The Holy Roman Empire
Introduction
The Holy Roman Empire is the largest and most prosperous state in Europe, with a federal system sharing power between the constitutional monarchy and its regional governments. Having weathered the challenges of the previous centuries, it has emerged as a regional powerhouse of technological advancement and has been a model for stable government throughout the world. However, decades of peace have led to questions about its military readiness, and French-supported agitators continue to pick at the Empire's defenses, looking for vulnerabilities and waiting for the day the revolution will reign triumphant over monarchism. The Empire's enemies see it as a relic of the ancient past that has no place in the future of Humanity, while its supporters see it as a bastion of reasonability and moderateness in a troubled continent.
History
The Black Pact of Schönbrunn
As the 18th Century drew to a close, The Holy Roman Empire faced a brave new world. The House von Habsburg had been fighting a losing war to centralize and consolidate the Imperial princes under their dominance. However, as a patron of prominent Imperial scientists, engineers, and inventors, Kaiser Francis I was able to direct the industrialization of his own holdings much faster than the smaller Imperial princedoms. The city of Vienna was the first in the world to construct electric streetlights in 1801, and electricity was made available for private use through a public utility in the following year.
When Emperor Bonaparte launched his incursion into Habsburg territory in 1805, he was assisted by their newly laid rail lines and communications infrastructure, allowing him to remain in contact with France. This conflict culminated in the battle of Austerlitz, where French artillery deployed by a nearby rail line bombarded the enemy command tent. The Russian and Prussian commanders were killed almost instantly, and Kaiser Francis himself was badly injured and surrendered to the jubilant French. Claiming remorse for the unnecessary deaths of his contemporaries, and for the injuries done to Kaiser Francis, the victorious Napoleon traveled with the defeated Habsburg forces to Vienna, where he spent the winter in Schonbrunn palace waiting for the Kaiser to recover.
During his stay, Napoleon took every effort to ingratiate himself with his unwilling hosts, short of withdrawing the large French military presence from the city. Kaiser Francis’ recovery took almost five months, and in that time it became clear that neither the Prussians nor Russians would be sending additional forces. Seeing no hope in a British victory, and unable to offer resistance himself, the Kaiser signed what historians would later refer to as the Black Pact of Schönbrunn. In exchange for the withdrawal of French forces to the west bank of the Rhine and unconditional support for the House Von Habsburg as Emperors of the HRE, the Kaiser agreed to support Napoleon's efforts in future wars, as well as implement a slew of civil and administrative reforms designed to promote civil liberties and strengthen representative government. The deal was sealed with Napoleon's marriage to Marie Louise Von Habsburg.
This deal resulted in French borders expanding by hundreds of square miles, and incorporating Flanders, Wallonia, Alsasce-Lorraine, Luxembourg, and Brabant, as well as large sections of the Rhineland itself. This deal outraged the Imperial Princes who had placed their trust in the Kaiser to protect their ancient rights, but with the support of the veteran French military in maintaining order and suppressing attempts at revolt, a new status quo developed. The destruction of the Prussian military and the death of Prussian king Frederick William III at Austerlitz weakened the loudest voice against Habsburg aggrandizement, and over the following decades, the remaining Imperial princes surrendered ever more rights and powers to the central government in Vienna, causing a second renaissance for the Holy Roman Empire.
Romance of Europe
Honoring the pact of Schönbrunn and the freshly minted alliance, Habsburg troops were dispatched to Iberia to support France in the peninsular war. Linkages were installed connecting the French and Imperial rail systems allowing for the entire military to arrive much faster than the English predicted, and the Imperials won several battles culminating in their victory at the battle of Las Mesas in 1807. The collapsing front prompted the French and British to sign an armistice, ending active hostility and maintaining the current wartime border “temporarily”. Shortly after that, a French-Imperial embargo was placed on all British goods.
