Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
Ireland Unleashed
"...as angry Nationals and Unionists tried to shout him down from the opposition benches, Chamberlain nonetheless stood his ground - rigid and awkward, his posture perhaps a bit too stiff, but upright nonetheless - and denounced, "the enemies of peace." He held aloft the document that contained the renegotiated Government of Ireland Act that had emerged from the Irish Convention and boomed, "This is the governing document of the Kingdom of Ireland; it is a compromise, imperfect but fair and crafted in a spirit of good intention towards all that island's citizens. It is our duty to deliver for the Irish people the democracy their anointed representatives have themselves negotiated; it is our task to secure peace in our time [1] for the whole of Ireland." Missing from his speech were words like "proposed" or "tentative," and this was no accident; Chamberlain had been the latest convert to the cause of Home Rule of them all, but it was the last convert who was the most zealous, and this was the hour in which the debate on the bill was to come.
It helped his cause that the Liberal Party was, finally, almost uniformly united behind the Government of Ireland Act 1918, with the March election having been unequivocally fought on the question, and the party enjoyed the confidence of both the IPP and the SDLP in passing the Act. The opposition Nationals were badly split; Carson had come around to the New Year's Day Agreement, but in a stroke of irony, many British conservatives were more opposed to it than Ulstermen themselves. Nonetheless, when the Government of Ireland Act came up for a vote on June 22nd, 1918, it passed on its first reading; three days later, it passed its second reading. With that, it was off to the House of Lords, where its passage was favorable but more of a question - the Liberal advantage in government over the previous few decades had left the peerage with a much more yellow hue than before 1878 (or 1890 especially), but there were nonetheless a great many Anglo-Irish Lords who were aggressively opposed to the New Year's Day Agreement and such a massive constitutional revision bothered even a good number of Liberals. Lord Crewe, the Liberal Leader in the Lords and the well-respected Foreign Secretary, began the process of whipping the Lords in favor of the Act, but was unsure that passage would be feasible until sometime in early September; as it was, the final vote was held on September 20, 1918, and it passed by a narrow margin.
But it had still passed, and was quickly granted royal assent - and with that, the Government of Ireland Act was completed, setting the stage for a roughly four-month transitional commission as provided for by the Act that would include representatives of both the future Irish government as well as Dublin Castle as the auspices of transitioning Irish law enforcement, the Irish judiciary, and other functions of state to the new Irish Assembly - which had yet to be convened, what with the IPP having returned to Westminster after the March elections - before the Union Jack was no longer the flag, or at least sole flag, of Ireland. [2]
The spirit of the Transition, a brief moment in Irish history which is generally capitalized and is considered as having begun with the New Year's Day Agreement in most Irish scholarship, was one of remarkable optimism everywhere save Antrim and Down. Songs about the major players of the Irish Convention, both nationalist and loyalist, were written in both Gaelic and English, and it was suggested that an opera depicting the Convention be composed and put on to celebrate the arrival at last of Home Rule. Celebrations were held throughout the summer, and it was the first July Twelfth in Ulster or Dublin to avoid sectarian violence; indeed, the tremendous bloodshed of the past four years seemed almost to have been forgotten, included by those who had just recently been organizing to kill their neighbors. The Transition was a time of healing and rapprochement, of bygones being bygones, of Irishmen being merely Irishmen with little attention paid to their faiths or politics.
That was, at least, how the common folk experienced the ebullience of the hour. Behind the scenes, especially once elections were called for an Irish Assembly in early December once royal assent was granted, this was most certainly not the case. The most immediate question even before Chamberlain had taken up debate on the Government of Ireland Act and passed the Redmond-Midleton Agreement into law was what was to become of the IPP. The party had been formed, after all, during the Plan of Campaign and land wars by Charles Parnell to be a catch-all vehicle for Irish nationalist agitation of all stripes, welcoming to all comers; Parnell, after all, had himself been a Protestant from a wealthy and influential family of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. The first order mission being Home Rule in some capacity had continued on from Parnell to Redmond, and now that the mission was accomplished the question was asked: what was the Irish Parliamentary Party going to become, what was it going to be for, and who was it to represent?
