Child labour banned and a limit to a 14 hour day? Things are going soft in Poland!
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1878-1883 – Raise the Scarlet Banner High!
Poland’s industrial transformation continued to reshape its economy through the 1870s. The share of the labour force working in factories rose from 2.2% to 3.6%, leaving a total of well over a million workingmen. Textiles remained the driving force of the industrial economy, experience a striking 270% increase in output between 1870 and 1881. Other light industries showed solid, although less spectacular, growth – output rising by around 50% in the drinks trade and home goods. The heavy industrial, metal-bashing, sector of the economy also grew strongly – steel output doubling over the course of the decades and arms production rising by 50%. Poland also developed new shipyards, building the most modern vessels, mainly in the ports of Gdansk and Odessa, with smaller yards in Ingria and Pomerania.
Economic change was the stimulus behind a stirring among the lower orders of society, as workingmen began to find independent political expression in a new labourist ideology. Two key grievances proved to be the catalysts for this change – the franchise and the industrial unrest. A decade since the extension of the vote to the bourgeoisie, other classes in society were agitating for their own say in the empire’s governance. Through the rest of Europe, suffrage was expanding – in Denmark almost half the adult male population had the vote, in the Holy Roman Empire there was universal suffrage under a weighted franchise that gave preference to the wealthier classes while in the Netherlands all men voted equally. These foreign examples inspired a group of radicals who won control of the provincial council in the Samaritan territory of Pomerania in 1876 on the promise to institute universal suffrage locally. The central government intervened to block these efforts, yet this in itself sparked a political debate that mobilised thousands across the empire, particularly in the economically advanced urban areas, behind the Petitionist movement that gathered signatures from all classes in favour of suffrage reform and presented them to local potentates.
As much as the Kazimzade government hoped to forge a society in which all classes lived in harmony under God, class struggle was a real and visceral force in the burgeoning centres of industry across the empire. Although trade unions and strikes were illegal, being regarded as sources of class hatred and social division, workers still sought ways to further their own interests. Illegal wildcat strikes had been common for decades, but the 1870s had seen the rise of a new form of organisation – the Worker’s Committees. This phenomenon had been born in Minsk, the burning heart of the Polish industrial revolution, and saw workers across the city band together to share information about wage levels and working conditions in different factories and mills. This provided a degree of bargaining power for workers without leaving the boundaries of the law. These Committees were met with notable suspicion of the authorities – who accused them of being illegal trade unions and of acting as a coordinating force for the illicit strikes that occurred on a regular basis. Despite this, the Committees had been able to preserve their existence and quickly spread across the empire. They acted as a breeding ground for a new generation of combative labour leaders eager to bring about social and political change.
There was a final ingredient to this heady mix, socialism. Like so much of 19th century European culture, socialism had reached Poland from Germany through the well-used ratway of geographically mobile Ashkenazi intellectuals. In their travels they brought an idea that quickly won a significant amount of interest among the Polish intelligentsia – that the depredations of capitalism had made it inevitable that the wretched of the earth would soon rule over a free and equal society, without private property, war, ethnic division or class conflict. They were divided on whether this would require violent revolution or could be achieved peacefully, but uniformly scandalised the establishment and their mostly well-to-do parents. While the ideas of socialism were slower to gain traction among the labour masses, it clearly had their sympathy while the ideologically focussed intellectuals themselves gravitated towards the workers and their movements.
Petitionists, labour activists and socialist intellectuals joined together to form a political organisation of their own in 1879. This was the Polish Party of Labour, more commonly known as the Trudoviks. They stood united behind the principles of universal manhood suffrage, the right to organise labour, land reform in the countryside to provide for the landless peasantry and social reforms to cater for the poor throughout the empire. Its formation marked a new chapter in Polish political history.
After five years of National Alliance majority rule, the parliamentary term expired, and Poland entered fresh elections. Although the afterglow of victory over the Papacy and Serbia, and popular sympathy over the murder of David Israel had long since dimmed, the government had retained a great deal of popular enthusiasm – particularly among those who had benefitted from its land reforms. Indeed, despite a drop-off from its remarkable performance in 1875, the National Alliance secured the second highest share of the popular vote by a single ticket since 1844. Yet, with the Constitutionalists making modest gains, this was not enough to maintain the Duma’s conservative majority with the share of Alliance seats dropping from 254 to 233. Naturally, Prime Minister Kazimzade claimed a clear popular mandate to continue his government. With relations with the conservative Hindu and Muslim deputies who had sustained the National Alliance minority government before 1875 badly damaged by the administration’s activity in the second half of the decade, Kazimzade was forced to look across the chamber towards the Constitutionalists.
