United We Shall Remain: A New Netherlands AAR for Victoria II Heart of Darkness 3.02

[LordTempest]

GulMacet + Densley: That's what I like to hear! I'm glad that you both appreciate the detail so much; it's always nice to know that one's extra efforts haven't been in vain!

99KingHigh: Welcome! Though I'm a little perplexed by your comment; is that the good kind of "oh my" or the bad kind?

Lord Durham: I reckon he views a revolution via the ballot box as preferable to one via the barrel of a gun, otherwise he never would have agreed to holding the damned elections in the first place!

As to whom he'd vote for - were he not so supremely and royally above the muddy field that is politics, that is - he'd probably opt for either the ARP or GLP this time round.

 

[MondoPotato]

That was another great update. The details regarding all of the political parties and their policy for the election is fantastic!

 

[99KingHigh]

Perplexion was my intention. From here on out, my sole purpose is to post perplexing comments about the Dutch.

 

[Stuyvesant]

Now there's a data dump if I ever saw one! A whole lot of political parties, platforms and <struggles to find a synonym for 'leaders' that starts with a 'p'> erm, potentates? No, okay, 'leaders' it is.

On a serious note, you've done a great job of setting a detailed scene regarding the political landscape in the United Netherlands. And then you did a great job showing the vagaries of the campaign, dominated as it was by the different debates. I profess near-total ignorance of actual Dutch politics in the 19th century (and the first half of the 20th century, for that matter), so I don't know how realistic it all is, but it certainly felt 'right' and consistent with your own universe. The ability of a debate to make or break a candidate, and by extension a party, reminds me of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the States in 1858 - Lincoln lost that election, but the debates 'made' him as a nationally known politician.

So we have two liberal parties in a dead head (if we trust the polls) and the ARP lagging a noticeable distance, but we also have a first-past-the-post system, so... Anything is really possible. Well, except for a majority government formed by the Catholics.

 

[Estonianzulu]

One of those polls seems to be unlike the others. Good to see the ARP's flagship paper finally caved to reality there at the end. An exciting picture has been painted, at least as exciting as election polls and university debates can be

 

[LordTempest]

MondoPotato: Thank you very much! Being a bit of a political tragic myself, I love writing these updates and I'm glad that others like reading them!

99kinghigh: Hmm... okaay?

Stuyvesant: It's actually quite inaccurate! The parties (save the ARP, and that won't be formed IRL for another 40 years!) are all fictional, though all have some basis in reality (Thorbecke for instance had no political party, but he did have his own informal parliamentary faction. I suppose in British political terms we could compare them to the Gaitskellites of the 50's or the Jenkinsites of the 60's and 70's, or some other internal Labour party faction.) the leaders are relatively accurate (Thorbecke and Schimelpenninck at least) and the rest is of course, dictated by the game itself. I do try to make my updates consistent with the in-game universe the game and I have constructed in tandem, so I'm glad to hear you find my updates and that consistent with one another.

The debates actually have relatively little impact at this stage. As technology improves, the franchise increases and the Dutch people get used to the idea of regular election campaigns every four years or so, debates will become even more important in determining who wins! For now I'm pretty much willing to let the AI choose who's in power, but I certainly don't want to make the same mistake I did with my first AAR: where the conservatives won election after election and poor Thorbecke had to wait almost forty years before he got into power!

Estonianzulu: Ah, great to have you with us! You are of course correct about one poll not being like the others, but if you look carefully at the newspapers conducting the poll, you'll notice that one of them is not like the other two either!

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No, this isn't an update, but in-between my ongoing Vaduz FC FM13 game (Where's the_hdk when you need him?) and watching Asian nations qualify for the World Cup I've run up the exit poll figures to seats in the Tweede Kamer to actually give you guys a real idea of what's actually at stake at this election. Arbitrary percentages of the popular vote don't quite explain how close and dramatic the situation actually is as a nice graphic which says: Liberales short by x. Now I must stress that this is only a bit of fun, and that these are only exit polls. The only poll which counts is the one on election day, etc. Like with the other opinion polls, take these with a grain of salt and above all, take a look at who's commissioned the poll!

Oh, and a special thank you to MondoPotato for letting me use the squares from his own AAR's far superior graphics for the Tweede Kamer outline.

 

[LordTempest]

NRC Exit Poll:

De Telegraaf Exit Poll:

Algemeen Handelsblad Exit Poll:

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[DensleyBlair]

Vaduz? Really? The most obscure I've ever done was some Finnish third division team - though my FM version of choice is the mobile version, so that wasn't a very long game.

