During the time it took to clean out the remaining enemy soldiers the Pope once again send a Papal Botanical expedition.
Not two months after the expedition had left Rome, word returned that it had stranded and needed financial help. The Pope, as the kind man he was, send a courier with the needed funds to repair and refit the needing expedition.
It was now time to look for spoils of war. The Pope however did not want any spoils from the Ottomans even though this was a one in a lifetime chance to aquire Cyprus or Albania as the Ottomans were allied with the British. He finished the war as soon as possible and went back into his study to scheme. The Pope knew he had to move fast as Giuseppe Garibaldis Redshirts were fighting in Lucca. The first and most important of the plans had to be carried out immediatly. Messengers were sent to all the Italian countries bringing an ultimatum. The messengers were handpicked among the cardinals and the ultimatum had been written by the Pope himself, no one knew what it contained.
Non of the countries had forsaken their god which meant the Italian Penisula had been united,
The Kingdom of God had been born!