History of Urcea (1798-1902): Difference between revisions

The '''History of Urcea from 1798-1902''', sometimes also called the '''Reform Period''', consists of period of time from the end of the reign of King Lucás III to the restoration of [[House de Weluta]] following the [[Red Interregnum]] and [[First Great War]]. Chastened from significant defeats during the [[Second Caroline War]], [[Urcea]] entered a period of national renewal and reform, bringing about political and social changes as well as a cultural awakening of [[Urcean people|Urcean identity]]. Most of the period is taken up by a period known as the "Aedanicad", the reign of King [[Aedanicus VIII]], which saw Urcea make major territorial gains in the [[Grand Duchy of Carolina]], [[Dericania]], and overseas as well. The period of reform strengthened the economy, society, and military, and the increased influence of the military lead to a coup in 1889 that established a Crown Regency. The Regency itself saw an accelerated pace of reforms, including the [[Administrative Reorganization Act of 1892]] which established Urcea's modern internal borders. Loyalists of [[House de Weluta]] and international allies would come together to depose the Regency and restore the Monarchy in 1902.

 

The war ended in 1848 with Urcea emerging totally victorious and the Grand Duchy of [[Carolina]] permanently connected to the Urcean crown in addition to the annexation of [[Transionia]], which completed an eastern riverine border running from [[Gassavelia]] to the [[Ænglasmarch#Duchy_of_Holchester|Duchy of Holchester]] by annexing ten counties and duchies that were previously the westernmost portion of [[Dericania]]. The withdrawing Urcean [[Royal and Imperial Army (Urcea)|Royal Army]] lead to nationalistic uprisings beginning in Dericania as civil authority in the area was temporarily absent. The defeat of the [[Kingdom of Dericania]] lead to the rise of [[Derian people|Derian]] nationalism, and Derian nationalists attempted to oust the various princes in Dericania and unite into a single Deric state, one that could stand on its own against [[Urcea]]. The subsequent unrest - and question over whether or not [[Bergendii]] or other people had a place in the Deric state - lead to the [[First Fratricide]]. For his victory, after the [[Great Landsmeet]] a decade later, as part of the [[Tria nomina movement|tria nomina system]] he enacted, King Aedanicus VIII adopted the agnomen ''Carolinicus'' at the opening ceremony of the [[Caroline Arch]]. As the vast Royal Army returned home to vote for the first time in the 1850 election, a more radical new generation of [[National Pact (Urcea)|National Pact]] Delegates swept into office, inaugurating a period of more aggressive reforms to the Urcean state and a period of feuding between King Aedanicus and the [[Concilium Daoni]]. It was during this period that the office of [[Procurator]] returned to a period of greater prominence and was politicized for the first time, as the King appointed Delegates as Procurator in order to grasp the upper hand for control of the Royal Treasury with the Chancellor. While it was never prohibited, the precedent of Delegates serving as [[Procurator]] established another [[Constitution of Urcea|Constitutional precedent]] that would later allow the Chancellor and Temporary President to simultaneously serve as [[Procurator]], accumulating a wide array of powers over the Urcean state. Aedanicus would also concede, in the 1860s, the power for the Chancellor to choose members of the Purpaidá via constitutional advice to the King. Aedanicus's reign continued for several decades, but the increasing reform of the military lead to increasing political power of the armed forces. The regime's continued reforms and the nation's prosperity lead to stability for the Crown, but the relative power of the [[Armed Forces of the Apostolic Kingdom of Urcea|Armed Forces]] became a major political issue in the public and in the [[Concilium Daoni]] during the 1870s. Increasingly, the [[Royal and Imperial Army (Urcea)|Royal Army]] was becoming an attractive destination for members of the [[Social class in Urcea|privilegiata]] class, and the army became a hotbed of reform-minded politics as the 19th century progressed. During the period, and in the 1870s in particular, the [[National Pact (Urcea)|National Pact]], sometimes referred to as the ''Party of Order'', was the dominant political organization in [[Urcea]]. It controlled wide majorities in the Daoni during this period and faced very little organized opposition besides the nascent power of the Armed Forces. Due to the success of [[Crown Liberalism]] during the period, the National Pact considered the [[Government of Urcea]] its own "property", in the sense that they had secured hard fought reforms towards a liberalized [[Constitution of Urcea]] and they were willing to fight to defend it. This set the stage for conflict between the National Pact and the armed forces at the end of the century.

