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Window of Difficulty
The civil disorders of the early thirties were finally resolved by recourse to an ancient Roman remedy, the election of a Dictator. There had never been any question of the purely physical power of the Senate to enforce its will and quell the riots; the issue was one of political division - in short, the factions of the Senate disagreed on which rioters should be quelled. When Konstantin Komnenos finally managed, by dint of suborning the Viator to summon the Senate at an unusual hour, to scrape a bare majority in a rump session that had a quorum only because three Senators were officially on the sick list, and thus win, if not the loyalty, then at least the acquiescence of the Legions, the Troubles as such were swiftly ended. The one thing the officers of the Legions could agree on was that legitimate authority must be obeyed, that even the victory of a faction they opposed was better than outright civil war. If the authority had been gained by means of barely-legal trickery, well, vae victis; the losing factions had, after all, had the same opportunities, and Konstantin had outmanouvred them. A three-year deadlock in the Senate had produced a climate in which an end to uncertainty, even what two-thirds of the officers thought was a bad end, was greeted with sighs of relief.
When Konstantin ordered the Sol Invictus to fire upon rioters in Beijing - pour la canaille, la mitrailleuse, he quipped, improving upon the original la mitraille - the legion went to with a will, leaving the streets strewn with bodies and almost literally running with blood, but also bringing the unrest to a decisive end. Once it was demonstrated that there was a will at the top to use deadly force, and a will in the Legions to obey, there was no hope that mob violence could succeed. The various agitators were no fools; they knew perfectly well that they had no chance of resisting a Senate without the "covering fire" of their political arms, now out of power. Street rioting was a viable tactic only, and exactly so long as, organised military force could be kept out of it; when the political battle ended, the paramilitary struggle was necessarily over as well. The Last Riot in Beijing seems to have been intended as a deliberate test of Konstantin's resolve; had he wavered, there would almost certainly have been a wave of riots in other cities, just as had happened in 1931. When, instead, he demonstrated that he would not hesitate to kill to restore order, it became clear that rioting would be futile and would only waste scarce street-fighting manpower; the factions, therefore, very rationally decided to lie low and wait for better days. After all a Dictator was only elected for a limited term.
In spite of these immediate successes, Konstantin found himself Dictator of a much weakened Khanate. The climate of uncertainty and possibility of nationalisation had driven investment almost to a standstill and interest rates into the middle teens, with disastrous consequences for industrial output. Indeed, the resulting mass unemployment had been one factor making it easy for the factions to find warm bodies for rioting. Nor was the military situation much better: Although he was as gentle as possible, with more half-pay semi-voluntary retirements than verdicts of "unfit to serve the Senate and the People in any capacity", and only three recorded executions, nonetheless, the purges left the officer corps desperately weak. "It would make a Russian smile to see our way of doing things," ran a popular poem at the time, "we've Centurions (*) taking cohorts and Tribunes taking Wings, and decurions acting signifer, eight file to obey; for we've lots of quick promotion, on ten courts (**) a day!" Moreover, the official doctrine of the army was desperately antiquated, a consequence of the disputes that had riven it and left it unable to find a consensus on restoring order, much less on how to deploy tanks. Training, orders of battle, and handbooks were all geared to infantry-support tanks with a top speed of 5 miles an hour, horse-drawn artillery, and biplanes with hundred-mile ranges; a thorough and far-reaching reform was needed before the Legions would be an effective instrument of international power. For at least a few years, then, the Legions, while formidable enough against riots and strikes, could guarantee the security of the Republic only against a single foreign enemy, and even then expected a long period of "elastic defense" - that is, trading space for time - to cover the raising of a mass national militia. There could be no question, Konstantin was quietly informed, of fighting a two-front war or of projecting power beyond the Khanate's borders.
Then, to pile misery upon misery, the Khanate was diplomatically isolated. Its recent allies in the war against Russia had their own troubles, and Russia itself was undergoing its own domestic upheaval after its loss of territory, and had no cause to love the Khanate which had just torn a hundred miles of steppe territory from its grasp. As for Japan, the islanders were characteristically quiet, but it was well known that many there felt the Rising Sun should have had a larger share of China after the "intervention" in the risings there, and that the civil unrest in the Khanate would have been a good time to press that case. After all, Rome, as chief beneficiary of the partition of China, could hardly complain if others followed the precedent it had been foremost in setting, that a nation weakened by rebellion was fair game!
