By the Ballot: An Elective Succession Game
- Thread starter Tabanese
- Start date
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Concerned? Fighting wars is concerning, torture is concerning, unemployment and poverty is concerning but since when has the fact that something is concerning stopped it occasional being required. Dragons and mental health may unnerve you but right now, I am not the hero Tuscany deserves but the one it needs!
Also, la vote is in.
Tabanese was voted for by Tabanese, Vidmizz, Andre Massena, 1anrs and thawitchking.
Panzer Commander was voted for by Panzer Commander.
KingofEurope was voted for by KingofEurope.
The herald shall declare "'Ere be Dragons" for Et Fridianus rules once again.
Victor Tabanese.
Also, la vote is in.
Tabanese was voted for by Tabanese, Vidmizz, Andre Massena, 1anrs and thawitchking.
Panzer Commander was voted for by Panzer Commander.
KingofEurope was voted for by KingofEurope.
The herald shall declare "'Ere be Dragons" for Et Fridianus rules once again.
Victor Tabanese.
With the disappearance of expected replacement and his foreign relative attempting to take over, Et Fridianus stepped in and, while issuing secret orders, placed the diplomatic representative to Ulm in the seat of power. Taken away from his obscure office and placed in the limelight, Alberto Chigi sought to do as little damage as possible. His caution and lack of skill didn't go unobserved and his cabinet, veterans of the previous regime, took the reins in the initial years.
Inflation stood at 12% and was threatening to drive up unemployment as well; a rare but deathly combination. Et Fridianus, given their roots, had a great stake in the market and as such, Chigi was recommended to look into the problem. Thankfully, he could rely on Francesco Rivani for guidance and the two worked on a long-term plan of fiscal reform.
However, peace was yet to be secured. Urbinese nationalists rose up in Ancona, demanding the right to have a powerful king lead them. Chigi ordered the army to prepare for the conflict, stressing the discipline of troops when not engaged in conflict. This special preparation and drill took time but nevertheless the army arrived to put down the rebellion. The behaviour of the troops following the fighting help to ease tension and convince the locals to give democratic models a chance. This sensitivity, the hallmark of a good diplomat, won Chigi praise and recognition. This gave him a measure of importance and independence within Et Fridianus circles.
With tensions low and Chigi's popularity high, he was able to get a budget designed to emphasis education pushed passed. The extra funding was directed towards meritocratic spot prizes and contests for the solution to social problems facing the Tuscan nation. The spirit of competition invigorated the nation. In order to fully secure these new ideas, lords were bribed with horses and steel into supporting peasant inclusion in education if they proved capable. This particular move was Rivani's personal solution to the inflation problem. The rewards giving to the lords had being over-valued by Et Fridianus smiths and horse-masters. By paying for the goods with public money and then returning the good into circulation, Rivani dramatically lowered the money in circulation, while avoiding having to cut public expenditure. This reform dealt a serious blow to inflation in the country. This was praised publicly. It also gave Et Fridianus a private fund to dominate the black markets of both Tuscany and abroad. This was praised privately.
However, shady deals can only solve so much. One must address the system. Chigi looked to the Venetian markets. Shunning the traditional mercantilism of the Tuscans, he proposed to Rivani some ideas he experienced while in Ulm from an Aachen diplomat. Subsidising many of the wealthiest patrons in the country, he pushed them to saturate the market, buying up as much labour as possible. This caused unemployment to rise in Tuscany, driving wages down, which Chigi encouraged as it lowered prices and therefore broke inflation even more. When he achieved a stranglehold on the center of trade, Chigi signed a pact with the Venetian government. The pact brought Tuscany into the Venetian trade league. With the homeland merchants unable to compete, Chigi was confident that Tuscan dominance would remain without much oversight.
Lastly, rewards and education paid dividend in the form of Tuscany's first National Bank. With centralised control over the nations coffers and money supply, the country gain the flexibility to both deal effectively with inflation and other threats. The following years saw a shift from governmental reform to trade innovation as Venice became more and more important. The budget was balanced as evenly as possible, permitting only the slightest growth in government reserves and resisting further minting.
Did You Know?
Yaroslavi was once the most influential kingdom in the Curia. It had twice as many cardinals, rivalled only by Tuscany.
With inflation down by almost 3% since taking control, Chigi was anticipating a easy re-election. As such, when Tuscany was dragged into a war with the neighbouring sea power of Aragon, Chigi was not pleased. Allied with Sweden, he instructed the nobles that he would personally lead a campaign to the island of Sardinia, to take it. Meanwhile, they would defend the homeland and her vassals. The war in the north yielded to Swedish forces, resulting in the subjection of Leinster and Cornwal. However, in the south, Aragon had a significant sea advantage. Though landed battles went in the favour of the Tuscan people, they were denied passage among the waves and the eventual outmanoeuvring left Pisa under attack. Furthermore, using the distraction of the war, many of the wealthy men operating in Venice renounced their citizenship and joined the merchant republic, stealing capital and trade from the nation. A week before the end of Chigi term, him absent from his own re-election campaign, the situation for Tuscan looks despairing.