The following decades passed peacefully as Europe adjusted to economic life without the benefits of the British colonial empire. The peace would be broken in 1823 when many revolutions broke out in the Ottoman-controlled Balkans. Balkan revolutionaries engaged in a brutal guerilla war against their Ottoman overlords for nine years, during which the death toll rose to astronomical levels as the Ottomans attempted to reassert their control. In 1832, the constant stream of refugees into Imperial lands and the violent oppression of their subjects prompted an Imperial demand that the Ottomans withdraw east of the Sea of Marmara. When this demand was refused, Imperial regiments stormed across the border. The campaign was brutal but short, as the Imperial military received support from an expeditionary force of the French republican guard in accordance with their mutual alliance. The Ottomans were resoundingly defeated, and driven off European soil. The states of Albania, Greece, and Bulgaria were granted independence, with Greece being granted large territorial concessions in the majority of Greek areas in Asia Minor and the restored city of Constantinople.
However, in what many saw as a stunning betrayal, Imperial forces did not withdraw from the consolidated lands in Bosnia and Serbia. Instead, they “informed” their respective populations that their applications for entry into the HRE had been accepted, and they would be brought up to compliance with HRE standards. Exhausted by their long war for independence from the Ottomans, and reliant on Imperial aid for most necessities, the occupation faced little resistance, and both principalities were incorporated as HRE states within the decade. The French meanwhile, were outraged. Volunteer forces had been dispatched to aid the Imperials only on their promise that the lands were to be liberated and democratically elected governments installed. The thought that their own forces had been complicit in the land grab, and the unwillingness of the Imperials to negotiate the point, soured the relationship. The Schönbrunn pact would be abrogated just 8 years later when the death of the aged Napoleon and the victory of the Socialist block in the French elections caused the French to withdraw from the alliance.
Regional Consolidation
The peace of the following decades provided the Habsburgs with ample time to consolidate their hold on the Imperial system. Lingering resistance was smothered and regional governments took their more modern form as the military and civil administrations evolved in the face of rising revolutionary agitation. French political radicals often attempted to organize revolutionary efforts on the east bank of the Rhine, being highly successful in the westernmost princedom of Holland. To combat these efforts, Kaiser Ferdinand attempted military crackdowns and widespread deportation to France of suspected revolutionary agents. It was unclear to what extent these groups operated with the sanction of the French government, but they were certainly well-supplied and trained. Socialist columns held de-facto power throughout most of western Germany, eventually forcing the abdication of the hated Kaiser in 1848. Replaced by his nephew, now Kaiser Franz Josef I, the central government took important steps towards rapprochement with the leftist radical groups. This resulted in sweeping reforms, purging the last vestiges of institutions such as serfdom, and granting greater regional autonomy to HRE states in line with a new Federative model and liberal Imperial Constitution limiting the absolute power of the Kaiser.
The young Kaiser Franz Josef was the first to rule the HRE since Schönbrunn without crippling internal division and radical groups threatening him on the home front. Taking advantage of the new state of affairs at home and recent disasters in Scandinavia, the Kaiser launched a swift and relatively bloodless invasion and annexation of Schleswig-Holstein and Swedish Pomerania. The swiftness of the invasion surprised the international community, and the Scandinavian forces had already capitulated when the French offer of support was intercepted by Imperial wiretapping. In response, both governments recalled their ambassadors and closed their embassies, bracing for war. Unwilling to invade the HRE on behalf of a state that had already surrendered, war was avoided. However, neither state reopened diplomatic channels, resulting in a build-up of military forces on the border as both sides fortified their side of the River. The Imperials deployed primitive versions of the newly invented Shield Generators over military installations and major cities in Germany to resist potential bombardment.
The War of the Concordat
Seven years later, the first shots of the war to come were fired in Italy, not on the Rhine. The Neapolitan government collapsed in the face of Nationalist rebels who immediately declared war on the Papal State to their north. The early days of the war saw the first use of mechanized armored units in combat, as the Neapolitan forces overran the Papal lines using improvised armored vehicles. Franz Josef issued a statement of support in favor of Pope Pius IX and promised material, but with no deployment of manpower. Papal forces staged a fighting retreat towards Rome while Imperial engineers raced to install the first ever Shield Generator of this size to be deployed outside of the HRE. The generator, christened Sancta Custodia by Pope Pius, comes online just as Neapolitan forces approach the city. Supported by the remnants of the Swiss Guard, commanded by Franz Xaver Leopold Meyer von Schauensee, and international Catholic volunteers, and shielded from heavy bombardment by the new shield generator, the city of Rome holds back the Neapolitans.