====Odurian War====

Like many of his predecessors, Aedanicus was also concerned with legal reform and efforts to centralize in order to better utilize the Kingdom's extensive resources. The counts and other nobles in the former territories of [[Angla]] and [[Gassavelia]] had retained their privileges and autonomy in part as a way to ensure their loyalty and keep their territories tied to [[Urcea]], an expedient that was no longer viewed as necessary due to the power demonstrated by Urcea in the [[Third Caroline War]]. It was also unclear whether or not these territories were formally included within the Crown of Urcea or were merely part of the [[Imperial Kingdom of Urcea]]. Aedanicus's chief constitutional goal of his reign was to bring uniformity of royal power to the entire realm including these "ethnic" outlier territories acquired during the [[Great Confessional War]], and most Urceans viewed the "feudal" authority of local nobility to be an anachronism in the otherwise modernizing reigns of Niall and Aedanicus. During the latter's reign, the [[Concilium Daoni]] passed several initiatives supported by the King to reduce the autonomy of the nobles. Chief among these was the repeal of the right to appeal to the [[Emperor of the Levantines]] in 1854, essentially tying them to the Crown and subsuming them into Crown law as adopted by the King and Councils. This action provoked considerable unrest both in the territories themselves and in the [[Holy Levantine Empire]]; the [[Imperial Diet]] condemned the action as illegal. Nevertheless, Royal tax collectors and members of the [[Royal and Imperial Army (Urcea)|Royal Army]] began to flood into the territories in 1855 followed by "policy advisors" to the nobles and counts the next year. While it would take the Regency period to fully curb the influence of the local nobility, Aedanicus had laid the first steps for doing so and was content for the remainder of his reign in the authority he held in former [[Angla]] and [[Gassavelia]]. The centralization plan also included reducing the autonomy of [[Urcea]]'s few overseas possessions, including [[New Archduchy]] and [[Antilles]]. While the efforts were largely successful in Antilles and resulted in better administration that prevented the abuses of many merchants based on the island, the centralization efforts in New Archduchy lead to significant resentment in the colony and an eventual rift growing in relations between Urcea and its colony.

 

Aedanicus and his grandfather Niall had successfully rebuilt the [[Royal and Imperial Army (Urcea)|Royal Army]] leading to its decisive success in the [[Third Caroline War]], but during the period the [[Royal Navy (Urcea)|Royal Navy]] had been seriously neglected, and by the 1860s the fleet was primarily comprised of wooden sailing ships and some steamers built during King Niall's reign. The shortfalls of the Royal Navy were on display while Urcea worked to acquire [[New Harren]], which was accompanied by serious logistical problems due to non-steam powered travel time and ship reliability. Aedanicus began a large overhaul of the navy during this period, intending to construct more than a hundred armored cruisers. The navy revitalization effort lead to a large shipbuilding boom, with new firms such as the [[Royal Sealift Company]] being founded to handle the increased demand. The navy was all-ironclad by the early 1870s, and the Urcean navy was, for the time, relatively advanced and powerful. The navy added several protected cruisers in the mid-1880s, but the cost of the naval overhaul was mounting and the various political instabilities that characterized the 1880s lead to the cancellation of further naval development just prior to the election of 1885, though the economic shipbuilding boom had ended by the mid-1870s leading to a market consolidation of shipbuilding contracts. Consequently, when Urcea's navy would next go to war in the [[Red Interregnum]] in the late 1890s and early 1900s, most of its ships were already in use for three decades and were considered mostly obsolete. Aedanicus's interest in naval affairs would be inherited by his son, however, who would prosecute a similar period of buildup during his own reign. Urcea attempted to expand its [[New Harren#New%20Harren|New Harren]] colony in 1881 using the power of its navy; while efforts to subdue the Northern Confederation's coasts were entirely successful, the interior of the Confederation held out and the [[Royal and Imperial Army (Urcea)|Royal Army]]'s expeditionary force failed to make meaningful progress. The colony was ceded territory in the ensuing peace, but the small gains from an expensive war were a bitter disappointment for the increasingly divided Urcean government.