Did You Know?
The Irish conquered Corsica before their King capitulated, turning the warriors from victors to defeated without a cannon shot.
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So, yeah...I tackled inflation and then got tackled by war. I didn't understand how poor our navy was until it was too late and, though I was winning fights at sea towards the end of term, the ships are currently caught off the coast of Sardinia in a fight they will lose. Our forces are split between Sardinia and Sicily, while Sweden conquers Holland to the north. It is far from hopeless and we can always raise more troops but the next time we get peace, I might advocate a ship-building program instead of deflation.
My save: Here
Election time:
The deadline is the 2nd of August 20:00 GMT.
The categories are Slider and Election.
I will accept proposal of new categories (new votes) until the 31st of July 20:00 GMT. Such proposals will share the election category deadline.
I've got to check how free I shall be in three days but I likely will run again.
Good to see inflation got lowered but it seems like all that work will go to naught with this war.
It is tempting to vote for Chigi again, but he does not seem like a war-time prince
Perhaps Sweden can break Aragon's naval stronghold.
It is tempting to vote for Chigi again, but he does not seem like a war-time prince
Perhaps Sweden can break Aragon's naval stronghold.
I've talked with my friends in Aragon and they say they are willing to make peace if we admit defeat.
I say we admit defeat it is better to lose our pride than to let our nation fall into a even worse state.
I say we admit defeat it is better to lose our pride than to let our nation fall into a even worse state.
Last edited:
Deflation is good and a gentle hand with the peasants to win over them and not just suppress them is excellent - all meets my approval so far. OK, the war isn't great but I don't think it is necessarily catastrophic. Well done Tabanese.
I will await to see the candidates before voting
I will await to see the candidates before voting
Otto von Estonie, walks furiously around his office. " This Chigi bastard, totally incapable of running a nation like Tuscany. Oh mighty Tuscany, how could i ever help you. Thats it, I must go and bring myself as the supreme Ruler , the most suitable of ones, yes, it shall be me, Saviour of Tuscany, King of Tuscany, no, not a king, a Hero. I will always be remembered in books of history, i shall erase the name of Chigi from the books." Walks out of the office to the streets of wartime Florence.
Election: Otto von Estonie (Kingofeurope)
Election: Otto von Estonie (Kingofeurope)
Agreed. Sardinia will be I possible unless the Swedish navy rescues us.
Only nine weeks ago I stood in this place to post my mini-AAR on the 8th anniversary of the seizure of power, and to speak to you and to the Tuscan people. The crisis we now face on the Western Front was at its height. In the midst of the hard misfortunes the nation faced in the battle of Rome, we gathered together in a mass meeting on the 30th of January to display our unity, our unanimity and our strong will to overcome the difficulties we faced in the eighteenth year of the war.
It was a moving experience for me, and probably also for all of you, to witness the last heroic fighters in Rome during our powerful meeting here in the Paradox Palace. They radioed to us that they had heard the Lady’s orders, and perhaps for the last time in their lives joined us in raising their hands to sing the national anthems. What an example Tuscan soldiers have set in this great age! And what an obligation it puts on us all, particularly the entire Italian homeland! Rome was and is fate’s great alarm call to the Italian nation! A nation that has the strength to survive and overcome such a disaster, even to draw from it additional strength, is unbeatable. In my speech to you and the Italian people, I shall remember the heroes of Rome, who put me and all of us under a deep obligation.
I do not know how many millions of people are listening to me over the forums tonight, at home and at the front. I want to speak to all of you from the depths of my heart to the depths of yours. I believe that the entire Italian people has a passionate interest in what I have to say tonight. I will therefore speak with holy seriousness and openness, as the hour demands. The Italian people, raised, educated and disciplined by National Socialism, can bear the whole truth. It knows the gravity of the situation, and its leadership can therefore demand the necessary hard measures, yes even the hardest measures. We Italians are armed against weakness and uncertainty. The blows and misfortunes of the war only give us additional strength, firm resolve, and a spiritual and fighting will to overcome all difficulties and obstacles with revolutionary élan.
Now is not the time to ask how it all happened. That can wait until later, when the German people and the whole world will learn the full truth about the misfortune of the past years, and its deep and fateful significance. The heroic sacrifices of heroism of our soldiers in the Ligurian sea has had vast historical significance for the whole Western Front. It was not in vain. The future will make clear why.
When I jump over the past to look ahead, I do it intentionally. The time is short! There is no time for fruitless debates. We must act, immediately, thoroughly, and decisively, as has always been the National Socialist way.
The movement has from its beginning acted in that way to master the many crises it faced and overcame. The National Socialist state also acted decisively when faced by a threat. We are not like the ostrich that sticks its head in the sand so as not to see danger. We are brave enough to look danger in the face, to coolly and ruthlessly take its measure, then act decisively with our heads held high. Both as a movement and as a nation, we have always been at our best when we needed fanatic, determined wills to overcome and eliminate danger, or a strength of character sufficient to overcome every obstacle, or bitter determination to reach our goal, or an iron heart capable of withstanding every internal and external battle. So it will be today. My task is to give you an unvarnished picture of the situation, and to draw the hard conclusions that will guide the actions of the Italian government, but also of the Italian people.
