~State of the Union~

Day 491, 21:44 • Published in Germany Germany • by Chicco

Dear citizens of the Austro-German Union,

Today's 'conquest' of Tyrol marks the completion of our Union. As Austria's last (legitimate) President I would like to make a few comments to honor this great achievement.

An Austrian reversal of fortune

When I took office in Austria, the country could not have been in worse shape. Our land was depopulated, our companies deserted, our economy ruined. Our treasury had been looted and our currency devalued. Whoever wanted to buy a house had to travel abroad. (Not that anyone could earn enough gold to buy one anyway.) Even food was scarce and expensive. Our newspapers were boring. We had no army. We had no functional Congress. We had to live in constant fear of political take-overs.

How things have changed! Today we enjoy a strong currency, high salaries, and the availability of cheap food and other goods. We can get involved in a strong and active army. We can work in a busy Congress. Instead of a handful readers, our newspapers now draw a hundred. Everything has changed for the better, and we are deeply indebted to our German brethren for having welcomed us with open arms.

Nevertheless, there were more than a few bumps along the road to forging this Union, and I want to take the opportunity to shed some light on these matters. This is going to be a lengthy piece, and those not interested in the details should feel free to skip ahead.

The Hungarian affair

First, Austria, Germany, and Hungary signed a contract to provide training opportunities to the Hungarian armed forces. Why was this done? While the Union was being negotiated, I approached Hungary with the proposal of lending or selling our high-grain region, Lower Austria. Austria and Germany were essentially broke, and this seemed like a good way of raising much needed cash for our Union's treasury. However, Hungary rejected this proposal [1]. Later on I was happy about their decision because our Union should not be formed at the expense of a region that is at the very heart of Austria.

Soon after, the Hungarians approached us again about the possibility of utilizing our merger as a war game for their armed forces. I was none too happy about this because the prior negotiations had revealed the Hungarians as aloof and unreliable partners. However, around this time the Hungarian media had started making a big fuss about our "refusal" to sell Lower Austria to them. This was in itself a joke because it was the Hungarian president herself who had rejected my initial offer to sell or lend the region. The Hungarian media was peppered with threats of invading Austria or Germany. In fact, one article asked readers to vote if they thought Hungary should invade Austria and garnered over a thousand votes. All this warmongering had the effect of intimidating certain elements within the German leadership. For example, the German VP Justin Tyme felt it necessary to send me alarmed PMs forcing me to write this article [1,2].

To appease the Hungarians it was decided to sign the aforementioned contract permitting Hungary to use our phony battles as training grounds for their troops. This contract was extremely generous toward the Hungarian side because they only paid us 81 gold, when the cost of the whole exercise amounted to over 700 gold [3]. In fact, Austria had to spend over 100 gold to attack Bavaria, which was entirely unnecessary from our point of view. It only served to activate the German MPP with Hungary, thus allowing their soldiers to fight in all the subsequent battles.

The contract agreed on a timetable of a minimum of 3 days for the entire operation. On day 4 Hungary attacked Burgenland. Although this attack was permitted under the contract, it was also unnecessary. The German MPP with Hungary had been activated specifically to allow Hungarian troops to fight in the German-Austrian battles. There was no need, nor any advantage, in opening up another front. It has since been claimed that Hungary expected the entire operation to last several weeks, and that conquering Burgenland would have allowed them to repeatedly stage war games by launching phony resistance wars. However, the circumstances cast more than a little doubt on this explanation. First, at the time of the Hungarian attack Germany was already within shouting distance of Burgenland, being just hours away from conquering the neighboring regions. Second, only hours after conquering Burgenland, Hungary launched a protracted campaign against Romania, giving their soldiers plenty of opportunity to hone their skills.

It is therefore safe to assume that Hungary conquered the region with the intent of annexing it. It is worth noting that the Hungarian political establishment had come under plenty of public pressure for not dealing with us in an even more hostile and aggressive manner. The annexation of Burgenland was a convenient opportunity for them to pour oil on troubled waters and to shore up support for the impending presidential elections.

My fault in all this lies in having signed the contract with Hungary, and in not having challenged the unnecessary and suspicious clause allowing Hungary to attack and conquer Burgenland. I accept responsibility for the loss of this region and I apologize to all citizens for this grave error in judgment.

At the time both Hungary and Austria were in the PEACE alliance, and I therefore asked PEACE to intervene and condemn the Hungarian annexation of Burgenland. Regretfully, my requests were met with a blend of disinterest and hostility [4]. In the end the then-secretary general Arthk conceded in private communication that Hungary had violated the PEACE charter, but that the charter stipulates no penalties for such infractions [1]. I was, and still am, fairly stunned by this. This essentially means that the PEACE alliance will protect you against invasion by countries outside of the alliance, but lets PEACE countries cannibalize each other with impunity. Although Germany-Austria is not a small country, by no means can we match the power and resources of the game's biggest nations (yet). Such considerations were a crucial factor in the recent decision to ditch PEACE and instead commit ourselves under the protective umbrella of the powerful ATLANTIS alliance. In contrast to PEACE, the ATLANTIS alliance has clear-cut rules that must be respected or else. For example, the recent failure of the USA to notify alliance members about their invasion of Mexico was swiftly punished with a fee of 900 gold.

