NationStates Jolt Archive

Grand-Duché du Tulgary

It may seem strange coming so long after the fact, but Tulgarian media is united in reporting the fact of the expiration on the morning of the 9th of January of centurion chief of state Felvarosh Papan, better known as Archduke Basilius.

Papan's son, Crown Prince Kiraly, 37, whose mother died during another ill-advised late middle-age pregnancy in 1980, stands as succesor, but confusion and cries of opposition ripple through the nation of twenty-seven million. Basilius, it seems, chose the wrong time to finally die.

Elections approach in Parliament, the elected administrative counterweight to the appointed legislative Chamber of Deputies, and reformist politicians, espeically popular in the east, are polling strongly. Some media outlets are already blaming related stress for the Archduke's death.

Kiraly is yet to even select a name by which to assume the Archduchy, but elections are less than two weeks away and look set to be taken by reformists, moderates, protestants, capitalists, and even social democrats.

Palace of the North, 's Gravenhage

"...regardless, you really can't with the Soviets about. Even if he was the first chieftain to unite our forefathers."

"Well, forget the name, I'll just re-use one from the Catholicon. Miksa or Rica. The funeral's a more pressing issue, you know my father wanted to be buried in his Empire. Maybe he should lie in state for a while to await the recovery of the Congolese mandate."

"Like some boxed Bolshevik?"

"I don't intend for it to take eighty years, Hugo! I'd have to outlive the old mule! Anyway, it was his last wish. 'Empire, my darling!' he said at the end, so Nurse tells me."

Hugo clucked his tongue. "Blacks and yellows running themselves, anarchy for the one, socialism for the other. The indignation must have been what kept him going for so long."

"You're right. If it weren't for these ghastly German apes he'd have taken advantage after Bonstock and sent in the marines."

"Your Highness!" A belated knock, in haste almost neglected, at the ornate double doors followed the aide's cry, "Forgive me. There's something happening!"

As if on cue the sound of diesel engines and steel on cobbles arose in the distance, soon to be followed by an amplified voice emploring citizens to remain in their homes and let the army deal with this...

's Gravenhage

"Well, Hugo? You're my chief of security. Put on your hat and go see what they want!"

Hugo Delvaux, Captain of the Princely Guard, drew up his slender shoulders and grasped the arms of his chair for a moment as he collected himself and made an effort to regain his official character. Rising, he saluted Kiraly as his Prince, regarded for a moment the tricorner hat that he was far more used to carrying than wearing, and then, gingerly, as if it may not fit anymore, he placed it on top of his painstakingly waved golden hair. Hugo buttoned his tailed yellow tunic as he marched out of the room calling for his sword.

Forty minutes later, Kiraly began to worry.

"I told him to ask what they want, not take them to the dungeon and rack it out of them! Verhoeven! Go and fetch him! Verhoeven! Where the devil is Verhoeven?"

Outside, the Captain of the Guard and the manservant Verhoeven were exchanging glances that shot somewhere between indignation and scared bewilderment as they were jostled, hands bound behind them, into an Army truck and told to accept their arrest while the military handles everything.

Several Italian-built Iveco LMVs were dotted about amongst domestically-built DAF 4x4 and 6x6 soft-skin trucks, and an AMX-30 battle tank skirted by infantry weilding FN-2000 assault rifles identifying them as army special forces was now moving down the highway-like palace drive, having just smashed through the iron gates. Inside, two dozen guards less eight already arrested with their Captain, adopted defensive postures as a matter of course, despite being armed with Hi-Power pistols and, at best, P-90 personal defence weapons.

For a brief while, some way from the Palace grounds themselves, civilian television cameras caught images of tanks and troops on the streets of the Hague, just as others were doing in Rotterdam, Brussels, Amsterdam, Liege, and Luxembourg itself, beaming them to the world before being rounded-up in their turn by the military.

((BG: I love this thread and its idea! Sorry it took so long to respond…please, let’s not rush this, I don’t get to RP with you very much on this capacity, and this stuff is right up my ally. Kudos!))

Gravenhage
His Royal Highness le Comte d’Artois, the Franco-Bourbon royal second only to His Most Christian Majesty Louis-Auguste, walked smartly along the frescoed marble corridors of Gravenhage Palace with military precision, a septet of doughty Switzers tromping alongside. He wore the uniform of a Colonel of the Garde-Suisse as he ever did when in fits of pique, or righteous indignation, epaulets, frills and all; his sword smacked against his side. Aside from that he was a near facsimile to his monarchical brother, save more suave and saturnine. And he was clearly on edge. No sooner news of Tulgary’s troubles reached Versailles than le Comte was onboard an Airbus to Luxembourg. In due time he came to Gravenhage, and was presented to Grand Duke Kiraly, whom he deferred to with a smart bow.

