29th December 1944 - Brazil
29th December 1944 - Brazil
Leaving behind the Land of the Dead Presidents we move onto sultry Rio de Janeiro where the exceptionally confused President Vargas is attempting to get a grip on the the Brazilian War Effort. To aid him in this almost heroically difficult task he has ordered the cabinet assembled.
"Comrades..." He attempted to start the meeting, before being interrupted by angry grumbling.
"Very well the revolution hasn't gone quite as I intended." Vargas sulkily conceded the point. "Gentlemen, what news from the European theatre?"
There was some mumbling that sounded like "Not much."
"Surely the Brazilian Expeditionary Force has been engaged in heroic deeds? Fighting alongside the Allies in the liberation of France and the drive into the dark heart of Germany?" Vargas encouraged them.
There is an awkward silence.
"They haven't actually left Brazil yet have they?" Vargas growled at his generals.
"Not as such." The Chief of Staff, General Cavalcanti, confessed.
"But we've been at war with the Axis since August 1942! Surely we are ready by now?" Vargas was too confused to be angry.
"Well you remember all the people saying 'It's more likely for a snake to smoke a pipe, than for the Brazilian Expeditionary Force to go the front and fight'"? Cavalcanti asked.
"I do recall there were some wreckers and splitters voicing such seditious treason. Before we dealt with them." Vargas replied as Security Minister Cassiano smiled as if recalling a happy memory.
"Well it turns out they were right." To his credit Cavalcanti managed to say that with a mostly straight face.
"That is unacceptable! What does the Chief of Army have to say about this?" Vargas turned and stared at General de Mendonca.
There was another, longer, awkward silence.
"He hasn't got anything to say Presidente." Cavalcanti broke the silence in a soft voice.
"Why not?" Vargas raged.
"Because he's still dead. He has been for years." Cavalcanti continued in his careful tones.
"Oh. Yes. I remember now." Vargas subsided.
"And even when he was alive he wasn't a soldier, he was a regional mayor and failed revolutionary." Cavalcanti continued.
"I wanted his revolutionary experience!" Vargas grasped at that straw.
"He was a monarchist revolutionary trying to put Emperor Pedro back on the Imperial throne." Cavalcanti warmed to his theme.
"Look, there's no need to rub it in." Vargas complained.
To break the tense silence General Filho stood up and made an announcement.
"I am delighted to confirm that the Brazilian Air Force has succeed in it's mission. We have prevented the Axis from carpet bombing Rio flat and forcing us to surrender." Filho proudly told the room.
"Have any of the Axis even tried to bomb any Brazilian territory?" Vargas asked.
"No. We think this is proof of how effectively we have deterred them, they are too afraid of our mighty P-36 interceptors to even risk attacking."
"And you are sure that fear of our second hand, obsolete fighters is the main reason? Not the fact there is no enemy heavy bomber within 5,000 miles?" Vargas probed further.
"That may be a contributory factor, but the staff are sure it's mostly fear." General Filho confirmed.
With the twin motivations of both changing the subject and finishing the military briefing, Vargas turned to the naval representative.
"How stands the fleet?" He asked.
"I've no idea." Padilha answered.
"That is unacceptable!" Vargas raged as Padilha cowered before him. "How can you come to cabinet without any idea of the status of our fleet?"
"Mr President please stop, you are frightening the boy." Cavalcanti intervened.
"He is Chief of the Navy and has his duty." Vargas drew himself up and looked down at Padilha.
"He is also a 16 year old philosophy student who has never even been to sea."
"How on earth did he end up Chief of the Navy?" Vargas screamed.
"You felt sorry for him after you had the political police arrest and 'question' his father."
"I did do that didn't I?" Vargas subsided and slumped back into his chair.
Padilha had pulled himself together and stood up to make his statement.
"I did ask Supreme Grand High Admiral Guilhem if it was possible for the Navy to assist in the Ecuadorian war." He sniffled.
There was a silence as the assembled cabinet removed their hats, showing due reverence to the mention of Guilhem's name.
"He said it was a good idea and I was a clever boy for trying to help, but there were a few small issues preventing the navy helping the fighting around Quito. (a) Our battleships cannot be risked so far from their port defence duties, (b) Even if they could they are far too knackered to make it that far because (c) It's too far away for the fleet to even reach. Also (d) Quito is 2800m above sea level and (e) it's 170km inland. So while he stands ever ready to fight for Brazil, the navy cannot assist in the Ecuadorian War."
