interesting that in this Time Line, the atomic bomb has not come before our Time Line
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Well, the Indians detonated their first nuke in around late 1943/early 1944. Good thing they never got to use it...
If anything, Die Zeiten would just put the story on the last page after publishing it at least two months late. And then they still manage to get the headline wrong.In before Adenauer gets a copy of The Kölner Tribune whose headline reads "Scheel defeats Adenauer". Not that Die Zeiten would care, obviously.
Just finished bingeing the rest of this AAR, and I must say you've crafted it quite well. Got me into reading about history again.
Well, I lost my influence in one of them, but it's only a minor setback. That is, until I decide I need more nerfs.
It's even more ironic when I go to the politics page and find that only 3% of all of my pops actually think laissez-faire is an important issue.The people of the Reich must really love laissez-faire. Either that or some laissez-faire lover has been blatantly rigging the polls. I'd love to know how they got over 100%.
The 1940s: The Greatest Generation
"It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced. Those men and women fought not for fame and recognition, but because it was the right thing to do."
-Thomas Brokau, renowned reporter, on the war generation (1998)
Overview
Most of World War II took place in the first half of the decade, which had a profound effect on most countries and people in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Eimericas, and elsewhere. The consequences of the war lingered well into the second half of the decade, with a war-weary Europe divided between the jostling spheres of influence of the weakened Reich and the Soviet Commune, leading to the beginning of the Cold War. To some degree internal and external tensions in the post-war era were managed by new institutions, including the United Nations, the reformed welfare state, and the Bretton Woods system, facilitating the postwar economic expansion. The decade also witnessed the early beginnings of new technologies (such as computers, nuclear power, and jet propulsion), often first developed in tandem with the war effort, and later adapted and improved upon in the post-war era.
Economics
Roman Population is approximately 701,000,000.
Unemployed in 1950- 1,120,000c.
National Debt is 43 Billion Reichsmarks.
Average Yearly Salary: 2600 Reichsmarks
Average Teacher Salary: 2882 Reichsmarks
Minimum Wage: 10 Reichsmarks per hour
Annual Inflation averaged 5.5% but ranged as high as 18.1% in 1946
55% of Roman homes have indoor plumbing
Life expectancy for women is 68.2
Life expectancy for men is 60.8
Auto Deaths: 17,250.
Science and technology
The Atanasoff-Berry computer is now considered one of the first electronic digital computing device built by Johan Atanasoff and Clifford Berry during 1937–1942.
Construction in early 1941 of the Heath Robinson Bombe & the Colossus computer, which was used by Turing's codebreakers in Constantinople and satellite stations nearby to read Labyrinth encrypted Angeloi messages during World War II. This was operational until 1946 when it was destroyed under orders from Konrad Adenauer. This is now widely regarded as the first operational computer which in a model rebuild still today has a remarkable computing speed.
The Z3 as world's first working programmable, fully automatic computing machine was built.
The first test of technology for an atomic weapon (Operation Shiva's Fury) as part of Project Brahmastra / Project Mjolnir.
The second test of an atomic weapon (Trinity test) as part of the Frankfurt Project.
The sound barrier was broken in 1947.
The transistor was invented in 1947 at Glocke Labs, a subsidiary of Tesla Dynamic.
The development of radar.
The development of ballistic missiles.
The development of jet aircraft.
The Jeep.
The development of commercial television.
The Slinky.
The microwave oven.
The invention of Velcro.
The invention of Tupperware.
The invention of the Frisbee
The invention of hydraulic fracturing
Physics: the development of quantum theory and nuclear physics.
Mathematics: the development of game theory and cryptography.
In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl's raft Kon-Tiki crossed the Pacific Ocean from Biru, Tawantinsuyu to Tahiti proving the practical possibility that people from South Eimerica could have settled Polynesia in pre-Eimerian times.
Willard Libby developed radiocarbon dating—a process that revolutionized archaeology.
The development of modern evolutionary synthesis.
Film
Some of Babelsberg's (still referred to as such even though the film industry moved to Constantinople and then Athens) most notable blockbuster films of the 1940s include:
The Scottish Falcon directed by Johan Hausten (1941), following a Haifa private detective, his femme fatale client, and his dealings with three unscrupulous adventurers (implied to be Angeloi agents), all of whom are competing to obtain a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette.
It's a Wonderful Life directed by Franz Capra (1946), following a man who has sacrificed his dreams to help others in the aftermath of the war and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, who shows him what would have happened if he never existed. It's not pretty (his friends and family are all dead).
Meet Me in Ludwigshafen directed by Vincente Minnelli (1944), about a year in the life of the Schmidt family leading up to the Restoration celebrations of 1904-1905, especially detailing the differences in lifestyles between them and the aristocracy.
Casablanca directed by Michael Curtiz (1948), based on the memoirs of Alwine Glienke, the ex-wife of an anti-Angeloi resistance fighter, telling about a woman who must choose between reconciling with her ex-husband, a Resistance fighter, and helping him and his Resistance friend escape Casablana to finish an important mission that could turn the tide of the war against the Angeloi. It won three Academy Awards.
Citizen Kane directed by Orson Welles (1941), examining the life of a Karl Friedrich Kane, a wealthy newspaper magnate who ruthlessly pursues power at the cost of those around him.