“May the Lord God and all His angels defend Your Sovereign Majesty’s throne.”

He then lit a cigarette, took a seconds long tug from a silver flask produced out of a metal-gilded coat, and spoke frankly with his counterpart. After all the marriage between the current Grand Duke’s sister and d’Artois was several years past, the royals were kinsmen.

A full bodied drag from the stout cigarette preceded counsel and amity. “The Kingdom of France, and through her the Holy League itself, supports Your Majesty’s claim without stipulation. My brother, your brother-in-law le Roi, will never allow his blood relative and liege ally to suffer the slightest indignity: your contribution to the African effort has been also superb.”

“Furthermore,” he said a bit more darkly “we shall allow neither protestant whorism nor Soviet rabble-rousing to affect Your Majesty’s hollowed realm. The Holy and Sacred Catholic faith, and the integrity of Christendom, no chevalier will ever forsake.”

“The situation may currently seem grave, these things always do ab initio.” Another pull from the flask, whereupon he offered his relative the same. “In France we crushed malcontents such as these ‘civilian journalists’, hah! I spit on their name, visit them with me, if you please, as they are tortured night and day in the oubliettes de la Bastille, conical and man-eating!”

After that he laughed darkly to himself…clearly, he had taken a hand personally in ‘re-educating’ leftists…perhaps more than was good for him. “Yes, tis’ all too true, we maintain an Estates-General in France, but they are staunch loyalists, devots, ultras, hand-picked by the Sun King. At but a royal stare they will vote themselves into house arrest I assure you. Voting, hah, the province of pimps and scoundrels!”

“Harkin unto me, mon frère: prior to that, before the advent our merry and enlightened parliamentarians, we had to systematically destroy any single element in France, no matter how trivial, that stood against L’Ancien Regime. I believe now you must do the same. In one fell swoop collect and dispose of all who stand against you. Secure for yourself the title of absolute monarch in fact and deed. And most importantly, move like a cobra, before the opposition, and I assure you there is always an opposition, can organize. Then you can set up some sort of Estates General, as easily as Your Majesty recruits toadies, lickspittles, and socialist informants.”

“His Most Christian Majesty, great king, is penning a dispatch as we speak. He will never forsake you, God be praised!”

Two hours later, the Grand Duke received the dispatch…

The missive came to Grand Duke Kiraly wrapped up in a cloth-of-gold ribbon. It was nothing more than a simple report.

Currently, the French Royal Army’s elite 1st Korean Heavy Infantry Division, crack stormtroopers, are stationed at full alert just over the border near Mons. They are supported by the 5th Czech Infantry Brigade, experts in urban warfare, and the 343rd Mechanized Regiment of the Royal Dauphin Corps, centered around six score M-1 Abrams tanks. They have been ordered to maintain a five-minute warning.

In addition to these, the Order of the Holy Spirit is standing by to provide aerial assistance.

In less than a week the War Ministry predicts an insertion capability of the VIII Corps of Les Gardes Francaises, under the Marquis de la Rue, whose muster was expedited by the African conflict. If Tulgary calls for assistance, the Kingdom of France will respond instantly.

We will not allow Tulgary to cease being monarchist, or Catholic, under any circumstances.

Louis-Auguste REX

And so it was clear that Louis-Auguste sent to his brother-in-law more than an endorsement for Kiraly’s reign, he sent him a demand to become more like the Sun King himself. One thing was absolutely sure: there would be no damned revolutionism in Tulgary, one way...or another.

Kiraly was of course glad to see d’Artois, but at the time he was still himself very much confused as to what was actually happening.

Shortly after the Bourbon's departure, army special forces reached the palace proper, and, within minutes and still before a shot had been fired, the uncrowned Archduke ordered that his remaining security staff should not resist. They'd only be killed, and he'd rather not cause a civil war just yet.

On the Franco-Tulgarian border, meanwhile, Bourbon troops may be surprised by the lack of forces poised opposite them. The army, though it appeared to be taking control of the streets, had made no obvious deployment of force to the western frontier. In fact the few light border forces always on hand seemed to be in friendly mood, some even waving to their neighbours.

Kiraly was soon deposited by the military at Grestovar Fortress, Luxembourg. It seemed a strange thing that the leaders of a military coup would think to put the legitimate monarch in his ancestral seat of all places!

In coming hours a strange spectacle began to play out before a select few television cameras. Crown Prince Kiraly Papan was rushed through his coronation in an event attended primarily by ranking members of the Royal Army. Kiraly Papan dipped his head as Crown Prince of the Grand Duchy of Tulgary and lifted it again under the weight of a crown that made him Czar Charles Papan of the Second Tulgarian Catholicon!

Well now people were confused.