In some ways, the IPP - organizationally, at least - had become a bloated, fat and content vehicle for Redmond's personal ambition, held together by little more than the broad admiration most Irishmen had for the man (indeed, one of the first orders of the Irish Assembly when it convened as the legislature of a free Ireland for the first time in February 1919 was to commission a grand statue of the man as the "Irish George Washington.") [3] Ideologically, it had been committed almost exclusively to the "first mission" of Home Rule, bringing under its umbrella a variety of figures who in a normal political system would have been scattered from right to left. This ideological incoherence can even be evidenced in the final Westminster elections in which it participated, in which it in fact did not perform particularly well despite its epochal, existential triumph at the Irish Convention and saw significant erosion to abstentionist Sinn Fein nationalists, Irish republicans organized in their own party, and the nascent Irish Labour. As such, it included at the end conciliatory figures such as William O'Brien with irreconcilable sticks-in-the-mud like John Dillon, and it included liberal radicals like Timothy Healy as well as clerical arch-conservatives like Joseph Devlin.
At Redmond's passing, and some weeks before the Westminster debate and vote on the Agreement, Dillon had predicted with some resignation that "Ireland shall be Devlin's from now on." It was not difficult to see why he deduced such. Redmond had never made much effort to cultivate a successor, in part due to his considerable personal disagreements with Dillon and political discomfort with Devlin's thuggishness, and this left the IPP enormously top-heavy. The Irish nationalist movement had triumphed, but it had also triumphed at the conclusion of the careers of its leading lights (quite literally in Redmond's case), and none of those lights were the types of men one could organize a movement, especially a movement of governance, around. O'Brien was too old, and had burned far, far too many bridges; Healy was too utopian and unfriendly with the Catholic establishment. For Irish nationalism, that then left some combination of Griffith, who had always eschewed the IPP and was thus a nonstarter, and one of Dillon or Devlin. But Dillon was famed not as much for his intelligence but rather for his reputation as the irreconcilable of irreconcilables, the man who eagerly allowed the perfect be the enemy of the good, the man who had tried at every instance to cut off Redmond at the knees because he could not swallow some small concession or deign negotiate some otherwise minor point in a grander compromise. He had been a parliamentarian found lacking when Irish nationalism was a populist cause of opposition; such a personality and instincts would be a nightmare now that it needed to become an establishment cause of governance.
That left, in other words, Devlin. There were so many factors that made him the natural choice to seize Redmond's mantle, and he did not even really need to seize it. He was a nationalist beyond reproach, but an Ulster native who understood the peculiarities of that province even if he did not always fully grasp the anxieties of the Protestant base within it. As the IPP had grown increasingly to be the tired party of the native Irish elite and high clergy, he had excelled in sliding into that role, what with his position within the Ancient Order of Hibernians and transformation of that organization into "Green Lodges" that could compete and indeed outdo the Orangemen at their own game. And he had proven himself an adept, canny and ruthless operator, who had become widely viewed as Redmond's natural successor not only for generational reasons but because he was, quite simply, the island's most talented politician and its best orator behind perhaps only the late Redmond himself and Carson. [4]
That the entire IPP organization essentially folded into Devlin's vehicle came as little surprise, but the speed at which it occurred did; no leadership ballot was even held as it became increasingly clear that a provisional election would be in the offing, and soon. Devlin quietly conceded to the lack of a provisional council for Ireland and to keep Samuel at Dublin Castle through the end of the Transition provided that the process was as rapid as possible; in the meantime, he declared a new "People's Party," which handily for voters had the same acronym as the old Parliamentary Party of Parnell and Redmond. The lineage was clear, but the result was something new - a clericalist, conservative party of Irish nationalism that was fully loyal to the British Empire in return for Home Rule, and which temporarily deemphasized the agrarian causes which Parnell, Healy and Dillon had invested such a great deal in. This new party did not have the AOH as its organizational arm; rather, Devlin's AOH would before long come to view the rebranded IPP as the political arm of the Hibs.