In the years after Boris Zhakov’s stood down from the head of the Constitutionalist Party in 1875, the liberals struggled to find an effective replacement – within no one emerging from a pack of largely anonymous parliamentarians as their undisputed leader. Without a focal point of leadership, the inconclusive outcome to the 1880 election opened up a fissure within the party. With the Tsar ushering the liberals towards finding common ground with the conservatives, as they had two decades previously, some within the party were open to cooperation with the Alliance. However, politics had significantly polarised since that point and others remain irreconcilably opposed to any cooperation with the theocratic premiership of Yildilz Kazimzade. It was this question that drew the grand old man of Polish liberalism – the former Prime Minister Boris Zhakov, by now deep into his 70s – back into frontline politics. Zhakov, regarded the sitting government as an indisputable evil that the Constitutionalist Party had no choice but to stand against, bringing the party from a position of tentative cooperation to strident opposition. With the liberals unwilling to cooperate and relations with the minority parties badly damaged, the Alliance had little hope of maintaining a minority administration – making fresh elections inevitable.
With Zhakov back on the reins, the Constitutionalists entered the snap election of 1881 with new energy and authority. Notably, they had used the time since the previous contest to attempt to broaden their appeal – putting themselves forward as the party of social peace. They promised to soothe the burgeoning tensions between Jews and the minorities, to address the grievances of the industrial workers by ending legal restrictions on organised labour and to investigate possible extensions to the franchise. This was enough to produce a telling swing from the Right to the Left, giving the Constitutionalists slightly more votes than the National Alliance and seeing them make a spate of gains at the expense of both the conservative parties and the Christian Block. Although not enough to provide a majority in its own right, the Constitutionalists could comfortably govern with the backing of Belugunutists in the Hindu-Muslim Block and liberally-inclined Christian deputies.
While it had been hoped that the legalisation of trade unions and strikes would calm class tensions, the reality was quite different. In effect, the previous legal restrictions had acted to artificially suppress the bargaining power of the urban working class. After these were lifted there was an almost instant surge in industrial militancy. The Worker’s Committees transformed themselves into formal trade unions and duly entered into open conflict with employers across the land. With strikes sweeping the empire, the Don Basin became a focal point of tension. The rich coalfields of the area has been the scenes of particularly harrowing working conditions for decades, and quickly fell into complete chaos following the lifting of the restrictions.
In the ethnically mixed region, the majority of coal miners were Jews, either Cossacks, Khazars or Greater Russian migrants from the west. In response the strikes that hit the area, employers had looked to employ Tatars as blackleg labour. Tension between strikers and strike-breakers soon descended into intercommunal ethnic fighting as Jews and Muslims set against one another. Concerned by the outbreak of violence, Zhakov deployed the army to bring order to the region – leading to the massacre of scores of workers from all ethnic groups over the course of the winter of 1881-2. Among those killed was Nikita Ulyanov, one of the most prominent labour leaders of the 1870s and a key founding figure of the Trudovik Party – making him one of the first great martyrs of the Polish labour movement.
The deaths on the Don, and the wider industrial crisis gripping the empire, forced the Constitutionalist Party to look deeply introspectively at their party's future. Zhakov became the standard bearer for the conservative wing of the party as he openly argued for the government to row back from its reforms – re-implementing the ban of strikes and trade unions, and even extending this to socialist organisations like the Trudoviks whom he blamed for escalating the situation. A more populist wing feared that such a retreat to the comforts of mid-century classical liberalism risked irrevocably poisoning relations with the lower orders and a more conciliatory approach was necessary – punishing those involved in the unrest on the Don and making clear that industrial violence would not be tolerated, but maintaining the new labour laws. The latter faction won out, and Zhakov was quietly taken aside by the men in grey suits to inform him that he no longer had the confidence of the party. Lacking the energy for another fight, Zhakov retired from the field – resigning his position and clearing the way for one of his assassins, Petr Orlov, to rise to the premiership.
It should not be forgotten that the Constitutionalist had not come to power solely through their own strength in 1881, but relied upon the backing of the minority Blocks, with no grouping more important that the powerful faction of three dozen Belugunutist deputies from the Hindu-Muslim Block. These liberal Tatars and Mongols were largely ideologically aligned with the Constitutionalists, and therefore made easy partners. Indeed, a number of them were even granted ministerial posts as a means of solidifying their loyalty. However, their allegiance did not come without a price. The Belegunutists had made their participation and support for the government conditional on a promise to abolish of drastically alter that most hated of barriers to full Turkic participation in Poland’s governance – the Brusilov Line. For four decades around half of Poland’s Altaic peoples had been excluded from the empire’s seat of political power in the Duma, and the Belegunutists believed that so long as the Line stood their kin could never become a fully equal partner in the empire. While the Constitutionalist leadership had been happy to make bold promises of change, their party was very divided on this issue. Undoubtedly, the Judaeo-Russian electorate was staunchly was very uncomfortable about any proposal that would double the Tatar share of the parliament and was as such implacably opposed to any reform of the Line. Equally, others in the party were concerned by the idea that dissolving, or even merely adjusting, the Line would open up Poland to the domination of the backward, Asiatic peoples of the east who would undoubtedly seize the Polish state for their own purposes.