Behind his public persona, FitzRex worked to consolidate power by moving away from the bourgeoisie-backed [[Crown Liberalism|Crown Liberal]] system of Urcea into a more dictatorial, military, technocratic apparatus. This division between the urban [[Social class in Urcea|privilegiata]] and the military privilegiata created most of the political fissures in his regime. The [[National Pact (Urcea)|National Pact]] began to openly contest the 1895 election results in July 1896, resulting in the [[Royal and Imperial Army (Urcea)|Regal Army]] being called in to seize their headquarters and dissolve the party, though most party leaders learned of the operation beforehand and fled to the [[Ionian Plateau]], receiving protection from the recently alienated local leaders. Meanwhile, Crown-Regent [[Gréagóir FitzRex]] claimed plausible deniability by decrying the operation having occurred "at the hands of rogues" who "must face the rule of law", but no charges were filed. In 1897, the Crown Regent announced that provincial Governors would not be elected as per the Administrative Reorganization Act of 1892, but rather would be appointed directly by the Crown-Regent with approval of the provincial legislatures, most of which were lead by FitzRex loyalists. This lead to widespread protests, and by July 1897, the [[National Pact (Urcea)|National Pact]] had been outlawed by the Crown Regency on account of it being a "criminal conspiracy against the stability of the state". National Pact leaders fled [[Urceopolis (City)|Urceopolis]] and rallied clans in the [[Ionian Plateau]] into open revolt. Civil war had begun, and it took the names "'97 Rising" or "Red Interregnum" for the blood spilled during the conflict, though some historians use that term to refer to the entirety of FitzRex's administration.

While the initial revolt was largely between disaffected [[Crown Liberalism|Crown Liberals]] and the Regency, leaders of the uprising pledged to recall the [[King Patrick III|Prince of Halfway]] of [[House de Weluta]], then living in exile in [[Burgundie]], to the Throne. The promise of restoration motivated [[Catholic Church|Church]] officials to lean towards the side of the insurrectionaries, and the liberal National Pact successfully forged an alliance with traditionalist conservatives who held power in the [[Ionian Plateau]]. No large scale fighting occurred in 1897, but by the end of the year a portion of the armed forces had defected to the rebelling parties, which were now calling themselves the "''Legitimists''". Facing a larger coalition, [[Gréagóir FitzRex|FitzRex]] began to move his technocratic regime in an increasingly socialist direction in an attempt to bring the lower classes to his banner, a move that many historians claim was successful and politically shrewd though in complete contravention of FitzRex's stated rationale for his alliance with Caphiria. Early 1898 saw a campaign of [[Royal and Imperial Army (Urcea)|Royal Army]] forces trying and failing to break into the [[Ionian Plateau]] in an effort to capture Legitimist leaders, and the failure to do so - culminating with a decisive Legitimist victory at the Battle of Goldvale in April - put the Regency regime on the defensive for much of the remainder of the war. Various states of the [[Holy Levantine Empire]] - citing the illegality of Urcea's planned secession and answering calls from within Urcea - declared war following the battle in an effort to help the restoration. Much of the war from 1898 through 1900 focused on the guerilla conflict and small scale clashes domestically, though the war - which was now part of the global [[First Great War]] - saw relatively significant naval action in the run up to allied intervention. The presence of large rebel armies on Urcean territory and foreign blockading actions provided FitzRex with the pretext to indefinitely suspend meetings of the [[Concilium Daoni]], leaving total control of the war government in the hands of his handpicked [[Concilium Purpaidá]] ministers. As the war progressed, FitzRex determined it necessary to make a secret promise to Caphiria that Urcea would cede it [[Talionia]] at the successful conclusion of the conflict. This promise would play a role in the later [[Second Great War]].

