Capto Iugulum Background Thread

[m.t.cicero]

Is that Church still associated with imperial Scandinavian Lutheranism at all?

 

[Lord_Iggy]

In what sense? Its teachings are the same as those the Lutheran Church in Scandinavia, and I imagine that it's probably part of a global Lutheran Communion, but if such a body exists, then it's most likely quite decentralized.

 

[Jehoshua]

Thinking of this has also got me wondering about the progression of the Reformation in this TL. France's disunity may have weakened Catholicism in Europe somewhat, though it seems like Spain was also more powerful and even more staunchly Catholic. Also, what kinds of churches developed in the protestant countries? How many are state churches with the monarch at the head vs. more independent sects?

Frances disunity I think merely has affected the distribution of protestantism more than the strength of Catholicism in Europe. You have what are effectively Huguenot states in France but this is offset by the greater strength of Catholicism in Germany, where unlike IRL it is dominant.

(IRL in the Nazi German census of 1939. 54% of Germans considered themselves Protestant and 40% considered themselves Catholic. This includes the Sudetenland, Austria, East Prussia, and those other parts of eastern Germany that IRL are now Polish, making it a good standard to use against the CI Germany in terms of size. The greater strength of Catholicism in Germany at the present time IRL vis a vis protestantism to go on an aside, is due to the historical coincidence that East Germany was originally an unambiguously protestant region, and protestantism has proved less adept than Catholicism at enduring communist suppression [poland and lithuania compared to latvia and estonia for instance])

 

[spryllino]

Of course, the Rhineland is all Catholic, too.

 

[Jehoshua]

Indeed, just as it is in Germany IRL. So one would think its Catholicity wouldn't change the greater presence of Catholicism elsewhere in Germany in CI, considering Catholicism is in the majority.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

I've actually put quite a lot of thought into the distribution of religion in this timeline, as should be evidenced by my last post on majority religions in various states. Originally I was going to do a percentile distribution with all sects and whatnot, but that would have been a lot more work than I would have wanted to commit. One fun note is that at the start of the 1830 date for CIEN, I originally planned to keep Britain Catholic, and not have the Anglican Church at all. I actually am regretting not doing that as it could have made the first NES a lot more interesting in retrospect.

Here Germany has a clear Catholic majority, quite more dominantly than OTL. My rationale for this is that protestantism as a whole was less successful in Germany, and that the Catholics came out on top in this history's version of the 30-Year War, which here, also included France. In regards to French protestantism, I imagine it's not Lutheranism or strict Calvinism, but rather a variation upon the OTL Huguenots. When it comes to heads of state and religion, we do have the Vinlandic example, and of course the King of England is head of the Anglican Church at this time, though I suspect that role has been delegated to the upper levels of the clergy at the moment.


The main thing for all of us to consider here is that if you're taking a literal approach to the rankings of heads of state, Catholic leaders have bowed to Rome even in recent times. The key element here is the alternate fate of the Holy Roman Empire in this timeline. The organized chaos which was the HRE in OTL was expanded into France, and even the Netherlands here. The larger empire actually proved to be its early undoing, not even requiring Napoleon to bring it down. The emperors failed, and in my unofficial history of things, I'm assuming that the title lay dormant briefly, until the Papacy blessed the Spanish king with the title of emperor at some in the late 1790s.The title of Holy Roman Emperor actually remained active until the 1890s, when reform in Spain eventually resulted in the Spanish emperor dropping that title and "Holy" being removed from the nation's name. An interesting sidebar into the history at any rate, though I seem to have departed the original statement, which now eludes me.

 

[Luckymoose]

I'm still waiting on that Holy title coming to Pedro III. HINT HINT WINK WINK, IL DUCE!

 

[Lord of Elves]

A Brief History of Scandinavia, Part III
"Our free Fatherland needs soldiers!" - Johan Litenfingret, War Minister and Last Chancellor of the Imperial Rikstag​

The 20th century began auspiciously. Since the beginning of the 1890's the Scandinavian intelligentsia had begun to rest on its laurels, satisfied with the achievements of liberalization and democratization at home and colonization abroad. Scandinavians could be proud that the Empire was one of the largest holders of colonial territories in the world, a practical half of the African continent, as well as a third of the Americas if one considered Vinland an extension of the colonial empire. At this time many people did. It was the era of "imperial socialism", or as its critics called it, the politics of mediocrity. Leading political figures were contented with the status quo, so much so that the status quo became the end to which all means were directed at home and abroad. Imperial foreign policy was concerned above all else with the maintenance of the status quo. Disarmament was never in the cards, not for the lauded Imperial Army, but no one was interested in the expansion of the military. There was no need. Why would Scandinavia ever fight a war again? It was generally accepted by Erik Bostrom, when he rode the wave of imperial socialism into office in 1899 as Chancellor of the Imperial Rikstag, and his government that those who would oppose the status quo were too divided, too contentious amongst themselves, to ever become a force to be reckoned with. It was a good time to be a citizen of the "Nordic international community".