The Constitutionalists, under both Zhakov and Orlov, had therefore opted to push the issue into the future – offering the Belegunutists promises and ministerial baubles, with the prospect of Brusilov reform always just over the horizon. While this tactic had worked while the government was in a state of crisis management while dealing with the industrial unrest of 1881-1882, it held less strength once the situation grew calmer. In 1883 the leaders of the Hindu-Muslim Block sent an ultimatum to the Prime Minister – demanding the immediate opening to discussion on the Brusilov Line or they would resign from the government and end their support for his ministry. Orlov chose to call their bluff and call for new elections.
Orlov’s gamble proved a masterstroke, as he led the Constitutionalists to their first majority since the 1868 election. In truth, the heavy lifting had been done in previous contests, and in 1883 the swing towards the liberals was more modest than it had been in 1881 and even than in 1880. Nonetheless, the liberal leader correctly identified that many conservative and Christian Block constituencies had small and vulnerable majorities, allowing him to gain the handful of seats needed to win control of the Duma outright. With the Trudoviks standing candidates for the first time, there had been worries that the party might be outflanked from the left – yet the idealistic socialists and trade unionists of the Party of Labour proved uniquely ill suited to winning over a bourgeoise electorate, and failed to breach a five figures in their vote haul. One of the most notable features of the election was the collapse of the Agudah Yisrael. Under the leadership of Yildilz Kazimzade, the Israelites had risen to hold around two fifths of the National Alliance’s parliamentary seats and been its most dynamic force, by 1883 they had been reduced to a quarter of the Alliance’s tally – with National Conservatives faring better on the stump as public enthusiasm for clericalism appeared to wane. Petr Orlov now had free reign to lead his government forward without recourse to the compromises and politicking of parliamentary alliances.
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The Reds have arrived!
That very culture war stuff is what did for the Right in the end. By all rights, they won the 1880 election - but with so many seats in the parliament in the hands of the minority parties, you need a genuine landslide among the Jewish seats to govern without them, and they made it too hard to work with them. We'll have too see how the Constitutionalists do going froward. They've shown signs they can change with the abolition of the anti-labour laws, but at the same time their betrayal of the Belugunutists may have grave consequences. We've seen both the conservative Tatars and now the liberal ones treated miserably by the Jewish parties in two decades in succession - using them when they need their votes, and ditching them as soon as they are no longer necessary.
Thank you for the complement!
This is the third time I've done one of these megacampaigns (although the first to make it to V2!), and I really love to see the world develop in a believable way over that length of time.
The Tatars once again had a shot at influencing the government in this update, but all they really got were a few plum government jobs and kind words for a couple of years. They showed some back bone in facing down the PM, but with the liberals now having a majority they won't be able to force the reform of the Brusilov Line they really desire above all else. If that Line ever falls a third of the Duma will be Mongol-Tatar!
Glad you've been enjoying it orc! And thanks for pointing out those typos separately
Those were probably some of the funnest moments to play through in game play terms (especially the CK2 wars in the Middle East, I've always enjoyed CK2 warfare a lot for some reason) as well as to write. I do miss those days of the Sword of Adonai!
And here's hoping the latest part lives up to your expectations!
The Constitutionalists have made a small effort in this direction, while sticking true to liberal principles with the abolish of the anti-labour laws. And with all the parliamentary shenagins and labour militancy their new PM hasn't had a real chance to get out and set a mark with a domestic agenda of his own. There is talk of franchise reform, but then again they also said they'd abolish Brusilov .... Politicians - never know if you can trust a word they are saying!
Although we didn't get to foreign affairs in this last update, we certainly aren't done with the Papacy just yet ...
Let's hope we don't have to face the two of them down at once anytime soon!
And we might have hoped that the liberals would come in an ease those ethnic divides that the National Alliance stirred up, but they perhaps haven't quite lived up to expectations on that front so far with their treatment of their Tatar allies.
Indeed, they've really come a long way very fast, serfdom was only abolished in the 1860s and here they are in the 1870s coming up with the most thorough response to the social changes of the era in both the countryside and the cities of any of the main parties. I've taken some inspiration from the transition of Catholic hard liners around this period in OTL for our Jewish Conservativism - coming to terms with the fact the old world is changing, but developing a new philosophy that addresses the new social issues while staying true to religious orthodoxy and a broader defence of the social order.
We've seen the origins of our socialist movement in this last update - a mixture of labour organisers, franchise activists existing outside of the liberal sphere and socialist intellectuals. We will see how they develop as they go forward and get past their early teething stages.
One fears for the next generation!
Ay caramba, lots of fat right culture war stuff to digest. (Why do they have to complicate things by setting up a land bank?!
That very culture war stuff is what did for the Right in the end. By all rights, they won the 1880 election - but with so many seats in the parliament in the hands of the minority parties, you need a genuine landslide among the Jewish seats to govern without them, and they made it too hard to work with them. We'll have too see how the Constitutionalists do going froward. They've shown signs they can change with the abolition of the anti-labour laws, but at the same time their betrayal of the Belugunutists may have grave consequences. We've seen both the conservative Tatars and now the liberal ones treated miserably by the Jewish parties in two decades in succession - using them when they need their votes, and ditching them as soon as they are no longer necessary.