The Great Dictator directed by Karl Chaplin (1940), condemning the regimes of Mohandas Gandhi and Markos Angelos through satire
Notorious directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1946), a spy film noir starring three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation.
Although the 1940s was a decade dominated by World War II, important and noteworthy films about a wide variety of subjects were made during that era. Hollywood was instrumental in producing dozens of classic films during the 1940s, several of which were about the war and some are on most lists of all-time great films. Roman cinema survived although obviously curtailed during wartime (and suppressed in Angeloi-ocupied territories) and yet many films of high quality were made in Greece, Anatolia, Scandinavia, the Soviet Commune, and elsewhere in Europe. The cinema of China and Japan also survived. Akira Kurosawa and other directors managed to produce significant films during the 1940s.
Film Noir, a film style that incorporated crime dramas with dark images, became largely prevalent during the decade, influenced by the gritty nature of the Angeloi occupation. The genre has been widely copied since its initial inception.
In Austria the tour de force Children of Paradise (1943) was shot in Angeloi occupied Vienna and included cameos by resistance fighters. Memorable films from post-war Britannia include David Lean's Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), based on the Karl Dickens novels, and Lorenz Olivier's Persepolis, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In Japanese colonial cinema, The 47 Ronin is a 1941 black and white two-part Japanese film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, carrying anti-colonial undertones and forcing the Chinese to curtail its distribution. The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945), and the post-war Drunken Angel (1948), and Stray Dog (1949), directed by Imperial Japanese Akira Kurosawa are considered important early works leading to his first masterpieces of the 1950s. Drunken Angel (1948), marked the beginning of the successful collaboration between Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune that lasted until 1965.
The Chinese film industry flourished during the war years, despite creeping military influence over the civilian government pervading all aspects of society. While there were the usual government propaganda films railing against the loyalists, Angeloi, and Soviets, there were also masterpieces made by civilians, among them a groundbreaking adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1943), adapted for the war years and set in a future where Angeloi invaders, Soviet equalists, and Chinese loyalists fought for control over China. An adaptation of the Monkey King (1941) became a blockbuster hit and the highest grossing Chinese film of all time, spawning several sequels (the first, Journey to the West, was released a year later) and a decades-long media franchise which included characters from across Chinese and Buddhist mythology. Another movie, a biopic on the rise of Zhu Yuanzhang, the peasant who lead the anti-Mongol resistance and became the first Ming emperor, also grossed millions of yuan.
Television
1940: the Imperial Communications Commission, a government agency formed to regulate use of television and radio, holds public hearings on television, but most hearings are interrupted by the war.
1941: First television advertisements aired. The first official, paid television advertisement was broadcast in the Imperium on July 1, 1941 over Frankfurt station WNBT (now WNBC) before a baseball game between the Sachsenhausen Dodgers and Florence Florries. The announcement was for watches. After the war, the loyalist government passed legislation significantly limiting the number of commercials that could be aired in any given commercial break (which were limited to just one minute at the start and end of each program).
1942: ICC resumes all Roman television broadcasting in parts of the Reich liberated from the Axis powers.
1943: Hänsel und Gretel is the first complete opera to be broadcast on television, but only in Frankfurt; first (experimental) telecast of Karl Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Many more telecasts of the story will follow in later years, but until film begins to be used on television, no two of the television versions of the story will have the same casts.
1944: Roman Broadcasting Company (RBC) formed
1945: Imperial Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) begins the first regularly scheduled television network service in the Reich, expanding out from just radio broadcasts
1946: RCA demonstrates all-electronic color television system.
1947: Baseball's International Series, between the Sachsenhausen Dodgers and the Altstadt Legionnaires, is broadcast live for the first time; the 1947 Tournament of Roses Parade becomes the very first parade ever televised.
Music
The most popular music style during the 1940s was swing, which prevailed during World War II. In the later periods of the 1940s, less swing was prominent and crooners like Franz Sinatra, along with genres such as bebop and the earliest traces of rock and roll, were the prevalent genre.
Hipster or hepcat, as used in the 1940s, referred to aficionados of jazz, in particular bebop, which became popular in the early 1940s. The hipster adopted the lifestyle of the jazz musician, including some or all of the following: dress, slang, use of cannabis and other drugs, relaxed attitude, sarcastic humor, self-imposed poverty, and relaxed sexual codes.
The words hep and hip are of uncertain origin, with numerous competing theories being proposed. In the early days of jazz, musicians were using the hep variant to describe anybody who was "in the know" about an emerging culture, mostly black, which revolved around jazz. They and their fans were known as hepcats. By the late 1930s, with the rise of swing, hip rose in popularity among jazz musicians, to replace hep. Clarinetist Artie Shaw described singer Bing Crosby as "the first hip white person born in the United States."[1]
Classical music remained popular up to the end of the war, after which many classical pieces (especiallly Wagner's) became associated with the Angeloi regime and fell out of popularity.
Swing, Big band, Jazz, Greek and Country music dominated and defined the decade's music. After World War II, the big band sounds of the earlier part of the decade has been gradually replaced by crooners and vocal pop.
As the 1920s unfolded, jazz rapidly took over as the dominant form of popular music in the Reich, especially in Britannia, competing with classical music (mostly listened to by the upper and middle classes).