Nonetheless, Konstantin did have some reason for optimism. The fundamental economy of the Khanate remained strong; here the old steppe ideal, of a state that kept minimal interference in its citizens' economic affairs, proved a great help, for it meant that budgets could be reduced almost at will, without reference to domestic interest groups. In particular, Konstantin balanced the budgets of 1933-1937 by reducing the State dividend, the share of revenue paid to the Komnenoi by virtue of their joint ownership of the Roman state, to nothing. Since it was rare and much stigmatised to rely on the State dividend for one's living, this caused little actual hardship, while demonstrating to the other ethnic groups of the polyglot steppe that the Komnenoi were still willing to sacrifice for the ideal of Rome. Moreover, the purges had been sufficiently gentle that there was a strong reserve of trained officers on half-pay, not necessarily estranged from the regime, who could be gradually called back to the colours as Konstantin's reforms worked their way through the army. As often happens, the issue of doctrine and training standards, a matter of some controversy through the twenties, had become attached to the more political issues, with the Communist faction advocating mass attacks and elan, while the hardline imperialists wanted high-tech Legions consisting mainly of tanks and futuristic aircraft. (The issues of how these doctrines were to be, respectively, recruited for in a nation with a centuries-old tradition of voluntary enlistment, and fuelled, in a nation with scanty reserves of oil, were usually swept under the table.) Once the officers loyal to Konstantin had finished hammering out a workable doctrine, from deciding on the calibre of the small arm (6.5 mm, killing power being sacrificed for low recoil and the ability to carry more rounds in a standard infantryman's load) to the top-level TOE of the Legions as a whole (90 infantry divisions, with strong artillery support by the standards of the day, 15 'Kataphrakt' armoured divisions as a breakthrough and exploitation force, and 3 cavalry divisions for reasons of sentiment and capability in steppe winter), the remainder could be phased back in to the new organisation. With the debate effectively over, no political support, and an obvious need to, if nothing else, make the best of a bad job, private opinions, even strong ones, on the best way to employ the Khanate's resources could do little harm; armies, after all, are organised precisely to hammer, if necessary, pegs of any shape into the standard-issue holes. Indeed, section XVI.8 of the 1935 Regulations dealt with the organisation of field brothels, and laid down that only the standard hole should be used due to the risk of tearing and attendant infections.
Konstantin had, then, not a window of opportunity but a window of difficulty: If he could survive the next few years without having to fight a war, the Khanate's international position would be vastly improved.
Footnotes:
(*) A rank usually equivalent to Lieutenant, and found in command of a century, ie a company, not a cohort, which is the equivalent of a regiment.
(**) That is, courts martial - a poetic exaggeration, since placing an officer on half pay could be done by administrative decree, without the need for a legal proceeding.
The civil disorders of the early thirties were finally resolved by recourse to an ancient Roman remedy, the election of a Dictator. There had never been any question of the purely physical power of the Senate to enforce its will and quell the riots; the issue was one of political division - in short, the factions of the Senate disagreed on which rioters should be quelled. When Konstantin Komnenos finally managed, by dint of suborning the Viator to summon the Senate at an unusual hour, to scrape a bare majority in a rump session that had a quorum only because three Senators were officially on the sick list, and thus win, if not the loyalty, then at least the acquiescence of the Legions, the Troubles as such were swiftly ended. The one thing the officers of the Legions could agree on was that legitimate authority must be obeyed, that even the victory of a faction they opposed was better than outright civil war. If the authority had been gained by means of barely-legal trickery, well, vae victis; the losing factions had, after all, had the same opportunities, and Konstantin had outmanouvred them. A three-year deadlock in the Senate had produced a climate in which an end to uncertainty, even what two-thirds of the officers thought was a bad end, was greeted with sighs of relief.