"The Supreme Grand High Admiral's wisdom has been heard! His word is Brazilian maritime law." Cavalcanti announced as the room burst into appreciative applause.
"This inaction cannot be popular with our Allies, surely there have been diplomatic consequences?" Vargas turned to the Foreign Minster's chair.
Sadly the chair was unoccupied, instead there was a piece of paper pinned to the chair back with a knife. After a gesture from Vargas, General Cavalcanti extracted the knife and passed the paper to the President.
"What is the meaning of this?" Vargas yelled at his cabinet.
"If you have to explain it, then it isn't art." Security Minister Cassiano languidly smiled at his President.
"Where is Foreign Minster Salgado?" Vargas demanded.
"Life here in Rio didn't agree with him." Cassiano picked up the dagger and turned it over in his hands.
"So he returned to exile in Portugal?"
"Exile... Yes, I suppose you could describe what happened to him that way." The smile returned to Cassiano's face and he started to clean his nails with the point of the dagger.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Vargas decided to wrap up the meeting.
"That leaves only finance. I suppose this inaction has at least been welcomed by the Treasury!" He tried to lighten the mood.
There was only silence from the test tube carefully placed on the Finance Minister's chair.
"Mr President." Cavalcanti broke the silence. "I'm afraid Senor Neto still hasn't been conceived yet."
For a moment the cabinet thought the President might hold it together, but then with a mighty scream he gave in and burst into tears.
The Brazilian Government in all it's confused magnificence.
--
Notes:
Lets begin at the top here. Vargas was indeed combined HoS and HoG, but it's mostly down-hill from there. I fully sympathise with the difficulty of slotting Vargas into a neat Left-Right spectrum, while most people don't fit he is an especially tricky case. But that is no excuse for making him Left Wing Radical and Estado Novo (New State) Paternal Autocrat. Estado Novo basically was Vargas, he wrote the constitution and was it's only leader - they should be identical.
Moving down Plinio Salgado was in Exile in Portugal in 1944 and had been since mid-1939. A leading "Integralist" (the slightly odd Brazilian flavour of fascism, represented here by the Ação Integralista Brasileira party) he had been exiled for leading coups against Vargas and his party, along with all the other political parties, outlawed. He only returned in 1945 after Vargas had been deposed, so an odd choice.
Waldemar Costa Neto was born in 1949. He is still with us and is a Republic Party politician, no obvious military links that I can see.
Riccardo Cassiano - Was indeed a moderately famous poet who did produce 'Concrete Poerty' in his career, along with a wide variety of other styles including a "mystical nationalist journal" which just sounds delightful. He was at least alive at the right date, even if he never entered politics or the secret service.
Newtwon Cavalcanti - Was a real general, plausible choice. OTL was a leading figure in the coup that over-threw Vargas and the Estato Novo, but then most people were involved in that. Did well in the later military dictatorship. This is as good a place as any to say the whole "Cobras are smoking" thing was OTL so the Brazilian Expeditionary Force got a natty shoulder patch with a cobra smoking a pipe. Alas here they do not as they are still aimlessly marching along the Brazilian coastline.
Tomas De Mendonca - Was indeed a long dead Brazilian monarchist. He has a street named after him in random bit of Brazil which makes it damn hard to find out much about him (all the search results were about the road). He was a state mayor once and was somehow involved in a monarchist coup, but as he still got a road named after him it can't have gone that badly for him. Never in the army and also died in 1920s best I can tell.
Tarcisio Padilha - Born in 1928 he became a philosopher, professor and judge in Brazil. Nothing at all to do with the Navy at any point. The funky outfit that he and Cassiano are wearing is the formal gala gilded uniform of the Academia Brasileira de Letras, the Brazilian Academy of Letters - think the Académie Française, which it wascopied from inspired by, even down to having 40 members all called Immortals.
Mourao Filho - Army General that took part in '38 coup. In OTL was fighting with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force, no obvious signs of plane related work in his career and definitely nothing on heavy bombers. The Brazilian air force was not a mighty force.
Finally we come to Admiral Henrique Aristides Guilhem. He genuinely was head of the Brazilian navy at the time and had held most of the other important roles in the navy at various points. Post-war he was promoted to Admiral-of-the-Fleet in 1951 and Grand Admiral in 1958. Nothing exciting there, except he died in 1949. The Brazilian navy gave him two post-mortem promotions, the last one being to their highest 'wartime only' rank. Clearly they thought a lot of him, something I thought worth acknowledging.
