1872-1874 – Spiros: The Infallibility of Constitution-mongering
Described by one of the Vienna dailies as “the worst decision made in European politics since Caesar’s trip to the Senate on the Ides of March”, the Supreme Court’s decision to suspend the old constitution pending the Convention of 1872 made it, arguably, the most embattled institution in the Federation. Two days later after this particular article in the famously militant Morning Herald, all seven justices resigned in disgrace after restoring the old constitution in full. [1] Indeed, though the official release of these powers later had to be affirmed by the successors to the ‘Sinister Seven’, as they were readily dubbed by the tabloid press, their policy of political neutrality before and during the conference can only be described as an abject failure. It is a popular idiom to suggest that a particular act was the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’. [2] In this case though, the camel (that is the Supreme Court’s decision to suspend the constitution) was certainly weak in the first place, was under constant attack from nearby enemies (the court’s critics in the press and elsewhere) and was already under a heavy strain (the increasing militancy of a population not entirely under control as the political pressure was ramped up and the government was more-or-less powerless to act). Moreover, the straw was less like a wheat-stalk placed delicately on the camel’s back and more like an industrial girder dropped from 100 ft onto the camel’s head – the Venetian Secession Crisis threatened to bring war both internally and externally to the Federation. As a direct result, the Sinister Seven left and constitutional rule was restored.
The Venetian Succession Crisis itself only came about as the result of a series of curious events in the city of Durres. The Venetian Quarter of the Albanian municipality of Durres, the only enclave of the Serene Republic to survive the many crises that chopped up the former Venetian territories, pronounced itself the direct successor to the state of old. With the Dukes of Candia removed in favour of an elected republic,[3] Trieste an independent city, the Illyrians established in total control over Istria and the mainland state first overthrown by revolution to become the state of San Marco before being incorporated into Cisalpina, only a handful of these Venetian territories remained. In the waterways of the city itself, the opportunity was seized to rid the city of rule from Milan; something the famously proud city-folk could bear a good deal less than their land-dwelling cousins. The city’s Council, in a fit of national pride, issued a similar declaration, and followed it within hours by a full constitution for the new republic, which would wash away the elitist throes of yore. Though the Venetian territories in Albania were swiftly handed over to the state’s government, [4] similar enclaves in the Cretan cities of Iraklion and Chania elected to join the new republic, in the process giving the new state the largest end-to-end distance despite having the smallest area. For the Cisalpine government, however, this unilateral secession was nothing more than rebellion. Though the local elections a short time before had been dominated by anti-Cisalpine rhetoric, little information reached Milan. It took two conferences and an intervention by the Federal government to avert a civil war that could surely have ended in utter destruction for the Venice. Despite this threat, the Belvedere accords must stand as one of the greatest feats of diplomatic triumph in the face of a weak hand. The Cisalpine concession of total independence for the city, backed up by the passage of the Cisalpine Partition Act through the state’s legislature, marked complete triumph for the Venetians. For President Vertucci, back in Milan, the tensions had sundered his state against his will and now, thanks to the treachery of certain members of his government and the existence a letter written in a fit of rage, the Italian King was demanding the transfer of Cisalpina into Italian hands. Many historians speculate that, had violence actual broken out in the state, the Italian army would have moved in to restore order and have simply never left – this was certainly the tactic employed by the Cisalpine Militia against the city of Trieste, which regained its independence only because the crisis left the state in want of troops. Indeed, an all out diplomatic crisis was only averted after the Vertucci offered the Italian King a referendum and Spiros offered the Italian King federal assistance in reclaiming Sardinia, the only part of the Italian nation that continued to resist Umberto’s rule. In July, even before the constitutional convention was over, the Danubian Expeditionary Force landed on the island’s south coast and routed the rebel forces for a loss of but a few hundred men. They remained on the island to assist with the restoration of order, but the whole operation was over by September. The referendum was held in October, and somewhat unsurprisingly showed that the people of Cisalpina wished to stay in the Federation. The big problem, which only added to the list of sticking points that were building up between the two nations, already ranging from the Federation’s claims to the entirety of the Adriatic Sea to the continued Danubian recognition of the papacy as an sovereign nation, was that Lombardia actually supported the transfer, but was prevented from by the international agreement that mandated the referendum. Venice received its statehood on 11th November 1872, but thanks to the new constitution was only admitted as a city state, on a par with Trieste.
