MIJN STRIJD
An Autobiography and a Condemnation Against Lies, Stupidity, and Hatred
Pierre Maurice Pilon
Born in the Heart of Winter, Raised in the House of Hate
It was to my good fortune that I was born in the town of Leuven, in Brabant, on winter’s morning in 1866, during the reign of King Prosper-Louis and the third Ministry of Beauffort; it from my Walloon father and Flemish mother that I saw, in those early years, the dream of unity and my disgust and utter disdain for all that sought to bring division and brokenness to Belgium began. It is from these early thoughts on unity and the indivisibleness of the State that all my thoughts on the matters of politic were built upon; it was a profundity of youth and innocence that has spawned the ideals of fascism and the State within all men, and a disregard for the past and its broken politics, or of the moment, with its uncertainty and present division. It is the notion of the future, of a greater tomorrow, and unified, strong State, that drives the heart of the nationalist, the integralist, the Man. To support disunion or the notions of unrestricted liberty or freedom is to welcome those uncertainties and those problems back into society and to ultimately, desire to see the undoing of progress and prosperity in the name of power and selfishness; in essence, the self is nothing but a tool to better the State and the lives of all Men in the future. It is the selfish and the avaricious who oppose fascism and its ideals. It became increasingly apparent to me in those formative years, and in the succeeding ages of my life, that I found the forces of disunion opposed not only the notion of Belgium, but to me.
…
My mother, named Maria, the daughter of servant and without a shred of wealth to her name, was a kind and a proud woman; proud of her husband, proud of her home, and proud of the idea of her State, divided and broken as it was by the time of my birth; she died within an hour of giving me my life, and was left so weak and without a drop of strength that she never was able to hold me whilst living lingered within her; it was then that I found myself raised solely by me father, a man of low social standing, the son of farmers, who had risen to the rank of lieutenant due to the good graces of Beauffort, to whom my father was well-acquainted with and a staunch supporter of; he had never known much of wealth or power, but he too was proud in his Fatherland, and even in these first days and weeks of my existence, instilled me that love and admiration. In this, the first year of my life, I lived in a small home, with a small crib, and small rations to sustain me; some would call this unfit for any child, let alone a new-born, but it was truly providential, especially when compared to my second home.
During the Poissonist Coup, my father, ever faithful to his King and to his Prime Minister, fought with great tenacity against the rebellion, and paid for his loyalty with death; he was shot, captured, beaten, killed, and paraded across the town of Leuven, the place of my birth, surrounded by the crimson banners of the Red Legion; his blood and viscera, having being beaten so fierce by the men, personally commanded by the traitor and bloodthirsty beast de Leeuw, who during this time saw fit to murder priests and common-men alongside surrendering soldiers and captured officers. It was then that I was taken, only six months past one year old, into the care of my uncle, a dissident and well-known supporter of de Leeuw, and quite possibly the man who dealt the final, killing blow to my father, whom he despised. That hatred made itself clear to me many times over throughout my second home, who found it proper to beat a child of three within an inch of his life for no greater offence than to have been the son of loyal officer; the beatings came more frequently as I grew older and my uncle grew more and more into a loathsome drunk and rapist, who profaned the family name with every racked, stinking breath that he drew into his diseased, addled lungs. In time, as I had become more mature, I was compelled to partake in his innumerable crimes, and was made a thief and a liar alongside a beating-stick and a source of mockery.
…
These years were a lonesome time for me, being an only child and abandoned by society, all the while wholly at the mercy of a cruel taskmaster whose only tie to me was by blood he cared little for, save in shedding it (which he did liberally and with a sadistic glee, even whilst not-wholly drunk, as he was never truly sober I discovered). It was a brutish life, and one I surely would never ask for again, but it strengthened by; perhaps not in physical strength, as the beatings took their toll like any other great force of physical force, and even today I bear the scars and marks of it. It however honed my Will and my fortitude, and made me akin to a grizzled soldier aged well beyond my years; I never had a fear of blood, or a fear of force or pain, as I had experienced it so many times from so young an age, it rarely affected my bearing; nor did this abuse break my resolve, my desire, my burning yearning to see the leftists, the great criminals and hypocrites of this age and all other ages, pay for their crimes and their cruelties; indeed, I am very much of the opinion that these pains and tribulations that dominated my childhood enflamed my passions, and inspired in me a fierce loathing for their anti-nationalism, their mad rush to destroy the Belgian State and their ultimate goal of anarchy and disorder.
