The Great War and the Cessation of States

1. World War I

By 1911 the economy of the island had started facing difficulties because of the failure of two major banks, which had financed the heavily indebted new transcontinental railways of Canada. The credit crunch started taking its toll on the island's commerce and on industrial investment and Pharos came on the verge of economic depression. The crisis hit hard the central regions of the island, especially Hinji, creating a strong movement that opposed both the federal policies and subjugation to the United Kingdom. Despite the signs that war may be approaching, Pharonians hoped the Great Powers of Europe could keep the peace as they had done many times before in earlier disputes of the century. News of war did not make a stir in Pharos until Germany invaded Belgium, and the British delivered an ultimatum to Kaiser Wilhelm: withdraw from Belgium by August 4 or Britain would be at a state of war with Germany.

The Dominion of Pharos was then automatically at war, as it did not have control over its foreign policy - not that there were many vocal dissenters. The war was initially popular, even among Pharonians of non-British descent who historically looked afoul at the British Empire. National Party leader Salvor Hardin created a 'party truce' for as long as Pharos was in danger and had those dissenters in the party hold their tongues. He also called a meeting of Parliament on August 18, and without division or substantial debate, MPs approved an overseas contingent of 25,000 men with Pharos bearing the full cost; a war appropriation of 50 million pounds; and a Pharonian Patriotic Fund to support the families of men who would fight in Europe. The Cabinet spent many hours trying to devise adequate emergency legislation, resulting in the War Measures Act, decreeing the Cabinet would have the authority to do whatever it deemed necessary for the security, defense, peace, order and welfare of Pharos.

In no way was Pharos prepared for this scale of war. Its economy could not support it for more than a couple of years before being hit hard by its cost. No one expected it to last longer than a few months though. By the time that the First Pharonian Contingent reached England on October 14 it became apparent that the war would not be over by Christmas. Germany's initial rapid successes in Belgium and France had come to halt and both sides were starting to dig into their positions. Pharonians fought at Ypres, the Somme, Passchendaele, and other important battles, originally under British command, but eventually under a unified Pharonian command. From a Pharonian point of view the most important battle of the war was the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917, during which Pharonian troops captured a fortified German hill of great importance for the outcome of the war that had eluded both the British and French, although suffering a great loss of lives. With mounting costs at home, the new National Party leader and premier since 1915, Jan Veiss, re-introduced a capital tax in Pharos as a "temporary" measure. Of the 120,000 conscripts raised during the war, only 67,000 actually went overseas. Of these, more than 12,000 died and more than 21,000 were wounded.

2. The 1917 conscription crisis

 The efforts to attract volunteers for the war effort met with very moderate success outside the British and Protestant zones. Already, Pharonians of descent different from the nationalities of the Entente Cordiale countries were viewed with suspicion, while those from Germany faced outright persecution. As a result, the recruiting efforts were only successful in South Pharos and in the provinces around Hilvar, while Solaria and Hinji were practically under martial law, the former for alleged "German ties" and the latter for "anti-British nationalism". However, the government continued to raise its expectations for volunteers, aiming for 30,000 men by 1915. As the war dragged on, soldiers and politicians soon realized there would be no quick end. Eventually, people learned of the trench conditions and number of casualties in Europe, and men stopped volunteering. There were over 60,000 recruits by 1916, but Premier Jan Veiss had promised 100,000 by the end of that year, despite the actual population facts of Pharos.

After the Battle of the Somme, Pharos was in desperate need to replenish its supply of soldiers; however, there were very few volunteers to replace them. The recruiting effort in half of the Dominion had failed, and Pharos turned to its only unused option: conscription. Almost all Concordians, Solarians, Diacrians, Aurorans and Hinji opposed conscription, as they felt that they had no particular loyalty to Britain. Inspired by the Hinji nationalist leader Salvor Kharmad, they felt their only loyalty was to Pharos, if not to their own provinces ("states"). English Pharonians generally supported the war effort as they felt stronger ties to the British Empire. The Conscription Crisis of 1917 caused a considerable rift along ethnic lines.