Things soon became clear, however. Late on the night of his coronation, Czar Charles -whose chosen name remembers a lofty Papan claim to the Carolingian dynasty- carried out his first act of office. He granted to his Generals a full pardon for any offences conducted during the sudden and painless death of the Duchy and officially sanctioned their establishment as members of the new Chamber of Deputies.

The Chamber of Deputies under the Duchy had been comprised of appointees nominated by the nation's movers and shakers and rubber stamped by the Archduke, and conducted legislative business. Under the first Catholicon, raised as an all-pleasing solution after Tulgary's ruinous backing of Napoleon, a Chamber of Princes served the same purpose but also divided the country as each generation gained new royals and the nation's regal estates became absurdly small and inefficient. Under the Duchy an administrative Parliament was entirely elected.

Now, however, the Chamber was under military control, and Parliament... well, the junta declared that elections would not be taking place as planned.

It became clear the coup was directed at reformers likely to gain administrative power in future, and not at the royal family that had almost appeared to be losing it.

Versailles

It was le Duc de Liancourt, Minister of the King’s Household, who delivered the news, his extravagant court dress in palpable danger as the elderly aristocrat sprinted down the Galerie des Glaces. Soon he came to the Salon de Mercure, where the French Bourbons feasted and feted themselves.

“Saints be praised!” cried an exuberant Most Christian King, shooting up from the ornate table where he and the royal family were spending the evening in a pleasant repast, supping on caviar, pheasant, champagne, and democracy. The violin quartet even stopped, stunned at the rare royal outburst. In near orgasmic joy he drained his flute of the bubbling wine. Then, as a silent valet practically crawled forward to refill the glass, he propounded: “Hurrah for the chivalry of Tulgary, and for her courageous generals!”

“Here here!” responded the assembled. Queen Jillesepone, the iron claw in a velvet glove, stood up and clapped her hands daintily. Garde Suisse stationed about the hall slammed their silver shod mahogany rifles to the marble floor in three swift and successive strokes.

“God save Czar Charles Papan I! Long live the Tulgarian Catholicon!” Roared the King. So roared the assembled. Outside, a clever officer of the Gardes du Corps (who subsequently received a promotion) ordered a 21 battery cannonade, which shook Versailles that evening. The next day, by special proclamation of the King, a mass of thanks was given at Notre Dame de Paris in celebration of God’s servants defending the right.

The Tulgarian Ambassador in the Extraordinary, le Comte Leon de Roam, was brought into the King’s presence, and hugged by the Sun King. “Praise be to God,” said Louis-Auguste “Tulgary is saved!”

“The Kingdom of France, as ever, stands by her valiant ally.”

"Oh my my my" gasped Her Serene Majest Queen Jillesepone, surrounded by her diaphinously clad ladies-in-waiting, then nearly swooned with such good news. "Tis a happy day!" She blushed, and, like trained seals, people around showered her blithe statement with light and polite appaluse.

Gravenhage

Le Prince de Conti, second cousin to King Louis-Auguste, arrived as the new Ambassador in the Extraordinary to the Court of Charles I. After spending much of his sedate life as a Royal Army colonel, Versailles felt the stalwart figure was perfect to head the new mission. As well his family lands were near Metz, the French garrison city, and so very close to Tulgary. His family tree and coat of arms reflected that nearness in blood ties. Martial fellow that he was, le Prince kept his ornate uniform even though he now served Versailles in a diplomatic capacity, he still had the gilded service revolver opposite his sword upon the jeweled belt.

His first priority was to make it absolutely clear that le Royaume de France had no interest in becoming involved in internal Tulgarian affairs, the military expedition on the border was existed only to aid the Papans, should they call upon their ally. He expressed Versailles’ boundless admiration for the superb actions of the Tulgarian military and the House of Papan over the past several days. He also assured the new monarch that any Tulgarians of interest in France could be apprehended by la Marechaussee in a moments notice and be off towards Tulgary minutes after that.

In the main he offers nothing but boundless support for the new ruling junta. As the House of Bourbon knows, a prince has no better friend than the dutiful soldiers of the realm, and can know no worse enemy than ‘reformers’. Turning the administration of the Catholicon, praised be its name, over to hard line generals is in the opinions of Restoration France nothing short of Platonic truth in action. If Versailles could be transmuted into metaphor, if ten-thousand glittering aristocrats could be analogized, it would all resemble nothing so much as the proverbial cat, that ate the equally proverbial mouse, and then drank a liter of heavy cream.

He declares that the ‘brave and excellent’ new regime has no better friend than the Kingdom of France. He has even gained the King’s pleasure to announce the possibility of a whole new round of blue-blooded marriages between the two feudal states. If the occasion has shown anything, it is that le Royaume de France and le Grand-Duche du Tulgary are blood brothers, among the eldest children of the Holy Catholic Faith. Le Prince de Conti bubbles over as he often waxes glorious on the occasion, calling Tulgary’s process of salvation ‘White January’. He bubbles on day and night, suggesting more strong and binding alliances between the states, much as the Kingdom’s of Spain and France have le Pacte Famille. Conti goes on to say that plans are in the works, in the deepest halls and bureaux of Versailles, to give Tulgary 'an active presence in Africa' in thanks for their idealistically courageous, if materially small, assistance in the great liberation effort.