But with the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, the market for music rapidly dried up. Dance halls emptied out and musicians could not find work. By the middle of the 1930s however, with signs of economic recovery approaching, a turnaround in the fortunes of the music industry began. The era of big band swing had started.
In addition, a new form of popular music, crooning, emerged during the early 1930s. Technology played a large part in the development of this style, as electronic sound recording had emerged near the end of the 1920s and replaced the earlier acoustic recording. The new electronic equipment allowed for a softer, more intimate style of singing. Many older singers consequently fell out of favor during the 1930s with changing tastes.
Bandleaders often helped launch the careers of vocalists who went on to popularity as solo artists, such as Franz Sinatra, who rose to fame as a singer during this time. Sinatra's vast appeal to teenagers revealed a whole new audience for popular music, which had generally appealed mainly to adults up to that time, making Sinatra the first teen idol.
Big band swing could variably be an instrumental style or accompany a vocalist. In comparison to its loud, brash, rhythmic sound stood the "sweet" bands which played a softer, more melodic style. The most notable of these, in no small part thanks to a long postwar TV career, was the band of Lawrence Welk.
While swing bands could be found in most major cities during the 1930s-1940s, the most popular and famous were the bands of Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Artie Shaw, which had a national following and sold huge numbers brought about a rapid end to big band swing as many musicians were conscripted into the armed forces and travel restrictions made it hard for bands to tour. In 1944, Glenn Miller was killed when his plane crashed into the Britannian Channel en route to a Heer show in Austria. His death is widely considered to mark the close of the swing era.
After the war, a combination of factors such as changing demographics and rapid inflation made large bands unprofitable so that popular music in the Reich came to be dominated instead by traditional pop and crooners, as well as bebop and jump blues.
In the 1940s, pure jazz began to become more popular, along with the blues.
By the late 1940s, Rhineland jazz revival musicians had become well-known and established their own unique style. Most characteristically, players entered solos against riffing by other horns, and were followed by a closing with the drummer playing a four-bar tag that was then answered by the rest of the band.
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, colonial songs, or Southern music, became widely popular through the romanticization of the Romans who settled Africa and idealized depictions of Africa in Hollywood films. Singing colonials sang colonial songs in their films and became popular throughout the Reich. Film producers began incorporating fully orchestrated four-part harmonies and sophisticated musical arrangements into their motion pictures.
In the post-war period, country music was called "folk" in the trades, and "hillbilly" within the industry. In 1944, The Billboard replaced the term "hillbilly" with "folk songs and blues," and switched to "country" or "country and Southern" in 1949.
But while cowboy and Southern music were the most popular styles, a new style – honky tonk – would take root and define the genre of country music for decades to come. The style meshed Southern swing and blues music; featured rough, nasal vocals backed by instruments such as the guitar, fiddle, string bass, and steel guitar; and had lyrics that focused on tragic themes of lost love, adultery, loneliness, alcoholism and self-pity. One of the earliest successful practitioners of this style was Ernst Tubb, a Bavaria native who had perfected his style on several Bavarian radio stations in the mid- to late-1930s. In 1940, he gained a recording contract and a year later released his standard "Walking the Floor Over You." The single became a hit and sold over 1 million copies. By the end of the 1940s honky-tonk was the predominant style in country music.
In China, the 1940s was the golden era of Mandarin pop songs which were collectively termed 'Shidaiqu', literally 'songs of the era'. Shanghai Pathe Records, then belonging to EMI, emerged to be the leading record company in China and featured a blend of Chinese melodies and Roman orchestrations as well as Big Band Jazz elements in arrangements of music, leading to their superseding traditional Chinese operas in radio broadcasts. With the help of growing radio audience in the nation, Shidaiqu successfully became prevalent and listening to Mandarin pop songs was regarded as trendy. Among all Chinese contemporary singers, Zhou Xuan, Yao Li (also known as Hue Lee), Wu Yingyin, Bai Guang, Bai Hong, Gong Qiuxia and Li Xianglan were the seven most famous artists, who gained nationwide popularity. Zhou Xuan was the most representative of all, who after performing for the Emperor became one of the emblematic and legendary figures in the history of Chinese pop songs. In addition, despite the ravages of the Angeloi invasion and subsequent military takeover, there saw an immense development and maturation in the Chinese movie industry. Very often, pop songs were intermingled with episodes in films, providing the audience with multiple entertainment at one time. Nonetheless, little attention was paid on the groundbreaking breakthroughs of Chinese Mandarin pop songs in the 1940s, both by the academia and the community in China as well as in Europe. Shidaiqu had its influence even in traditionally regionally-based Hong Kong and Taiwan music in the 1950s and 1960s as well as in Malaysian, Singapuri, Fusang, Penglai, and Mittagslandian Chinese communities. Rose, Rose, I Love you, the renowned song presented by Franz Laine (a Mittagslander), and An Autumn Melody, were two symbolic Shidaiqu.
After the military officially came to power in China, music was primarily reserved for the purpose of political education in line with the the military junta. While militaristic ideas were infused in the music, Roman music had, nevertheless, heavy influence on music in that era. Roman orchestrations accompanied by Chinese traditional folks were ubiquitous, despite efforts by the junta to stamp it out and replace it with traditional Chinese music.