When Konstantin ordered the Sol Invictus to fire upon rioters in Beijing - pour la canaille, la mitrailleuse, he quipped, improving upon the original la mitraille - the legion went to with a will, leaving the streets strewn with bodies and almost literally running with blood, but also bringing the unrest to a decisive end. Once it was demonstrated that there was a will at the top to use deadly force, and a will in the Legions to obey, there was no hope that mob violence could succeed. The various agitators were no fools; they knew perfectly well that they had no chance of resisting a Senate without the "covering fire" of their political arms, now out of power. Street rioting was a viable tactic only, and exactly so long as, organised military force could be kept out of it; when the political battle ended, the paramilitary struggle was necessarily over as well. The Last Riot in Beijing seems to have been intended as a deliberate test of Konstantin's resolve; had he wavered, there would almost certainly have been a wave of riots in other cities, just as had happened in 1931. When, instead, he demonstrated that he would not hesitate to kill to restore order, it became clear that rioting would be futile and would only waste scarce street-fighting manpower; the factions, therefore, very rationally decided to lie low and wait for better days. After all a Dictator was only elected for a limited term.
In spite of these immediate successes, Konstantin found himself Dictator of a much weakened Khanate. The climate of uncertainty and possibility of nationalisation had driven investment almost to a standstill and interest rates into the middle teens, with disastrous consequences for industrial output. Indeed, the resulting mass unemployment had been one factor making it easy for the factions to find warm bodies for rioting. Nor was the military situation much better: Although he was as gentle as possible, with more half-pay semi-voluntary retirements than verdicts of "unfit to serve the Senate and the People in any capacity", and only three recorded executions, nonetheless, the purges left the officer corps desperately weak. "It would make a Russian smile to see our way of doing things," ran a popular poem at the time, "we've Centurions (*) taking cohorts and Tribunes taking Wings, and decurions acting signifer, eight file to obey; for we've lots of quick promotion, on ten courts (**) a day!" Moreover, the official doctrine of the army was desperately antiquated, a consequence of the disputes that had riven it and left it unable to find a consensus on restoring order, much less on how to deploy tanks. Training, orders of battle, and handbooks were all geared to infantry-support tanks with a top speed of 5 miles an hour, horse-drawn artillery, and biplanes with hundred-mile ranges; a thorough and far-reaching reform was needed before the Legions would be an effective instrument of international power. For at least a few years, then, the Legions, while formidable enough against riots and strikes, could guarantee the security of the Republic only against a single foreign enemy, and even then expected a long period of "elastic defense" - that is, trading space for time - to cover the raising of a mass national militia. There could be no question, Konstantin was quietly informed, of fighting a two-front war or of projecting power beyond the Khanate's borders.
Then, to pile misery upon misery, the Khanate was diplomatically isolated. Its recent allies in the war against Russia had their own troubles, and Russia itself was undergoing its own domestic upheaval after its loss of territory, and had no cause to love the Khanate which had just torn a hundred miles of steppe territory from its grasp. As for Japan, the islanders were characteristically quiet, but it was well known that many there felt the Rising Sun should have had a larger share of China after the "intervention" in the risings there, and that the civil unrest in the Khanate would have been a good time to press that case. After all, Rome, as chief beneficiary of the partition of China, could hardly complain if others followed the precedent it had been foremost in setting, that a nation weakened by rebellion was fair game!