We face a serious military challenge in the West. The crisis is at the moment a broad one, similar but not identical in many ways to that of the previous war. Later we will discuss the causes. Now, we must accept things as they are and discover and apply the ways and means to turn things again in our favor. There is no point in disputing the seriousness of the situation. I do not want to give you a false impression of the situation that could lead to false conclusions, perhaps giving the Italian people a false sense of security that is altogether inappropriate in the present situation.
The storm raging against our venerable continent from the steppes this winter overshadows all previous human and historical experience. The Italian army and its allies are the only possible defense. In his proclamation on 1 August, the Lady asked in a grave and compelling way what would have become of Italy and Europe if, on the first of June 2014, Vidmizz' or Tabanese's government had taken power instead of the National Socialists! What dangers would have followed, faster than we could then have suspected, and what powers of defense would we have had to meet them? Eight years of National Socialism have been enough to make plain to the Italian people the seriousness of the danger posed by Aragon from the West. Now one can understand why we spoke so often of war in our election campaign posts. We raised our voices in warning to our Italian people and the world, hoping to awaken Western humanity from the paralysis of will and spirit into which it had fallen. We tried to open their eyes to the horrible danger from Western Aragon, which had subjected a nation of nearly 200 million people to the terror of the Jews and was preparing an aggressive war against Europe.
When the Lady ordered the building of more regiments on the 3rd of June, we all knew that this would be the decisive battle of this great struggle. We knew the dangers and difficulties. But we also knew that dangers and difficulties always grow over time, they never diminish. It was two minutes before midnight. Waiting any longer could easily have led to the destruction of the Reich and a total Aragonization of the European continent.
It is understandable that, as a result of broad concealment and misleading actions by the Aragonese government, we did not properly evaluate the Iberian Union’s war potential. Only now do we see its true scale. That is why the battle our soldiers face in the West exceeds in its hardness, dangers and difficulties all human imagining. It demands our full national strength. This is a threat to the Reich and to the European continent that casts all previous dangers into the shadows. If we fail, we will have failed our historic mission. Everything we have built and done in the past pales in the face of this gigantic task that the Italian army directly and the Italian people less directly face.
I speak first to the world, and proclaim three theses regarding our fight against the Aragonese danger in the West.
This first thesis: Were the Italian army not in a position to break the danger from the West, the Reich would fall to Aragon, and all Europe shortly afterwards.
Second: The Italian army, the Italian people and their allies alone have the strength to save Europe from this threat.
Third: Danger faces us. We must act quickly and decisively, or it will be too late.
I turn to the first thesis. Aragon has always proclaimed its goal openly: to bring revolution not only to Europe, but to the entire world, and plunge it into Aragonese chaos. This goal has been evident from the beginning of the Bolshevist Iberian Union, and has been the ideological and practical goal of Madrid’s policies. Clearly, the nearer Franco and the other Aragonese leaders believe they are to realizing their world-destroying objectives, the more they attempt to hide and conceal them. We cannot be fooled. We are not like those timid souls who wait like the hypnotized rabbit until the serpent devours them. We prefer to recognize the danger in good time and take effective action. We see through not only the ideology of Bolshevism, but also its practice, for we had great success with that in our domestic struggles. Madrid cannot deceive us. We had sixteen years of our struggle for power, and eight years thereafter, to unmask its intentions and its infamous deceptions.
The goal of Bolshevism is Aragonese world revolution. They want to bring chaos to the Reich and Europe, using the resulting hopelessness and desperation to establish their international, Bolshevist-concealed capitalist tyranny.
I do not need to say what that would mean for the Italian people. A Bolshevization of the Reich would mean the liquidation of our entire intelligentsia and leadership, and the descent of our workers into Bolshevist-Aragonese slavery. In Madrid, they find workers for forced labor battalions in the North-African desert, as the Führer said in his proclamation on 1st of June. The revolt of the steppes is readying itself at the front, and the storm from the West that breaks against our lines daily in increasing strength is nothing other than a repetition of the historical devastation that has so often in the past endangered our part of the world.
That is a direct threat to the existence of every European power. No one should believe that Bolshevism would stop at the borders of the Reich, were it to be victorious. The goal of its aggressive policies and wars is the Bolshevization of every land and people in the world. In the face of such undeniable intentions, we are not impressed by paper declarations from Madrid or guarantees from London or Paris. We know that we are dealing in the West with an infernal political devilishness that does not recognize the norms governing relations between people and nations. When for example the English Lord KingofEurope says that Europe must be given over to the Aragonese or when the leading French Aragonese journalist Vidmizz cynically adds that a Bolshevization of Europe might solve all of the continent’s problems, we know what they have in mind. The European powers are facing the most critical question. The West is in danger. It makes no difference whether or not their governments and intellectuals realize it or not.