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In my twelfth year, being so disposed, I fled from my second home and was apt to make myself a vagabond, something lesser than what I was; due to my many years of servitude and abuse at the crabby fists of my uncle, I had proven myself to be an able thief, and would likely had made a meagre life as such. However, I yearned to be something more than a failed son of a great man, and a spitting image of a despised and brutal uncle. I decided then, to join the army.
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Rising Above Abuse and Mistreatment, Only to Find Home
…
I was then, a small and unimpressive specimen; the constant beatings and the lack of food had rendered me little more than a broken husk without strength of dexterity; however, despite those limitations, my would-be superiors found me to be brave and courageous, moreso than most men many years my senior; I became, several months before my thirteenth year, a drummer in the Army. It was a lowly rank, but it was an honour I had never before had, and I grew stronger and bolder within in this position.
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It was surprisingly easy to become acquainted with the orders and the liveliness of the Army, despite my weaknesses; I found the discipline they used a pleasure compared to the regular whippings and outright beatings I had suffered for some ten years, and I was well accustomed to rising early and toiling away most of the day doing menial tasks; despite that, I grew to love the mundanity in my early years, and during these two years, I was treated not as a slave or as a monster, but as a Belgian, and was at last given the first shreds of respect and honour a lowly wretch that I was had always longed for; it was in the Army that I found my third, and my true, home.
A True Soldier
I was formally admitted into the army in my fifteenth year, having lied about my age previously to join as a drummer; it pained me to lie to those bold and honourable men, but I felt so disposed as I was to join into this venerable institution, and swear my life to the service of my homeland was far too great a thing to pass by on. I entered at the rank of a private, and I felt truly at home within my new rank; I needed no practice, as I had seen the drills a thousand thousand times, and heard the orders called in my sleep, and knew the rhythm of the drums, which I had played for those two years, by heart; I proved an exceptional soldier, if I may be so bold to compliment myself, and I enjoyed my serve to the Fatherland more than any other pleasure that any man has felt before.
…
During this time of my service, the Baron d’Harfleur, who professed to be the last loyal officer of Beauffort, was serving in as the Prime Minister of the Fatherland, and in the wake of Savarin and the leftists walking out of Parliament en masse was soon so compelled to maintain order however he could, defanged as he was by the foolish insistence of Loewen and the radical filth de Leeuw (whose contemptible service within this Ministry was criminal; the Baron himself said as much, as did Loewen and all other members of that government); due to the rising disorder, I and my unit was tasked to remain within Brussels to maintain order, and it was there that I saw my first formal action against rebels; it was on the second of August, 1881, four days after Savarin and the leftists had fled, that I found myself in the midst of riot being conducted by the Red Legion and her allies, now commanded by the Leeuwist ally, the opiate-addicted sot known as Dupointe; a thoroughly incompetent man, his riot began solely as a means to procure more opium for his carnal lusts and to save his purse a few francs; it morphed into a cacophony of radicalism and chaos, and was apt to devolve into sheer madness. Our commander quickly dispatched us to maintain order, and failing that, to restore it as effectively as we could. It was shortly past midday, the sun was obscured by overcast, but it was still a humid day, blisteringly hot (several of the men had opted to remove their heavy-wool uniforms; I preferred to remain in full military dress despite the discomfort). The street we were marching down was deathly quiet, as many of the citizenry knew what was about to happen; the older ones had lived through the horror of the Red Guard once before already. We reached a small plaza and quickly moved into formation to best ensure full cover of the area, a rather than square of some three hundred men; we had only just finished our movements when the first of those damnable red banners appeared into view, proudly waving in the air, like a decrepit cardinal too stupid to realise it’s nearing death; those beasts were much the same, with their dead eyes and wide, fierce grins. I could help but feel satisfaction when the first volley went off and the lot of them began to fall and straggle and clamour for dear life, before one of their officers, if he could be called that (a swarthy fellow; short with a tart face), ordered them to return fire; it was a halfhearted yelp compared to our roaring volleys; they were twice driven back, and twice returned. One the third retreat, they at last mustered some reserve of courage and brutishness, and then charged us, knives and bayonets and clubs at the ready; we were prepared, and their momentum was lost at the last second by our final volley, before we too began to charge. I stuck their commander, the sour-faced man, right in the neck as he barrelled toward me with a small sabre in hand; he looked shocked as he fell to the bloodstained road, before he was quickly covered by the body of one of his fallen comrades. I continued to fight on, and ultimately slew some twelve men with my bayonet, and when that at last failed me, I struck down two more with my knife; all in all, some two-hundred of their men fell, to seven of ours. But that moment, that small skirmish, changed me for life. I was a true soldier now.