This political transformation in the background of staid debates in Westminster and bureaucratic procedure to prepare the Royal Irish Constabulary and other institutions of British rule for Irish governance reached its crescendo with the elections of December 6, 1918, in which Devlin triumphed by a decisive margin, able to form a majority government on his own with the People's Party winning nearly two-thirds of the seats. In opposition were a scattered assortment of parties; disagreements between Craig and Carson over the Agreement had led to the latter eschewing participation in the campaign to remain in London for the time being and thus saw "Unionism," or what was left of it, cleave in two, with a moderate Southern Unionist-dominated Irish Unionist Alliance campaigning on a separate ticket from the Ulster Unionist Party of Craig; failing to stand together meant they would proverbially hang separately, and both parties underperformed their own inflated expectations. Joining them in the opposition benches was the Farm League of Ireland, founded by dissident followers of Healy (with Dillon's quiet support) as well as a robust performance by Irish Labour, particularly in Catholic wards of Belfast.
It was clear who would take the reigns of Ireland once the finalization of Home Rule arrived; what that would look like, of course, was anybody's guess..."
- Ireland Unleashed [5]
[1] Couldn't resist
[2] More to come on this
[3] Suffice to say Redmond has a much more hagiographic reputation in Ireland ITTL
[4] Also, I have to say, after Redmond and (maybe) O'Brien he was one of the few non-Sinn Fein Irish nationalist leaders of this time IOTL who showed any kind of integrity, pragmatism and common sense (looking at you, Dillon), and after reading about what a bloated, lazy circular firing squad for Catholic bishops the IPP often was, it becomes increasingly obvious how Dev, Michael Collins and the gang were able to totally usurp the cause of Irish independence within the space of just over a year. Having Ireland's own-dick-shooting brigade manage to pull off Home Rule successfully might actually be one of the less realistic things I've written (with the obvious exception of "Successful Joe Clark" over in Bicentennial Man)
[5] Option B was "Ireland Unshackled" but I liked this title better. Consider it your formal Ireland Unfree sequel!
It helped his cause that the Liberal Party was, finally, almost uniformly united behind the Government of Ireland Act 1918, with the March election having been unequivocally fought on the question, and the party enjoyed the confidence of both the IPP and the SDLP in passing the Act. The opposition Nationals were badly split; Carson had come around to the New Year's Day Agreement, but in a stroke of irony, many British conservatives were more opposed to it than Ulstermen themselves. Nonetheless, when the Government of Ireland Act came up for a vote on June 22nd, 1918, it passed on its first reading; three days later, it passed its second reading. With that, it was off to the House of Lords, where its passage was favorable but more of a question - the Liberal advantage in government over the previous few decades had left the peerage with a much more yellow hue than before 1878 (or 1890 especially), but there were nonetheless a great many Anglo-Irish Lords who were aggressively opposed to the New Year's Day Agreement and such a massive constitutional revision bothered even a good number of Liberals. Lord Crewe, the Liberal Leader in the Lords and the well-respected Foreign Secretary, began the process of whipping the Lords in favor of the Act, but was unsure that passage would be feasible until sometime in early September; as it was, the final vote was held on September 20, 1918, and it passed by a narrow margin.
But it had still passed, and was quickly granted royal assent - and with that, the Government of Ireland Act was completed, setting the stage for a roughly four-month transitional commission as provided for by the Act that would include representatives of both the future Irish government as well as Dublin Castle as the auspices of transitioning Irish law enforcement, the Irish judiciary, and other functions of state to the new Irish Assembly - which had yet to be convened, what with the IPP having returned to Westminster after the March elections - before the Union Jack was no longer the flag, or at least sole flag, of Ireland. [2]
The spirit of the Transition, a brief moment in Irish history which is generally capitalized and is considered as having begun with the New Year's Day Agreement in most Irish scholarship, was one of remarkable optimism everywhere save Antrim and Down. Songs about the major players of the Irish Convention, both nationalist and loyalist, were written in both Gaelic and English, and it was suggested that an opera depicting the Convention be composed and put on to celebrate the arrival at last of Home Rule. Celebrations were held throughout the summer, and it was the first July Twelfth in Ulster or Dublin to avoid sectarian violence; indeed, the tremendous bloodshed of the past four years seemed almost to have been forgotten, included by those who had just recently been organizing to kill their neighbors. The Transition was a time of healing and rapprochement, of bygones being bygones, of Irishmen being merely Irishmen with little attention paid to their faiths or politics.