In response to the attempted bombardment of the holy city of Rome, and the Neapolitan forces pushing through Papal and Tuscan resistance towards the HRE border, Kaiser Franz Josef signed the Concordat of 1855, which promised Imperial soldiers in defense of the Papacy if the Neapolitans did not withdraw their support. In response, the French government met with the Neapolitan revolutionary government in the city of Genoa, signing the Genoa Accords, and promising French military support for the Neapolitan cause in exchange for sweeping concessions and French command of the alliance. In solidarity with the Papacy, and officially in recognition of the official claim of the Holy Roman Empire to the legacy of Classical Rome, Latin was reintroduced as the official court language of the Empire, although it was largely never used outside of the highest levels of governments and a few elite units who adopt it as a regimental language.
The French Phase
The French met initial success in Italy, quickly adopting the concept of the armored vehicle from the Italian partisan groups, but applying the full weight of their military-industrial complex. These purpose-built military vehicles outperformed the inferior Imperial and Ducal Italian militaries but struggled greatly with the newly implemented Shield Generators. While mechanized French regiments poured into northern and central Italy, they were unable to dislodge the Imperials from heavily fortified and shielded positions such as the great Festung in Mantua. In an effort to resupply these islands of Imperial control in the face of French domination of the countryside and rail lines, the Empire increasingly turned to airship technology, using cheaper and smaller Balfour Engines to power atmospheric craft that fly over the range of French flak guns and resupply the besieged cities from above. One of these airships, the Graf Kolowrat, broke through Neapolitan resistance, resupplying the city of Rome for the first time in over a year.
Unable to break the Imperial Festung in Northern Italy or Rome, the French government began desperate countermeasures. A lightning assault was planned through the Swiss Alps, hopefully flanking HRE forces by going around their shielded perimeter on the Rhine. The French incursion into Romandie was executed masterfully, but the voracious Swiss resistance and the unforgiving terrain slowed their advance and Geneva held out for two weeks before Swiss forces withdrew further east. As Imperial soldiers were repositioned to cover this expanded front line, French infiltrators managed to disable the Shield Generators in the border cities of Frankfurt and Amsterdam. Revolutionary courts were set up in these cities, and many of their citizens suspected of being aristocracy or reactionaries were executed in their town squares by Guillotine. Imperial forces attempted to respond but struggled to dislodge French armored units and their civilian irregulars.
The British Phase
The French attack across the Rhine was the last straw for British neutrality in this conflict, and The British Empire declared their entry into the war to support the people of the HRE in their fight to resist Socialism. British naval dominance quickly cut the French and Italians off from international support, and the loss of American goods and capital was a major shock to both nations. Over the next year, the Royal Marines launched many successful amphibious invasions of French-held territories, notably liberating Amsterdam in 1857, and fighting the French to a bloody but indecisive stalemate across Africa. Able to move their navy through the straits of Gibraltar, the Royal Navy broke the long blockade of Malta, where the Knights Hospitallers had resisted Neapolitan and French attempts to storm the island since the start of the war. Using this new naval supremacy, the Knights Hospitaller dispatched an elite force led personally by Grandmaster Alessandro Borgia to the port of Ostia just outside Rome. Ferried by the Royal Navy, and equipped with the first ever personal Shield Generators courtesy of the HRE war cabinet, the knights make quick work of the war-weary Italian garrison and break the siege of the Vatican.
Due to the climbing death toll, the pressure at home from the British blockade, and the very real risk that the Royal Marines would storm Napoli and topple the revolutionary government, the French and Neapolitans sued for peace. Delegates met in Stockholm, where it was agreed that the Franco-Italian forces would withdraw from Switzerland, south of the Po River, and from within 15 kilometers of the city of Rome. The Revolutionary Neapolitan Government accepted this offer and immediately rechristened itself the Republic of Italia, but radicals within the government continued to agitate for “An Italy for all Italians”, and called to absorb the cities of Milan, Venice, and Rome. Pope Pius IX refused to accept the loss of so much Papal territory, and so officially recalled his delegation from the conference, instead only agreeing to a “temporary” armistice. Pius IX and Franz Josef then signed a permanent concordat promising mutual support and assistance in all things in perpetuity, granting the Papal States observer status in the Holy Roman Empire and access to Imperial military technology.