Interesting graphics. I think a hung parliament would be a bit of a let down, considering the 'drama' of the debates and such. I'm still rooting GLP

 

[Estonianzulu]

Estonianzulu: Ah, great to have you with us! You are of course correct about one poll not being like the others, but if you look carefully at the newspapers conducting the poll, you'll notice that one of them is not like the other two either!

Are you trying to imply that an early-to-mid 19th century newspaper may not have the highest levels of journalistic integrity and moral backbone to report the truth? Say it's not so. I think maybe I am a bit confused however by the exit poll numbers. NRC has the ARP down by 65 while the others have them down by over 100?

 

[Thoctar]

Just found this awesome an incredibly detailed HoD AAR, keep them coming!

 

[LordTempest]

Densley: You trying to start some kind of competitive four Yorkshiremen thing here? :huh:

Again, I must stress that those polls are just a bit of fun.

Estonianzulu: I'm pretty sure I fixed that little error before you posted. I made the mistake of calculating based on future rather than present house figures.

Thoctar: Welcome aboard! I'm glad to hear you're liking the AAR so much.

Apologies for tardiness on my part, but I've had a busy week and this next update may take a bit of time to write. Finding appropriate 19th Century candidates for Dutch elections and the constituencies they contested is not easy work, especially when all the necessary sources are in Dutch!

 

[DensleyBlair]

Densley: You trying to start some kind of competitive four Yorkshiremen thing here? :huh:

Again, I must stress that those polls are just a bit of fun.

Less four Yorkshiremen, more 'why Vaduz?'

Looking forward to finding out the results of the election. I for one am enjoying the fact that I'm finding this more interesting than actual election night

 

[LordTempest]

Looking forward to finding out the results of the election. I for one am enjoying the fact that I'm finding this more interesting than actual election night

That's only because I haven't spent 65% of the update writing about a bunch of wanker celebrities at a boat party on the Thames or its Amsterdam equivalent.

Less four Yorkshiremen, more 'why Vaduz?'

Because Liechtenstein. They're actually a pretty decent team compared to say, San Marino or Plymouth.

 

[Lord Durham]

Gee, those results look like our last Provincial election Minority governments can be such a toss up.

 

[LordTempest]

Gee, those results look like our last Provincial election Minority governments can be such a toss up.

Indeed they can be, but there's absolutely no guarantee that we'll have a minority government...

 

[LordTempest]

Election Night: Before Polls Close

As publishing exit polls or any other kind of poll was illegal on election day until after the polling stations had closed, the three major parties and their supporters all entered the night with a sense of bullish optimism. The polls had all predicted disaster for the ARP in terms of the popular vote, which was no doubt disappointing for them, but with the electoral system being what it was nobody could yet be sure just how this might translate in terms of seats. Both Thorbecke and Schimmelpenninck were confident of their parties achieving all out victory, though each looked a little uncertain as to whether they themselves would be back in the Tweede Kamer once the morning dawned. Thorbecke had initially expected that Schimmelpenninck wouldn't dare field a candidate against him: partly because he was fairly well known both in Leiden and across the country and for fear of unnecessarily splitting the liberal vote. Gerrit had no such concerns, and the effectiveness of his GLP rival did push Thorbecke onto his weaker foot during the early days of the campaign. Schimmelpenninck on the other hand had the dubious honour of representing Amsterdam Central, a ludicrously small constituency and likely the first to declare.

If Cornelis Felix van Maanen was nervous about the result or about failing to win his seat he did a marvellous job of hiding it. The ARP leader by almost all contemporary newspaper reports was said to be in exceptionally high spirits about both his own and his party's chances. Cornelius didn't believe in these new-fangled polls: he couldn't at all accept that such a small sample of people could prove representative of the voting populace as a whole, and almost seemed to have expected his party to waltz into the Tweede Kamer with an overall majority in spite of the pointless bickering and infighting which had been painfully played out over the past few weeks for all to see.

By contrast, the Catholic Party knew that they were up against it this time round – such an observation would be as plain as day to anyone with either access or working knowledge of the census figures. Instead, they remained hopeful that by concentrating all their resources in a handful of seats that they would be able to make a “green wedge” in the lower house upon which to force through their policies. Their greatest fear came from Francophone or republicans standing as independents who could (and as it turned out, would) split the precious catholic/Francophone vote in the areas where it'd count.