Leaving behind the Land of the Dead Presidents we move onto sultry Rio de Janeiro where the exceptionally confused President Vargas is attempting to get a grip on the the Brazilian War Effort. To aid him in this almost heroically difficult task he has ordered the cabinet assembled.
"Comrades..." He attempted to start the meeting, before being interrupted by angry grumbling.
"Very well the revolution hasn't gone quite as I intended." Vargas sulkily conceded the point. "Gentlemen, what news from the European theatre?"
There was some mumbling that sounded like "Not much."
"Surely the Brazilian Expeditionary Force has been engaged in heroic deeds? Fighting alongside the Allies in the liberation of France and the drive into the dark heart of Germany?" Vargas encouraged them.
There is an awkward silence.
"They haven't actually left Brazil yet have they?" Vargas growled at his generals.
"Not as such." The Chief of Staff, General Cavalcanti, confessed.
"But we've been at war with the Axis since August 1942! Surely we are ready by now?" Vargas was too confused to be angry.
"Well you remember all the people saying 'It's more likely for a snake to smoke a pipe, than for the Brazilian Expeditionary Force to go the front and fight'"? Cavalcanti asked.
"I do recall there were some wreckers and splitters voicing such seditious treason. Before we dealt with them." Vargas replied as Security Minister Cassiano smiled as if recalling a happy memory.
"Well it turns out they were right." To his credit Cavalcanti managed to say that with a mostly straight face.
"That is unacceptable! What does the Chief of Army have to say about this?" Vargas turned and stared at General de Mendonca.
There was another, longer, awkward silence.
"He hasn't got anything to say Presidente." Cavalcanti broke the silence in a soft voice.
"Why not?" Vargas raged.
"Because he's still dead. He has been for years." Cavalcanti continued in his careful tones.
"Oh. Yes. I remember now." Vargas subsided.
"And even when he was alive he wasn't a soldier, he was a regional mayor and failed revolutionary." Cavalcanti continued.
"I wanted his revolutionary experience!" Vargas grasped at that straw.
"He was a monarchist revolutionary trying to put Emperor Pedro back on the Imperial throne." Cavalcanti warmed to his theme.
"Look, there's no need to rub it in." Vargas complained.
To break the tense silence General Filho stood up and made an announcement.
"I am delighted to confirm that the Brazilian Air Force has succeed in it's mission. We have prevented the Axis from carpet bombing Rio flat and forcing us to surrender." Filho proudly told the room.
"Have any of the Axis even tried to bomb any Brazilian territory?" Vargas asked.
"No. We think this is proof of how effectively we have deterred them, they are too afraid of our mighty P-36 interceptors to even risk attacking."
"And you are sure that fear of our second hand, obsolete fighters is the main reason? Not the fact there is no enemy heavy bomber within 5,000 miles?" Vargas probed further.
"That may be a contributory factor, but the staff are sure it's mostly fear." General Filho confirmed.
With the twin motivations of both changing the subject and finishing the military briefing, Vargas turned to the naval representative.
"How stands the fleet?" He asked.
"I've no idea." Padilha answered.
"That is unacceptable!" Vargas raged as Padilha cowered before him. "How can you come to cabinet without any idea of the status of our fleet?"
"Mr President please stop, you are frightening the boy." Cavalcanti intervened.
"He is Chief of the Navy and has his duty." Vargas drew himself up and looked down at Padilha.
"He is also a 16 year old philosophy student who has never even been to sea."
"How on earth did he end up Chief of the Navy?" Vargas screamed.
"You felt sorry for him after you had the political police arrest and 'question' his father."
"I did do that didn't I?" Vargas subsided and slumped back into his chair.
Padilha had pulled himself together and stood up to make his statement.
"I did ask Supreme Grand High Admiral Guilhem if it was possible for the Navy to assist in the Ecuadorian war." He sniffled.
There was a silence as the assembled cabinet removed their hats, showing due reverence to the mention of Guilhem's name.
"He said it was a good idea and I was a clever boy for trying to help, but there were a few small issues preventing the navy helping the fighting around Quito. (a) Our battleships cannot be risked so far from their port defence duties, (b) Even if they could they are far too knackered to make it that far because (c) It's too far away for the fleet to even reach. Also (d) Quito is 2800m above sea level and (e) it's 170km inland. So while he stands ever ready to fight for Brazil, the navy cannot assist in the Ecuadorian War."
"The Supreme Grand High Admiral's wisdom has been heard! His word is Brazilian maritime law." Cavalcanti announced as the room burst into appreciative applause.