Nonetheless, Konstantin did have some reason for optimism. The fundamental economy of the Khanate remained strong; here the old steppe ideal, of a state that kept minimal interference in its citizens' economic affairs, proved a great help, for it meant that budgets could be reduced almost at will, without reference to domestic interest groups. In particular, Konstantin balanced the budgets of 1933-1937 by reducing the State dividend, the share of revenue paid to the Komnenoi by virtue of their joint ownership of the Roman state, to nothing. Since it was rare and much stigmatised to rely on the State dividend for one's living, this caused little actual hardship, while demonstrating to the other ethnic groups of the polyglot steppe that the Komnenoi were still willing to sacrifice for the ideal of Rome. Moreover, the purges had been sufficiently gentle that there was a strong reserve of trained officers on half-pay, not necessarily estranged from the regime, who could be gradually called back to the colours as Konstantin's reforms worked their way through the army. As often happens, the issue of doctrine and training standards, a matter of some controversy through the twenties, had become attached to the more political issues, with the Communist faction advocating mass attacks and elan, while the hardline imperialists wanted high-tech Legions consisting mainly of tanks and futuristic aircraft. (The issues of how these doctrines were to be, respectively, recruited for in a nation with a centuries-old tradition of voluntary enlistment, and fuelled, in a nation with scanty reserves of oil, were usually swept under the table.) Once the officers loyal to Konstantin had finished hammering out a workable doctrine, from deciding on the calibre of the small arm (6.5 mm, killing power being sacrificed for low recoil and the ability to carry more rounds in a standard infantryman's load) to the top-level TOE of the Legions as a whole (90 infantry divisions, with strong artillery support by the standards of the day, 15 'Kataphrakt' armoured divisions as a breakthrough and exploitation force, and 3 cavalry divisions for reasons of sentiment and capability in steppe winter), the remainder could be phased back in to the new organisation. With the debate effectively over, no political support, and an obvious need to, if nothing else, make the best of a bad job, private opinions, even strong ones, on the best way to employ the Khanate's resources could do little harm; armies, after all, are organised precisely to hammer, if necessary, pegs of any shape into the standard-issue holes. Indeed, section XVI.8 of the 1935 Regulations dealt with the organisation of field brothels, and laid down that only the standard hole should be used due to the risk of tearing and attendant infections.
Konstantin had, then, not a window of opportunity but a window of difficulty: If he could survive the next few years without having to fight a war, the Khanate's international position would be vastly improved.
Footnotes:
(*) A rank usually equivalent to Lieutenant, and found in command of a century, ie a company, not a cohort, which is the equivalent of a regiment.
(**) That is, courts martial - a poetic exaggeration, since placing an officer on half pay could be done by administrative decree, without the need for a legal proceeding.
From The Road to War: Eurasian Diplomacy 1921-1942,
Adam Tewksbury,
Deutsch-Anglische Informations-Presse, (C) 1967.
Adam Tewksbury,
Deutsch-Anglische Informations-Presse, (C) 1967.
The Empire of the Volga 2
Another dreary day in the Black Sea city of Sevastopol Sebastian thought to himself, it would've been a great time for his studies but c'est la vie. The harbor had a dark overcast to it, a sign of fierce storms on their way. It was bad enough standing here at the docks having to endure the elements but if it was only going to get worse.... They had better arrive on time.
He turned to his lanky Ukrainian companion next to him, “Brother Zev...”.
“da Sebastian Konstantinovich?” Vasilii “Zev” Chomski replied. Zev was Sebastians senior in the Military Intelligence Directorate or “GRU”, tasked with training and looking out for the younger instrument of the state's will.
Sebastian actually got well enough along with him, they were both Jewish intellectuals and Zev was kindly enough, he heard he had a kid as well keeping him humble.
Sebastian himself was not quite as accomplished, just turning 20 and recently inducted into the Directorate tends to limit ones horizons to the here and now and what the Boss wanted you to do. Being still able to commence his studies in Ryazaran was a luxury he drank greedily. Having been born and grown up in Tbsilisi he got out when the Ethiopians had temporarily occupied it, and had been studying in Ryazaran ever since until his recruitment.
“I was wondering if you had a smoke...?” He asked somewhat tentatively. As much as he enjoyed the finer intellectual exercises it made him shiver to not at all understand just what Vasilii did in the directorate. He had no official rank, he was a “Doctor”, a scholar of Hebrew only! Sebastian himself was studying linguistics. Zev could talk all day about the Torah and the Talmud and the finer point of Rabbinical law and Hebrew grammar a true Jew if there ever was one.
And yet...
“Da Brother.... Give me a moment...” Zev got out the cigaratte giving it to Sebastian, placing it in his mouth he leaned forward to allow Zev to light it with his German zippo.
Frankly, secretly deep down Zev somewhat terrified Sebastian. Other GRU officials gave much respect to this man, who did he know? What did he know?
After taking a minute to puff on the cigarrette. “Fuck this weather.” Dropping into the Russian sublanguage of sorts of the foul.
Vasilii Chomski nodded in understand. “Da Brother, it is terrible I will grant that.”