After visiting Britain for a meeting of First Ministers in May 1917, Veiss announced that he would be introducing the Military Service Act. On August 29, 1917, the Act was passed, allowing Veiss to conscript men across the country if he felt that it was necessary. To solidify support for conscription in the 1917 election, Veiss extended the vote through Military Voters Act to overseas soldiers, who were in favor of conscription to replace their depleted forces (women serving as nurses were also given the right to vote). For Veiss, these votes had another advantage, as they could be distributed in any riding, regardless of the soldier's regular place of residence. With Wartime Elections Act, women who had close male relatives serving overseas were also granted the right to vote in this election, as they appeared to be more patriotic and more worthy of a public voice. On the other hand, conscientious objectors and 1st or 2nd generation immigrants from "enemy countries" were denied the right to vote. The victory was for Veiss - the opposition secured 82 seats, 62 from the dissenting provinces, while the National Party of Veiss triumphed with 153. In the election, Veiss was opposed not only by Kharmad, but also by Salvor Hardin, the former leader of the National party who had been abandoned by much of his own party. Hardin had opposed conscription from the beginning of the war, arguing that an intense campaign for volunteers would produce enough troops. He privately felt that if he sided with Veiss, the dissenting provinces and especially Hinji would fall under what he perceived as the dangerous nationalism of Kharmad, which might ultimately lead them to leave the federated Dominion.

3. The 1917 Hinji Autumn Rising

From the beginning of the economic depression of the 1910s, many Hinji nationalists opposed the Dominion and British sovereignty as well as what was seen as the exploitation of the country. Opposition took various forms: constitutional, social and revolutionary. Constitutional nationalism enjoyed its greatest success in the 1910s when the National Agricultural Party (NAP) succeeded in having a Hinji Home Rule bill introduced to the British Parliament by British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith in 1912, where it was rejected by the House of Lords on the grounds that the Dominion was indivisible. In the early years of the 20th century, the Sav Socialistic Party (SSP) created an armed organization to advance its own ends, and on 25 November 1913 the "Hinji Volunteers" was formed, with the stated object was "to secure and to maintain the rights and liberties common to all Hinji people". However, the increasing militarization of Hinji politics was overshadowed soon after by the outbreak of a larger conflict - the First World War and the Pharonian involvement in the conflict.

The Supreme Council of the SSP met on 5 September 1914, a month after the United Kingdom declared war on Germany. At this meeting they decided to stage a rising before the war ended, if popular support was secured by the introduction of conscription or an attempt to suppress the Volunteers or its leaders. As conscription was introduced in 1917 and the Military Service Act was introduced to the Parliament giving dictatorial powers to the central government, the SSP leaders met in August 1917 and agreed to act during the October Fiest. In an effort to thwart informers they issued orders in early September for three days of "parades and maneuvers" by the Volunteers for Fiest Sunday. The idea was that the republicans within the organization (particularly SSP members) would know exactly what this meant, while the Pharonian and British authorities in Hilvar and London would take it at face value.

The Autumn Rising, as the protest was called, lasted for almost a week and involved approximately 7,500 Hinji rebels occupying public buildings and communications. The Pharonian government of Jan Veiss was taken by surprise and declared inability to deal with the insurrection. Out of fear that the war effort would be compromised, the British army landed on Hinji in great force and put down the rising at the cost of approximately 1,200 lives. A total of 3,430 men and 79 women were arrested. In a series of courts martial beginning on 25 October, ninety people were sentenced to death, including the Volunteers leader Kal Oger. The aftermath of the Rising, and in particular the British reaction to it, helped to sway a large section of Hinji public opinion away from their initial hostility or ambivalence and towards support for the rebels of autumn 1917.

4. The Land of Hinji

The Autumn Rising of 1917, and in particular the decision of the British military authorities to execute many of its leaders after courts-martial, generated popular sympathy for the republican cause in Hinji. As the republicans and some independent nationalists led opposition to the idea of compulsory military service for Hinji men in the conscription crisis, the National Party, who supported the Allied cause in World War I, was discredited by the crisis. The local MPs resigned and in the December 1918 repeat regional election, all Hinji seats in the Pharonian parliament were won by NAP. NAP was a previously non-violent separatist party founded in 1905, which under Salvor Kharmad's leadership campaigned aggressively for a Hinji republic.