"This inaction cannot be popular with our Allies, surely there have been diplomatic consequences?" Vargas turned to the Foreign Minster's chair.
Sadly the chair was unoccupied, instead there was a piece of paper pinned to the chair back with a knife. After a gesture from Vargas, General Cavalcanti extracted the knife and passed the paper to the President.
A fine example of 'Concrete Poerty', the post-modernist school which held that poetry should not be held back by hide-bound conventions of typography, grammar or scansion. Or sense. Or the requirement to be any good. In any event the author's intentions here are clear. Apparently.
"What is the meaning of this?" Vargas yelled at his cabinet.
"If you have to explain it, then it isn't art." Security Minister Cassiano languidly smiled at his President.
"Where is Foreign Minster Salgado?" Vargas demanded.
"Life here in Rio didn't agree with him." Cassiano picked up the dagger and turned it over in his hands.
"So he returned to exile in Portugal?"
"Exile... Yes, I suppose you could describe what happened to him that way." The smile returned to Cassiano's face and he started to clean his nails with the point of the dagger.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Vargas decided to wrap up the meeting.
"That leaves only finance. I suppose this inaction has at least been welcomed by the Treasury!" He tried to lighten the mood.
There was only silence from the test tube carefully placed on the Finance Minister's chair.
"Mr President." Cavalcanti broke the silence. "I'm afraid Senor Neto still hasn't been conceived yet."
For a moment the cabinet thought the President might hold it together, but then with a mighty scream he gave in and burst into tears.
The Brazilian Government in all it's confused magnificence.
--
Notes:
Lets begin at the top here. Vargas was indeed combined HoS and HoG, but it's mostly down-hill from there. I fully sympathise with the difficulty of slotting Vargas into a neat Left-Right spectrum, while most people don't fit he is an especially tricky case. But that is no excuse for making him Left Wing Radical and Estado Novo (New State) Paternal Autocrat. Estado Novo basically was Vargas, he wrote the constitution and was it's only leader - they should be identical.
Moving down Plinio Salgado was in Exile in Portugal in 1944 and had been since mid-1939. A leading "Integralist" (the slightly odd Brazilian flavour of fascism, represented here by the Ação Integralista Brasileira party) he had been exiled for leading coups against Vargas and his party, along with all the other political parties, outlawed. He only returned in 1945 after Vargas had been deposed, so an odd choice.
Waldemar Costa Neto was born in 1949. He is still with us and is a Republic Party politician, no obvious military links that I can see.
Riccardo Cassiano - Was indeed a moderately famous poet who did produce 'Concrete Poerty' in his career, along with a wide variety of other styles including a "mystical nationalist journal" which just sounds delightful. He was at least alive at the right date, even if he never entered politics or the secret service.
Newtwon Cavalcanti - Was a real general, plausible choice. OTL was a leading figure in the coup that over-threw Vargas and the Estato Novo, but then most people were involved in that. Did well in the later military dictatorship. This is as good a place as any to say the whole "Cobras are smoking" thing was OTL so the Brazilian Expeditionary Force got a natty shoulder patch with a cobra smoking a pipe. Alas here they do not as they are still aimlessly marching along the Brazilian coastline.
Tomas De Mendonca - Was indeed a long dead Brazilian monarchist. He has a street named after him in random bit of Brazil which makes it damn hard to find out much about him (all the search results were about the road). He was a state mayor once and was somehow involved in a monarchist coup, but as he still got a road named after him it can't have gone that badly for him. Never in the army and also died in 1920s best I can tell.
Tarcisio Padilha - Born in 1928 he became a philosopher, professor and judge in Brazil. Nothing at all to do with the Navy at any point. The funky outfit that he and Cassiano are wearing is the formal gala gilded uniform of the Academia Brasileira de Letras, the Brazilian Academy of Letters - think the Académie Française, which it was
Mourao Filho - Army General that took part in '38 coup. In OTL was fighting with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force, no obvious signs of plane related work in his career and definitely nothing on heavy bombers. The Brazilian air force was not a mighty force.
Finally we come to Admiral Henrique Aristides Guilhem. He genuinely was head of the Brazilian navy at the time and had held most of the other important roles in the navy at various points. Post-war he was promoted to Admiral-of-the-Fleet in 1951 and Grand Admiral in 1958. Nothing exciting there, except he died in 1949. The Brazilian navy gave him two post-mortem promotions, the last one being to their highest 'wartime only' rank. Clearly they thought a lot of him, something I thought worth acknowledging.