Indeed! That’s what I love about paradox games that they bring you somewhere you never planned in the first place. But in this case, it’s rather the storytelling of the authAAR
I’m enjoying the story, I like the support to the poor strata of the society, but the part about social engineering in colonies is a bit troubling. As you said, the secular Tatars need to start getting some results and having a say in things so that the empire is a strong alloy and not brittle iron.
Regarding the shooting of the PM, well the revolutionary violence is already on our doorsteps!
Thank you for the complement!
This is the third time I've done one of these megacampaigns (although the first to make it to V2!), and I really love to see the world develop in a believable way over that length of time.
The Tatars once again had a shot at influencing the government in this update, but all they really got were a few plum government jobs and kind words for a couple of years. They showed some back bone in facing down the PM, but with the liberals now having a majority they won't be able to force the reform of the Brusilov Line they really desire above all else. If that Line ever falls a third of the Duma will be Mongol-Tatar!
Glad you've been enjoying it orc! And thanks for pointing out those typos separately
Those were probably some of the funnest moments to play through in game play terms (especially the CK2 wars in the Middle East, I've always enjoyed CK2 warfare a lot for some reason) as well as to write. I do miss those days of the Sword of Adonai!
And here's hoping the latest part lives up to your expectations!
The Constitutionalists have made a small effort in this direction, while sticking true to liberal principles with the abolish of the anti-labour laws. And with all the parliamentary shenagins and labour militancy their new PM hasn't had a real chance to get out and set a mark with a domestic agenda of his own. There is talk of franchise reform, but then again they also said they'd abolish Brusilov .... Politicians - never know if you can trust a word they are saying!
Although we didn't get to foreign affairs in this last update, we certainly aren't done with the Papacy just yet ...
Let's hope we don't have to face the two of them down at once anytime soon!
And we might have hoped that the liberals would come in an ease those ethnic divides that the National Alliance stirred up, but they perhaps haven't quite lived up to expectations on that front so far with their treatment of their Tatar allies.
Indeed, they've really come a long way very fast, serfdom was only abolished in the 1860s and here they are in the 1870s coming up with the most thorough response to the social changes of the era in both the countryside and the cities of any of the main parties. I've taken some inspiration from the transition of Catholic hard liners around this period in OTL for our Jewish Conservativism - coming to terms with the fact the old world is changing, but developing a new philosophy that addresses the new social issues while staying true to religious orthodoxy and a broader defence of the social order.
We've seen the origins of our socialist movement in this last update - a mixture of labour organisers, franchise activists existing outside of the liberal sphere and socialist intellectuals. We will see how they develop as they go forward and get past their early teething stages.
One fears for the next generation!
A great freudian slip, indeed private property brings the poverty of the individual
If I were the Belegunutists, I'd make an alliance with the Trudoviks in the next elections to bring them to Duma. That'll show the rest! Also, at this point in history their fates seem to be intertwined. Voting equality for the masses and economic equality for the masses. It's a bit bothersome Tatars were the strike breakers, but that kind of thing happens...
That line shall fall, one way or other. The red tide will wipe it away if not the liberals.
So both main parties have no effectively annoyed the minority blocks. That bespeaks to certain possible future political realignemtsn not to the health of those same major parties. Not saying they will happen - but the possibility is surely there. The emergence of the socailists is but a small thing, but the genie is out of the bottle now.
The wildcard is foreign affairs. A new war could very much provoke its own political realignment without any further help from internal political trends.
The wildcard is foreign affairs. A new war could very much provoke its own political realignment without any further help from internal political trends.
Indeed. It is but a line in the sand, and a storm is coming that will wash it away so that it will be no more than a mere memory, and then not even that.
Arise, ye workers from your slumber,
Arise, ye prisoners of want!
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face:
The Internationale
Unites the human race!
At last the left wakes up! Plenty of interesting movements from wildcat strikes to workers committees to our own Narodnik–Trudovik types coming up through the ranks. And some good old status-quo enforcing from the Liberals to cap it all off! Lovely stuff.
Zhakov’s out after a barn-storming comeback, then promptly shafted by the rest of the party. The Conservatives are in a new period of disarray, and everyone has pissed off the national interest blocs. Will the Liberals be able to consolidate their gains, or will the whole layer cake collapse before the decade’s out?
Arise, ye prisoners of want!
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face:
The Internationale
Unites the human race!
At last the left wakes up! Plenty of interesting movements from wildcat strikes to workers committees to our own Narodnik–Trudovik types coming up through the ranks. And some good old status-quo enforcing from the Liberals to cap it all off! Lovely stuff.
Zhakov’s out after a barn-storming comeback, then promptly shafted by the rest of the party. The Conservatives are in a new period of disarray, and everyone has pissed off the national interest blocs. Will the Liberals be able to consolidate their gains, or will the whole layer cake collapse before the decade’s out?