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Command in the Colonies
It was in 1890 that I rose to the rank of Colonel and was attached to the Java forces in the Indies; it was a quiet position, and not one I remember fondly; my commander, a portly general who was a personal friend of Thadee (and likely the only reason why he remained in the position he reached), was none to keen on maintaining order, and it was largely I who was charged with the various minutiae of his office, a duty which I believe I managed with some effectiveness.
…
I had never encountered many coloureds prior to my service in the Indies, as restrictive laws at home and in the colonies largely kept them in their place; I was at once surprised upon my landing in Java at how western the urban coloureds were; at first, the glean of civilisation was shining from every building and it was, in my mind, the shining example of our successes with a liberal policy. That veneer of civilisation quickly faded in the coming months, as I learned of the many backward beliefs these natives held, and refused in any way to change in the face of modernity; I quickly understood that the policies of the liberals, and even those of the traditionalists, were wholly ineffectual in their goal of civilisation, and that the colonies were as a whole unproductive and backwards. This became ever more apparent when I had my first encounter with a coloured woman of the interior; she was fully naked and lacking in any sense of decency, and was content to stand as Eve without a care in the world, despite the presence of gentlemen. What the men under the command of my superior proceeded to do was unprofessional and another great shock, and a matter I care not to discuss within these memoirs. Nevertheless, I carried in my position, unhappily.
…
I began, by mid-1894, to realise that I was trapped in the Indies forever; the paralysis that atrophied the General Staff was beyond a doubt, and noticeable to everyone, as the increasingly elderly Thadee remained seated in his traditionalisms and reacted against reforms until forced otherwise. For my part, I continued to serve as a lowly lieutenant.
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In 1896, I was at last promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General, upon the long overdue retirement of my commander, and I quickly set about to enact reform to the Java Army and to the colony as a whole; first and foremost, I moved quickly to restore order and discipline amongst the ranks, as esprit de corps had rapidly dissipated and the amount of thievery and other unmentionable acts rose ever higher. I punished justly and fairly and brought the men back into line within a month and soon began the process of rapid civilisation; I forced through legislation by the local government to ban unseemly practices and endorsed the expansion of Catholic activities within the region, and I had high hopes in seeing the colony brought to new heights.
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Commanding the Second Army and an Unjust Dismissal
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I had nearly enacted all of my primary goals in Java whereupon I received the news of my promotion to commander of the Second Army, a true honour that I had not even deigned to be possible; upon leaving my subordinate in good order, I returned to the Fatherland with all due haste, and quickly set into commanding my new force; fortunately for me, the Second Army was nowhere near as atrophied and incompetent as the Java Force, and was modernised enough that I felt confident in its capacities. There arose a new problem, however, in the form of political appointments; having cared little for political matters heretofore, I was thoroughly stunned by the sheer volume of incompetent and political generals within my army, and was constantly stymied by General Thadee and the General Staff in my efforts to remove them, the vast majority of whom were allies of Ministers Savarin and Burke, and were not merely without qualification, but where thoroughly implacable in their determination to see the Second Army rendered impotent in its primary goal of protecting the Fatherland; I was further concerned by the news of one Abel Williams’s rise to lieutenant and transferral to the Java Army, as he had, in my brief time knowing him, proven to be little more than a thug and a scoundrel who associated with those political generals in some foolish bid to replace me. I was fairly unconcerned with their plots, and instead opted to ensure the army was both well-trained and disciplined and not too harmed by the presence of these incompetent lackeys.
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In mid-1898, I was once again the subject of a plot to remove me from my generalship, and I was once again certain it was now Colonel Williams and his allies in my army who were seeking to remove me; what came as a shock to me was the seeming knowledge the Supreme General had of my predicament, and his utter indifference to the matter. At the time, I merely assumed he was far too concerned with matters of greater import to intervene on my behalf; however, with greater foresight, I now see the General Thadee was either openly endorsing my removal, or was thoroughly manipulated by those political generals to act in the defence of a true military man.