That was, at least, how the common folk experienced the ebullience of the hour. Behind the scenes, especially once elections were called for an Irish Assembly in early December once royal assent was granted, this was most certainly not the case. The most immediate question even before Chamberlain had taken up debate on the Government of Ireland Act and passed the Redmond-Midleton Agreement into law was what was to become of the IPP. The party had been formed, after all, during the Plan of Campaign and land wars by Charles Parnell to be a catch-all vehicle for Irish nationalist agitation of all stripes, welcoming to all comers; Parnell, after all, had himself been a Protestant from a wealthy and influential family of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy. The first order mission being Home Rule in some capacity had continued on from Parnell to Redmond, and now that the mission was accomplished the question was asked: what was the Irish Parliamentary Party going to become, what was it going to be for, and who was it to represent?
In some ways, the IPP - organizationally, at least - had become a bloated, fat and content vehicle for Redmond's personal ambition, held together by little more than the broad admiration most Irishmen had for the man (indeed, one of the first orders of the Irish Assembly when it convened as the legislature of a free Ireland for the first time in February 1919 was to commission a grand statue of the man as the "Irish George Washington.") [3] Ideologically, it had been committed almost exclusively to the "first mission" of Home Rule, bringing under its umbrella a variety of figures who in a normal political system would have been scattered from right to left. This ideological incoherence can even be evidenced in the final Westminster elections in which it participated, in which it in fact did not perform particularly well despite its epochal, existential triumph at the Irish Convention and saw significant erosion to abstentionist Sinn Fein nationalists, Irish republicans organized in their own party, and the nascent Irish Labour. As such, it included at the end conciliatory figures such as William O'Brien with irreconcilable sticks-in-the-mud like John Dillon, and it included liberal radicals like Timothy Healy as well as clerical arch-conservatives like Joseph Devlin.
At Redmond's passing, and some weeks before the Westminster debate and vote on the Agreement, Dillon had predicted with some resignation that "Ireland shall be Devlin's from now on." It was not difficult to see why he deduced such. Redmond had never made much effort to cultivate a successor, in part due to his considerable personal disagreements with Dillon and political discomfort with Devlin's thuggishness, and this left the IPP enormously top-heavy. The Irish nationalist movement had triumphed, but it had also triumphed at the conclusion of the careers of its leading lights (quite literally in Redmond's case), and none of those lights were the types of men one could organize a movement, especially a movement of governance, around. O'Brien was too old, and had burned far, far too many bridges; Healy was too utopian and unfriendly with the Catholic establishment. For Irish nationalism, that then left some combination of Griffith, who had always eschewed the IPP and was thus a nonstarter, and one of Dillon or Devlin. But Dillon was famed not as much for his intelligence but rather for his reputation as the irreconcilable of irreconcilables, the man who eagerly allowed the perfect be the enemy of the good, the man who had tried at every instance to cut off Redmond at the knees because he could not swallow some small concession or deign negotiate some otherwise minor point in a grander compromise. He had been a parliamentarian found lacking when Irish nationalism was a populist cause of opposition; such a personality and instincts would be a nightmare now that it needed to become an establishment cause of governance.
That left, in other words, Devlin. There were so many factors that made him the natural choice to seize Redmond's mantle, and he did not even really need to seize it. He was a nationalist beyond reproach, but an Ulster native who understood the peculiarities of that province even if he did not always fully grasp the anxieties of the Protestant base within it. As the IPP had grown increasingly to be the tired party of the native Irish elite and high clergy, he had excelled in sliding into that role, what with his position within the Ancient Order of Hibernians and transformation of that organization into "Green Lodges" that could compete and indeed outdo the Orangemen at their own game. And he had proven himself an adept, canny and ruthless operator, who had become widely viewed as Redmond's natural successor not only for generational reasons but because he was, quite simply, the island's most talented politician and its best orator behind perhaps only the late Redmond himself and Carson. [4]
That the entire IPP organization essentially folded into Devlin's vehicle came as little surprise, but the speed at which it occurred did; no leadership ballot was even held as it became increasingly clear that a provisional election would be in the offing, and soon. Devlin quietly conceded to the lack of a provisional council for Ireland and to keep Samuel at Dublin Castle through the end of the Transition provided that the process was as rapid as possible; in the meantime, he declared a new "People's Party," which handily for voters had the same acronym as the old Parliamentary Party of Parnell and Redmond. The lineage was clear, but the result was something new - a clericalist, conservative party of Irish nationalism that was fully loyal to the British Empire in return for Home Rule, and which temporarily deemphasized the agrarian causes which Parnell, Healy and Dillon had invested such a great deal in. This new party did not have the AOH as its organizational arm; rather, Devlin's AOH would before long come to view the rebranded IPP as the political arm of the Hibs.