2. The signing of the Belvedere Accord. The infamous letter is thought to be visible on the desk.
Despite all this, the Constitutional Convention of 1872 was generally regarded as a success. Out went some of the less popular institutions of the state, such as the Electoral College, and in came a raft of new measures intended to increase participation in the affairs of the state. Indeed, popular perception heralded it as the solution to the problems the state had faced over the previous 25 years, from monarchies to states rights and beyond. Certain areas of the constitution did indeed require the immediate attention of the Federal Constitutional Court, with the most notable being the case brought by Tunisia, Suez, Melilla and Cyprus against the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was attempting to exercise its right to appoint the Governor-Generals of Federal Colonies by confirming the appointments made when the posts were responsible to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Finding that there was no enumerated position for these existing colonies, the court ruled that they would have to fit into the two categories of state mandated for territory gained after 1872, and further to this, that as they were gained through war rather than colonisation, these areas had to be regarded as territories rather than colonies. The resulting grant of autonomy was massive and had a great effect upon the governance of these former-colonies, not least because it changed the criteria under which a petition for statehood could be made; only two years later, all four launched petitions for statehood with the support of, on average, 92% of the population. [5] In the poorer areas of the states themselves, however, it was not the legal difficulties of existing and would be states that held the attention of the masses – instead, two clauses snuck into the Charter of Rights of the Citizen at the last minute, entitling all “to receive free public education from the state” and “to receive benefits, subsidies, and welfare from the state as necessary to preserve their dignity and quality of life” proved to be Godsends for trade unionists and the radical left. The direct effect of which was to increase the desire of the population for the social reforms they now felt were legally mandated.
Internationally, the world over the next two years remained more or less at peace, with a few minor wars here and there but none involving Great Powers. The only war of note from a Federal perspective was the Greek attempt to transfer control of part of the Black Sea coastline from Bulgar hands into Wallachian ones; a war that proved the Greek King as vainglorious as he was foolhardy. Faced with popular dissatisfaction, quelled only temporarily by his successes in Berlin, the King was now attempting to bolster his support at home with martial success; however, the war, which would transfer a small amount of territory from a Russian sphereling to a Russian sphereling and which was driving the state to the brink of (and in all likelihood into) bankruptcy, can hardly be said to be a good idea. In America, a new concept in military thinking, whereby all of a state’s resources were committed to all out conflict should there be more than one Great Power among the massed ranks of the enemy, meant that the era of the Great Wars had began. All the while, despite the best efforts of the Foreign Ministry, the other Great Powers of Europe remained hostile to the Federation which, combined with the continuation of the complication an empowered Bavaria added to Southern Germany, meant no diplomatic successes could really be reported.
Domestically, the foundation and extraordinary rise of the Temperance League in Danubian politics made its mark on the Federation, as did a massive outbreak of Smallpox in Romania a year earlier, contained only with a generous supply of funds from both Federal and State governments, both of which helped make increasingly public the plight of the poor and both arguably empowering those moralist and pluralist groups who began to make a fight back against the long-time secularist attitudes of the elites. The rise of separatist ideologies, meanwhile, prevented the unionist elements within the Galician state from keeping her intact held on the same day as the first mid-term elections, with just under 60% of the votes in favour of the split. The Galician state was thus dissolved, just as it sent its delegates to Vienna. Thankfully for the lawyers who seemed to face the task of working out what to do with the vacated seats and what to do should the states be readmitted, a bill was hastily passed enabling the candidates already elected to remain in office until the end of their term, conditional upon the admission of both halves of the former state. Both Lodomeria and the rump province of Galicia petitioned for statehood within a month, meaning there was by this point a record number (6) of regions applying for statehood concurrently. Indeed, the midterms proved largely positive for the President, in spite the dissolution of one of the more favourable states. The new electoral rules, along with the President’s general popularity, meant that the Radical Union made gains and became the largest party by far in both houses, if short of a majority. This success was particularly marked in the President’s home state of Crete, where Radical Union members took every seat contested. The Danubian Patriotic Union, meanwhile, having long surpassed their rivals on the right, the All-Danubian Conservative Party, in Presidential Elections, finally took more seats than its older cousin in both houses, even if this advantage was lost with Galicia: many thinkers ascribe this success to the popularity of the convention’s initiator General Symon Revenjo, who finally gave the movement the critical mass to perform on a local level.