Peace and Prosperity
Following the end of the Italian wars in 1859, The Holy Roman Empire remained at peace for the better part of the next century. This period was marked by economic prosperity, a rising standard of living, and the codification of the Empire's Federal structure, with only limited skirmishing on the Empire’s eastern borders. A brief and unsuccessful invasion was launched into Poland in 1910 in support of Wilhelm Franz von Habsburg-Lothringen as potential king of Poland.
The Imperial alliance with The Russian Empire resulted in a peaceful border for decades, but the collapse of the Russian state in the wake of a socialist coup attempt in the 1910s necessitated a reaction. Bavarian Royal commander Conrad von Hötzendorf was assigned to provide support to the Tsarist government using a volunteer corps in 1918. The failure of the Hötzendorf expedition marked the last time regular Imperial forces faced armed conflict until 1938.
The HRE experienced a cultural renaissance during this lengthy peace, with Imperial artists such as Gustav Klimt and Alphonse Mucha gaining world renown and driving Symbolist and Art Nouveau styles to new prominence. While crime and poverty remained present in Imperial society, the standard of living rose across the board, with a greatly expanded middle class and an exclusive but still large class of titled nobility. The large middle class has made the Empire a bastion of middle-class taste, with its members patronizing art and artists in an attempt to claw their way into high society. This resulted in a surge in popularity of orchestra, symphony, and opera, and most medium-sized cities maintain each as a matter of civic pride.
Beginning in 1922, it became possible for wealthy individuals to purchase deeds of nobility from the central government in exchange for large sums of money. These titles were mostly honorific, however the entrenched nobility retained many of their historic privileges, such as the right to petition for military command. While noble birth alone was not enough to earn a place in command, it was common for such persons to have access to favors and education unavailable to many other applicants. The apogee of this trend was the appointment of the Viennese general Franz Xaver Josef Conrad von Hötzendorf. Having been rejected from the Imperial military academy in 1870, Hötzendorf applied for command of the Royal Bavarian military. The request was granted in light of his noble lineage and resulted in what was arguably the least prepared regional military of the HRE.
The French and Italian borders had been heavily fortified, and all cities and military positions of any significance were equipped with at least low-grade Shield Generators. When low crop yields and unknown agricultural blights disrupted terrestrial farming output in the 1920s, Imperial society buckled. The price of food ran so high that there was open talk in the streets of overthrowing the country in favor of a more equal distribution of resources just as the French had done centuries ago. Without large-scale Aether-born agriculture, the HRE could not produce enough food to fend off the famine alone. Starvation drove larger numbers of citizens than ever to relocate to Hochhimmel The crisis only began to abate when the first shipments of grain began to arrive from the colony and from southern Russia.
Imperial and French intelligence services were at each other's throats for decades, leading some media outlets to dub this period “The Shadow War”. It was not uncommon for Imperial intelligence to parade some captured spy through the courts as a violent socialist agitator, or for the French to execute some Imperial spy on the charge of reactionism. The most notable of these incidents involved the Dutch radical group Cirkel, an underground socialist movement with ties to the French government. Imperial authorities uncovered a Cirkel plot to sabotage the Rotterdam shield generator in 1925.
Aether Exploration
The rush for Aether travel that swept the rest of the world in the 1880s fell flat in the Empire. Barred from terrestrial colonialism by old agreements with the British and French Empires, the Empire lacked the colonial spirit that drove other nations to reach for the stars. Instead, the Empire focused on its vast holdings in Europe, only allowing the establishment of an imperial colony administered by the Ostend Company when American failures presented an opportunity in 1876. The establishment of the colony of Hochhimmel on the American colony moon of Concord Minor opened the door for enterprising Europeans to set out to tame the stars. The negative impressions and harshness of the landscape in Hochhimmel served as an early roadblock to widespread Imperial migration to Aether. However, the expansion of Aetherborne infrastructure under the tenure of Maximilian Eugen Ludwig Friedrich Philipp Ignatius Josef Maria Von Habsburg as director of the Ostend company removed many of these roadblocks. One such remaining block was the firm stance of the Imperial government and Kaiser that its citizens were not able to renounce their citizenship. As such, Imperial citizens for the most part only emigrate to colonies of the United States or France where their states offer asylum in the stars for those who wish to leave Europe or to Hochhimmel itself. Many of these colonists originated from the mountainous HRE territories around the Carpathian and Alpine mountains. From 1876-1936, at least 150 million Imperial citizens set out for a life in the colonies.