This political transformation in the background of staid debates in Westminster and bureaucratic procedure to prepare the Royal Irish Constabulary and other institutions of British rule for Irish governance reached its crescendo with the elections of December 6, 1918, in which Devlin triumphed by a decisive margin, able to form a majority government on his own with the People's Party winning nearly two-thirds of the seats. In opposition were a scattered assortment of parties; disagreements between Craig and Carson over the Agreement had led to the latter eschewing participation in the campaign to remain in London for the time being and thus saw "Unionism," or what was left of it, cleave in two, with a moderate Southern Unionist-dominated Irish Unionist Alliance campaigning on a separate ticket from the Ulster Unionist Party of Craig; failing to stand together meant they would proverbially hang separately, and both parties underperformed their own inflated expectations. Joining them in the opposition benches was the Farm League of Ireland, founded by dissident followers of Healy (with Dillon's quiet support) as well as a robust performance by Irish Labour, particularly in Catholic wards of Belfast.
It was clear who would take the reigns of Ireland once the finalization of Home Rule arrived; what that would look like, of course, was anybody's guess..."
- Ireland Unleashed [5]
[1] Couldn't resist
[2] More to come on this
[3] Suffice to say Redmond has a much more hagiographic reputation in Ireland ITTL
[4] Also, I have to say, after Redmond and (maybe) O'Brien he was one of the few non-Sinn Fein Irish nationalist leaders of this time IOTL who showed any kind of integrity, pragmatism and common sense (looking at you, Dillon), and after reading about what a bloated, lazy circular firing squad for Catholic bishops the IPP often was, it becomes increasingly obvious how Dev, Michael Collins and the gang were able to totally usurp the cause of Irish independence within the space of just over a year. Having Ireland's own-dick-shooting brigade manage to pull off Home Rule successfully might actually be one of the less realistic things I've written (with the obvious exception of "Successful Joe Clark" over in Bicentennial Man)
[5] Option B was "Ireland Unshackled" but I liked this title better. Consider it your formal Ireland Unfree sequel!
Mellon is the major one, and it's not one I'd underrate. Keynesianism hasn't been entirely invented yet, but Mellon is a PR nightmare alone.
Those are some decent examples, definitely. 1920s Soviet Union immediately after the Civil War comes to mind, too, though I don't think it ever got quite this bad even there.
A fake Swedish monarch can dream
*Bane voice*
"Your punishment must be more... severe"
(I guess this is where I segue to "when Dixie is... ashes, then you have my permission to die!")
Hard to see a situation where he'd be a fighter pilot
Standing ovation!
Hint hints, in other words...
I mean, he was an air force general....
"You can see shades of this dynamic iOTL - it was not the largely irrelevant socialists who drove Portuguese Revolution or who ran the First Republic, and in Spain, the PSOE (as well as Ferrer's anarchists!) were usually more moderate than many of the bourgeois figures and factions in the Second Republic."
You could say that the problem with the PSOE under the Second Republic was that institutionally speaking it was not as unified as it perhaps should have been. From what I understand; there was a moderate wing but also an more powerful radical faction led by Largo Caballero that was realistic enough to recognize that socialism could not be implemented through revolutionary means but insisted on ginning up support for the vaunted revolution that was not going to arrive. It goes some way to explaining Casa Viejas and the uprising in Asturias in 1934.
The anti-clerical republicans among the middle class didn't help things either. The constitution was an thoroughly anti-clerical, anti-traditional document in the sense that sought to mold the new regime in the image of the republic and failed to do what the Radicals under Lerroux and the Liberal Republicans under Alcala-Zamora wanted to do which was to consolidate an broader base of republican support. In an way Spanish society comprehensively polarized between those who supported the regime and those who didn't because the Left so long excluded from power saw it as the opportunity to pursue the reforms that it wished to implement. It helps to explain the haphazard and disorganized way that they pushed through reforms which when coupled with polarization and the atmosphere of social malaise and economic crisis helped push the republic toward conflict.