3. The results of the midterm elections, 1874, showing the electoral map (top) and the make up of the Assembly (bottom right) and the Council (bottom left). The parties represented are, in order clockwise in the diagrams showing the two houses; Socialist Party, Radical Union, Republican Alliance, Federal Democratic Party, All-Danubian Conservative Party, Danubian Patriotic Union, Independent/Other - colourings are consistent.
Perhaps the most interesting turn up for the books was the domination of the city of Venice by a minor party called the “League for the Freedom of Trade”. The League was interesting both because it was totally incorrectly named, being in favour of protectionist policies, and because it was the only party which openly endorsed colonialism in the African continent. Though it did field candidates from other cities, the long Venetian tradition of colonial power provided the perfect place to foster a new breed of colonialism into the ‘Dark Continent’. In December of 1872, after new advances in science and technology made it increasingly feasible to tame the wilds of Africa, the Adriatic and African Company was formed and proceeded in attempting to form a Federal colony in West Morocco largely independently of the state, relying on public shares and subscriptions in a similar fashion to the Adriatic Trading Company which had caused so much trouble not so long before. Indeed, the ATC’s direct descendant, the majority state-owned Suez Canal Company who employed around 90% of the workforce of the Canal Zone, launched their own initiative to establish colonies in Somalia and Djibouti. The most successful attempt, however, to expand the Federation’s borders, and certainly the quickest, was that made by the Bey of Tunisia into the Algerian desert. With the assistance of the Tunisian Royal Guard, it proved possible for the Tunisians to establish the colony properly just weeks after the midterm elections, though to the disappointment of the Bey, it was constitutionally not allowed to be incorporated into the territory as it was deemed to be a Federal Colony – the formal pronouncement of the colony in late February made the colony of Algeria the first of what many in the Federation clearly hoped would be many. The colony itself sparked a crisis that legitimised an invasion of the uncivilised nation of Algeria, but events elsewhere were also moving to enable the colonisation of Africa: the Bey of Tunisia declared that the Royal Guard would be officially aiding the colonisation of the West African Coast and the Suez Canal Company officially petitioned the Ministry of War to transport the Suez Guard to Somalia to assist with preparations there, while the Adriatic and African Company included the Mauritanian coast in their civilisation efforts and missions to Senegal and Guinea were established by the West African Company (based in Melilla) and the Federal Trading Corporation (based in Vienna). Between them these four companies formed the next wave of European colonisation of Africa, but one could be sure that the rest of the continent would not be far behind.
4. The Headquarters of the Federal Trading Corperation, which was already a major player in European trade by 1874 (picture taken 1929).
[1] Interestingly, the following day, the Morning Herald chose to run the headline, “Supreme Court Disgrace Nation” regretting how they had bowed out in the face of undue criticism.
[2] The editors wish to give an unreserved apology for the following analogy, which is shoddily written, confusing, unnecessary and far too long: the author, meanwhile, doesn’t care.
[3]The Supreme Court, however, would later find that the new republic was not democratic enough to comply with the constitution, forcing changes to again be made to the city’s constitution.
[4] In any event, the vast majority of citizens in the Venetian Quarter at Durres simply sold up and left for Venice, so securing Albanian control of the city was no difficulty.
[5] In the case of Tunisia, this only came following a case in the Supreme Court, where it was established that the monarchy there, having existed at the start of the convention, could continue under the same terms as those in the Federation proper, though this case was not without controversy, as the wording of the clause in question did not make entirely clear whether the continuation of the monarchy in such a state required it to have been a state of the Federation at the start of the convention. Sadly, though this ruling when in Tunisian's favour, the stone cold fact remained that only Republics could be admitted to the Federation. The Tunisian appliaction was thus rejected.
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Ok. Please vote on the inclusion of Melilla, Cyprus, Suez, Tunisia, Galicia and Lodomeria as states in the Federation. Remember to include your state with your ballot if you want to ensure it is counted - Galicians are currently disenfranchised. The deadline shall be Saturday 11th at 6pm GMT.
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