The Modern Empire of Old
Imperium and Bureaucracy
The centralization of the Holy Roman Empire under Habsburg rule was a process spanning centuries, and in the eyes of many statesmen, still incomplete. The Viennese bureaucracy had already pushed near its limit with the administration of Habsburg territory stretching from Northern Italy to the Imperial province of Galicia. Extending control over the newly acquired territories throughout Germany may have been enough to collapse it.
To ease this bureaucratic shortfall, most governance was delegated to local administrators. Regional leadership was, by and large, allowed to retain their preexisting titles and regional autonomy under the suzerainty of the House of Habsburg. While the following centuries would see democratically elected regional governments rise in popularity, strong hereditary regional governments still exist. The Prussia and Bavaria kingdoms were the most notable in the “recently” acquired German lands.
In response to the outbreak of liberal rebellions across the Empire in 1848, Kaiser Ferdinand abdicated the throne in favor of the young Emperor Francis Josef I. Under the new Vienna Constitution, the constituent states of the HRE were directed to send delegates to the expanded Reichshofrat in Vienna. Liberal factions inside the Imperial government managed to remove the prohibition against non-noble delegates from the Reichshofrat’s new extended charter. However, almost all delegates for the first century under the new charter were members of the nobility.
The massive cost of administering so much territory with so many spoken languages was a massive drain on the Imperial treasury. The delegation of much of the paperwork to regional governments better suited to address their language needs helped soften the impact on the coffers. Still, the expense almost bankrupted the regional governments. In 1855, Latin was reintroduced as a court language. However, it was almost exclusively reserved for interactions between the Imperial bureaucracy and its regional governments until its adoption as a regimental language by the elite sections of the Imperial military.
Nationalist movements were not uncommon but were not usually secessionist. Parties in the Reichshofrat were technically allowed, although generally frowned upon. Many political theorists have commented on the fact that representatives of regional German governments often tend to vote together on critical issues. Delegates from these states advocate for their own national interest in the Reichshofrat and Reichskammergericht, but this usually takes the form of tax concessions and the infinitely complicated system of special Imperial privileges and rights and not advocacy to secede from the HRE.
A notable exception to this list was the March-Republic of Holland-Friesland, a regional government of the Dutch-speaking parts of the Netherlands, which was integrated following the Franco-Imperial partition of 1806. The capital of this government, Amsterdam, was dangerously close to the Imperial border with France. While it would undoubtedly be in danger were war to break out, many in Vienna were skeptical if the Dutch government could be trusted. The Dutch government of 1938 has more in common with Napoleonic France than its Imperial overlords, with its highly democratized and broadly socialist Staten-Generaal and its close association with the House of Orange. Many in the Empire and France watched Holland-Friesland and either dreaded or hoped for another Napoleon to emerge.
Another political block exists in the old lands of Saint Stephen, where member states of the Empire that predate the rapid expansion of the 1850s advocate for their own interests. The Hungarian delegation had vehemently opposed centralization under the Habsburgs. In 1859 Hungary was granted a long list of special Imperial privileges in recognition of their service in battle against the French and Italians. As such, Hungary was the only state within the HRE with the right to collect taxes on commerce and one of the few that maintained its own professional army.
The Imperial Military
Under the 1848 Vienna Constitution, regional governments were allowed to maintain their own “defensive militias.” Internally, disputes over Imperial Law between regions are to be settled in the Imperial Supreme Court (Reichskammergericht), however states with large regional militaries have noticeably more political weight. Legally, regional militias must consist of conscripted soldiers and are forbidden from maintaining professional soldiers outside the personal guard of nobility and regular policing forces. Several states have managed to gain this special right through political maneuverings, such as the Kingdom of Prussia and the March-Republic of Holland-Friesland. To evade this restriction, the states that can afford the expense typically have a period of compulsory service for young adults that usually lasts between 1-5 years.
The Vienna Constitution also guarantees the right of any Imperial citizen to volunteer directly for the Imperial Army, which is a volunteer-only professional army under the direct authority of the Kaiser. Recruits were drawn from the Imperial Core provinces in Austria and diverse volunteers across the Empire. As such, it was common for their units to be heavily drilled, lavishly equipped, and highly diverse. It was common to find Austrians, Poles, Croatians, Bavarians, Hungarians, and Dutch soldiers serving in the same Imperial squads. All members of the Imperial military were required to learn a list of “battle phrases” in Latin. Many members of the elite regiments take pride in their battle language and adopt the use of Latin in their regimental traditions.