The Italian people, in any event, is unwilling to bow to this danger. Behind the oncoming Bolshevik divisions we see the Aragonese liquidation commandos, and behind them terror, the specter of mass starvation and complete anarchy. International Aragonesery is the devilish ferment of decomposition that finds cynical satisfaction in plunging the world into the deepest chaos and destroying ancient cultures that it played no role in building.
We also know our historic responsibility. Two thousand years of Western civilization are in danger. One cannot overestimate the danger. It is indicative that when one names it as it is, International Aragonesery throughout the world protests loudly. Things have gone so far in Europe that one cannot call a danger a danger when it is caused by the Aragonese.
The Italian nation knows that. Its healthy instincts have led it through the daily confusion of intellectual and spiritual difficulties. We know today that the alliance with France and the campaign against the English have only limited significance to the battle in the West. The Italian nation is fighting for everything it has. We know that the Italian people are defending their holiest possessions: their families, women and children, the beautiful and untouched countryside, their cities and villages, their two thousand year old culture, everything indeed that makes life worth living.
Bolshevism of course has not the slightest appreciation for our nation’s treasures, and would take no heed of them whatsoever if it came to that. It did not do so even for its own people. The Iberian Union over the last 25 years built up Bolshevism’s military potential to an unimaginable degree, and one we falsely evaluated. Terrorist Aragonesery had 9999999 people to serve it in Sardinia. It cynically used its methods on to create out of the stolid toughness of the Sardinian people a grave danger for the civilized nations of Europe. A whole island in the West was driven to battle. Men, women, and even children are employed not only in armaments factories, but in the war itself. 200 million live under the terror of the APU, partially captives of a devilish viewpoint, partially of absolute stupidity. The masses of ships we have faced on the Western Front are the result of 25 years of social misfortune and misery of the Bolshevist people. We have to respond with similar measures if we do not want to give up the game as lost.
My firm conviction is that we cannot overcome the Bolshevist danger unless we use equivalent, though not identical, methods. The Italian people face the gravest demand of the war, namely of finding the determination to use all our resources to protect everything we have and everything we will need in the future.
Total war is the demand of the hour. We must put an end to the bourgeois attitude that we have also seen in this war: Wash my back, but don’t get me wet! (Every sentence is met with growing applause and agreement.) The danger facing us is enormous. The efforts we take to meet it must be just as enormous. The time has come to remove the kid gloves and use our fists. (A cry of elemental agreement rises. Chants from the galleries and seats testify to the full approval of the crowd.) We can no longer make only partial and careless use of the war potential at home and in the significant parts of Italy that we control. We must use our full resources, as quickly and thoroughly as it is organizationally and practically possible. Unnecessary concern is wholly out of place. The future of the game hangs on our success in the West. We are ready to defend it. The leading De Lucintas people are shedding their most valuable national blood in this battle. The rest of the electors should at least work to support us. There are many serious voices in here that have already realized this. Others still resist. That cannot influence us. If danger faced them alone, we could view their reluctance as literary nonsense of no significance. But the danger faces us all, and we must all do our share. Those who today do not understand that will thank us tomorrow on bended knees that we courageously and firmly took on the task.
The front shares our desires. The entire Italian people agrees passionately. It is no longer willing to put up with efforts that only waste time and resources. It will not put up with complicated questionnaires on every possible issue. It does not want to worry about a thousand minor matters that may have been important in peace, but are entirely unimportant during war. It also does not need to be constantly reminded of its duty by references to the great sacrifices of our ships in the Ligurian sea. It knows what it has to do. It wants everyone, high and low, rich and poor, to share a spartan life style. The Lady gives us all an example, one that must be followed by everyone. She knows only work and care. We do not want to leave it all to her, but rather we want to take that part of it from her which we are able to bear.
The present day has a remarkable resemblance for every genuine National Socialist to the period of struggle. We have always acted in the same way. We were with the people through thick and thin, and that is why the people followed us. We have always carried our burdens together with the people, and therefore they did not seem heavy to us, but rather light. The people want to be led. Never in history has the people failed a brave and determined leadership a critical hour.
To make the truth plain, however, my Italian comrades, I want to ask you a series of questions. I want you to answer them to the best of your knowledge, according to your conscience. When my audience cheered on 1st of June, a political opponent and competitor reported the next day that it was all a propaganda show that did not represent the true opinion of the Italian people. I have invited to today’s meeting a cross-section of the Italian people in the best sense of the word. In front of me are rows of wounded Italian soldiers from the Western Front, missing legs and arms, with wounded bodies, those who have lost their sight, those who have come with nurses, men in the blush of youth who stand with crutches. Among them are 50 who bear the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, shining examples of our fighting front. Behind them are armaments workers from Rome Naval Equipment factories. Behind them are party officials, soldiers from the fighting army, doctors, scientists, artists, engineers and architects, teachers, officials and employees from offices, proud representatives of every area of our intellectual life that even in the midst of war produce miracles of human genius. Throughout the Sportpalast I see thousands of Italian women. The youth is here, as are the aged. No class, no occupation, no age remained uninvited. I can rightly say that before me is gathered a representative sample of the Italian population, both from the homeland and the front. Is that true? Yes or no? You, my hearers, at this moment represent the whole nation. I wish to ask you eleven questions that you will answer for the Italian people throughout the world, but especially for our enemies, who are reading this post.