…
In December of 1898, after nearly six months of defending my position from incompetent fools and political adversaries, I was successful, but completely disgusted by the improper actions of my colleagues, which led directly to my pair of speeches delivered at the Regalist Convention in favour of the Baron of Schilde, who was at the time running for leadership of that party and an acquaintance of mine. In the two speeches, made in plain clothes and without respect or mention to my rank, I said there, for the first time truly expressing my feelings, and pouring out my hatred for the corruption and treason that gripped my homeland, our Fatherland, by its neck:
Regalists! Conservatives! Beauffortists! How many of you have felt at a loss these past decades? How many of have been persecuted by the Red Legion and their mad leader, who was only but a heartbeat away from being Prime Minister? How many of you want Belgium to be strong again?
The Regalist Union under the leadership of Harfleur and de Lannoy has, at every possible interval, abandoned the ideals of conservatism, instead opting for a weak, impotent, even illusory defence of the right, all the while opting to work with socialists and republicans. Was it not under Harfleur that de Leeuw, that villain and self-professed radical, and known priest-killer, first truly rose to political prominence and reached even greater infamy? Was it not under Lannoy that Belgium’s great distress in Africa began to fester and grow, without any interest or notice by his tepid and half-hearted government?
Gentlemen, brothers, it is time for this flirtation with socialism to end! Now is the hour for True Conservatism to rise again! Now is the hour to defend the monarchy! Now is New Beauffortism’s time to ascend, and for Belgium to once again have strong, moral leadership!
No more shall radical and republicans dictate our policies, as they have done for so long! No more shall our own party members bolt and vote for the leftists! No more shall True Conservatives be denied their rights! Let us toss out these tired and old Harfleurians and Aertists, corrupt and malignant, and replace those craven whore-sons with strong moral leadership once again!
I ask you: will you allow Savarin and de Leeuw, alongside their drug-addled and avaricious allies, who themselves are so morally bankrupt that they cannot even find it themselves to establish a republic, to dictate the old and fainthearted Regalists of Aerts and Lannoy, into this thousand years of darkness? Or will you stand with me, and with van de Werve, and with Beauffort, and save Belgium from this moral malaise and social upheaval?
Only through the ideals of New Beauffortism can Belgium remain afloat in the wake of the red hydra! Only through New Beauffortism can Belgium experience a spiritual and moral rebirth, and reject the excesses and vanities of the democrats! Only through New Beauffortism can Belgium truly begin to live again!
I ask Leon van de Werve, the great champion of conservatism, and quite possibly the only man in Belgium with the wealth, the intellect, and simple moral compass, to lead this Kingdom out of this mire, these jaws of the red hydra, to take the helm of the Regalist Union, and save Belgium from these damnable radicals!
As is quite obvious in light of my very recent ordeal, my statement of condemnation of the present political system, which had thoroughly infected the military by this point, was justified in its entirety; I correctly saw the unfair power of de Leeuw and Savarin and sought to rectify it however I could. It has also been in the succeeding period of these many years and the Great War that I realise that I was mistaken in some regards; the leadership of Lannoy and Harfleur, who I had both decried for their abandonment of true conservatism, was in fact the first true inklings of fascism in a moderate form, still draped in the foolish reactionisms of the old ages, long past and without purpose in the world today. Despite the many flaws and the overall wrongness in thinking, Harfleurianism especially marks an important transition in Belgian political thought, as it abandoned blind subservience to our ancestors and instead cut a new course, a brave adventure in combining the best elements of both flawed ideals; the end result was certain to be broken, of course, but it set the Fatherland on a new course, a radical new trajectory, that proved that the plight of the worker was not only heard by the left.
It has been in these moments of solitude that I discovered the true notion of fascism, and I began to form and build those ideas in my work, the Doctrine of Fascism, of which I will discuss at greater length in the future.
In this time, despite some elements of wrongness regarding Harfleur and the Neo-Beauffortists, I was wholly accurate in my condemnations of Savarin and de Leeuw, who had both maintained their power for over two decades within their parties, and solely through corruption, intimidation, and scheming; the Savarinist Autocracy instated throughout the 1890s was a time of widespread dishonesty and scheming, none moreso than in the army, where, as I mentioned previously, I fended off successfully the plotting of the political generals, most of whom were adamant allies of the left and Savarin.