Portrait of Emperor Harald II, roughly 1901​

By 1900 Empress Christine had been dead for nine years. The "Christinian Era", marked primarily by the modernization and liberalization of the government, was considered to be in continuation by her son, the mustached and stern Harald II. Harald II, named of course for his father the "True King of Norway" who everyone conveniently forgot was a separatist, nationalist and traitor to the long-dead Swedish Empire, had spent the first nine years of his reign doing his best to separate himself from his adolescent persona as a brash and adventurous playboy. In the process he had done much to injure the public image of the monarchy, casting a shadow of suspicion, mistrust and above all pretension on the imperial house. He struck the public as above all else cold and aloof, completely unlike the warm and matronly Christine. He was equally unsuccessful in projecting the ironic, "Father of the Nation" appeal which his father had cast. Despite his flaws in achieving public appeal, Harald II was instrumental in the youth of his reign in being a mover and shaker in the imperial socialist movement, as well as a prolific supporter of the Bostrom chancellory.

The Imperial Socialist - Erik Gustaf Bostrom, Chancellor of the Imperial Rikstag 1900 - 1905​

Bostrom's foreign policy was one of containment. Several enemies had been identified to the all-important status quo: Brandenburg, Britain and Brazil. To that end Bostrom and his cabinet approved heartily of the creation of the League of the Three Emperors between Scandinavia, Russia and the Roman Empire. The League was considered the end-all-be-all of European power blocs by the Bostrom cabinet and by the Scandinavian public, a veritable eastern bulwark against Anglo-German and Brazilian aggression. The Guyanna Crisis largely precipitated the creation of the League, as well as the revival of the Brazilian-Scandinavian rivalry/inveterate enmity. Separate alliances with Poland, the Netherlands, Franco-Burgundy, Austria and a continued detente with Japan were considered to round out the portfolio of allies of the world order. The sure optimism of 1900, 1901 and even 1902 would be quickly dashed.

An odd man out, the Industry Party's Johan Litenfingret, War Minister​

Bostrom's policy was shaped as much by himself, the Emperor and by the director of the Department of Foreign Affairs as it was by the young Johan Litenfingret, famed War Minister whose name was given to Scandinavia's conscript armies in the Great War. Also Scandinavia's last elected head of state. Litenfingret was a war-hawk above all else, as shrewd a strategist as he was a politico, a concession to the Industry Party in light of his supreme confidence. His service alongside the decorated and equally-young Mannerheim in the Kongo brush wars of the 1890's had colored him with the brush of adventure, patriotism and fearlessness. Litenfingret, as much as he professed to love democracy, was an admirer first and foremost of the Russian system of patronage. He was an ambassador from a different age in his political beliefs, but he was tolerated in the Bostrom cabinet for his supreme competence, as well as his ability to reign in the more left-leaning elements of the cabinet like the poorly-appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gustav Staaff.

Staaff's incompetence, or more accurately, brash abandon would come into the light of day following the events of the Pomeranian Murders. From the opening weeks of 1901 onwards, a member or members (no single individual was ever assigned blame) of the German Brotherhood in Pomerania began a campaign of terror and murder against Scandinavian citizens and Pomeranians of Swedish descent in the Kingdom of Pomerania. A vassal to the House of Vasa, Pomerania's royal family traced its lineage to Stockholm, and increasingly was regarded as a royal house under siege as pan-German elements in Pomerania mobilized in the early years of the 20th century. As the murders wore on, and riots and insurrections popped up across Pomerania's tiny width and breadth, Brandenburg became increasingly implicated in the actions of the German Brotherhood. Scandinavian diplomats, under the behest of Litenfingret and Staaff, engaged in secret talks with the Brandenburger government fingering Brandenburg as the party responsible for the actions of the German Brotherhood. Under Staaff's orders, Scandinavian diplomats made poorly-communicated hyperbole to the meaning that if Brandenburg was willing to go to war over Pomerania, so was Scandinavia. This, with manipulation by Brandenburg's foreign office (read: fabrication of IC comments by an unnamed party ), would become the infamous Berlin Telegram where Brandenburg's government claimed Scandinavian officials had sanctioned a genocide of Pomeranian Germans. The resulting diplomatic fallout was catastrophic for Scandinavian policy. A short-lived British embargo resulted in a dramatic re-juggling of foreign policy priorities -- Pomerania was sacrificed. The royal house fled under cover of night. This was the first crack in the dam.