Although the Legitimist Front was active within the [[The Valley (Urcea)|the Valley]], the [[Royal and Imperial Army (Urcea)|Regal Army]] was having better success keeping most of the allied Imperial forces bottled behind the [[Ionian Mountains]]. Attempts by [[Burgundie]] and other Imperial nations to bypass the mountains via the Julia Bay were no less successful, as combined efforts of the [[Royal Navy (Urcea)|Regal Navy]] and Caphiria's [[Imperial Naval Fleet]] successfully managed to interdict allied efforts to break through for most of 1898-1901. Despite the availability of machine gun technology, it was not widely employed during the early war, making the Red Interregnum the final major [[Occidental world|Occidental]] conflict to employ traditional cavalry charges and other traditional techniques. The early parts of the war saw employment, on both sides, of technology that would later have significant use but was not yet technologically ready for warfare. Most prominently, [[Caphiria]] and Urcea collaborated on the creation of fifteen armored cars for use in battle, but each of the fifteen broke down on the battlefield and the idea was scrapped for a decade. The failure of the forces of the [[Holy Levantine Empire]] would be temporary, however, as the internal successes of Legitimist forces - which, by February of 1899 induced defections of entire [[Ranks in the Urcean Armed Forces|Cohorts and Regiments]] at a time - opened the doorway for external aid. Defections within the Regal Navy meant that an organized Legitimist navy - sailing out of bases in [[Gassavelia]] - took to the seas by the summer of 1899. By August 1899, the Regal-Caphirian joint naval operation no longer held absolute dominion over the Julia Bay. On land, Legitimists scored a significant victory over the Regal Army, defeating it in battle at [[Northgate]] and was forcing to retreat. This victory allowed the creation of a Legitimist government in [[Carolina]] and allowed Levantine armies to link up with Legitimist forces. Despite this, allied forces could proceed no further as regrouped Regal forces created a successful defensive perimeter stretching from Westglen and Goldvale.

As the war dragged onward with no clear path to victory, the Crown Regent began to search for ways to gain an advantage. The socialist policies FitzRex pursued earlier in the war were enhanced, and the Crown Regent decided to reconvene the [[Concilium Daoni]], which had been suspended since May of the previous year, in October of 1899. The Crown Regent guaranteed elections would proceed on schedule in November of 1900. The Crown Regent also promised that, prior to the secession from the [[Holy Levantine Empire]] in 1905, a new [[Apostolic King of Urcea]] would be found, and that the Crown Regent was personally pursuing all potential candidates. [[House de Weluta]] would be disinherited, but both local and foreign candidates who would stand by the reforms would sit on the [[Julian Throne]]. The potential of restoration - and the restoration of the Concilium Daoni - intrigued many and persuaded some moderates to FitzRex's side. A renewed manpower pool helped solidify the war on land, but the war on the sea was gradually slipping from FitzRex as increasing defections from the Regal Navy and the full participation of the [[Navy of Burgundie]] lead to something resembling true parity on the seas.