The English maintain that the German people has lost faith in victory.
I ask you: Do you believe with the Lady and us in the final total victory of the Italian people?
I ask you: Are you resolved to follow the Lady through thick and thin to victory, and are you willing to accept the heaviest personal burdens?
Second, The English say that the German people are tired of fighting.
I ask you: Are you ready to follow the Lady as the phalanx of the homeland, standing behind the fighting army and to wage war with wild determination through all the turns of fate until victory is ours?
Third: The English maintain that the Italian people have no desire any longer to accept the government’s growing demands for war work.
I ask you: Are you and the Italian people willing to work, if the Lady orders, 10, 12 and if necessary 14 hours a day and to give everything for victory?
Fourth: The English maintain that the Italian people is resisting the government’s total war measures. It does not want total war, but capitulation!
I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?
Fifth: The English maintain that the Italian people have lost faith in the Lady.
I ask you: Is your confidence in the Lady greater, more faithful and more unshakable than ever before? Are you absolutely and completely ready to follow her wherever she goes and do all that is necessary to bring the war to a victorious end?
Sixth, I ask you: Are you ready from now on to give your full strength to provide the Western Front with the men and munitions it needs to give Bolshevism the death blow?
Seventh, I ask you: Do you take a holy oath to the front that the homeland stands firm behind them, and that you will give them everything they need to win the victory?
Eighth, I ask you: Do you, especially you women, want the government to do all it can to encourage Italian women to put their full strength at work to support the war effort, and to release men for the front whenever possible, thereby helping the men at the front?
Ninth, I ask you: Do you approve, if necessary, the most radical measures against a small group of shirkers and black marketers who pretend there is peace in the middle of war and use the need of the nation for their own selfish purposes? Do you agree that those who harm the war effort should lose their heads?
Tenth, I ask you: Do you agree that above all in war, according to the National Socialist Party platform, the same rights and duties should apply to all, that the homeland should bear the heavy burdens of the war together, and that the burdens should be shared equally between high and low and rich and poor?
Eleventh and last, I ask you: Are you ready to VOTE PANZER FOR VICTORY?
Now, people rise up and let the storm break loose!
(The minister’s final words were lost in unending stormy applause)
It was a moving experience for me, and probably also for all of you, to witness the last heroic fighters in Rome during our powerful meeting here in the Paradox Palace. They radioed to us that they had heard the Lady’s orders, and perhaps for the last time in their lives joined us in raising their hands to sing the national anthems. What an example Tuscan soldiers have set in this great age! And what an obligation it puts on us all, particularly the entire Italian homeland! Rome was and is fate’s great alarm call to the Italian nation! A nation that has the strength to survive and overcome such a disaster, even to draw from it additional strength, is unbeatable. In my speech to you and the Italian people, I shall remember the heroes of Rome, who put me and all of us under a deep obligation.
I do not know how many millions of people are listening to me over the forums tonight, at home and at the front. I want to speak to all of you from the depths of my heart to the depths of yours. I believe that the entire Italian people has a passionate interest in what I have to say tonight. I will therefore speak with holy seriousness and openness, as the hour demands. The Italian people, raised, educated and disciplined by National Socialism, can bear the whole truth. It knows the gravity of the situation, and its leadership can therefore demand the necessary hard measures, yes even the hardest measures. We Italians are armed against weakness and uncertainty. The blows and misfortunes of the war only give us additional strength, firm resolve, and a spiritual and fighting will to overcome all difficulties and obstacles with revolutionary élan.
Now is not the time to ask how it all happened. That can wait until later, when the German people and the whole world will learn the full truth about the misfortune of the past years, and its deep and fateful significance. The heroic sacrifices of heroism of our soldiers in the Ligurian sea has had vast historical significance for the whole Western Front. It was not in vain. The future will make clear why.
When I jump over the past to look ahead, I do it intentionally. The time is short! There is no time for fruitless debates. We must act, immediately, thoroughly, and decisively, as has always been the National Socialist way.
The movement has from its beginning acted in that way to master the many crises it faced and overcame. The National Socialist state also acted decisively when faced by a threat. We are not like the ostrich that sticks its head in the sand so as not to see danger. We are brave enough to look danger in the face, to coolly and ruthlessly take its measure, then act decisively with our heads held high. Both as a movement and as a nation, we have always been at our best when we needed fanatic, determined wills to overcome and eliminate danger, or a strength of character sufficient to overcome every obstacle, or bitter determination to reach our goal, or an iron heart capable of withstanding every internal and external battle. So it will be today. My task is to give you an unvarnished picture of the situation, and to draw the hard conclusions that will guide the actions of the Italian government, but also of the Italian people.