Van de Werve, though not the ultimate symbol of the new movement, represented the embodiment of the State and the power of what it wanted, at least until the emergence of integralism and fascism; it was he who boldly challenged the corruption of the Savarinists, and it was he who spoke with conviction and force against this rising tide of liberalist absolutism, a bourgeois despotism emerging from the avariciousness and deception of the left, blanketed in terms of liberty and freedom, as such movements often are.
Despite his wrongthinking in his reverence towards the past, he nonetheless set an important stage by which this new force of energetic opponents of Savarinism and Leeuwism could preach their polemics of reason and champion the right of the State over the businessman or the party leader.
I however, was not finished, as a mere two days later, I delivered this speech, a response to the radical and communistic Coppens, who had many years previously supported the overthrow of the monarchy and the supplantment of the State in favour of the anarchic goals of the Red Legion, of which he was a proud member. He had at the time demanded my removal from command, despite the legality of my speech (as, I was forced to repeat many a time then and now, was performed as a private citizen without regard or mention of rank or uniform):
Monsieur Coppens, surely you do wish for me to be removed from my office merely because I support an ideology counter to your own? Surely that is democratic or fair… then again, it seems the socialists of this nation demand equality and justice only so far as their own lot is concerned, the rest of Belgium be damned. I will not ask the Chief of Staff to maintain me in my current position, for bowing to political pressure from a radical spewer of nonsense like Monsieur Coppens is both unimaginable and unbecoming of such a dignified officer.
However, I find irony in this radical’s polemic against my person, his almost libellous charge against my loyalty to king and country, both of which I daresay he is severely deficit in, almost hilarious, were it not for the damage it has done to this great Kingdom; Monsieur Coppens has, with a surprising fidelity amongst his ilk, championed Monsieurs Dupointe and de Leeuw in our nation’s parliament, despite the fact that both are known criminals whose actions have been against the Belgian Kingdom since their emergence on the political scene; surely none of us deny, or can even hope to deny, Monsieur Dupointe’s continual violation of the laws prohibiting drug usage, nor his past assault on Belgian industry and commerce only a few years ago. And who among the left will defend Monsieur de Leeuw for his involvement, and continued relations, with the Red Legion, who during the Civil War chose to fight priests and civilians instead of soldiers. Who among you can stomach such a priest-killer as he?
If Monsieur Coppens continues to spout such nonsense against my character, and make these libellous claims of reactionism and disloyalty, neither of which have even the smallest kernel of truth, I would ask the speaker of parliament to have him, and his criminal colleagues, removed and tried for their crimes against both me and the State.
And to once and for all put an end to their trite nonsense endlessly perpetuated by the radicals in this government, who even now are plotting the overthrow of the monarchy through the most womanly and cowardly of means, I affirm Monsieur van de Werve’s statement; we, the New Beauffortists, do not condone the actions taken by the Marquis de Beauffort in 1863; we merely sympathise with his policies and general ideals. And such statements to the contrary are nothing more than lies and smears against a legitimate political movement by rabble-rousers and de Leeuwists, though I doubt there is really much a distinction between the two.
I must furthermore state that what I support out of uniform is by no means a crime, nor is championing a cause for the good of Belgium; what Coppens, de Leeuw, Dupointe, and Savarin have preached and done for these many years on the streets of Brussels, and in the halls of parliament, when they have deigned to be seated there, cannot be held in the same regard.
I had spoken truth, and had pierced the armour of moralised leftism that the man, that Coppens, loved to enshrine in himself; his deceit and his conceit knew no limits, and he immediately thereafter refused to acknowledge his own failings, or those of his criminal colleagues, neither of whom were imprisoned for their actions. He had no leg to stand on, and I was certain that there was nothing that would result in my ousting, as I thought General Thadee, despite being surrounded by sycophants and incompetence, to be an honourable man above the political squabbles that had troubled the Fatherland over the course of the past decade; he however, was not so morally strong as I thought him to be, for within days of my second speech, and within hours of an article written by a partisan on my behalf (but not on my request) condemning the General Staff for corruption and impotence (something I then would never have agreed with, simply due to the presence of General Thadee; now, I endorse the notion fully), the Supreme General had penned this condemnation of my person:
It is with regret that I must announce that Maurice Pilon, previously of the 2nd Army Corps, is relieved from command and suspended as an officer of His Majesty's National Land Force.