One thing that's striking in this world is how much more has been achieved through reformism. The HRE never needed to go past the Bastille phase of the Revolution and Poland's Tsars basically directed a move towards (flawed) democracy. TTL a good deal of rights have been given, which I imagine would be a prominent argument against revolution.
Well, the Socialists are here...
Also, it seems as if the Tatars won't be denied...
Also, it seems as if the Tatars won't be denied...
The left-Constitutionalists are at their zenith now, but I wonder if their wishy-washy position on the Brusilov line will poison the well with the minority parties. Were I a Tatar parliamentarian, I would be far more demanding the next time the liberals come a-calling.
1883-1887 - They Shall Not Pass
As the Constitutionalists formed their first majority government in over a decade under Petr Orlov in 1883, they had high hopes of sweeping domestic reforms. Tariffs and state restrictions on foreign investors had already been slashed during their minority administration of the previous two years, as had the restrictions on Tatar migration into Siberia and Grigoria. But now, without the need to cater to ethnic minority interests, the party hoped to take on the old shibboleth of confessional education. Frustratingly for the domestically minded, these ambitions had to be shelved, as the parliamentary term was dominated by foreign affairs.
The Beijing Crisis had been rumbling since the end of 1882 in Polish-aligned Mongolia. In the Khanate’s eastern provinces, ethnic-Chinese unrest had been slowly spreading – threatening Mongol power in the region. In response, the Khan had deployed his armies to his eastern lands and his forces subsequently began a campaign of terror against the Chinese civilian population. In January 1883 the conflict had expanded further when the Shanxi Clique, with discrete backing from the powerful Xi Republic to the south, invaded in support of the Chinese dissidents. With millions displaced from their homes, Catholic missionaries had played an outsized role in providing humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Chinese civilians, attempting to provide them with food and shelter. This led the Mongols to suspect these European Christians were in league with their enemies and in March several hundred Christians were murdered by Mongol soldiers in Beijing. Europe was horrified by these killings, and quickly the Papal States stepped forward as the guardians of Catholics worldwide – sending an expeditionary force to occupy Tianjin, offering a safe harbour to Europeans and Chinese refugees alike and dealing a blow the barbaric Mongols.
Kiev angrily demanded the immediate withdrawal of foreign forces from the territory of their Mongolian allies. Rather than back down, the Papacy offered its support to the Chinese rebels and the Shanxi Clique, and sent its own forces further inland to occupy the great city of Beijing. This was the last straw, and Poland declared war in defence of her Far Eastern ally. As Rome and Kiev joined in battle once again, their diplomatic agents across Europe set to work. The Pope had hoped to rally the Serbs and Germans to his cause – but the former committed themselves to neutrality, while the latter was reluctant to go to war over far away Mongolia, but warned the Poles that it would not tolerate a dismemberment of the Papal empire. This ensured a relatively limited war focussed on front in Central Asia and the Mongol Khanate.
Through the first months of the war the Poles surged to a series of impressive victories. Over the course of the past decade the balance of strength between the Polish and Papal armies had shifted. The Poles had invested heavily in modern technology and military expansion, while the Papal army had largely stagnated. Furthermore, this time the Poles had taken the time to strategically position their troops before a single shot was fired. The result was that by the end of 1883, the Papal army in the Far East was confined to Tianjin, where it was under siege, while they had been swept out of Central Asia – losing Tashkent and even Kabul as the Poles pushed southwards into Afghanistan and the Punjab beyond. In the Middle East, where Israel had joined the motherland in going to war, the Papacy was repulsed with ease – the investments made during the Kazimzade administration in the Holy Land’s defence paying great dividends – and by the end of the year Israeli and Polish forces were pushing beyond the pre-war frontier into Syria and the Sinai.
With the Papacy’s military position falling apart, the European powers attempted to intervene and broach a quick resolution to the conflict. Yet, with their greatest enemy of the past century firmly within their jaws, the Poles had no intention of settling for anything short of a crushing victory. As such, the cajoled the Persian state of Fars into granting their armies access through their lands in January 1884 and sent their troops streaming into Mesopotamia in support of the Middle Eastern campaign. With little genuine affection for the Holy See’s rule in these Muslim lands, Papal authority in their Arab territories went into collapse. As word circulated Europe of Poland’s war goals – an annexation of the Sinai and northern Egypt with Ascalon under a protectorate, the creation of independent and allies Arabic states in Syria and Iraq, annexation of Papal lands in Central Asia and Afghanistan – fear of a dangerous upturning of the balance of power took hold.
It was with this pressing fear that Poland was about to bring about the imminent collapse of the Papal empire that drew the Holy Roman Empire into the fray in March 1884. The Germans met with quick and stunning success. The border forts and 100,000-man Polish garrison guarding the frontier melted away within weeks, with tens of thousands surrendering after defeats at Kalisz and Nytra. By the end of July, the Germans occupied Slovakia, Pomerania, Prussia and perhaps two thirds of Old Poland. The great cities of Krakow, Poznan and Gdansk were all in enemy hands while the Imperial army was beginning to engage Warsaw, beginning a siege that ultimately decided the course of the war.