In the early 1940s in jazz, bebop emerged. It helped to shift jazz from danceable popular music towards a more challenging "musician's music." Differing greatly from swing, early bebop divorced itself from dance music, establishing itself more as an art form but lessening its potential popular and commercial value. Since bebop was meant to be listened to, not danced to, it used faster tempos. Beboppers introduced new forms of chromaticism and dissonance into jazz; the dissonant tritone (or "flatted fifth") interval became the "most important interval of bebop" and players engaged in a more abstracted form of chord-based improvisation which used "passing" chords, substitute chords, and altered chords. The style of drumming shifted as well to a more elusive and explosive style, in which the ride cymbal was used to keep time, while the snare and bass drum were used for accents. This appealed to a more specialized audiences than earlier forms of jazz, with sophisticated harmonies, fast tempos and often virtuoso musicianship. Bebop musicians often used 1930s standards, especially those from Mese Street musicals, as part of their repertoire. An early 1940s style known as "jumping the blues" or jump blues used small combos, uptempo music, and blues chord progressions. Jump blues drew on boogie-woogie from the 1930s. These divergences from the jazz mainstream of the time initially met with a divided, sometimes hostile response among fans and fellow musicians, especially established swing players, who bristled at the new harmonic sounds. To hostile critics, bebop seemed to be filled with "racing, nervous phrases". Despite the initial friction, by 1950 bebop had become an accepted part of the jazz vocabulary.
The swing era lasted until the mid-1940s. When the big bands struggled to keep going during World War II, a shift was happening in jazz in favor of smaller groups. Some swing era musicians, later found popularity in a new kind of music, called "rhythm and blues", that would evolve into rock and roll in the 1950s.
Literature
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernst Hemingway in 1940.
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albrecht Camus in 1942.
The Little Prince by Anton von Sankt-Exupéry in 1943.
Islamophobe and Muslim by Johann-Paul Sartre in 1943.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand in 1943.
No Exit by Johann-Paul Sartre in 1944.
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren in 1945.
The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank in 1947.
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller in 1949.
Nineteen Eighty-Four by Erich Blair in 1949.
Fashion
Even with the challenges imposed by shortages in rayon, nylon, wool, leather, rubber, metal (for snaps, buckles, and embellishments), and even the amount of fabric that could be used in any one garment, the fashion industry's wheels kept chugging slowly along, producing what it could. After the fall of Hispania and the Alps in 1940, Babelsberg drove fashion in the free Reich almost entirely, with the exception of a few trends coming from war torn Constantinople in 1944 and 1945, as the Reich's own rationing hit full force, and the idea of function seemed to overtake fashion. Fabrics shifted dramatically as rationing and wartime shortages controlled import items such as silk and furs. Floral prints seem to dominate the early 1940s, with the mid-to-late 1940s also seeing what is sometimes referred to as "atomic prints" or geometric patterns and shapes. The color of fashion seemed to even go to war, with patriotic nautical themes and dark greens and khakis dominating the color palettes, as trousers and wedges slowly replaced the dresses and more traditional heels due to shortages in stockings and gasoline.
Comics
1940
The Imperial Justice Alliance, the first superhero team in comic book history first appear in All Star Comics #3.
Captain Reich, created by Joachim Kirby, first appears in Captain Reich Comics #1. Appearing at the height of Angeloi control over the Reich, the cover shows Captain Reich punching both Markos Angelos in the jaw. The comic sold nearly one million copies.
The Spirit, created by writer-artist Wilhelm Eisner, first appears in a Sunday-newspaper comic book insert. The seven-page weekly series is considered one of the comic-art medium's most significant works, with Eisner creating or popularizing many of the styles, techniques, and storytelling conventions used by comics professionals decades later.
The Green Lantern, created by Martin Nodell and Bill Finger made his debut in All-American Comics #16 July 1940. Atom was introduced 3 issues later in #19 and the Red Tornado introduced in #20.
Catman #1, Cover dated Spring, 1940 introduced The Jester and Batwoman.
1941
Wonder Woman first appears in All Star Comics #8. She is among the first and most famous comic book superheroines.
Adventures of Colonel Marvel, a twelve-chapter film serial adapted from the popular Colonel Marvel comic book character for Imperial Pictures, debuts. It was the first film adaptation of a comic book superhero.
1942
Crime Does Not Pay debuts, edited and mostly written by Karl Biro and published by Lev Gleason Publications. It was the first "true crime" comic series and also the first comic in the crime comics genre. One of the most popular comics of its day, at its height the comic would claim a readership of six million on its covers.
1944
Uberboy, the adventures of Uberman (previously Ubermensch before that term became associated with the Rasas and Angeloi) as a boy, first appears in More Fun Comics #101.
1947
Kleinvolks, the first comic strip by Peanuts creator Karl M. Schulz, debuts mainly in Schulz's hometown paper, the Sankt Polten Pioneer Press, on June 22. Kleinvolks can almost be regarded as an embryonic version of Peanuts, containing characters and themes which were to reappear in the later strip: a well-dressed young man with a fondness for Beethoven a la Schroeder, a dog with a striking resemblance to Snoopy, and even a boy named Karl Braun.
Archaeology/Anthropology
The oldest known North Eimerican mummy, Spirit Cave Man, is excavated.
Prehistoric paintings in the Lascaux caves are discovered.