We face a serious military challenge in the West. The crisis is at the moment a broad one, similar but not identical in many ways to that of the previous war. Later we will discuss the causes. Now, we must accept things as they are and discover and apply the ways and means to turn things again in our favor. There is no point in disputing the seriousness of the situation. I do not want to give you a false impression of the situation that could lead to false conclusions, perhaps giving the Italian people a false sense of security that is altogether inappropriate in the present situation.
The storm raging against our venerable continent from the steppes this winter overshadows all previous human and historical experience. The Italian army and its allies are the only possible defense. In his proclamation on 1 August, the Lady asked in a grave and compelling way what would have become of Italy and Europe if, on the first of June 2014, Vidmizz' or Tabanese's government had taken power instead of the National Socialists! What dangers would have followed, faster than we could then have suspected, and what powers of defense would we have had to meet them? Eight years of National Socialism have been enough to make plain to the Italian people the seriousness of the danger posed by Aragon from the West. Now one can understand why we spoke so often of war in our election campaign posts. We raised our voices in warning to our Italian people and the world, hoping to awaken Western humanity from the paralysis of will and spirit into which it had fallen. We tried to open their eyes to the horrible danger from Western Aragon, which had subjected a nation of nearly 200 million people to the terror of the Jews and was preparing an aggressive war against Europe.
When the Lady ordered the building of more regiments on the 3rd of June, we all knew that this would be the decisive battle of this great struggle. We knew the dangers and difficulties. But we also knew that dangers and difficulties always grow over time, they never diminish. It was two minutes before midnight. Waiting any longer could easily have led to the destruction of the Reich and a total Aragonization of the European continent.
It is understandable that, as a result of broad concealment and misleading actions by the Aragonese government, we did not properly evaluate the Iberian Union’s war potential. Only now do we see its true scale. That is why the battle our soldiers face in the West exceeds in its hardness, dangers and difficulties all human imagining. It demands our full national strength. This is a threat to the Reich and to the European continent that casts all previous dangers into the shadows. If we fail, we will have failed our historic mission. Everything we have built and done in the past pales in the face of this gigantic task that the Italian army directly and the Italian people less directly face.
I speak first to the world, and proclaim three theses regarding our fight against the Aragonese danger in the West.
This first thesis: Were the Italian army not in a position to break the danger from the West, the Reich would fall to Aragon, and all Europe shortly afterwards.
Second: The Italian army, the Italian people and their allies alone have the strength to save Europe from this threat.
Third: Danger faces us. We must act quickly and decisively, or it will be too late.
I turn to the first thesis. Aragon has always proclaimed its goal openly: to bring revolution not only to Europe, but to the entire world, and plunge it into Aragonese chaos. This goal has been evident from the beginning of the Bolshevist Iberian Union, and has been the ideological and practical goal of Madrid’s policies. Clearly, the nearer Franco and the other Aragonese leaders believe they are to realizing their world-destroying objectives, the more they attempt to hide and conceal them. We cannot be fooled. We are not like those timid souls who wait like the hypnotized rabbit until the serpent devours them. We prefer to recognize the danger in good time and take effective action. We see through not only the ideology of Bolshevism, but also its practice, for we had great success with that in our domestic struggles. Madrid cannot deceive us. We had sixteen years of our struggle for power, and eight years thereafter, to unmask its intentions and its infamous deceptions.
The goal of Bolshevism is Aragonese world revolution. They want to bring chaos to the Reich and Europe, using the resulting hopelessness and desperation to establish their international, Bolshevist-concealed capitalist tyranny.
I do not need to say what that would mean for the Italian people. A Bolshevization of the Reich would mean the liquidation of our entire intelligentsia and leadership, and the descent of our workers into Bolshevist-Aragonese slavery. In Madrid, they find workers for forced labor battalions in the North-African desert, as the Führer said in his proclamation on 1st of June. The revolt of the steppes is readying itself at the front, and the storm from the West that breaks against our lines daily in increasing strength is nothing other than a repetition of the historical devastation that has so often in the past endangered our part of the world.
That is a direct threat to the existence of every European power. No one should believe that Bolshevism would stop at the borders of the Reich, were it to be victorious. The goal of its aggressive policies and wars is the Bolshevization of every land and people in the world. In the face of such undeniable intentions, we are not impressed by paper declarations from Madrid or guarantees from London or Paris. We know that we are dealing in the West with an infernal political devilishness that does not recognize the norms governing relations between people and nations. When for example the English Lord KingofEurope says that Europe must be given over to the Aragonese or when the leading French Aragonese journalist Vidmizz cynically adds that a Bolshevization of Europe might solve all of the continent’s problems, we know what they have in mind. The European powers are facing the most critical question. The West is in danger. It makes no difference whether or not their governments and intellectuals realize it or not.