Smiling he continued. “You would think our Kongolian contact were secretly Russian eh?” This provoked Sebastian to chuckle, he got the joke alright even if the common rube didn't. Russian didn't have a grammatical “tense” for “arriving on time” so Russians even with reliable clocks tended to lack any at all punctuality, also provided an opportunity to poke fun at the might “Great Russians” who ruled from the capital from what was the Grand Duchy of Ryazaran.
Finally though before Sebastian had to resort to asking for another smoke a motor boat pulled up to a sputtering stop at the pier where the two Intelligence agents were waiting.
Climbing with ungainly clumsiness due to her massive size was a large central African black, seemingly over 6 feet tall she was a giant compared to the two diminutive jewish men.
“You two... Contact?” She asked in a terrible mockery of Russian. Zev swore under his breath, the sound stolen by the strong harbour winds, only Sebastian could hear, luckily there were prepared.
“We are your contact Brother Zamierya, as per protocol however we will ask the confirmation code.” He said in German, a language he knew their contact also knew. “Do not joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am dissatisfied with your younger son?” He paused.
“What would you have me do?” She replied. “You know I did all a father could for their education, and they bother turned out fools.” In flawless German no less, it was insulting. We had to learn and perfect our Russian to survive, why can't you? Go fuck yourself and your fucking god forsaken country you cunt. This obviously never left the world of his thoughts.
That would be unseemly.
“How is your son?” She asked, continuing in her German.
“Noam is a fine young lad of nine years. I hope he will grow up to be a scholar like myself.” Zev answered. Noam Chomsky has a nice ring to it, no doubt he will be a great scholar of some sort one day. Zev was a master diplomat, if he felt any discomfort at all standing out here in this weather it didn't show and deftly he changed the subject matter to the matter at hand.
You had to be careful with the Kongolians, they didn't to talk and stall negotiations forever and ever never ever getting to the heart of the matter if they could help it; though this time...
“As for the matter our superiors have discussed...?” He asked diplomatically.
She nodded emphatically up and down, a somewhat frightening movement given her size, though catching her ample breasts moving under that uniform of hers...
“The first shipment has already left port from the home country, 25 freights total will be arriving assuming all goes well!” For emphasis she added “Wunderbar!” Like a good German she's pretending to be.
Weapons.
twenty five cargoholds of weapons!
Sebastian didn't know enough logistics to do anything more than guess as to the contents, thirty rifle divisions? Forty? He figured Zev would know, Zev always knew.
Zev moved to shake her hand. Her massive hand totally enclosed his, Zev smiled weakly and then feigned pain as a joke, provoking laughter from the Kongolian woman.
In truth this meeting was just the confirmation of over a month of negotiations and meetings between the GRU and their Kongolian opposites. Innuendo'ed conversations over wine at Diplomatic gatherings led to frank discussions over wine or vodka, leading to conferences, agent meetings, offers and counter offers, negotiations until finally... agreement struck. Armaments. Many armaments in exchange for cash for the Kongolian cash strapped economy, having suffered egregiously from an economic implosion when the more laissez faire government pulled the plug on the whole thing.
Short sighted and reckless, but what can you say? The national kongolese experiment in hands off economics had failed and Mother Russia reaps the benefit. Why the secrecy? Funny thing how Croatian and Kongolese laws seemed to conspire to weaken the rodina from lawful purchases on the international arms market, and especially regarding their shipment through the Bosphorous.
Kongolese cooperation was crucial and hard won, and with that they pressured and lobbied their Croatian allies to not look too closely on the cargoships passing through...
Zev smiled.
And the Kongolian woman shivered.
I wonder what sort of man his son will grow up to be?
[Historical info; Vasilii “Zev” Chomski is indeed “William” “Zev” Chomsky, father of famous computational linguist and Activist Noam Chomsky and Sebastian is Sebastian Konstantinovich Shamuyan, also a famous Soviet linguist who emmigrated in 1975, Dr William had immigrated from Ukraine to the United States; my time line supposes that a Imperial Russia without the same upheavals might have been slightly more friendly to its Jewish minority and thus many famous scientests and emmigres did not emmigrate or defect.]