The Netherlands was unique among contemporary democracies in spearheading several initiatives which in the years to come would be commonplace in all free democracies around the world. The first was an independent electoral commission to oversee all the individual counts ensure that there was no tampering of ballots after they were cast and to ensure that all constituencies declared on time. The concept of an election night was in itself something of a novelty: in most other states waiting for the results of elections could take weeks, even months. Either the Dutch were far too efficient or the politicians far too impatient to let such a slow, haphazard system prevail in The Netherlands, and demanded that all results come through within 24 hours of the polls closing. Even the Palace got involved, with Frederik himself decreeing that the fastest royal messengers be put at the electorate's disposal, ferrying the news of declarations and results to and fro all across the country.

Election Night: First Declarations

At 10 o’Clock on the dot polls closed right across the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the tellers began the time-consuming task of counting the ballots. The evening dailies (if that isn't a contradiction of terms) went on sale immediately after, fresh with exit poll data hot off the presses and ready for mass consumption. Their result was a shock to those supporters waiting at Liberale and Gematigde Liberale headquarters, with virtually all papers predicting a hung parliament. The more dedicated among them tried to convince their flock that the opinion polls would be wrong and that in reality their respective parties would trounce the opposition while at the Catholic HQ the small crowd there braced themselves for what looked to be a disastrous evening.

There was no time for bracing on the part of Mr. Schimmelpenninck though, for after a mere 57 minutes of counting it was his turn to join his fellow candidates on stage for a declaration. According to the opinion poll figures he could expect a vote of over 500 and a majority of around half that. Him and his supporters were soon in for a bit of a surprise.

Incredibly, and much to the chagrin of the pollsters and pundits, Schimmelpenninck had been returned with a healthy (given the number of electors in his constituency) majority. The defendants in this first trial of opinion polling soon levelled the charge that an above average result was only to be expected from an above average candidate, and that the Amsterdam Central result would by no means be representative of the country at large. The plaintiffs therefore called their next witness, second to declare and the first marginal of the night – the neighbouring seat of Amsterdam South.

The polls had predicted a Liberale victory here and according to the Liberale candidate his canvass returns had been mostly positive. Naturally the result came as something of a shock to him. It was clear now that in and around Amsterdam at least, the pollsters had got it wrong. A declaration from the centre of the Dutch judiciary would soon add some weight to that case. Dirk, a legal advocate and former confidant of Thorbecke had taken the seat for Schimmelpenninck; much to the disappointment of the Liberales back in Amsterdam, many of whom expected him to stand for their party and were rather hoping that a defeat by their hands would somehow help him come to his senses.

Worse news for the Liberales came from another potential recruit in Utrecht. Jacob de Kempnaer was always likely to hold his seat there, but a fleeting increase in support for the protectionist Mr. Post during the final days of the campaign led to Liberales voting GLP en masse in what was probably the first example of tactical voting on a large scale in a a Dutch election. The result also gave us the first Liberale lost deposit of the night.

With results coming in think and fast there were few eruptions of applause or exclamations of joy to be heard emanating from the Liberale HQ. They were winning seats where they could be expected to but failing to pick up the marginals they needed to win the election. A brief moment of elation came upon hearing news of rising star J.J. Van Mulken's victory in Haarlem (albeit with a wafer-thin majority)

...only to be drowned out by the single most far-reaching and shocking result of the night.

To say that Thorbecke's reaction to losing his seat was one of the sort of good grace and humility one would expect from a statesman of international renown would be a total and utter lie. In his concession speech Thorbecke raged at the gathering of electors present in Leiden University's main hall, cursing and denouncing them for their stupidity using words and phrases so uncouth that they simply cannot in good decency be repeated in a history meant for public consumption! Suffice it to say that he questioned the intelligence of the electorate in nominating as their choice of MP a man of questionable parentage, poor physical fitness and limited sexual proficiency. The returning officer had him ejected from the hall, before Thorbecke swore a solemn oath to his ex-constituents that he'd be back in parliament by the next election or before.

In their moment of deep despair, the Liberales took hope and some solace in the fact that they weren't the only party to lose their leader. Liberale Jan Heemskerk had managed to stage a bit of an upset of his own in unseating the deeply unpopular leader of the ARP in The Hague, with a little bit of assistance from an anti-Bonapartist independent who likely split the ARP vote.

By all accounts there was little sadness inside the ARP camp at the news, and more than a few cheers – which perhaps was a more accurate reflection of the deep divisions within the Anti-Revolutionaires than any newspaper headline or public announcement released during the campaign itself. There were some great cheers for Thorbecke's loss in Leiden though, though such jubilation was short lived, smothered as it were by the news that right-wing intellectual Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer had only just failed to take Voorburg.