The Polish public had responded to the Holy Roman invasion with a wave of intense patriotic fervour effecting all political striped – liberal, conservative, labourite, Tatar and even Christian. Having neglected to mobilise its reservists on the scale it had in the previous war with the Papacy a decade before, the government now brought every resource under its power into the field while pushing for young men to bolster the national defence with volunteers, not just conscripts. Rabbis advised religious Jews to suspend their Torah studies until the Germans were pushed back, Tatars and Mongol leaders called upon their communities to fight for their Tsar against the foreigner and even the Christians, and especially the Protestants, rallied against the invaders occupying their homes. By the end of 1884 the Polish army in the field had trebled in size to well over a million men – one of the largest armies in world history.
These new men streamed towards a single location above all others – Warsaw. When the Germans first engaged the city in July it was defended by little more than the weary remains of the regular army in the west. Through the late summer, autumn and winter these men would be joined by first tens, and later hundreds of thousands of conscripts and volunteers. Warsaw, the most westerly of the empire’s great Jewish cities, emerged has the ultimate symbol of the national struggle. So long as it held, the Polish will to fight was undiminished, with the general in command of the city’s defence, Grigoriy Kuzmin, endless repeating the mantra “they shall not pass” to the press and soldiery. Slowly the weight of numbers provided by the Polish reinforcements turned the tide, and just before Easter 1885 the Germans fell back from Warsaw. In the summer, the Poles launched counteroffensives in every direction – south towards Krakow, north towards Gdansk and west towards Poznan.
Elsewhere, the German intervention had slowed the Polish campaign against the Papacy to a crawl. In Central Asia, Polish and Papal forces had settled in either side of the Hindu Kush – neither having the energy to push beyond the high mountain passes. In Mongolia, the Papacy had succeeded in withdrawing their forces from Tianjin safely, avoiding a mass surrender but abandoning their Chinese rebels to their fate. Meanwhile, in the Middle East Syria and Mesopotamia were viciously contested battlefields as the Papacy, the Poles and Israelies and local Arab militias fought in a complicated multi-sided and unstable conflict.
Back in Europe, the Polish offensive of the summer of 1885 did set the Germans into a modest retreat, but achieved much slower progress than hoped. By the winter, the Poles had recaptured most of East Prussia but had failed to retake any of the major occupied cities. On all sides, losses were escalating out of control, with well over a million recorded military deaths on all sides, and many more civilian casualties. With the size of armies growing, and new, far more lethal, weapons of war spreading among the European powers – the Beijing War had been deadlier than any other conflict this century. This heavy toll, and the stagnation of the front lines, pushed all parties towards peace.
In February 1886 representatives of the Pope and the two emperors came together in neutral Copenhagen to negotiate an end to hostilities. The result was a qualified success for Poland. All parties agreed to recognise Mongolia’s borders and accepted its status in the Polish sphere and the Papacy surrendered a stretch of Central Asia territory north of the Tian Shan mountains, a flat and largely Mongol-populated territory of 850,000 souls with Persian, Turkic and Indian minorities. The three powers also all agreed to sign a ten-year non-aggression pact, swearing not to interfere in one another’s affairs.
With the end of the war a spirit of national unity and patriotism was felt across the empire. A key facet of this new mood was a sense among the political establishment that following the contribution of the lower orders to the defence of the empire from invasion, there should be an extension of political rights. The Orlov ministry therefore set about devising a grand reform of the electoral franchise. While the right had previously been restricted to the middle classes through high property qualification, henceforth there was to be three routes to the vote. The property qualification was drastically reduced, while it was also possible to qualify through payment of an annual rent of a certain, while finally all those with a proven record of military service in war were given access to the franchise. The net result of these changes is that the proportion of the population eligible to vote grew more than tenfold, rising from 5.5% to around 60% of the adult male population west of the Brusilov Line, seeing the electorate grow from over 1,000,000 to around 12,500,000.
The 1886 Act enfranchised three large cohorts of Polish society. The smallest of these were the skilled and moderately skilled industrial workers of the cities, whose higher incomes allowed them to pay sufficiently high rents or even own property. Much larger were the emerging kulak class of wealthier peasants – both the smallholders empowered by Yildilz Kazimzade’s Land Bank and even some of the better-off landless peasants who were able to rent more productive land from larger landowners. Finally, there was a mass of veterans, old and young, often from much poorer backgrounds to the other two groups. While the urban poor, the bulk of the rural landless, transitory populations and, of course, all women, remained without the vote – Poland had embraced a genuinely mass electorate, with unknown consequences for its political future.
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A cracking update, a great victory (although the unfortunate cities of old Poland got occupied again) and an ally propped up.
That's without mentioning the march towards real popular representation.
Is the purple area above Mongolia an enclave of the Shanxi Clique? That's some border gore that could be removed before Darkest Hour comes.
That's without mentioning the march towards real popular representation.