This reprimand comes not in response to his disobeying my instructions to remain above the political fray; that was his decision, ill-advised as it was. Rather, he has committed the gravest sin that any officer is capable of: betrayal of his colleagues and superiors. The Unified Command Authority is substantiated on the solidarity of its members, regardless of their personal differences, and on the chain of the command. When you accept your epaulettes, you accept the camaraderie of the officer corps and deference of subordinate to the superior. You endeavour to support your fellow officers and to fortify your commanders in every circumstance. Certainly, you do not slander your fellow officers in the public press under an obvious pseudonym - nor do you accuse the entire General Staff of insufficient loyalty. By these actions, Mr Pilon has not only assaulted the venerable reputation of the Armed Forces; he has jeopardised the entire disciplinary structure that ensures its function.
This is not an action that I undertook lightly. Before he had decided to dabble in intrigue and circumvent the very institution he swore to uphold, Mr Pilon had demonstrated himself to be a capable commander. I had high hopes for his career in these Armed Forces. I offered him a position of great responsibility, on the very frontline of our homeland. Should the terrible eventuality of war have ever been thrust upon us, he would have undoubtedly covered himself in glory. But sadly, my hopes - and his prospects - have been simultaneously dashed. I offered Mr Pilon a choice: either to be a politician, or to be a soldier. He has made his decision, and now so have I.
He noted that I had performed my role admirably, and had never once been found lacking in any capacity as a commander; no one could assail my integrity as a soldier, as the Army was my home, and the Army was my life, and I had wholly dedicated my entire self to the good of the State and the Crown, which led me to the moment of delivering two speeches, for which I was quickly reprimanded and thus determined not transgress; during the intervening time between the second speech and my removal, I gave no speech and instead tended to my post, as I always had; it was then that I was falsely accused and removed from my post, not for speeches but for the “betrayal of my colleagues and superiors,” a non-existent and thoroughly unjustifiable charge on his part, and made solely to accede to the demands of his own political allies, and thus acted to the detriment of the Fatherland. I had in the intervening time, returned to my post and continued to serve the Army, my home, faithfully, and had resigned myself to merely quietly supporting my still forming ideals; Fate, and Savarin, interfered, and the Supreme General, whom I had always treated with the utmost respect and honour, and constantly sought to gain support from in my quest to purge the army of incompetent and disloyal officers who were interested only in lining their pockets and reaping the rewards of their political alliances, deigned me to be a traitor and a villain; that was my reward for loyalty and fidelity! Betrayal by the very men I trusted and admired, even emulated!
I was enraged, and in my fiery passion, I exposed the corruption that was, and is, rampant within the Army, and I declared my attack on the General Staff and Thadee for their spinelessness and thorough lack of moral hygiene. I will admit that I was impassioned and hurt, and thus not the moderate I would have longed to be in those days, but I was correct, and I was again vilified and lambasted for my honesty; it was from this fiasco and series of betrayals that I found that the institutions I had trusted had betrayed the State, and that the entire system built to defend and preserve it were compromised thoroughly; and it was from this great betrayal, not only of me, but of the Fatherland, and the People, that the seeds of fascism were born in us all.
…
Several weeks later, I learned that now General Williams was to act as my replacement, and whatever shred of respect I had for the command structure within the Army was destroyed permanently; they permitted the rise of a well-known secessionist and a blathering fool to boot, and have betrayed the Fatherland at every possible moment. I knew at this point that this was not some hodge-podge action taken without measure or thought; no, this was part of a far more insidious plan, formulated in the home of Savarin, and expanded upon in the office of Burke, and acted upon by General Thadee and the Staff; from its outset, it became dreadfully apparent that the State was not only being actively betrayed and undermined, but that this conspiratorial party had instead deigned to see the Fatherland torn asunder by civil war and disunion; sadly, it felt as though I was the only man who could see this future.