Another dreary day in the Black Sea city of Sevastopol Sebastian thought to himself, it would've been a great time for his studies but c'est la vie. The harbor had a dark overcast to it, a sign of fierce storms on their way. It was bad enough standing here at the docks having to endure the elements but if it was only going to get worse.... They had better arrive on time.
He turned to his lanky Ukrainian companion next to him, “Brother Zev...”.
“da Sebastian Konstantinovich?” Vasilii “Zev” Chomski replied. Zev was Sebastians senior in the Military Intelligence Directorate or “GRU”, tasked with training and looking out for the younger instrument of the state's will.
Sebastian actually got well enough along with him, they were both Jewish intellectuals and Zev was kindly enough, he heard he had a kid as well keeping him humble.
Sebastian himself was not quite as accomplished, just turning 20 and recently inducted into the Directorate tends to limit ones horizons to the here and now and what the Boss wanted you to do. Being still able to commence his studies in Ryazaran was a luxury he drank greedily. Having been born and grown up in Tbsilisi he got out when the Ethiopians had temporarily occupied it, and had been studying in Ryazaran ever since until his recruitment.
“I was wondering if you had a smoke...?” He asked somewhat tentatively. As much as he enjoyed the finer intellectual exercises it made him shiver to not at all understand just what Vasilii did in the directorate. He had no official rank, he was a “Doctor”, a scholar of Hebrew only! Sebastian himself was studying linguistics. Zev could talk all day about the Torah and the Talmud and the finer point of Rabbinical law and Hebrew grammar a true Jew if there ever was one.
And yet...
“Da Brother.... Give me a moment...” Zev got out the cigaratte giving it to Sebastian, placing it in his mouth he leaned forward to allow Zev to light it with his German zippo.
Frankly, secretly deep down Zev somewhat terrified Sebastian. Other GRU officials gave much respect to this man, who did he know? What did he know?
After taking a minute to puff on the cigarrette. “Fuck this weather.” Dropping into the Russian sublanguage of sorts of the foul.
Vasilii Chomski nodded in understand. “Da Brother, it is terrible I will grant that.”
Smiling he continued. “You would think our Kongolian contact were secretly Russian eh?” This provoked Sebastian to chuckle, he got the joke alright even if the common rube didn't. Russian didn't have a grammatical “tense” for “arriving on time” so Russians even with reliable clocks tended to lack any at all punctuality, also provided an opportunity to poke fun at the might “Great Russians” who ruled from the capital from what was the Grand Duchy of Ryazaran.
Finally though before Sebastian had to resort to asking for another smoke a motor boat pulled up to a sputtering stop at the pier where the two Intelligence agents were waiting.
Climbing with ungainly clumsiness due to her massive size was a large central African black, seemingly over 6 feet tall she was a giant compared to the two diminutive jewish men.
“You two... Contact?” She asked in a terrible mockery of Russian. Zev swore under his breath, the sound stolen by the strong harbour winds, only Sebastian could hear, luckily there were prepared.
“We are your contact Brother Zamierya, as per protocol however we will ask the confirmation code.” He said in German, a language he knew their contact also knew. “Do not joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am dissatisfied with your younger son?” He paused.
“What would you have me do?” She replied. “You know I did all a father could for their education, and they bother turned out fools.” In flawless German no less, it was insulting. We had to learn and perfect our Russian to survive, why can't you? Go fuck yourself and your fucking god forsaken country you cunt. This obviously never left the world of his thoughts.
That would be unseemly.
“How is your son?” She asked, continuing in her German.
“Noam is a fine young lad of nine years. I hope he will grow up to be a scholar like myself.” Zev answered. Noam Chomsky has a nice ring to it, no doubt he will be a great scholar of some sort one day. Zev was a master diplomat, if he felt any discomfort at all standing out here in this weather it didn't show and deftly he changed the subject matter to the matter at hand.
You had to be careful with the Kongolians, they didn't to talk and stall negotiations forever and ever never ever getting to the heart of the matter if they could help it; though this time...
“As for the matter our superiors have discussed...?” He asked diplomatically.
She nodded emphatically up and down, a somewhat frightening movement given her size, though catching her ample breasts moving under that uniform of hers...