In between times, of course, he maneuvers though the new corridors of power to find out exactly who are the new power brokers of Charles I, or is Charles I himself the power broker? And he offers the expert help of French royalist intelligence officers, who quite successfully over nearly thirty years, and under two reigns, have ferreted out and dismantled all of France’s ‘dirty leftovers’ from the wicked days of republicanist perdition’.

And lastly Charles I receives a magnificent new diamond watch from Louis-Auguste, with an inscription reading: To keep track of time in your glorious new order. L.A.R.

Liège

The Tulgarian Parliament, at least that of the Grand Duchy, had been in session at Brussles, one of its rotational seats (mercantile funds had raised 'popular palaces', a phrase dangerously close to Igovian speak about communal Soviets, in major cities such as Amsterdam, 's Gravenhage, Brussles, and others) when the Royal Army rolled into town.

Frisian Prime Minister Heinrike Gosses was clearly astonished and profoundly offended by the intrusion as members of the Fench-speaking 7th Brigade out of Marche-en-Famenne burst in on the proceedings, a minor vote on some agricultural matter attended by only a fraction of eligible Members. The Parliament was dissolved, a Colonel Parmentier asseted, and that was that!

Protests erupted from the few occupied benches, and Gosses, who had been speaking at the time of the interruption and was already in full flow, getting most worked-up over the faulty economics of national turnip production, blurted indignant refutations and demands.

"I'm sorry, M.Gosses, but I have my orders!" Said the Colonel, then going on to tell the Members that the former Crown Prince, now Czar, had legitimised the leadership of the Generals at the head of the coup. Gosses was having none of it.

"I am duly elected by the Tulgarian people to represent their interests and account for their liberties! As your Prime Minister and that of the public I demand that you fall into line and put a stop to this treasonous business!"

Finding the Colonel and his men immovable, Gosses, dressed for office in a traditional Tulgarian suit with a powdered wig on his head, clenched his square Germanic jaw and, with a look of authority on his slightly aging face, drew on no less than a dozen armed soldiers his silver-inlayed .32 ACP FN Model 1910 pistol -similar to the little gun that started the Great War, another fine Tulgarian achievement!- and swore that he'd shoot any traitor who acted against the authority of Parliament.

There descended a hush that seemed to catch the collective breath of the city of Liège.

Luxembourg

Le Prince de Conti soon finds himself called to Grestovar Fortress and granted a fine residence and offices within the walls of the Old City at Luxembourg. Czar Charles seems enthusiastic in his dealings with the Ambassador, apparently an advocate of greater ties with France and alike to his father in viewing Europe as a land of Franks, Romans, and their like, into which the Germanic peoples are intruders necessitating greater alliance amongst the former. In fact he considers Prussians 'Orientals' and attributes Protestantism almost entirely to their import.

The Czar has no trouble in describing a whole host of Tulgarian blue-bloods fit for marriage: the original Catholicon raised after the defeat of Napoleon saw to it that minor Princes became politically empowered and their family records elevated to a condition of national importance. Today a great many have fallen from grace and live on minor country estates, little more than farm managers or heavily debt-laden custodians of this beauty spot or that hunt. Papan is keen to restore his extended family to prominence and perhaps make for them some gains against Frisian and Protestant factory owners, traders, and businessmen.

As to Africa, Charles clearly feels a deep-rooted obligation to his father and to the empire lost by Basilius. Since 1960, what has the African Commonwealth achieved without Tulgarian wardship? It has become a staging ground for Igovian operations in West Africa, an ally of Papa Africa's black socialist movement, and a conflict zone half over-run by local Marxists, while who-knows who benefits from the Congo's bounty of natural resources!

The inexperienced Czar enthusiastically attends to maps that adorn the walls of the offices in which he entertains the Ambassador, tracing his finger along the road from Algeria that passes through northeastern Mali, through Niger's southwesterly capital, right into Nigeria. "From there, Cameroon, and then my Congo!" He exclaims, without really explaining himself. "Oh, we must build a corridor to the basin of plenty that my Great Grandfather Mandek, Czar Miksa II, uncovered for Christendom! Gold, diamonds, timber, rubber, new minerals abound..."

And on he goes until distracted by military attachés bringing this or that for him to sign.

Le Prince de Conti may well have the impression that the junta is more interested in preventing radical domestic change, while the Czar is already sinking himself into dreams of empire and family honour that can't even be pursued until the military feels ready.

(OOC: Internet cafe's closing, I've been rushed!)