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No screenshots (saving those for the 2000 update), but I think I covered what I needed to here. Back to regular updates next!
Colored red, yellow, and purple and with a Roman eagle on front, of course.
Hi my name's SilverKnight I've been reading and lurking your AAR for the past 2 weeks starting with the CK2 portion. I must say, you have crafted a very interesting and well done story with good plots besides the actual gameplay. Now that I've caught up, I hope I can contribute somehow by commenting.
Thanks,
SilverKnight
Thanks,
SilverKnight
Well, last I checked there's an eight-hour workday, which doesn't quite equal 2600 marks per year. Keep in mind that's just an average, not taking into account overtime, paid leave, and other compensation.How much do roman citiziens work? No more than 260 hours a year?
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the ride. There will be more plots coming up, both short story plots in the near future and larger story arcs closer to the modern day.
Chapter 410: Complete Certainty
The collapse of Indochina inflamed anti-war sentiments throughout the Reich within days. A yearlong operation against the Seri Thai and MNLA, led by Hugo Doukas himself, had only brought failure and hundreds of military and civilian casualties. With memory of the war in Europe still fresh, citizens of all ages demonstrated in the streets of several major cities, particularly left-leaning Damascus, Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Amman, and Aden. This anti-war sentiment played into the hands of the KRA, which continued insisting that the intervention in Indochina should never have happened. In a debate taking place in Sarajevo a week after the collapse of Indochina on the topic of pacifism, Walter Scheel utterly crushed Adenauer's claims that military intervention was necessary to ensure that native monarchies weren't deposed by equalist movements. Adenauer could not effectively respond to Scheel's criticism, and in the end he was reduced to just saying non-political, optimistic assertions of the obvious, such as "You know that your future is still ahead of you" and "Our rivers are full of fish." Newspapers relentlessly tore him apart in the next few weeks.
Another major strike broke out in Penglai, and this time, Chiang didn't even bother to wait before sending in the army.
The collapse of Indochina caused instability throughout Malaya, and the new Malayan government struggled to assert its authority on its own against MNLA and other equalist hideouts. Some Malayans simply packed up their bags and headed to the Reich. As March continued, hundreds of Malayans boarded ferries to Sumatra and the town of Brunei. Brunei was a preferred destination for these migrants, and the newcomers quickly put a heavy strain on the local economy. Some immigrants complained that they had been searching for work for the last three weeks, but they still remained unemployed. Local business owners complained that these migrants took away jobs from locals (who ironically were mostly Malayan to begin with) and drove down wages. Local authorities, encouraged by a phone call from Constantinople, went in the opposite direction, implementing a policy which gave tax incentives to businesses who employed the immigrants. Scheel remained noticeably neutral on the whole issue.
Another debate was scheduled for the end of March. The two candidates met in the former trade hub of Socotra to discuss free trade. Both Scheel and Adenauer supported free trade, resulting in an awkward discussion as neither candidate could find something to condemn the other with. The debate soon escalated to a contest over who was more in favor of free trade, with both men proposing increasingly ridiculous free trade ideas such as continent-wide trade blocs, open borders with Persia, Mali, and Ethiopia, and increased trade with China and Tawantinsuyu. Thankfully Adenauer stepped back from the competition at the last moment and watched Scheel make a fool of himself when he implied that free trade deals with the Occupied Territories would result in their gradual reintegration.
In mid-April, the two men met in Jerusalem for yet another debate, this one on religious policy. Again, both men were in favor of honoring the newly added secularism amendment, and both immediately condemned the Spartacus League's self-proclaimed atheism. The debate then shifted over to how such secularism would be implemented, which Adenauer excelled at.
The two candidates had been so locked in destroying each other (and the equalists) that they neglected to pay attention to the dozens of other challengers for the office who rapidly gained ground. By April, only a handful of these third-party candidates remained, with an independent populist gaining the most ground. Running on a firmly anti-socialist and anti-Chinese platform, he appealed to many farmers and factory workers with his protectionist and nationalist ideals, boosting his numbers in the polls to concerning levels. Both campaigns began diverting resources to crush this man's campaign. But he posed no threat to either candidate; the Bureau of Qualifications looked down on populism as a fringe ideology.
An earthquake occurred in China as Kanata and the Tsarists signed a mutual defense pact.
In East Asia, the Shogunate's victory was short-lived as Shogun Iesato's condition worsened. Since the 1930s, Iesato suffered from tuberculosis, which was kept a secret to all but his sister and a few close friends due to the negative political impact it could cause. In April of 1950, he flew to Ainu Mosir, where he rented out a small cottage outside Sapporo. He could not completely rest there and continued sending letters and phone calls to his officers and politicians. He tried returning to Edo after a week, but his doctors advised him to go back to Hokkaido, where he rented out another cottage higher up in the mountains. He was reluctant to undergo medical treament, but the government nevertheless sent its best doctors to treat him. Tests confirmed not only tuberculosis but also advanced lung cancer. No treatment did more than alleviate his symptoms for a few days. In downtown Edo, the Patriarch of Japan led a public prayer for his health, but that had no effect on his condition. He was moved to downtown Sapporo a few days later. By 2 May, he had also developed pneumonia. His doctors urged him to return to Edo, where he could receive better care. He agreed and was flown back on the morning of 4 May. Upon arriving in Edo, he was loaded into an ambulance, but it broke down on the way to the hospital, with civilian cars passing by unaware that the Shogun was dying inside. It took an hour for the backup ambulance to arrive, transporting him to his palace in the middle of the city. He died there later that night at 10:20 PM at the age of 87, just a couple years after Japanese independence.