The Polish-Scandinavian relationship had been a complicated one. Scandinavia had snubbed Poland before (the infamous royal divorce) to little effect; Poland recognized that it relied on Scandinavia for its influence in eastern Europe. However, Scandinavia's alliance with and sponsorship of Russia and refusal to do anything to stop Franco-Burgundy and the Netherlands from feasting on Poland's paltry overseas possessions had significantly damaged the alliance. Scandinavian diplomats could do little but continue to make empty promises to the Poles in the hope that they would continue to buy into the notion that Scandinavian power was Polish power. They did not. The formation of the Krakow Pact between Britain, Brandenburg and Poland was regarded as a direct act of aggression and betrayal by Poland towards Scandinavia in the light of the Third Pomeranian Crisis.

And so, in retrospect, the battle lines were drawn. The betrayal of the Spanish-American alliance in favor of an Anglo-American one settled that a war between Britain and her allies and Spain and her allies, or more accurately, those nations in Europe which preferred Spain to Britain would be a war between the hemispheres. This concerned Bostrom and Litenfingret greatly, not so Franco-Burgundian generals, who seemed convinced that victory in Europe would ensure victory in the war. They would be disappointed on both fronts. The war began unexpectedly when Britain and Brazil embargoed the Empire of Spain regarding Spain's interference in the domestic affairs of Colombia. Continental politicos and strategists, concerned that an Anglo-Brazilian assault on Spanish power would mean Britain's control over the continent, rallied to the aid of Spain. What resulted was a chain reaction of declarations of war. Scandinavian officials would later regret the empire's entrance to the war, considered watershed moment as a break of relations and policy with Vinland and a direct cause of the December Coup and Revolution.

Soldiers of the expeditionary force to Denmark depart for Schleswig-Holstein​

War Minister Litenfingret famously created the new volunteer conscript armies, called the "Litenfingret armies", making an equally-famous speech from the balconies of the Rikstag telling a crowd of young Scandinavian workers that it was "just and sweet that a young man should die for his country, his Fatherland" and exhorting the "sons of the North to give all they have for their nation". Bands played the rousing chords of the March of the Finnish Cavalry as the nation braced itself for war.

"March of the Finnish Cavalry" as a patriotic standard notwithstanding, there were very few cavalry charges on the Danish front​

The Great War would be won and lost at sea. The British navy was the best in the world, but as a singular unit, it could be challenged by the combined arms of Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Franco-Burgundy and Spain. Scandinavian admirals were adamant that the Spanish home fleet be dedicated to a combined assault on the British fleet in the Channel and the North Sea but were rebuffed by the Spanish, who were concerned that the British would capitalize on Spain's weakness abroad to do irreparable damage to Spain's flagging colonies. Engagements in the North Sea, despite all the fighting on land in Schleswig-Holstein, in the Rhineland and in the Eurasian plain would determine the course of the war, or at least who the "Continental Powers" considered to be victorious. Initial successes in the North Sea and the destruction of British shipping facilities at Scapa Flow and along the eastern coast would turn to abject failure during the Irish Sea Debacle. The complete devastation of the Continental fleets was completed in the Irish Sea and the Channel during the failed invasion of Ireland as a diversionary tactic. Scandinavian ships went down in flames, the radioed taunts of an admiral being the last records to escape the flames and the waves, "We'll be seeing you gentlemen in Valhalla."

Flagship of the Scandinavian Irish Sea Armada the dreadnought Christine sinks beneath the waves​

Defeat in the Irish Sea and stalemate on the Continent, compounded by the British torching of Oslo's shipyards in retaliation for Scapa Flow, spelled the end of Scandinavia's willingness to continue the war. Strategists feared that in light of the destruction of Scandinavia's navy Polish armies might land in Stockholm and subject the nation to the humiliation of occupation, potentially a forced dismemberment. Bostrom and Staaff, the subject of derision and mistrust at home, dispatched Litenfingret to London to conduct negotiations on the nation's behalf. There he made his case, immortalized by Scandinavian artists as an impassioned speech for peace and reconciliation. More accurately a list of requests.