Is the purple area above Mongolia an enclave of the Shanxi Clique? That's some border gore that could be removed before Darkest Hour comes.
The liberals' time in government rather spoiled by our biggest was since the mid-18th century. But we now have a real mass electorate!
This war was actually 3 separate in game conflicts. There was a Crisis over the Mongol Chinese lands with the Papacy wanting to release a Chinese state. We backed our allies, and they were alone in backing the separatists (weirdly almost all the international crises in this game were over China, which usually stopped big wars breaking out as most powers didn't have strong interests in the region). So that was me + Israel + the Mongols vs the Pope. During the fighting, Shanxi invaded for some cores they had on the Mongols and I backed them up. When I added a war goal to the war with the Papacy, the HRE launched a War of Containment. Their army was big, scary, modern and the border wasn't well defended, I'd also neglected to mobilise during the fighting with the Papacy since the war was going so well. I was able to beat them back with mass conscript armies, but never liberated much territory (just racking up enough warscore through battles to get a WP).
Ha, that was quite funny little slip - although now fixed.
With the franchise expanding there will likely be more opportunities for the Trudoviks going forward, and we shall see how the Belegunutists (and indeed all the other parties) adjust to this new player on the political stage.
Your powers of prediction continue to impress - we did indeed have a big foriegn conflagration, and by pushing the government to massively expand the franchise (perhaps further than they would have entertained in normal times) during a period in which it was slightly drunk on patriotism, its inevitable there will be big political consequences. What they are, you will have to wait to see.
I could sense more than a few of you were very keen to see the socialists enter the stage. We shall see what sort of impact they can make now the franchise has been expanded to a large chunk of the labouring classes.
With the liberals having had a pretty empty domestic agenda beyond the franchise reform, through no fault of their own, its harder to directly predict what the major issues will be going into the next election and beyond, never mind which parties mind it easier fishing in the new pond of voters.
Very true! The 'age of revolutions' in this TL was heavily skewed to the New World, where the movements were mostly separatist and democratic but not really social revolutionary. Whereas the big social revolution was in China - which is obviously going to capture less interest with Europeans than France. On top of that, most of Europe's monarchies showed quite a bit of flexibility in reforming themselves and instituting elements of democracy. The net result of this is likely to be a boost for social reformers who say change can come peacefully and gradually, and a harder time for revolutionaries who lack the examples and inspirations of things like the French revolution, 1848 or the Paris Commune.
Two big and ominous narratives that are going to be major themes going into the next decade. How long can the old parties hold these groups in place?
And will the expansion of the franchise serve to cool down the situation, or just add fuel to the fire?
Haha - if you look closely the trade union leader killed in the Donbass is a certain Nikita Ulyanov - named in honour of old Vladimir. I was initially going to include an image of Lenin being shot, but that got cut from my final version. We shall see if the grand moustachio himself had an analogue who will make an appearance in time .
Full me once as they say ... The Tatars have spent much of the last century being strung along by Jewish government, and always denied when it comes to the moment of truth. The Belugunutists are more assertive than past generations. But there may well be those who are growing tired of the cooperative approach entirely.
This war was actually 3 separate in game conflicts. There was a Crisis over the Mongol Chinese lands with the Papacy wanting to release a Chinese state. We backed our allies, and they were alone in backing the separatists (weirdly almost all the international crises in this game were over China, which usually stopped big wars breaking out as most powers didn't have strong interests in the region). So that was me + Israel + the Mongols vs the Pope. During the fighting, Shanxi invaded for some cores they had on the Mongols and I backed them up. When I added a war goal to the war with the Papacy, the HRE launched a War of Containment. Their army was big, scary, modern and the border wasn't well defended, I'd also neglected to mobilise during the fighting with the Papacy since the war was going so well. I was able to beat them back with mass conscript armies, but never liberated much territory (just racking up enough warscore through battles to get a WP).
A great freudian slip, indeed private property brings the poverty of the individual
If I were the Belegunutists, I'd make an alliance with the Trudoviks in the next elections to bring them to Duma. That'll show the rest! Also, at this point in history their fates seem to be intertwined. Voting equality for the masses and economic equality for the masses. It's a bit bothersome Tatars were the strike breakers, but that kind of thing happens...
That line shall fall, one way or other. The red tide will wipe it away if not the liberals.
Ha, that was quite funny little slip - although now fixed.
With the franchise expanding there will likely be more opportunities for the Trudoviks going forward, and we shall see how the Belegunutists (and indeed all the other parties) adjust to this new player on the political stage.
Your powers of prediction continue to impress - we did indeed have a big foriegn conflagration, and by pushing the government to massively expand the franchise (perhaps further than they would have entertained in normal times) during a period in which it was slightly drunk on patriotism, its inevitable there will be big political consequences. What they are, you will have to wait to see
.Arise, ye workers from your slumber,
Arise, ye prisoners of want!
So comrades, come rally,
And the last fight let us face:
The Internationale
Unites the human race!