Emperor Hirohito stated upon his death:
Iesato was given a Christian burial the next day amid official mourning in both Japanese states and Ainu Mosir. A million people gathered for his funeral.
A small ceremony officially declared Iesato's son, Iemasa, as the next shogun. Iemasa, who had graduated from Edo University with a degree in law and previously worked as a Chinese ambassador to the Union of Vinland, was not suited to become the supreme political and military authority of the Shogunate. Some generals complained that the shogun wasn't himself a military officer, while many politicians were concerned he would not be able to match his father's accomplishments and continue to lead the Shogunate.
As if the rising populists weren't bad enough, the conservatives soon suffered another setback. Athanatoi operatives in East Germany uncovered secret documents which detailed extensive NKVD infiltration of the Christian Social Union. The documents also claimed that Molotov paid several high-profile conservative politicians to secure their support in this infiltration and push through pro-Soviet legislation and policy when in power. News of this finding spread rapidly across the Reich. Adenauer denied the allegations of a Soviet support, claiming it was another of Molotov's tricks to bring down his government. Scheel responded by saying that that was exactly what somebody being paid off by Molotov would say. Within a week, the conservative cause had been significantly set back, and polls showed the CMU/CSU's 8-point lead over the KRA drop to just 1 point (if not in a permanent alliance with each other, the two parties would have been behind by 10 points). The Hohenzollern Faction was completely crushed, polling with just 9%. The Bureau of Qualifications adjusted its numbers, taking into account the fact that a government plagued by scandal might not achieve much in power.
The next debate took place in Vienna three days later. Not wanting to inflame tensions further, the Bureau of Qualifications stated that the debate would discuss war policy. Scheel argued against further military entanglements around the world, as they were costly, got many Romans killed, and brought little benefit to the Reich proper. Besides, peaceful diplomacy can solve more disputes than war could, he argued. Adenauer railed against Scheel's support for quasi-isolationist policies, comparing them to Angelos's abandonment of the Reich's allies in the ten years leading up to the war. But most of his arguments were drowned out by boos from the crowd, many of whom believed Adenauer was a Soviet spy.
By 12 May, the last equalist holdouts in Mitteleimerica had been eliminated. Tomogata declared victory for the UPM, dealing a significant blow to the Soviets' influence in North Eimerica. The spread of equalism had been stopped for good now, and Adenauer, in a speech before his supporters, said that he hoped that equalism would now only retreat. The speech did little to boost his party's reputation, and polls showed that the CMU and CSU combined were now roughly neck-and-neck with the KRA.
The summer began as the examinations entered their final month. While the war policy debate last month was supposed to be the last debate, circumstances demanded otherwise. At the beginning of the month, rumors spread that a priest in Aleppo was molesting young children and that he had been doing so for some time, with the rest of the priesthood covering it up to maintain the Church's image. As the rumors spread more, the priest was unexpectedly moved through various parishes to escape controversy. But these moves only attracted more attention, and a large number of citizens demanded a government investigation into the Church. While Ecumenical Patriarch Joseph I and the Kaiser pushed for an investigation to take place, the rest of the Church insisted that they handle the whole matter, while the public wanted the priest's head. In a debate held in Aleppo on 4 June, Adenauer insisted that the priest go on trial, which angered many Romans who just wanted Adenauer to get the Ecumenical Patriarch to order the priest's dismissal. Some Romans, feeling betrayed by the Church's conduct, turned away from the faith and towards atheism. The Schweinfurt Faction used the incident to boost its ratings in the polls by appealing to the atheist and secular population of the Reich. Both Scheel and Adenauer took a beating as a result, their parties' poll numbers dropping below 20% each, with the CMU actually falling behind the KRA. The socialists, meanwhile, began to close the gap, revitalized by the string of scandals plaguing the conservatives and the blunders made by the liberals.
The conservatives were in deep trouble now. They had the best policies, but they had lost favor among many Romans, and if something wasn't done, the KRA would emerge victorious. Most of the bureaucracy didn't like Scheel for his laissez-faire and anti-subsidy policies, which could drive up unemployment and strangle economic growth. Eventually, Kaiser Otto decided that enough was enough. The conservatives had to succeed in the examinations, but he couldn't just overturn the examination's results. Instead, he issued an official endorsement of Adenauer and the CMU. The results were instantaneous. Adenauer's poll numbers shot up again as celebrities, nobility, and military leaders, among them Hugo Doukas, endorsed him in droves. Encouraged by the Kaiser's endorsement, the CMU went on the offensive, launching several rallies throughout the Reich to show the people and the Bureau of Qualifications that they were truly qualified to lead the Reich going forward. While Scheel was surprised by this renewed conservative onslaught, he wasn't worried. The KRA led in the polls by five points, and statments from the Bureau of Qualifications indicated they were leaning towards the KRA.
Over in China, the latest strikes in Penglai came to an end after the military forced the last strikers to go back to work.