…
Accordingly, I moved to counter these unseemly and rebellious activities by the government, first by establishing the Protection and Order Society of Belgium, which I tasked with the great task of observing every single movement made by the governmental forces and their extra-governmental allies, and craft a detailed list of offences and betrayals; from the outset, the Society proved its worth, and I was soon confident that these traitors and separatists would find themselves removed from power and moral leadership restored to Belgium; however, at every point where I sought to publish my findings, to expose once and for all the lies and deceit of this government, I was stymied and forced to relent, and I knew then that without a force to protect oneself, and to protect the Fatherland, Belgium would collapse to that betrayal.
The Rebellion
General Williams, as I had expected and warned many times before to the deaf ears of General Thadee, announced his rebellion against the State on the eighth of April, 1903, and whilst the Lion roared, the defenders of the Fatherland quailed and quaked, completely unable to respond to the threat, something that no doubt pleased Thadee, Savarin, de Leeuw, and the lot of the separatist traitors; Having only recently formed the People’s Army, a fraternal society that was primarily made up of veterans, I determined that Belgium’s greatest chance was for me to take the matters of defence into my own hands, and defend the capital, the Crown, and above all else, the State, from this treachery.
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The Batavia Corps, of which I had personally commanded to great effect prior to my move to the Second Army, and personally commanded by Williams (after the removal of my lieutenant, a man of great fidelity and competence), was an insult and an injury to me, and doubtless has lingered so long as a renegade force as a means to spite me; only Thadee and the Savarinists would find it acceptable to incite revolt against the Crown in one of her most important colonies to make such a travesty apparent before a former commander, and only would they permit that travesty to endure for another six years.
…
However, despite that pain, I was determined to help defend the Fatherland, and I positioned the People’s Army in Brussels, where I had many years before fought in my first battle against rebels and traitors (of Savarinists and Leeuwists, as they had coincidentally endorsed such behaviour, the former by storming out of Parliament like a child, the latter by abusing his governmental position with no regard to the State); we fought the rebels doggedly in the streets, and I at every point sought to ensure the capital did not fall. I waited eagerly for reinforcements from the main army… reinforcements that did not come; I was astounded, but I could not allow my emotions to get the better of me this instant, for I had save my homeland. Whilst de Witt withered, the People’s Army grew, and it fought back the rebels, and by late April, I was certain we had won. The press, however, saw it another way; it was de Witt, that pompous idiot, and another political general, who was credited with this victory; it was I, and the People’s Army, that had flung back the Flems, who had crushed this Spartacus at the eleventh hour, but it was de Witt, that Pompey of a new age, without the cleverness or charisma, who was awarded the honours and auspices of victory. I had by this point come to expect betrayal by the government, and therefore carried on, and left Brussels in mid-May to continue the offence; I was the first loyalist to begin the occupation of Flanders in force, another honour stolen from me.
…
We were winning the war, despite the efforts of the General Staff to lose, and I knew at last the calls for total union would be strong, and these last bonds of division found in regionalism and failure would be called into question and answered with a roar of Power, of Progress, of the State!
…
These hopes were dashed in June, with the outbreak of the Great War.
The Great War
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The powers that be, however, determined to hold an election rather than fully prosecute the war; perhaps they thought Wyngaert, a man of at least some principle, would actively seek to win, so he was instead replaced by Burke and a coalition government that the even the Baron of Schilde participated in (thankfully as Minister of War, to blunt any outrageous weaknesses being made); I, for my part, quickly moved the People’s Army to assume an attacking position against the French and petitioned immediately the General Staff and the War Ministry to be recognised as a n auxiliary force of the Belgian Army; no reply was forthcoming, and so I determined to fight alongside the British and provide whatever help I could to the Belgian soldiers udner that mischievous and deviant commander Thadee, now an elderly and wrinkly, and senile, old man without the stomach or the mind to fight effectively.
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Whilst Thadee’s first true battle cost the Fatherland some twenty-thousand lives at the loss of but five-thousand Bavarians, the People’s Army advanced, stalwartly supporting our British allies at every battle they fought, despite being forced to scrounge the corpses of the French and the British for proper armament; it was a sad thing, but something I excelled at from my days as a youth, and the People’s Army, unlike Thadee’s force, was never want for food or ammunition.
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Lebeau, my successor to the Second Army, a man of some talent but great loyalty to the State, fought viciously against the French, despite his losses; he fought the attack for weeks, even whilst his supplies dwindled and morale dropped; Thadee for his part, deigned to rest his forces before at last relieving the Second Army, again a slight to myself, all nationalists, and the Fatherland; a petty move that cost many thousands of lives.