This policy has drawn intense criticism from disgruntled provincial citizens, who object to the fact that the Austrian Imperial Core is not subject to conscription laws in the case of a crisis, while regional populations are.
Many regional governments are themselves impoverished and unable to field meaningful militaries without assistance from the central government. Following the disastrous Italian campaigns of 1855, the Reichshofrat introduced a policy of allowing conscripted regional soldiers to be issued equipment and trained at the expense of the central government. Kaiser Franz Josef immediately signed this policy into law, creating the means to mobilize the Imperial war machine in times of crisis. This new policy was responsible for the Imperial change of fortunes in Italy in 1859 but detractors have pointed out that it left the Empire vulnerable to quick aggression. Only the elite Imperial army and trained regional conscripts were available on short notice, and properly equipping and training the regional militaries to respond to a crisis could take months. Nevertheless, attempts to reform the process have been strongly opposed by regional governments, which cling to their independence where they can get it, and the international community, with English and French diplomats lodging official protests whenever the issue is raised.
One area that has been replete with money was Imperial defense spending. In the wake of the fantastic achievements of shield technology during the Imperial-Italian-French War of 1855, the central government funded a ludicrously expensive program to develop emergency Shield Generators throughout most of its major cities. By the 1870s, virtually every medium-sized Imperial city had such a generator. However, cities in the central parts of the empire that perceive themselves as far from danger have been known to skimp on maintenance. By the present year of 1938, the constant retrofitting and rotation of equipment over the past 58 years has left these generators a mixed bag. Frontline cities such as Frankfurt sport top-of-the-line Shield Generators in elegant but sturdily built fortresses near the city center, which throw shielding well over the thick city walls. Meanwhile, smaller cities further from the borders may not have activated their shields for testing in years. When they do work perfectly, these older models may only protect the city core while leaving the rest of the city vulnerable to attack.
The result is a highly trained and well-equipped Imperial military that may be asked to conduct war alone while they wait for the regional militias to be mobilized in times of crisis. Once those militias are fully mobilized, the combined Imperial military is one of the largest and best-equipped in the world. However, military analysts are quick to point out that the Empire has not been involved in a proper war since the 1850s and their military capability is at best theoretical.
Life in the Holy Roman Empire- 1938
Today the Holy Roman Empire follows a federal model, with regional governments being given the authority to decide much of their own domestic affairs. Taxes are collected by these crownlands and paid out to the Imperial treasury directly. Funding is allocated from the Imperial treasury to pay for the many social works and cultural programs run by the central government, the Imperial Army, and the funding of Pan-imperial institutions such as the Reichshofrat in Vienna and the Reichskammergericht in Frankfurt-Am-Main.
Provincial governments exist in every corner of the HRE and are primarily responsible for the local administration. These governments are obliged to send delegates to the Reichshofrat to advocate for their own interests. The story of Imperial governance was complex and multi-layered. The Imperial House von Habsburg held the titles of head of state and government by law. Under the Kaiser are the institutions of the Imperial bureaucracy, such as the Reichshofrat and Reichskammergericht. Regional governments then oversee local administration. These governments run the gamut from absolute monarchies in cases like the Kingdom of Prussia to left-leaning democracies like the March-Republic of Holland-Friesland. As long as they uphold the provisions of the Vienna Constitution of 1848, these governments are permitted to retain their local autonomy, and they are allowed to tax their populations as they see fit, and the Reichskammergeicht allows it. However, the right to tax commerce in any way is a protected privilege of the House von Habsburg and the Central government. As a result, many of these regional governments are perpetually impoverished and dependent on social programs from the central administration.
Despite its problems, the Holy Roman Empire emerged from its centuries of state-building as an economically and politically powerful giant. Strong liberal institutions protect the rights of its citizens, and the Kaiser himself serves a largely but not entirely ceremonial role as head of state. Its small but elite military is certainly on a peaceful footing for now, but the enemies of the Empire and the House von Habsburg live in fear of the day the sleeping giant woke.
Type
Geopolitical, Empire
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