As the end of the examination session approached, almost all major newspapers predicted a KRA win. The more liberal leaning papers issued endorsements for Scheel and ran articles discussing what to expect under a Scheel ministry; some even wrote articles to be printed on 1 July speculating about the new "Scheel ministry." Lebens magazine printed a large photo in its final edition before the examination. Entitled "Our Next Chancellor Rides by Ferryboat over the Bosphorus," the photo showed Scheel and his staff riding across the capital's harbor towards Bukoleon Palace. Der Spiegel polled fifty experts, all of whom predicted a Scheel win. Several well-known and influential newspaper columnists wrote columns to be printed on the morning of 1 July speculating on Scheel's choices for his cabinet. On 30 June, one columnist wrote that Adenauer's reappointment was "impossible," and his column printed on 1 July stated that he had "surveyed the closely-knit group around Walt Scheel who will take over Bukoleon Palace soon." Gambling odds were 150 to 1 against Adenauer. More than 1000 newspapers, accounting for over 87% of the Reich's total circulation, endorsed Scheel; most of the rest backed third-party candidates. Adenauer had just one endorsement, from Die Zeiten, which put the endorsement on the last page and worded it so weirdly it was unclear if it actually was an endorsement. The Manchester Guardian published an article titled "Konrad Adenauer: A Study of a Failure." For its television coverage, IBC constructed a large cardboard model of Boukoleon Palace containing two lions (the symbol of the KRA) that would pop out when IBC announced Scheel's victory; since Adenauer's defeat was considered certain, no eagles (the symbol of the CMU) were placed in the model. As Adenauer made his way back to his hometown of Cologne to await the Bureau of Qualification's verdict, some among his inner circle had already accepted other jobs, and every single reporter who interviewed him on his campaign train asked him what it was like to be the next Papen. A number of prominent KRA members had already bought high-end homes in Constantinople.
(If you're wondering why it says Mali just declared war on Senegal, the previous war ended when Senegal threatened to get the CSSR to nuke Mali)
Even the Diet braced for a KRA victory. Many conservative representatives congratulated FMP and KRA representatives in the Reichstag on their win in advance, while one KRA senator in the Reichsrat went even further by giving a speech congratulating his colleagues on a job well done before discussing the merits of laissez-faire economic policies, wanting to begin implementation of party policy immediately.
On examination night Scheel, his family, and campaign staff confidently gathered in the Papen Hotel in Frankfurt to await the results. Adenauer, aided by members of the Varangian Guard, snuck away from reporters covering him and took a cab to his house, where he ate a light dinner, took a bath, and went to sleep.
The Bureau of Qualifications had offices spread out among the Lander of the Reich, which meant it took time for the bureau to compile its results. The bureau assessed the competence and appropriateness of each candidate through a points system, where points were award based on a candidate's conduct, personality, and responses to debate questions; as would be expected, the candidate with more points won. As each office's points were counted, Adenauer took an early lead. Leading radio commentators for IBC predicted that once "late returns" and results from the liberal-leaning Middle East came in, Scheel would overwhelm Adenauer's lead and win.
At midnight, Adenauer woke up and turned on his radio; he heard the IBC commentators announce that while Adenauer was still in the lead by number of points, he could not possibly win. At 4 in the morning, Adenauer woke up again and heard that he was now leading Scheel by nearly two million points. He told the Varangians guarding him to drive him to downtown, "because it looks as if we're in for another five years."
Scheel, meanwhile, realized he was in trouble when early returns from Britannia, Caledonia, and Hibernia showed him running well behind his expected point total. He stayed up for the whole night and early morning analyzing the offices' decisions as they came in. By 10:30 AM, he was convinced he had lost. At 11:14 AM, he called Adenauer and conceded. Adenauer himself didn't expect Scheel to concede, as he was still worried he might lose.
Die Kölner Tribüne, a pro-KRA newspaper, was so sure of Scheel's victory that before any offices finished assigning points, it printed "SCHEEL DEFEATS ADENAUER" as its headline for the following day. Part of the reason Adenauer's victory came as such a shock was because of as-yet uncorrected flaws in the emerging craft of public opinion polling. Many pollsters believed that the examination was effectively over after the NKVD infiltration scandal, and they discounted the impact of Adenauer's aggressive campaigning and the Kaiser's endorsement that spring. After the examination, a study by Imperial University Mittagsland revealed that "3,374,800 points were assigned to Adenauer in the last fortnight of the campaign." One Bureau of Qualifications bureaucrat in every seven (6,927,000), made up his mind in the last two weeks before the end of the session. Of these, 75 percent picked Adenauer, which was more than his margin of victory over Scheel. Some 3,300,000 fence-sitters determined the outcome of the examination in its closing days. After 1950, pollsters would constantly survey citizens through examination day.
The key provinces in the 1950 examination were Hispania, Israel, and Anatolia. Adenauer narrowly won the offices in all three provinces by a margin of less than one percentage point apiece. Scheel countered by almost as narrowly carrying Germania and Gallia, as well as Britannia, but this was too little to give him the examination. Scheel would always believe that he lost the examination because he lost the support of the African settlers and the BoQ offices they staffed.
A post-1950 survey of bureaucrats found that Adenauer, not Scheel, seemed the safer, more conservative candidate to the "new middle class" that had developed over the previous 20 years. It found that "to an appreciable part of the public, the CMU had become the party of prosperity" after the war.