The blockade lead to rapidly deteriorating conditions inside the Regal lines, as food became scarce and most lower class [[Social class in Urcea|freemen]] were laid off and sent home due to the lack of available work. Widespread unrest gripped [[Urceopolis (City)|Urceopolis]] as the city approached starvation by the end of January. [[Gréagóir FitzRex|The Crown Regent]] diverted more of his power to the [[Concilium Daoni]] in order to reduce the unrest and began to re-purpose some of the Regal Army for night raids across the lines to take foodstores back to the city. The Crown Regent began a semi-effective food rationing system, and began to open the [[Julian Palace]] to the public, sharing the Palace's food stores with the masses. These measures were effective in restoring confidence for much of February 1902, but even the Palace's food stores began to run low by the end of the month. FitzRex had restored public confidence in his regime for a temporary time, but the effort became his undoing. On the night of March 2nd, 1902, a family of Urceopolitans were refused larger portions despite the state of their famished children, causing an argument between the family and the workers at the Palace. FitzRex attempted to mediate the discussion, but the argument escalated and the leader of the family stabbed the Crown Regent, leading to the Palace dining hall erupting in a massive riot. FitzRex, not fatally wounded, was trampled in the chaos and was pronounced dead in the Palace. The Daoni met in an emergency session into the early morning of the 3rd, and, following hours of debate, the socialist majority in the Daoni declared a republic which would continue the fight against the Legitimists. It voted to abolish itself and replace itself with a "National Assembly of the Republic".

Under siege, the Republican government adopted an increasingly radical posture, moving from a position that could be called revolutionary democratic socialism to a more overt dictatorship of the proletariat, purging the remaining privilegiata from the officer corps and arresting any remaining former [[Social class in Urcea|optimates]] as potential fifth columnists. Increasing war footing alienated the outer boroughs of the city, which had always been tepid in their support, leading to the Republican forces retreating into [[Urceopolis#The%20Pale|the Pale]] and [[Urceopolis#Oldtown|Oldtown]], which they fortified. The radical footing of the government undermined its authority, however, as a dispute with the [[Pope]] lead to the National Guard seizing the [[Papal State]], sending Pope Leo XIII fleeing to allied lines and polarizing the thoroughly Catholic population of the Republic, as the Church - heretofore a neutral party - now fully condemned the revolutionary government. The radicalization also resulted in a crackdown on the [[Commonwealth Union (Urcea)|Commonwealth Union]], which soon fled the city and defected to the Legitimist cause, making a large public disavowal of republicanism in the process.

On November 17th, party leaders decided to launch a purge of any remaining privilegiata officers from the ranks of the National Republican Army. The regular Army - as well as those manning the barricades - had become loyal to their commanders rather than to the Republic, and the Assembly decided a quick, nighttime purge would sure up their own position. Informants immediately rushed back to the barracks, where the officers summoned a large contingent of loyalist troops, where they fortified and laid a trap. Party militia arrived and were slaughtered, and the Republican Army forces quickly marched on [[The Praetorium (Urceopolis)|the Praetorium]] and besieged the building by 10 PM that night. At 2 AM the following morning, the Army stormed the Praetorium and massacred the leaders of the [[Republican Party (Urcea)|Republican Party]] and any members of the National Assembly it could find. On the morning of the 18th, the Army found several former members of Assembly from the [[Commonwealth Union (Urcea)|Commonwealth Union]] which had remained in the city and installed them in the Assembly. The Republic was now in the hands of the Army and the National Democratic Party, though [[The Praetorium (Urceopolis)|the Praetorium]] was now besieged by socialist partisans lead by a few Republicans which had escaped. A tense standoff was broken by 3 in the afternoon on the 18th, as reinforcements from the city's defenses routed the partisans in a particularly bloody affair. Army leaders began to meet with the new Assembly majority members to determine the best course of action to take. On the next morning, November 19th, 1902, the Assembly voted to dissolve the Urcean Republic effective midnight and voted to reconstitute itself as the [[Concilium Daoni]]. Before adjourning, the Assembly gave the formal order to the Army to stand down and also formally invited the [[Patrick III of Urcea|Prince of Halfway]] to take control of the city. The National Republican Army surrendered to the Legitimist cause by 1 PM on the 19th, and the newly reconstituted [[Royal and Imperial Army (Urcea)|Royal Army]] entered the city. Prince Patrick and the [[Pope]] soon followed. A hastily organized coronation ceremony in [[St. Peter's Archbasilica]] followed that evening, and the Prince of Halfway formally became [[Patrick III of Urcea|King Patrick III]], cementing the restoration and end of the Republic.