I ask you: do you want to join an alliance that consigns you to the mercy of powerful and imperialistic neighbors or one where all members are treated equal?

Tyrolean trepidations

In connection with rumors about our entry into ATLANTIS, a PEACE proxy by the name of Metallon caused a stir in our media, falsely claiming that Austrians are unhappy about our Union and attacking me over its legitimacy. In one article he asked disgruntled Austrians to befriend his organization. Despite having his PEACE cronies vote this article up to the very top of our media for two full days, as of today his organization boasts a rather pitiful total of 2 friends. With all the legitimacy that 2 disgruntled citizens provide, he then staged a take-over of the Austrian Congress in Tyrol with assistance from PEACE's Italy [5]. We tried to counter this take-over using Bundeswehr troops but could not match the 60+ voters PEACE had dispatched to the region. As a result, it was decided to switch to plan B and attack the region, thereby completing our Union [6].

The scale of the take-over in Tyrol is a smoking gun proving the involvement of PEACE or at least one of its major members (Italy). A plausible (but speculative) explanation is that taking control of Tyrol's Congress and the Presidency would have allowed Metallon to sign MPPs with powerful PEACE members. This could have then set the stage for a seemingly legitimate proxy war against Germany-Austria, followed by the installation of a convenient puppet regime in the 'liberated' Austrian regions. All this was planned and executed while Germany was still negotiating with PEACE.

I ask you: do you want to join an alliance that respects contracts or one that concocts phony excuses to undermine and destroy our legitimate Union?

A peaceful PEACE?

No methods are too low or too cheap for PEACE to score a point. Recently, they even had me banned for calling someone a "jerk", while one of their own gets away with calling me an "a**hole" [7]. In the meantime, Italy has kindly communicated informal threats to attack our formerly Austrian regions should we have the audacity not to join their alliance. And to round it all off, Hungary's Quicksilver (ex-President, puppet master, and spin meister extraordinaire) has publicly disclosed plans to divert their 9,000 or so men away from smashing their heads into the Romanian wall toward an easier target: our Union. Congratulations, PEACE. In the space of a mere month you have proven against reasonable doubt that "PEACE" is nothing but a grotesque misnomer.

Despite all this we gave PEACE a fair chance to recruit us into their alliance. We proposed them to draft a contract making the return of Burgenland conditional on our entry into PEACE. To avoid getting cheated again, we demanded contractual penalties drawn on the Hungarian treasury in case they failed to return the region. Not only were we turned down, but we were told that unless we joined PEACE we would never see that region again. Only after joining PEACE could there be negotiations about a possible return of Burgenland. In other words, PEACE officials used the Burgenland affair as blackmail against us in order to force us into the alliance.

I ask you: do you want to join an alliance that is based on mutual respect or one based on threats, intimidation, and blackmail?

Discovering Atlantis in turbulent waters

The decision between PEACE and ATLANTIS was therefore not an outgrowth of Chicco vs. PEACE, as some have alleged. The driving force was not even our conflict with Hungary. Rather, the decision between PEACE and ATLANTIS was a decision between intimidation and respect. It was a decision between anarchy and the rule of law. It was a decision between vassalage and sovereignty. It was a decision between opportunism and principle [8].

Today, every German, every Austrian can be proud of having taken a bold and principled decision. Proud of not having gone down the slippery slope toward serfdom in exchange for an illusion of security. However, let there be no doubt: principle comes at great sacrifice. We are at now at high risk of invasion by our belligerent and imperialistic PEACE neighbors. Nevertheless, together with our new partners I am confident we will rise to this challenge. And although I predict we will experience disappointments and setbacks along the way, we shall emerge a stronger and more perfect Union.

~Chicco
A proud citizen of the Union~

Footnotes:
[1] If need be I can provide copies of the relevant PMs proving this.
[2] I should add that the two principal German negotiators, Isy and DKN, kept complete cool.
[3] 200+ g for the declaration of war, 100+ g to attack Bavaria, 400+ g to attack 8 Austrian regions.
[4] Admittedly, one PEACE official by the name of bimba made a few feeble but constructive attempts at mediating between us and Hungary.
[5] Check the Austrian Congressmen's friendlists if you don't believe they are Italian.
[6] Tyrol had not been previously 'conquered' in order to keep the phony war between Germany and Austria alive. If Hungary had returned Burgenland, this would have allowed us to attack that region without having to issue another costly declaration of war.
[7] Look for the Napolitan lesson.
[8] N.B. My intention is not to paint ATLANTIS as a saint. The point is: they don't pretend to be one, they know what a contract is, and they adhere to certain principles as regards their internal affairs.