Liberale spirits picked up a little after that, with Thorbecke's no. 2 van Bosse holding his safe seat in Rotterdam, but by three o'clock all the cheering was coming from Schimmelpenninck's party from across the road. They had finally pushed over the 76 seat total they needed to form a majority government, now there was absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that Gerrit, who had so often during the campaign been the underdog to barking Thorbecke's top dog, would be sworn in at the palace tomorrow as The Netherlands' first elected Prime Minister.[1]

By four virtually all of the seats north of Brussels had declared and only a few in the far south had yet to. For the Catholics this was their moment of truth and like all of the other non-GLP parties that evening, it would be met with an acute sense of disappointment. Their best result came in Brussels where popular local candidate Pierre de Decker was forced to concede a close defeat to the Liberales thanks to the intervention of several independents. Some solace was taken by his activists and supporters in the fact that they had forced the ARP candidate into second-last place; forfeiting his deposit.

The final result of the “evening” came from the grotesquely sized constituency of Wallonia, another Catholic hopeful gain, at sometime before midday the following morning. In that part of the country more than any other there was widespread dissatisfaction with the Willem/Frederik regime in Amsterdam, and with Dutch rule altogether, and so the victory of an anti-Orangist independent probably shouldn't come as that much of a shock to the informed. Prince Frederik was said to have been far from pleased upon hearing the news though.

Immediate Aftermath:

Once all the votes had been tallied and the decision made clear for all to see, Gerrit Schimmelpenninck and his fellow GLP MPs were sworn in as the first elected government in the history of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands since 1829. Prince Frederik did the honours, as his father was deemed too ill to attend the opening of parliament. There was talk of a potential liberal “grand coalition” between the two parties, but Gerrit quickly moved to refute any such claims: he had been elected to lead a majority government and so shall he lead one, so went his reasoning. With Thorbecke out of the House it was left to van Bosse to hold the Liberale fort as Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition at least for the time being, while Justinius van der Brugghen's election as ARP leader would prove to be a more permanent arrangement.

Notes:

[1] Technically his title would have been the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, but it's much easier for me just to call him the PM.

[2] It is quite common in an AAR for the author to try to blindside his readership, but it's quite uncommon – at least amongst semi-experienced players – to see the game itself blindside the author! The AH and NRC polls are actually very faithful to the in-game data: the ARP started in front, were quickly surpassed by the GLP who in turn were overtaken by the Liberales at around the first or second debate mark. The Liberales remained in front for the rest of the campaign, right up until the day before polling, and I was fully expecting Thorbecke to waltz into the Dutch equivalent of Number 10 on election night. I was therefore somewhat surprised when the game informed me through a pop-up that Gerrit and the GLP had in fact won 54.10% of the seats and was therefore going to “run” the country for the next four years! Rather like the group of British journalists who spent much of the 1970 General Election campaign writing a book on how Edward Heath had lost that election, only to find out with the rest of the country on election night that he had in fact won, I had to rewrite this update rather rapidly!

For those interested, The Liberales won 45.90% of seats according to the game, which is actually the highest percentage I think I’ve ever seen in Vicky II for an opposition party in a FPTP election. That alone should attest as to just how close this election really was. For reasons of story and realism I continue to reserve the right to edit and alter the in-game results as I see fit (if you want to know why, see my first AAR and how boring elections can be when the Conservatives win al the time) but this time I think I’ll respect the game's decision to award the GLP a surprise victory out of respect for blindsiding someone who has lived through countless Vicky II election campaigns.

​

 

[DensleyBlair]

Called it

Another very enjoyable update - these little graphics really do a lot for the updates. I like how they succinctly sum up what is going on in the text.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens under Schimmelpenninck's administration. Hopefully he won't resign as per real life.

 

[LordOfBlood]

If i could see the images too i would be so happy=)

 

[LordTempest]

Densley: Indeed you did. I'm glad you liked the images; we can't all be wizards like Saithis or Mondo but I try my best.

LordOfBlood: It seems that Photobucket had decided to be a bitch again... I'm sorry but there is little I can do ATM. I'll be pre-ordering EUIV sometime this week so I'll try to arrange something with Photobucket around about then.

 

[Estonianzulu]

So, you got outsmarted by your POP's huh? I'll admit, Victoria has that trick up its sleeve, I got the same thing back in Vicky 1 when in the midst of an USA AR, the Know Nothings went and threw a wrench in my story. It'll be interesting to see if it does the same to you. Hopefully the election night surprise doesnt lead to any further bloodshed