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Ultimately, this Winter Offensive was won due to the bravery of the common Belgian Soldier and our British and German allies; had the army been composed solely of Thadees, I have no doubt the Fatherland would have fallen. Indeed it would have likely began fighting for the French instead.
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Plan Batavia, created by a clever man, but accredited to Thadee, was a sound idea, and one that I would have endorsed, had I any part in discussing overall strategy; instead, I remained with the British, though the People’s Army began to act with greater independence due to our experience and state of supply, and at every point I made it clear that I was fighting for the victory of the Fatherland, and for the dream of reclaiming our stolen land.
Yes, the issue of Magna Belgica arose during these months, and I and my fellow officers were already pressing the British for support in our rightful claims, though we ultimately laid those issues aside when battle arose.
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Despite our advance, Thadee seemed ever more determined to slaughter as many Belgians as he possibly could, and his battles became nothing more than dances in lakes of blood, a show and a farce by a half-witted conductor no longer fit to lead; his victories would have been to any other man a defeat, but instead he was lauded as a champion and a great man, not the butcher and the fool that he was.
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I had deigned to act more politely towards Thadee at this point, despite my lack of respect for him; he was still an officer, and I still dreamed of returning to my place in the military. He was not as disposed as I was, and berated me and I have half a mind to say he wished me dead.
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Nevertheless, I continued to fight alongside the British against the crumbling forces of the French; we shook them at ever battle and soon they began retreating and surrendering en masse, like craven whore-sons (or Thadee); at roughly the same time, sniper managed to hit Thadee, who nearly died; for some reason, the Lord determined to punish us all by preserving him, perhaps as our punishment for Burke, Savarin, and de Leeuw. At roughly the same time, the People’s Army marched on Paris, and two days after our arrival, British support reached us; the last vestigial remains of the French forces fought us, but in the end we triumphed, and it was the People’s Army, alongside the British, who at last broke the French.
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The war was concluding, and yet there was a feeling of emptiness, a sense of betrayal common amongst all the men of the Army; they had watched their compatriots throw their lives away in Thadee’s meat grinder, and yet they were not the heroes; Thadee was. They had seen first-hand the cowardice of the General Staff, and its overbearing incompetence, and they saw the defeatist attitudes abundant in Brussels and the Savarinist strongholds. From this, a new ideology emerged, a rejection of Beauffortism and its incessant longing for the past, and a disregard for communism and its nonsensical drivel; fascism was born from the bodies of the fallen Belgian soldiers in Nancy and Verdun, and from their sacrifices, the rise of a true nationalism, and a rejection of archaic politics began in earnest.
The notion of fascism in these first few months was a superfluous idea, not yet solidified by the works van de Velde and myself, but still deeply rooted in a love for the State, and a desire for truly moral, strong government over the weak, anaemic regime of Burke, which nary the heart or stomach to wage war effectively.
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Imprisonment
I was arrested on the 13 of March, 1908, by a warden who openly confessed that he sympathetic to me; he gave me this typewriter himself before he was replaced by a Savarinist, who deigned to beat me whenever possible, possibly out of some found memory of when his ilk could run about Brussels and murder without fear of reprisal.
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I found it in me, however, to set myself to work, to better the Party and the State in whatever small way I could; in a series of writing sessions, I penned my first major work, the Doctrine of Fascism, wherein I entailed my vision of the fascist movement, and began proposing improvements to party structure (a more formal construct will be seen in the appendix of this book); it was also shortly after its publication that I determined to write my autobiography. Many lies had already been written about me, and I now had the opportunity, and moreover the time, to pen my own defence against these lies and deceits, and at last expose the truth for all to see; the government is opposed to the State, and ideals of Belgium; it was only through the Fascist movement that Greater Belgica can be formed, and our Time in the Sun at last before us. To stand alongside the Savarinist or the Leeuwist is to condemn the State to more disunion and corruption! To fight alongside the Fascist is the highest honour, and to being about the revolution of the State is the greatest and most noble ideal there is.
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As we come to a close of this first volume of my memoirs, detailing my life up until this point, I remain in my cell. It is now nearly a year since my arrest, and I have not been tried; I have been given no lawyer, nor any means to protect myself. Is this justice?
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