At last the left wakes up! Plenty of interesting movements from wildcat strikes to workers committees to our own Narodnik–Trudovik types coming up through the ranks. And some good old status-quo enforcing from the Liberals to cap it all off! Lovely stuff.
Zhakov’s out after a barn-storming comeback, then promptly shafted by the rest of the party. The Conservatives are in a new period of disarray, and everyone has pissed off the national interest blocs. Will the Liberals be able to consolidate their gains, or will the whole layer cake collapse before the decade’s out?
I could sense more than a few of you were very keen to see the socialists enter the stage
. We shall see what sort of impact they can make now the franchise has been expanded to a large chunk of the labouring classes. With the liberals having had a pretty empty domestic agenda beyond the franchise reform, through no fault of their own, its harder to directly predict what the major issues will be going into the next election and beyond, never mind which parties mind it easier fishing in the new pond of voters.
Very true! The 'age of revolutions' in this TL was heavily skewed to the New World, where the movements were mostly separatist and democratic but not really social revolutionary. Whereas the big social revolution was in China - which is obviously going to capture less interest with Europeans than France. On top of that, most of Europe's monarchies showed quite a bit of flexibility in reforming themselves and instituting elements of democracy. The net result of this is likely to be a boost for social reformers who say change can come peacefully and gradually, and a harder time for revolutionaries who lack the examples and inspirations of things like the French revolution, 1848 or the Paris Commune.
Two big and ominous narratives that are going to be major themes going into the next decade. How long can the old parties hold these groups in place?
And will the expansion of the franchise serve to cool down the situation, or just add fuel to the fire?
Haha - if you look closely the trade union leader killed in the Donbass is a certain Nikita Ulyanov - named in honour of old Vladimir. I was initially going to include an image of Lenin being shot, but that got cut from my final version
. We shall see if the grand moustachio himself had an analogue who will make an appearance in time . Full me once as they say ... The Tatars have spent much of the last century being strung along by Jewish government, and always denied when it comes to the moment of truth. The Belugunutists are more assertive than past generations. But there may well be those who are growing tired of the cooperative approach entirely
.- 1
It is an unfortunate feature of Polish geography that so many of their wealthy cities are close to the German border. Were I a Polish reactionary, I would see the need for a buffer state on the west.
Also I am excited for the new, more democratic Poland. That should throw everything into turmoil.
Also I am excited for the new, more democratic Poland. That should throw everything into turmoil.
- 1
This latest expansion of the franchise could be paradigm shattering – or it could end up a damp squib with everyone just obediently voting for their betters. Either way, a big move and no going back. Surely the arguments for keeping the Brusilov line are crumbling by the day.
A bit disappointing to see a massive war (or three) break out while the Liberals were trying to do their thing, but interesting again to see the major powers essentially beating each other into a stalemate. Something’s going to have to slip before any one power gets a clear advantage. Hopefully this won’t be for some time, mind. We all know how eager Vicky is to foist great wars upon us in the 1880s…
A bit disappointing to see a massive war (or three) break out while the Liberals were trying to do their thing, but interesting again to see the major powers essentially beating each other into a stalemate. Something’s going to have to slip before any one power gets a clear advantage. Hopefully this won’t be for some time, mind. We all know how eager Vicky is to foist great wars upon us in the 1880s…
Ahh, one of those lovely interlocking sets of conflicts that just almost help write the story. Poland has done well - though the border with the HRE remains very much a cause for concern. This time it ultimately could be ameliorated - but next time? If the Papacy and HRE were going to co-ordinate ... it could get very bloody indeed.
The expansion of the franchise is going to have long-term impacts. I have to say the story of Poland's reform, and the twists and turns along the way, are fascinating.
The expansion of the franchise is going to have long-term impacts. I have to say the story of Poland's reform, and the twists and turns along the way, are fascinating.
The effect may or may not be immediate, but within a generation I am sure Poland will be politically unrecognisable - and as the franchise spreads within the Brusilov line the demands of those to the East of it will only get louder.
2 huge wars, and still not yet one empire dismantling. every time one starts, I get my popcorn to see which countries will get released but alas
Alliances with the countries on the other side of HRE and Papal states can be beneficial on the long run
I'm anxious to see how the next election will get shaped with all the new voters. Maybe a bit more open to populism? Reactionaries making a comeback? Socialists surprising everybody? Or more or less the same ratios? One thing I know is, Tatars will not be fooled for a 3rd time (I hope)
Alliances with the countries on the other side of HRE and Papal states can be beneficial on the long run
I'm anxious to see how the next election will get shaped with all the new voters. Maybe a bit more open to populism? Reactionaries making a comeback? Socialists surprising everybody? Or more or less the same ratios? One thing I know is, Tatars will not be fooled for a 3rd time (I hope
)
Well, Poland flew too close to the sun here. I'm honestly surprised that you didn't lose anything from this debacle.
However, this doesn't bode well for Poland's upcoming fate in the great wars...
However, this doesn't bode well for Poland's upcoming fate in the great wars...
Now to see where this global struggle will continue. Will we emerge supreme, or will we fall down?