 On 21 January 1919, Hinji MPs refusing to sit in the Pharonian Parliament at Hilvar, assembled in Oamaru and formed a single-chamber Hinji parliament called Stormtok (Assembly of Hinji). It affirmed the creation of a "Hinji Republic" and passed a Declaration of Independence. Although it was accepted by the overwhelming majority of Hinji people, only Soviet Russia recognized the Hinji Republic internationally. Short skirmishes, mostly of a guerilla war type were fought between the Hinji Volunteers and the Pharonian internal security forces until the summer of 1919. Truth be said, both parties were reluctant to inflict unnecessary casualties on each other in what was generally perceived as fratricidal war. The British were reluctant to be drawn again into an order-enforcement operation in Pharos, while they were still stunned by the practical loss of South Pharos to the Americans, inflicted on them in return for US participation in the World War. On 9 July 1919, a truce was declared. On October 11 negotiations were opened under British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Jan Veiss and Salvor Kharmad, who headed the "Hinji Republic" delegation.

That these negotiations would produce a form of Hinji government short of the independence wished for by republicans was not in doubt. The United Kingdom could not offer a republican form of government without losing prestige and risking demands for something similar throughout the Empire. Furthermore, the Volunteers at the time of the truce were weeks, if not days, from collapse, with a chronic shortage of ammunition. "Frankly, we thought they were mad", Kharmad said of the sudden British offer of a truce, although it was likely that the Volunteers would have continued in one form or another, given the level of public support.

As expected, the Anglo-Hinji Treaty explicitly ruled out a republic. The structures of the new "Land of Hinji" were laid out in the Treaty and in the Constitution of the Land of Hinji Act. The British King in Hinji was represented by a Governor-General of the Land of Hinji - all  Governors-General were appointed by the King but the Hinji Government alone had the power to advise the King whom to appoint. By convention the office of Governor-General was largely ceremonial. Nonetheless it was controversial, as many nationalists saw it as offensive to republican principles and a symbol of Hinji subservience to the United Kingdom. For this reason the office had its role increasingly diminished until it was abolished entirely in 1975. Salvor Kharmad described the Treaty as 'the freedom to achieve freedom'. In practice, the Treaty offered most of the symbols and powers of independence. These included a functioning, if disputed, parliamentary democracy with its own executive, judiciary and written constitution which could be changed by the Parliament. However, the Hinji Free State, like all Dominions, had limited autonomy vis-à-vis the United Kingdom. Entitlement of citizenship of the Hinji Free State was defined in the Hinji Free State Constitution, but the status of that citizenship was continuously contested by the Pharonian and British authorities. The Free State tried to push the boundaries of its status as a Dominion. It 'accepted' credentials from international ambassadors to Hinji, something no other dominion had done. It registered the treaty with the League of Nations as an international document, over the objections of the United Kingdom, which saw it as a mere internal document between a dominion and the United Kingdom.

5. The South Pharos Republic

The United States originally pursued a policy of non-intervention, avoiding conflict while trying to broker a peace. However, presenting various reasons for his decision, President Wilson called for war on Germany, which the U.S. Congress declared on 6 April 1917. In a secret protocol between the U.S. and the United Kingdom, the latter agreed, in return for American war support, to grant them "special privileges" in South Pharos, the region that were to serve as a basis for the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on their way to the front. In fact, the command of the AEF would exercise real and substantial governmental functions in the area without reference to or interference from the Crown or the Dominion. The U.S. Navy sent a battleship group to Alma to join with the British Grand Fleet,
destroyers to Gilbey Town and submarines to help guard convoys. Several regiments of U.S. Marines were also dispatched to Gilbey Town to guard the peace and establish U.S. authority in the area. Local authorities were ordered to refer to the command of the AEF, while the Pharonian government, being stressed from all sides because of the conscription crisis and the events in Hinji, could not mount any substantial reaction.

 After the war, the U.S. administration and military units did not leave, providing their own interpretation of the protocol. The U.S. and South Pharos began a long relationship, under the former's military rule with U.S.-appointed officials, including the governor. The Forester Act of 1919 gave South Pharos a certain amount of civilian popular government, including a popularly elected House of Representatives; a judicial system following the American legal system that includes both state courts and federal courts; and a non-voting member of Congress, by the title of "Resident Commissioner". Back in December 1917, South Pharonians were collectively made U.S. citizens via an extension of the Jones Act for them, which also provided for a bill of rights. As a result of their new U.S. citizenship, many South Pharonians were drafted into World War I and into all subsequent wars with U.S. participation in which a national military draft was in effect. In 1924, the U.S. granted South Pharonians the right to elect democratically their own governor. Jan Smite was elected during the 1924 general elections, becoming the first popularly elected governor of South Pharos. In 1926, the U.S. Congress approved Public Law 347 which permitted South Pharonians to draft their own local constitution. The Constitution of South Pharos Republic was approved by a Constitutional Convention, ratified by the U.S. Congress, approved by President Hoover and proclaimed by Governor Smite on July 25, 1929. South Pharos adopted the name of Republic, to stress the end of its ties to the British Crown. The U.S. Congress continued to legislate over many fundamental aspects of South Pharonian life, including citizenship, currency, postal service, foreign affairs, military defense, communications, labor relations, the environment, commerce, finance, health and welfare, and many others.