You could say that the problem with the PSOE under the Second Republic was that institutionally speaking it was not as unified as it perhaps should have been. From what I understand; there was a moderate wing but also an more powerful radical faction led by Largo Caballero that was realistic enough to recognize that socialism could not be implemented through revolutionary means but insisted on ginning up support for the vaunted revolution that was not going to arrive. It goes some way to explaining Casa Viejas and the uprising in Asturias in 1934.
The anti-clerical republicans among the middle class didn't help things either. The constitution was an thoroughly anti-clerical, anti-traditional document in the sense that sought to mold the new regime in the image of the republic and failed to do what the Radicals under Lerroux and the Liberal Republicans under Alcala-Zamora wanted to do which was to consolidate an broader base of republican support. In an way Spanish society comprehensively polarized between those who supported the regime and those who didn't because the Left so long excluded from power saw it as the opportunity to pursue the reforms that it wished to implement. It helps to explain the haphazard and disorganized way that they pushed through reforms which when coupled with polarization and the atmosphere of social malaise and economic crisis helped push the republic toward conflict.
On the topic of nations and provinces to compare to the CSA to Chukotka of the USSR might be the closest?
By that it was formerly one of the richest and most privileged regions in the USSR both because of it's natural resources but also it was seen as a vital for the defence of the far East the USSR encouraged large scale settlement, spending possibly up to 6% of it's GDP keeping it well stock and supplied, thanks to this the Soviet dream still lasted till like late 80s/early 90s only for the fall of the USSR to completely shatter what kept this region alive.
As result you have a population go from 200,000 some of which of the most talented people in the USSR to roughly around 40,000 thousand, the collapse of a modern life people trapped are reduced to subsistence fishing and returning to hunting the deer to stay alive while it's new governor Aleksandr Nazarov tried to exploit the region as much as he could and conceal the massive amount of hunger from the outside world preventing aid from coming in with only Chechnya a active warzone worse off.
That said, as bad as Chukotka was at least it was not a active warzone, people could flee at the beginning of this collapse preventing mass death, after the 90s a Oligarch helped rebuild it with help from the resurgent state while the CSA as a whole is just worse off as I doubt they would have such a ''easy'' way out of their current situation.
By that it was formerly one of the richest and most privileged regions in the USSR both because of it's natural resources but also it was seen as a vital for the defence of the far East the USSR encouraged large scale settlement, spending possibly up to 6% of it's GDP keeping it well stock and supplied, thanks to this the Soviet dream still lasted till like late 80s/early 90s only for the fall of the USSR to completely shatter what kept this region alive.
As result you have a population go from 200,000 some of which of the most talented people in the USSR to roughly around 40,000 thousand, the collapse of a modern life people trapped are reduced to subsistence fishing and returning to hunting the deer to stay alive while it's new governor Aleksandr Nazarov tried to exploit the region as much as he could and conceal the massive amount of hunger from the outside world preventing aid from coming in with only Chechnya a active warzone worse off.
That said, as bad as Chukotka was at least it was not a active warzone, people could flee at the beginning of this collapse preventing mass death, after the 90s a Oligarch helped rebuild it with help from the resurgent state while the CSA as a whole is just worse off as I doubt they would have such a ''easy'' way out of their current situation.
Now we need a third Ireland Un- book to complete the trilogy. Maybe Ireland runs into some lower case t trouble/malaise and we can get Ireland Unmoored?
Ireland Unstoppable, as Éire's relentless rise reaches the stars themselves. 😌
I vote for Ireland Universalis - when Ireland usurps the mantle of the British Empire, unites the world, and reaches the stars! Ireland's colony of New Connacht in the Alpha Centari star system becomes the jewel in the Irish crown
You mean the United Kingdom of Great Ireland and Britain?I vote for Ireland Universalis - when Ireland usurps the mantle of the British Empire, unites the world, and reaches the stars! Ireland's colony of New Connacht in the Alpha Centari star system becomes the jewel in the Irish crown
I mean we could always have a Magsaysay incident or something for him!
It’s a thought
I really gotta bone up more on my Spanish Civil War history, especially as this TL (eventually) gets to the late 1920s and 1930s
That was an intriguing Google wormhole I just went down re: Chukotka, certainly.