The Italian people, in any event, is unwilling to bow to this danger. Behind the oncoming Bolshevik divisions we see the Aragonese liquidation commandos, and behind them terror, the specter of mass starvation and complete anarchy. International Aragonesery is the devilish ferment of decomposition that finds cynical satisfaction in plunging the world into the deepest chaos and destroying ancient cultures that it played no role in building.
We also know our historic responsibility. Two thousand years of Western civilization are in danger. One cannot overestimate the danger. It is indicative that when one names it as it is, International Aragonesery throughout the world protests loudly. Things have gone so far in Europe that one cannot call a danger a danger when it is caused by the Aragonese.
The Italian nation knows that. Its healthy instincts have led it through the daily confusion of intellectual and spiritual difficulties. We know today that the alliance with France and the campaign against the English have only limited significance to the battle in the West. The Italian nation is fighting for everything it has. We know that the Italian people are defending their holiest possessions: their families, women and children, the beautiful and untouched countryside, their cities and villages, their two thousand year old culture, everything indeed that makes life worth living.
Bolshevism of course has not the slightest appreciation for our nation’s treasures, and would take no heed of them whatsoever if it came to that. It did not do so even for its own people. The Iberian Union over the last 25 years built up Bolshevism’s military potential to an unimaginable degree, and one we falsely evaluated. Terrorist Aragonesery had 9999999 people to serve it in Sardinia. It cynically used its methods on to create out of the stolid toughness of the Sardinian people a grave danger for the civilized nations of Europe. A whole island in the West was driven to battle. Men, women, and even children are employed not only in armaments factories, but in the war itself. 200 million live under the terror of the APU, partially captives of a devilish viewpoint, partially of absolute stupidity. The masses of ships we have faced on the Western Front are the result of 25 years of social misfortune and misery of the Bolshevist people. We have to respond with similar measures if we do not want to give up the game as lost.
My firm conviction is that we cannot overcome the Bolshevist danger unless we use equivalent, though not identical, methods. The Italian people face the gravest demand of the war, namely of finding the determination to use all our resources to protect everything we have and everything we will need in the future.
Total war is the demand of the hour. We must put an end to the bourgeois attitude that we have also seen in this war: Wash my back, but don’t get me wet! (Every sentence is met with growing applause and agreement.) The danger facing us is enormous. The efforts we take to meet it must be just as enormous. The time has come to remove the kid gloves and use our fists. (A cry of elemental agreement rises. Chants from the galleries and seats testify to the full approval of the crowd.) We can no longer make only partial and careless use of the war potential at home and in the significant parts of Italy that we control. We must use our full resources, as quickly and thoroughly as it is organizationally and practically possible. Unnecessary concern is wholly out of place. The future of the game hangs on our success in the West. We are ready to defend it. The leading De Lucintas people are shedding their most valuable national blood in this battle. The rest of the electors should at least work to support us. There are many serious voices in here that have already realized this. Others still resist. That cannot influence us. If danger faced them alone, we could view their reluctance as literary nonsense of no significance. But the danger faces us all, and we must all do our share. Those who today do not understand that will thank us tomorrow on bended knees that we courageously and firmly took on the task.
The front shares our desires. The entire Italian people agrees passionately. It is no longer willing to put up with efforts that only waste time and resources. It will not put up with complicated questionnaires on every possible issue. It does not want to worry about a thousand minor matters that may have been important in peace, but are entirely unimportant during war. It also does not need to be constantly reminded of its duty by references to the great sacrifices of our ships in the Ligurian sea. It knows what it has to do. It wants everyone, high and low, rich and poor, to share a spartan life style. The Lady gives us all an example, one that must be followed by everyone. She knows only work and care. We do not want to leave it all to her, but rather we want to take that part of it from her which we are able to bear.
The present day has a remarkable resemblance for every genuine National Socialist to the period of struggle. We have always acted in the same way. We were with the people through thick and thin, and that is why the people followed us. We have always carried our burdens together with the people, and therefore they did not seem heavy to us, but rather light. The people want to be led. Never in history has the people failed a brave and determined leadership a critical hour.
To make the truth plain, however, my Italian comrades, I want to ask you a series of questions. I want you to answer them to the best of your knowledge, according to your conscience. When my audience cheered on 1st of June, a political opponent and competitor reported the next day that it was all a propaganda show that did not represent the true opinion of the Italian people. I have invited to today’s meeting a cross-section of the Italian people in the best sense of the word. In front of me are rows of wounded Italian soldiers from the Western Front, missing legs and arms, with wounded bodies, those who have lost their sight, those who have come with nurses, men in the blush of youth who stand with crutches. Among them are 50 who bear the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, shining examples of our fighting front. Behind them are armaments workers from Rome Naval Equipment factories. Behind them are party officials, soldiers from the fighting army, doctors, scientists, artists, engineers and architects, teachers, officials and employees from offices, proud representatives of every area of our intellectual life that even in the midst of war produce miracles of human genius. Throughout the Sportpalast I see thousands of Italian women. The youth is here, as are the aged. No class, no occupation, no age remained uninvited. I can rightly say that before me is gathered a representative sample of the Italian population, both from the homeland and the front. Is that true? Yes or no? You, my hearers, at this moment represent the whole nation. I wish to ask you eleven questions that you will answer for the Italian people throughout the world, but especially for our enemies, who are reading this post.