6. Post-war society in Pharos

During the war, the women's suffrage movement gained support. Aurora and Concordia began extending voting rights to women in 1916, and women were finally allowed to vote in federal elections in 1918. Pharos was also faced with the return of thousands of soldiers, with few jobs waiting for them at home. They also brought back with them the Spanish Flu, which killed over 10.000 people by 1919, almost the same number that had been killed in the war. The move from a wartime economy to a peacetime one, combined with the unwillingness of returned soldiers to accept pre-war working conditions, led to another crisis. In 1919, the Workers One Big Union (WOBU) was formed by trade union syndicalists with the intent of improving conditions for all workers, not just in a single workplace, industry, or sector. The WOBU had some influence on the Mandras General Strike of 1919, which business and political leaders saw as an outbreak of Bolshevism, especially since the Soviet Union had recently been formed. The army was sent in to break the strike and the entire Mandras police force was fired and replaced with a much larger and better paid force of armed special constables. Although the Mandras strike is the best known, it was part of a larger strike wave that swept the Dominion. Special constables, vigilante "citizens" organizations, and replacement workers were mobilized in strikebreaking throughout the country in this period.

 Meanwhile, in Central Pharos (Columbia, Centralia and Diceland), and to some extent in Concordia, populist reformers were pushing for increased provincial rights and a focus on agriculture, rather than the industrial focus of Northern Pharos. They formed the National Monteneros Party, which supported Premier Henrik Brujn when the Social Democrats had a minority government in 1925-26. Brujn eventually lost support, however, because of the trade tariffs issue as well as a liquor smuggling scandal. When his request that parliament be dissolved was rejected by the Crown, he was forced to resign in 1926, but was re-appointed after his party won the election later that year. With the exception of the loss of Hinji and South Pharos, Pharos didn't face the problems of war debts, war damage and population loss which caused economic problems in other European countries. But because of the international character of the Pharonian economy these problems also had their consequences for Pharos. The early 1920s plunged Pharos into a severe depression until 1925. After 1925 the post-war depression in Pharos ended. But this improvement was limited and didn't cause an economic boom as in some other European countries and the United States. The Pharonian economy struggled with structural problems in the period before the Great Depression. Trade restrictions and economic protectionism had not fully disappeared and world trade failed to pick up again after the war. The Pharonian economy had long been dependent on international trade and finance (in 1929 an estimated 30% of the GNP came from exports), and especially the big shipping sector suffered from the lack of trading opportunities. Another problem was the combination of high post-World War I birthrates and increasing labor productivity, which meant that any increase of demand didn't cause general welfare increase and a fall of unemployment.

7. The Great Depression

As most other countries, Pharos experienced significant social unrest during the Great Depression. But except for a number of impressive events this unrest was actually quite limited in scale. Statistics of labor strikes for example show that during the 1931-1937 period strikes were actually less common in Pharos than in the previous years of economic stability from 1925 to 1930. At the height of the Great Depression in Pharos the number of strikes was lowest. Another form of protest was rentstriking, the refusal by a tenant to pay rent to a landlord. This form of protest was also quite limited in scale, partly because of harsh government intervention. In 1934 another impressive event took place known as the Kataha riot. A reduction of the already low government unemployment support sparked protest and riots in several cities in Pharos, most strongly in the Kataha neighborhood of Hilvar. Between 4 and 9 July the riots and subsequent harsh intervention by police and military police claimed 6 lives and wounded dozens more. The upheaval of the Great Depression can also be linked to a rise of xenophobia and the, albeit limited, success of the National Democratic Front (NDF). Founded in 1931 the NDF gained some popularity during the depression, with a peak of support in terms of its membership in 1936.

