Part 135: Analysis of the Stuttgart Congress

Analysis of the Stuttgart Congress by Captain Amazing

From a lecture given by Dr. Muhammed al Fassi at the conference "The Great War and its Consequences", held March 14-17, 1975

First of all, I'd like to thank Dr. Aziz, and the entire staff of Mazula City University for hosting this conference. It's been thirty years since the end of the Great War, and it's affected all of us, from those of us, like myself, old enough to experience the war first hand, to you young whippersnappers...I'm sorry, I mean, graduate students, whose fathers and uncles may have fought. So, a conference like this one, where we look at the causes and effects of the war, really is an important thing. We've listened to a lot of great presentations so far about the effects of the Great Depression on radicalism, about the Sino-Japanese war, about Byzantine revanchism, about Gramsci and the politics of the Union of Rome, about how the role of Mazulan women changed as a result of the war, and many other topics. But I'd like, in this presentation, to go back a little further, to 1814, because I would argue that the decisions made then, by a small group of people, made the Great War almost inevitable 125 years later.

When we think of the 18th and early 19th centuries, we primarily think about Mazulan history; how we got our independence, the pioneers who settled the north, and of course, the Provincial Crisis. But the liberal ideas that led to our founding also led to vast political change in Europe, with the Iberian and French Revolutions and the Zuhriman jihad to export liberal ideas to the rest of Europe. So, after the defeat of Iberia and France in 1814, six members of the victorious alliance, Swabia, Austria, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, Lithuania, and the Dauphine met in the German city of Stuttgart to work out what a post Zuhriman Europe would look like. The decisions made in Stuttgart would determine Europe's future, and the mistakes of Stuttgart would doom Europe to a century of instability and fascism that would lead to a worldwide conflagration.

As the Congress of Stuttgart began, Mathias II of Swabia, as both the leader of the coalition that defeated Zuhriman and the host of the Congress, gave the opening speech. Some of his advisors had urged him to make a bloodthirsty speech calling for retaliation and harsh treatment of Iberia and France. Most famously, Dr. Video Games 0031 told him, "The revolutionaries committed way too many crimes against the world and humanity as a whole to get away from this situation without punishment.", and Literally Mad IRL demanded "Iberia and France need to be whittled down to nothing! Nothing, I say!" Mathias, though, rhetorically, at least, took a more moderate line, saying, as his advisor Bloodly put it, "This whole mess was Monarchy vs Revolution. NOTHING ELSE matters. We must maintain the order of things. We've proven our superiority in the greatest of ways.", and, as Grendel put it, "These revolutionaries have proven to be the greatest menace to European stability. We need to return to an era of monarchy if there's to be any hope for peace."

However, sadly, while Mathias and his advisers spoke of a stabilizing peace to promote monarchical rule, this was just empty rhetoric. When it came to the first major decision of the conference, whether or not to split off French Flanders and give it to the Netherlands, that same adviser Bloodly, who had said that the only issue at stake in the conference was that of monarchy vs revolution, said "As for Flanders-France do deserve to be punished for all the hell they've put us through these many thousands of years. Give it to the Dutch.", and the aforementioned Grendel said "And although we may not want to punish France, there's certainly no need to let them remain strong - if we return Flanders to the Dutch, that should help to counter-balance French power.". So, just moments after Mathias finishes his speech urging that France and Iberia shouldn't be punished, he turns around and starts stripping French land. Hold on, folks, it gets better.

The next issue was that of Aquitaine. It had been an independent state before being conquered by Iberia about 20 years prior. But it wasn't a monarchy...after it gained independence from France, the Duke had peacefully abdicated, and a republic had been set up, similar to ours, with a more or less for the time democratic constitution and basic rights respected by law. There were a few things the Congress could have done about Aquitaine. They could have said, "Well, we need to restore things back to the way they were before the Iberian revolution, so lets give Aquitaine its independence back.", which would have been a very high minded and idealistic thing to do. They could have, on the other hand, taken a practical approach, and said, "Well, we've just restored the Iberian monarchy, but it needs all the help it can get, so why not let Iberia keep the rich lands of Aquitaine to help stabilize it." That's not a nice thing to do to the Aquitanians, but it has a kind of internally consistent logic. Alternately, Aquitaine could just be given as spoils to one of the winners. For once, the Congress did the practical thing, although the Swabians pushed hard for it to be given to Dauphine. As skipthings put it "If we would know that the Tahirids are trustable we could give it back to them, but they'll be revanchistic pricks most probably, monarchists or not." Adviser Dan 9410, apparently thinking he was living 400 years earlier, said "the Tahrids are the one thing almost as bad as revolutionaries. Heathens." As all of us here would also be revolutionary heathens, by his lights, I don't think any comment is necessary, other than to note that Aquitaine was and is primarily Cathari in religion, which a devout Catholic at that time would have considered equally heathenish. However, only Dauphine, surprisingly, was won over by that logic, and Iberia kept Aquitaine.

This was in a way, a moot point, though, because a large number of Aquitainians had fled to Jadikal and set up colonies there, and petitioned the Congress to recognize them as Nova Aquitania. There was a strong desire by the Congress to do that, with people like Peel saying "[It] weakens France, and leaves the Republicans in the Western continents where they belong." Much of the logic behind support of independence revolved around punishing France, with TorpedoBeetle saying "since we couldn't wrest control of Aquitaine from the Iberians, the least we can do is give them a new country. Plus, we can stick it to the French some more.", and Rebel Blob's, "Why should we stop chopping pieces of France here? Continue I say!", and Lackloss's "Obviously this would be best way to weaken France and their frog eating ways." Swabia and Dauphine were the only ones to support full independence, though, and the country was made a French protectorate.

The final vote before the Congress was whether or not to recognize the independence of Tarwajal from Iberia, and allow it to be governed as an independent Emirate. The general consensus again was to strip Iberian territory, with RabidWeasel supporting independence"on the grounds that Iberia is likely to be the stronger of the two and thus needs it wings clipped a bit.", and our old friend Rebel Blob rhetorically asking "why should our votes for Iberian and French evisceration end here?", and Grendel, remember, Mathias's advisor who had earlier told him that monarchies bring about peace, saying "Iberia is dangerous, and removing it from the New World can only be a good thing." So, the Emirate got its independence.

The major decisions before the Congress completed, the Congress finished by stripping colonies off Iberia and France, with Swabia greedily taking the rich French East Indies, and the other nations involved only taking a nominal amount of land; Austria taking the Canary Islands, Scandinavia taking the Andaman Isles, and Britain taking Bermuda.

It's hard to overestimate exactly how disastrous the Stuttgart Congress was for Europe. France and Iberia, poor and unstable after a generation of war and rebellion, were stripped of their resources and humiliated. Swabia, which had built up the reputation of a fair and honest broker dedicated to the peace of Europe, lost that reputation and gained one as a power hungry imperialist power. Hypocrisy was a cover for naked aggression. The monarchies of Europe were at their most reactionary, and this led to a resistance to any sort of change and liberalization that would help cause the social unrest that would bring about fascism. It's tempting to imagine what would have happened had things gone differently; if the Congress of Stuttgart had been led by men really interested in bringing about stability and progress in Europe. Who knows what sort of world we would live in today? But we are doomed to the history we had, not what we could have had.