"Peace and Reconciliation" Litenfingret's motto at London and the name of this romanticized image of the negotiations​

Japan's participation on the wrong side of the conflict resulted in the loss of Scandinavian possessions in China, as well as the loss of Franco-Burgundian, Spanish, Dutch and Danish holdings in the east. What Litenfingret's "Peace and Reconciliation" amounted to was a calculated plea to dismember, deflower and strip of territories all nations but Scandinavia and her closest allies.

The resulting treaty brought peace, briefly, to Scandinavia. Bostrom and the Liberal Party were irreparably tarnished by the events of the Great War and Litenfingret, who was viewed as a rising star and the new face of the Industry Party, emerged unsullied from the rubble of the war. Bostrom was quickly and vigorously sacked and replaced by Litenfingret who would be the last Chancellor of the Imperial Rikstag to reside in Stockholm. The future did not belong to Litenfingret but an old coworker of his, the young and ambitious former liaison to the Kongo Society, Karl Mannerheim.

Portrait of Mannerheim in Imperial Army dress uniform, early months of the Great War​

----------
@mtcicero, there has never been and is not now any official "Imperial Lutheran" body. Lutheranism has just been an important force in Scandinavian politics and culture.

 

[Grandkhan]

What Litenfingret's "Peace and Reconciliation" amounted to was a calculated plea to dismember, deflower and strip of territories all nations but Scandinavia and her closest allies. DENMARK

Coz lets face it, nobody lost anything of importance but me.

Scandinavia: Always an enemy of Denmark.

 

[Jehoshua]

Too bad Denmark is not capable of long-term, effective, foreign policy and collaboration to achieve its own ends (namely the dismemberment of Scandinavia) precisely due to its isolationist bent and hamfisted approach to diplomacy in general.

Appears Scandinavia will always be the enemy of Denmark

 

[talonschild]

Yeah, well, every history needs a good solid tragedy.

 

[Luckymoose]

That history is pretty much wrong and bias. It was Colombia, not Venezuela, that Spain caused Civil War in, and it was the Brazilian and American fleets that caused the absolute defeat of the Continental Powers at sea, not the British by themselves. Spanish interference in a Brazilian-British allied nation and their refusal to pay small reparations caused the Great War. Scandinavian, French, and Dutch lies about the Guyana Crisis caused their entry into the war, which was promptly called false at the end of the war when those governments admitted no evidence of Brazilian aggression happened. If you're going to write history, at least do it correctly, LOE. You were the villains and the aggressors.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Let's take the conversation down a route I haven't pursued in a while: Wiki. First, my perspective:

1. I have the time to set up a wiki, and probably put up each individual update at this point.

2. I can probably maintain a wiki, but setting up frequent new articles, not so much.


So, my question here is: if I were to set up the base of a wiki for CI, would it be of substantial value to you all and would those among you keep it updated and relevant?

 

[m.t.cicero]

I'd be able and willing to contribute stuff about China/Flanders/League of Continental Nations (if I got access to the group again)

 

[JohannaK]

Yeah, yeah! Wikis are always a good thing!

 

[Lord of Elves]

Yeah, well, every history needs a good solid tragedy.

Namely that occasionally the great nation of Scandinavia is hampered by the incapability and lack of vision of the tinpot state called Denmark.

Too bad Denmark is not capable of long-term, effective, foreign policy and collaboration to achieve its own ends (namely the dismemberment of Scandinavia) precisely due to its isolationist bent and hamfisted approach to diplomacy in general.

Appears Scandinavia will always be the enemy of Denmark

Broken record? What'd we do to you, Your Haughtiness.

 

[Jehoshua]

I think a wiki would be a good thing. Afterall the various players can all contribute so there should be no problem with new articles (would be useful for developing histories of states multiple people have played as well, since a more comprehensive view can developed on a wiki through multiple contributors than via a single person)

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Well, I won't argue that a wiki would probably be a good idea, but the problem I foresee is the lack of contributions, particularly for nations that have been mostly NPC. A wiki isn't any good if it's virtually empty. That's why I just want to know who would contribute if they could, especially to areas less traveled.

 

[Grandkhan]

I'd probably contribute to the countries I've played and their successors (Spain, New Spain and friends, Denmark).

Prepare for pages upon pages on THE PHOENIX.

I didn't pay enough attention to Europe and other places during my early game years to really contribute a lot of other pages.

 

[JohannaK]

Well, obviously there will be little to no contributions on NPCs, but I do think that only with PC countries and events we could have a decent wiki.

I'd personally contribute with Adjuuramark and the Trujillo era in Venezuela.