An important difference between the Great Depression in Pharos and the situation in most other affected countries was the role of the government. Until the late 1930s the Pharonian government, headed from 1933 to 1939 by Social Democrat statesman Centron Palver, could be described as non-interventionist and strongly internationalist. Its economic policy focused mainly on keeping a balanced budget for government spending and income. While this government policy was typical for most of its contemporary European and American governments, it was applied especially strictly in Pharos until the late stages of the depression. While the economic situation gradually improved in most industrialized countries around 1933-1934, the Great Depression was still getting worse in Pharos. As in most affected countries the end of the Great Depression in Pharos was a gradual process. But in Pharos this process didn't start before 1936, when some timid "Keynesian" measures were implemented, but nonetheless the economy contracted due to a credit crunch attributed to the loss of investors' confidence following the continuation of "defections" of provinces from centralized government.

8. The Statute of Westminster and the Secession of the States

The Statute of Westminster 1931 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established legislative equality for the self-governing dominions of the British Empire and the United Kingdom, with a few residual exceptions, notably India. The Statute remains domestic law within each of the other Commonwealth realms, to the extent that it was not rendered obsolete by the process of constitutional patriation. The Statute was of historical importance because it marked the effective legislative independence of Pharos and Hinji, either immediately or upon ratification.

The Free State of Columbia

 The legislative equality of the Dominion had significant repercussions for its unity. As the depression took hold, the central provinces got restless and local parties sought to govern their own affairs, in response to the central government's perceived inability to handle the crisis. In 1932, the National Democratic Party of Columbia, under the leadership of Zeb Garis followed the example of the Hinji and the Free State of Columbia was proclaimed, established in the Anglo-Columbian treaty. A plebiscite in Columbia ratified the treaty and the Dominion co-signed it with reservations that would make no practical difference.

The Republic of Diceland

 Three years after the independence of Columbia, there was a popular uprising in the coastal cities of Diceland. Most impressive was the strike or mutiny in early 1935 of the sailors of the Royal Pharonian Navy in the harbor of Charrington, protesting a cut of their wages. The mutiny ended when the Pharonian army bombed several ships, killing 22 of the sailors and forcing the rest of the crews to surrender. The Troubles, as the ensuing popular unrest was named, lasted for 70 days. The National Democratic Party of Diceland, led by Yol Anda, pushed in negotiations with the British for the recognition of a Republic and, indeed, the Republic of Diceland was proclaimed by the secessionists in June 1935. Nonetheless the experiment was short-lived. In November the British army intervened and, faced with the possibility of bloodshed, Yol Anda approved the Anglo-Dicelandic Treaty that would establish the independence of Diceland, avoiding any mention to state or land, as the party's aim for a Republic was not forfeited.

The Free State of Centralia

In 1936, a coalition of the local Social-Labor Party and the National Monteneros Party, under the leadership of the Socialist leader Mat Ulla, achieved independence by similar means and the Free State of Centralia was proclaimed, engulfing the Hilvar district, which had witnessed two years ago the "Kataha suppression". The capital of the Dominion was moved to Satemberg, while the Dominion itself was split in two geographical areas, as Concordia stood now isolated from the Northern provinces. Nonetheless, the Social Democrats in Concordia opposed such actions of separation and their comfortable majority and popularity negated any possibility for this region to seek its own independence from the Dominion.

An island divided

The form of the Dominion at the dawn of the Second World War was very different for the one at the beginning of the First World War. National aspirations, the war, the depression and the inability of the British had split the Dominion, which now consisted of only the Northern provinces and Concordia. Four different Free States were formed in Hinji, Columbia, Diceland and Centralia, while the U.S. occupied the South Pharos Republic. Truth be said, there was not much substance in the states' cessation. All entities maintained their monetary dependence on the British Pound, while people, goods and services moved freely across the various new "borders" - with the notable exception of SPR, where the economy was directly attached to the U.S. economy and frontiers were closed to the movement of people and goods. The substance of the cessation was explicable only in terms of self-determination on internal matters, such as public finances, health and social provisions, infrastructure works, etc. Nonetheless, a significant degree of coordination among the states was necessary even for these policy areas to be handled properly and effectively. Most historians agree that freedom was synonymous to micro-self-determination rather than to any far-reaching approach to governance which could provide the seeds for future absence of functional inter-dependence. Thus, respected though it was, the newly acquired "freedom" of the various "free states", did not lead to any substantial change in the attitude of political and trading partners vis-à-vis the island. Despite the initially jittery attitude of creditors, trading partners continued to view the island as an amalgamation of communities with a predominant "national" identity and different local governance schemes.