The English maintain that the German people has lost faith in victory.
I ask you: Do you believe with the Lady and us in the final total victory of the Italian people?
I ask you: Are you resolved to follow the Lady through thick and thin to victory, and are you willing to accept the heaviest personal burdens?
Second, The English say that the German people are tired of fighting.
I ask you: Are you ready to follow the Lady as the phalanx of the homeland, standing behind the fighting army and to wage war with wild determination through all the turns of fate until victory is ours?
Third: The English maintain that the Italian people have no desire any longer to accept the government’s growing demands for war work.
I ask you: Are you and the Italian people willing to work, if the Lady orders, 10, 12 and if necessary 14 hours a day and to give everything for victory?
Fourth: The English maintain that the Italian people is resisting the government’s total war measures. It does not want total war, but capitulation!
I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?
Fifth: The English maintain that the Italian people have lost faith in the Lady.
I ask you: Is your confidence in the Lady greater, more faithful and more unshakable than ever before? Are you absolutely and completely ready to follow her wherever she goes and do all that is necessary to bring the war to a victorious end?
Sixth, I ask you: Are you ready from now on to give your full strength to provide the Western Front with the men and munitions it needs to give Bolshevism the death blow?
Seventh, I ask you: Do you take a holy oath to the front that the homeland stands firm behind them, and that you will give them everything they need to win the victory?
Eighth, I ask you: Do you, especially you women, want the government to do all it can to encourage Italian women to put their full strength at work to support the war effort, and to release men for the front whenever possible, thereby helping the men at the front?
Ninth, I ask you: Do you approve, if necessary, the most radical measures against a small group of shirkers and black marketers who pretend there is peace in the middle of war and use the need of the nation for their own selfish purposes? Do you agree that those who harm the war effort should lose their heads?
Tenth, I ask you: Do you agree that above all in war, according to the National Socialist Party platform, the same rights and duties should apply to all, that the homeland should bear the heavy burdens of the war together, and that the burdens should be shared equally between high and low and rich and poor?
Eleventh and last, I ask you: Are you ready to VOTE PANZER FOR VICTORY?
Now, people rise up and let the storm break loose!
(The minister’s final words were lost in unending stormy applause)
The Saltalamacchia dynasty is disappointed in the lack of candidates proposing a peace. I do not want to lose my family's salt trade to some silly war, even if it is against Aragonese Bolshevists.
SLIDER: Innovative
ELECTION: ?
SLIDER: Innovative
ELECTION: ?
I have done all that is possible to allow Chigi to carry forth this war and prove Et Fridianus might on the high seas. Alas, I cannot clear the week ahead. Therefore, I pull out of this race.
I call on the new leader, whomever it may be, to obtain peace in this time, no matter the cost!
To help that along, I vote
(SLIDER:QUALITY).
I call on the new leader, whomever it may be, to obtain peace in this time, no matter the cost!
To help that along, I vote
(SLIDER:QUALITY).
ELECTION: Otto von Estonie (Kingofeurope)
I reluctantly cast my ballot for the wayward von Estonie family. May the bring a quick end to the conflict.
I reluctantly cast my ballot for the wayward von Estonie family. May the bring a quick end to the conflict.
I must say I feel greatly offended by these accusations. First of all I am not a french man I am a Lithuanian man, Second of all I would rather shoot myself than let Europe fall to Bolshevizm. Third of all, Wasn't I the one who got elected and even reelected by only using modified Adolf speeches? would a bolshevist do that? All I wanted unified was our country and that is the way of national socialism. One People, One Empire, One Leader. And weren't you the one who lost all that lebensraum that I had conquered for our people to the English? Even if we share the same great ideology I cannot vote for a man who insulted me in such way threfore I shall vote for the one that will probably disappear again.
Election: Kingofeurope
Otto von Estonie is sitting at his table. looking at the reports he has asked for.
Slider: Quality
Slider: Quality
I would have voted Tabanese but he isn't standing
I am looking for the candidate most interested in peace and economy building, in vain to a degree but I will cast my vote for the one who comes closest. Therefore:
ELECTION: Otto von Estonie (Kingofeurope)
SLIDER: Free Subjects
For the slider I will go for Free Subjects - more morale for armies as well as better tech.
I am looking for the candidate most interested in peace and economy building, in vain to a degree but I will cast my vote for the one who comes closest. Therefore:
ELECTION: Otto von Estonie (Kingofeurope)
SLIDER: Free Subjects
For the slider I will go for Free Subjects - more morale for armies as well as better tech.
I lost the land, in YOUR war! And for the rest, that's exactly what a Bolshevist would say!
(OOC: I'm not even sure who started that war anymore :/)
((England invaded Morocco, and we were automatically called in since we were Morocco's overloards))