Another reason for Scheel's surprise defeat was his complacent, distant approach to the campaign, and his failure to respond to Adenauer's attacks at the end of the campaign. Other possible factors for Adenauer's victory included his aggressive campaign style and broad public approval of Adenauer's foreign policy, notably the Berlin Airlift and handling of the Mitteleimerican War. In addition, after suffering a relatively severe recession in 1946 and 1947 (in which real GDP dropped by 12% and inflation went over 15%) and a weak recovery from the war's destruction, the economy began recovering, thus possibly motivating many bureaucrats to give Adenauer credit for the economic recovery.
Adenauer gave a speech in downtown Cologne before thousands of cheering supporters, thanking them for their support and promising another five years of prosperity. The Kaiser phoned in, giving his congratulations to the chancellor on his reappointment. However, he didn't have a complete victory. While Adenauer did win the examination for the office of chancellor, the rest of his party didn't do so well. The CMU and CSU got less than a quarter of all seats in the Reichstag, and while the KRA and FMP only got 18% of the seats each, Adenauer was forced to enter into coalition negotiations with the Hohenzollern Faction, the Schweinfurt Faction, the SPR, and the Socialist Party to form a new government. Moving forward the conservatives and socialists would have to work together to keep Scheel and the KRA out of government and maintain the prosperity that the previous five years enjoyed.
You actually decided to use that.
I find it funny that the seculars would get even a tiny bit angry at a shift towards secular policy.
I still have no idea how this weird examination electoral system works. How can the results be influenced by public opinion if everyone is chosen based on merit? Let's be honest, most people base their political leanings on frivolous things, not skill. That's why so many politicians are idiots or downright crazy.
I see jingoism is up there with laissez-faire in the rigged polls category.
I see jingoism is up there with laissez-faire in the rigged polls category.
They're just angry that the shift towards secular policy went too far and was actually promoting atheism.You actually decided to use that.
I find it funny that the seculars would get even a tiny bit angry at a shift towards secular policy.
Think of it as this: each candidate at each level (city/district, Lander parliamentary, national parliamentary, chancellor) is judged based on merit (through interviews, debates, exams, and real-life or lifelike scenarios) with popularity kept in mind to some degree (to keep the idea that the resulting government is both the most qualified and has a popular "mandate") with a points-based system. If you have more points than the other candidates competing for your job, you win. Meritocracy must have some democratic concepts in its implementation, otherwise it's just Metternich-style absolutism again. And we all know how that ended.I still have no idea how this weird examination electoral system works. How can the results be influenced by public opinion if everyone is chosen based on merit? Let's be honest, most people base their political leanings on frivolous things, not skill. That's why so many politicians are idiots or downright crazy.
I see jingoism is up there with laissez-faire in the rigged polls category.
And free trade, too, though not "rigged" as bigly. SAD!
Absolutely loved the overview of the 1940's. The level of worldbuilding you go into never fails to impress me. Literature, music and film getting their fair share of attention is nice.
Your various political parties always keep things exciting for your ruler. At least nothing's reach 'civil war' levels yet.
Your various political parties always keep things exciting for your ruler. At least nothing's reach 'civil war' levels yet.
Just trying to make this world as realistic as I can. I really want people to understand what it is like to live in this world and empathize with its inhabitants.
Plot twist, Scheel is secretly Angelos in disguise!
No one proved that Adenauer isn't an equalist spy, this elections winner could be Molotov.
Can i ask you how do the various parties choose their candidates? There are internal examinations?
now it's only a matter of waiting until they take the right to choose the Kaiser (or make the position of BoQ director the new highest position in the country) and they'll have achieved the utmost control over the Reich.
Can i ask you how do the various parties choose their candidates? There are internal examinations?
That means that the BoQ is more powerful than the Kaiser itself
now it's only a matter of waiting until they take the right to choose the Kaiser (or make the position of BoQ director the new highest position in the country) and they'll have achieved the utmost control over the Reich.
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Plot twist, he is Molotov! Which means this examination has just been Angelos vs Molotov 2.0 all along!No one proved that Adenauer isn't an equalist spy, this elections winner could be Molotov.
Can i ask you how do the various parties choose their candidates? There are internal examinations?
That means that the BoQ is more powerful than the Kaiser itself
Each party chooses their candidate for chancellor through internal consensus on who is the most experienced and qualified (technically an election). Each candidate for candidate is screened by an observer from the BoQ to see if they meet basic requirements. For Diet representatives and senators, civilians just apply at their local office and compete against other candidates from their district/Lander, with the candidate with the most points winning the seat.
No, the Kaiser just doesn't want to directly interfere in the meritocratic process, as it would cause confusion and accusations of tyranny. Theoretically, he could interfere if he wanted to. He has a seat on the senior leadership of the BoQ, casts the tiebreaking points if necessary, can endorse candidates without any spending limits (unlike big corporations), and through his existence as a monarch sets a standard for what counts as "qualifying" and provides for a clean transition of power between chancellors and their governments (meaning a monarchy as a stabilizing force is essential for a meritocratic system to remain practical). But he doesn't use his powers to interfere to respect the meritocratic traditions of the Reich, even though he reserves the right to in emergencies (if the BoQ's standards are compromised or if a demagogue/radical is about to be appointed).