“The first shipment has already left port from the home country, 25 freights total will be arriving assuming all goes well!” For emphasis she added “Wunderbar!” Like a good German she's pretending to be.
Weapons.
twenty five cargoholds of weapons!
Sebastian didn't know enough logistics to do anything more than guess as to the contents, thirty rifle divisions? Forty? He figured Zev would know, Zev always knew.
Zev moved to shake her hand. Her massive hand totally enclosed his, Zev smiled weakly and then feigned pain as a joke, provoking laughter from the Kongolian woman.
In truth this meeting was just the confirmation of over a month of negotiations and meetings between the GRU and their Kongolian opposites. Innuendo'ed conversations over wine at Diplomatic gatherings led to frank discussions over wine or vodka, leading to conferences, agent meetings, offers and counter offers, negotiations until finally... agreement struck. Armaments. Many armaments in exchange for cash for the Kongolian cash strapped economy, having suffered egregiously from an economic implosion when the more laissez faire government pulled the plug on the whole thing.
Short sighted and reckless, but what can you say? The national kongolese experiment in hands off economics had failed and Mother Russia reaps the benefit. Why the secrecy? Funny thing how Croatian and Kongolese laws seemed to conspire to weaken the rodina from lawful purchases on the international arms market, and especially regarding their shipment through the Bosphorous.
Kongolese cooperation was crucial and hard won, and with that they pressured and lobbied their Croatian allies to not look too closely on the cargoships passing through...
Zev smiled.
And the Kongolian woman shivered.
I wonder what sort of man his son will grow up to be?
[Historical info; Vasilii “Zev” Chomski is indeed “William” “Zev” Chomsky, father of famous computational linguist and Activist Noam Chomsky and Sebastian is Sebastian Konstantinovich Shamuyan, also a famous Soviet linguist who emmigrated in 1975, Dr William had immigrated from Ukraine to the United States; my time line supposes that a Imperial Russia without the same upheavals might have been slightly more friendly to its Jewish minority and thus many famous scientests and emmigres did not emmigrate or defect.]
Russia has been a Democracy, a Republic for the past 100 years, as I played it. It had probably the least upheavels / revolutions in V2 of anybody. There is no Tsar since 1820s, Both Conservatives, Liberals, Reactionaries, Conservatives and Socialists have won elections. Probably again also a more plural system than anyone else could say in V2, as everybody had locked the best Party traits in one party that they favoured and stuck with. Effectively, Russia has been more democratic than any other nation for the past 100 years. So yea, no big reasons to emigrate. Of course there was emigration, but more due to others that were gaming the system by rushing reforms via tricksy things. In storyline, nobody else comes close to the level of republicanism that Russia has known. Now back to you.
And as such, the world plunges into another year and a half of peace.
The state of the world in September of 1938:
IC levels:
Axis(825/534):
-Germany: 650/434
-Russia: 175/100
-Norway: 0/0
Allies: (925/570)
-Catalan Commonwealth: 615/371
-New Californian Republic: 310/199
Comintern: (1168/785)
Ethiopia: 396/233
Kongo: 321/221
Japan: 314/233
Punjab: 137/98
Portugal: 0/0
Rome: (160/103)
-The Roman Khanate: 160/103
The state of the world in September of 1938:
IC levels:
Axis(825/534):
-Germany: 650/434
-Russia: 175/100
-Norway: 0/0
Allies: (925/570)
-Catalan Commonwealth: 615/371
-New Californian Republic: 310/199
Comintern: (1168/785)
Ethiopia: 396/233
Kongo: 321/221
Japan: 314/233
Punjab: 137/98
Portugal: 0/0
Rome: (160/103)
-The Roman Khanate: 160/103
Ooh, Punjab is expanding!
According to Fivoin, nothing much.
By the way Fivoin, you should fulfill your legacy as Foelsguaard successor (as the major European player) and take on the world by yourself. Now.
According to Fivoin, nothing much.
By the way Fivoin, you should fulfill your legacy as Foelsguaard successor (as the major European player) and take on the world by yourself. Now.
Punjab now looks like an armoured fist ready to punch out Europe. Or possibly like a Reddit upvote, slanted 45 degrees.