I vote for Ireland Universalis - when Ireland usurps the mantle of the British Empire, unites the world, and reaches the stars! Ireland's colony of New Connacht in the Alpha Centari star system becomes the jewel in the Irish crown
For all the jokes haha my thinking was that “Unfree” comes after earlier “Un” books and “Unleashed” is the last volume, bringing us to present day (at least it’s what I’ll use for Irish 20th century)
If that's the case you can do the following...
Ireland Unbowed - English conquest to the early 19th Century, with a focus on the 1801 abolishment of the Irish Parliament
Ireland Unfed - The Famine and its aftereffects
Ireland Unfree - Late 19th/early 20th Century
Ireland Unleashed - 20th Century
The United Kingdom of Greater Ireland and "so-so" Britain, and maybe a few other countries, oh yes and those stubborn "Colonials" that keep yapping on and on about some "tea party" (and why we not invited?) and "July 4th", you know... Southern Canada or some such.
Randy
German elections, 1918
German elections, 1918
397 seats in the German Reichstag; 199 seats needed for the majority
Social Democrat (SPD): 110 (+4)
Centre (Z): 108 (+3)
National Liberal (NLP): 54 (+8)
German Conservative Party (DKP): 27 (-4)
Pan-German League (ADV): 24 (-3)
German Agrarian League (BdL): 24 (+16)
German Progress Party (DFP): 23 (-8)
German Reich Party (DRP): 10 (-2)
Polish People's Party (PSL): 5 (-2)
Christian Social Party (CSP): 5 (-2)
Bavarian Peasants' League (BBB): 2 (-)
German-Hanoverian Party (DHP): 2 (-3)
German Social Party (DSP): 2 (-1)
Danish Party (DP): 1 (-)
Independent Polish (/): 0 (-2)
Independent Conservatives (/): 0 (-2)
-
The German elections of 1918 were held August 9-10, 1918, to elect members of the Reichstag. All 397 seats as drawn in 1868 were up for election. The Social Democratic Party, as it had in every election since 1893, won the most votes, and for the second consecutive election won the most seats, though their gains were small compared to the massive gain in seat share earned in 1913. Parties ambivalent towards the ruling elite of the German Empire - the SDP, the lay Catholic Centre Party (Z) and the radical-progressive German Progress Party (DFP) - once agian won a decisive majority of seats, but the Centre elected once again to continue participating in the Drehung, or "Rotation," of the Reichstag Presidency and thus Vice-Chancellorship of Germany with the Drehungskartel of the classically liberal National Liberal Party (NL), the right-wing German Conservatives (DKP) and the center-right minor German Reich Party (DRP). Minor parties intending to represent ethnic minorities and regions, as well as some minor parties of the far right, decline in vote share once again; the election reflected a remarkable breakthrough for the German Agrarian League (BdL), which tripled its seat count as the concerns of farmers reached a crescendo during a protectionist farm crisis in much of Germany and the inefficiency of Germany's massive landed estates began to become a critical concern ahead of rising food prices.
The Drehung formed in 1908 was challenged directly in this election, however, in that the seat count of its four member parties added up to the necessary 199 exactly, meaning that any defection was fatal and it was still dependent on outside support from parties like the far-right Pan-German League. The Centre Party, with exactly double the number of seats that the NLP, the second largest party in the establishmentarian coalition, was also emboldened to increasingly make demands favorable to Catholic regions of Prussia in the Rhineland and begin pushing aggressively for better patronage appointments in both the Imperial and Prussian cabinets and civil services, revealing many of the cracks in the system. As such, the strong performance by the SDP, the emergence of the BdL as a political force, and the eroding popular support for the Drehung's conservative flank that was unable to portray itself as much else other than a party of Junker interests saw the Imperial party system start to sag, and the 1918 elections and their aftermath are regarded as a factor in Germany's decision to go to war in March 1919.
So Furstenburg starts to see the ground shift under his feet and says something along the lines of "well, if we're gonna have a war anyway, might as well make it sooner rather than later while I'm still sitting in the big chair?"
Ireland, Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken, they are Martells now
Or they decide to go with the Belgian Plan of "Falklands War but much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much bloodier, messier, more traumatic, more confusing, and more insane"