Union of Balkan Socialist Republics

[The Kiat]

It's a history that's an offshoot of my book. As always, useful criticism is welcome. I'm always looking for ways to improve it.

I) Revolution
The Great War (1913-16) pushed two aged empires to their breaking point and beyond. It is highly unlikely that the Balkan Revolution would have been successful had the Austrian and Ottoman Empire not already bled themselves white. The Revolution altered the face of Europe more drastically than any single event in centuries. Out of the ashes of two decrepit empires came the grand experiment in communism.

The causes of the Balkan Revolution are many and span the decades preceding the Great War. Chief among them was the partition of the Balkan Peninsula by the Austrians and Ottoman Turks. Nationalistic and Pan-Slavic sentiments alone would have inevitably led to uprisings in the 20th Century as it had in the mid-19th. During the same century, the doctrines of Marx and Valois reached across Europe. Marx always predicted that the socialist revolution would take place in the industrial west.

Though industrialization barely reached the Balkans at the start of the 20th Century, suppression of the peasants was not the reason communism took hold. For three centuries, the bulk of the Orthodox Balkans were held under the heel of the Muslim Turks. Though some peoples, namely the Bosniaks and Albanians eventually converted the majority of the Balkan people where subject to the Jizya and other discriminatory practices. Oppression of the people greatly increased following rebellions in the 19th Century. In response to rebellions in Greece in 1845 and Serbia in 1878, entire towns and cities were depopulation and their inhabitants either killed off or forcefully relocated to distant corners of the empire.

Reforms following European revolution in the 1820s sought to spread uniformity across the Ottoman Empire. Before the reforms, the Orthodox and smaller Catholic population were governed largely by their own customs and languages. The goal of the reforms was a standardized set of laws spanning the Empire as well as imposing Turkish at the sole official language. It was hoped a single language would unite the various ethnicities into a single whole.

North of the Danube, problems leading to the Balkan Revolution were opposite of the Turks. The Austrian Empire lacked any cohesion to a point where units in its army were formed along ethnic lines. Outside of German Austria the majority of the Empire’s people were impoverished, ruined by high taxation rates. In most aspect of life, non-German ethnicities were treated decidedly as subject populations. This inequality is another leading contributor to the 1916 Revolution. Marx’s supposed doctrine of equality and a classless society appealed to many of the educated among the ruled peoples.

During the Great War, these subject populations found themselves fighting and dying for their rulers in Vienna and Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire entered the war on September 7, 1914, against the Austrian and Russo-Swedish Empire which were already locked in a year-long war. With the Ottoman entry into the war, the Great War in the Balkans became a three-way struggle with the Balkan peoples caught in the middle. The peasants under Austrian and Turkish rule were conscripted and found themselves fighting over their own homeland for foreigners. In a few cases, peoples such as the Serbs fought for both sides against their own kind.

Austria overran much of Serbia by the start of 1915. The Ottoman Empire was poorly equipped and unready for a war. Its entry was a cause of its absolutist ruler who believed his two weakened foes would be easy targets for land grabs. They were far from pushovers, however. The city of Belgrade was fought over in three separate battles between the Turkish entry into the war and the Belgrade Uprising.

Like the Spanish Revolution ninety years earlier, the Balkan Revolution was formulated not by the masses of peasants but rather the middle class and educated. In many educated circles Marxism was all the rage. Talk of abolishing classes and privileges, and turning their respective empires into a socialist federation of equals ran high. Some nationalities preferred to break away from their long time overlords and never look back, but if history taught the Balkan people anything it was that standing alone they were targets waiting conquest by larger empires. In the underground societies formed since the turn of the 20th Century, Marxist ideals infiltrated all but a handful.

The founding father of the Union of Balkan Socialist Republics was a Serb named Peter Karadordevic. Born in Belgrade on June 29, 1844, into a minor functionary family, Karadordevic actually lived a quality of life far better than the oppressed peasants. In 1870, he lived for several years studying in Paris, where he was introduced to Marxist philosophies. The idea of a classless society appealed to him. Like many in the Balkan middle class, he was enthralled by the ideals. Though it would nominally be classless, the Balkan Union’s bureaucracy was formed by the middle class that so adored the idea.

Karadordevic found himself drafted into the French Army, serving for four years in various colonial engagements. Though he loathed the French Army, he later credited it for training him to be a revolutionary leader. He left France as soon as the army released him and returned home with the dream of a Serbia for Serbs. His participation in the 1878 uprising saw his family stripped of its estate and himself exiled. He spent twenty-five years exiled, making his home in Vienna as he travelled across Europe. He returned from exile in 1903, under the alias Mkronjic, where he founded the Serbian Peoples’ Party. From 1904 to 1916, the Party was outlawed by the ruling Turks with suspected members facing imprisonment and even being sold into slavery.

The SPP was the first of many Socialist Parties organized on a national level and united in the International Brotherhood of Workers. With the Great War sending millions of young Europeans to an early death, the loosely confederated International Brotherhood of Workers began to take action. Their propaganda brought more members into their ranks, and angered the lower classes. The IBW opened wider the class division across Europe, strongest in the Balkans. The idea of wealthy industrialists and arms manufacturers pushed corrupt governments to wage war in order to increase the shareholder’s profits fed the conspiracy machine. The poor, certainly the non-German or non-Turkish poor began wondered why they were fighting.

For the Slavs of the Balkans, the question was why brother was fighting brother in the name of non-Slavic peoples. The image of the Red Revolution as a Pan-Slavic device would play into the future of the Union, and its demise, along with some of the great atrocities of the 20th Century. The first shots of this Slavic socialist revolution would take place in Belgrade, on the border between empires.

By February of 1916, both the Ottoman and Austrian Empires battled to the point of exhaustion. Since its fall in 1914, the Turks made a number of attempts to retake Belgrade. The city fell to an Austrian assault shortly after the Ottoman Empire declared war upon them. Its situation, on the Danube River, which in turn served as border between the two dilapidated empires made it contested in the centuries past. The land of the Serbs was long since divided between the two empires, and during the Great War, Serb fought Serb in the armies of opposing Empires.

With both Empires war weary, the leader of the Serbian People’s Party, Peter Karadordevic, sensed an opportunity to throw out the hated Austro-Hungarians and secure for the peace-loving peasants and workers of Serbia their freedom. Karadordevic and his fellow Serb Revolutionary, Dusan Simovic spent the last months of 1915, smuggling in arms and caching ammunition in the neighborhoods of Belgrade. They each headed a division of the Serbian Workers’ Liberation Army, with several thousands in each division.

On February 12, 1916, the first blow of the Balkan Revolution was struck in the Darcal neighborhood, when a cell led by Gravilo Princip, launched a grenade attack on Austrian Field Marshall Oskar Potiorek, killing him and the other passengers of the staff car. Within an hour, bombings killed patrolling Austrian soldiers, and destroyed their post office, killing the Post Master. Simovic lead an assault against the Austrian 3rd Army’s headquarters, capturing the building and massacring its occupants.

By February 15, Belgrade was under the control of S.W.L.A. and the victors began to dish out revolutionary justice. Any person in Belgrade suspected of collaborating with the Austrians was summarily executed. In some estimates, over 5,000 Serbs were victims of this justice in the few days Belgrade remained ‘free’. The revolutionary army quickly degraded into a mob, attacking any institution, business or even building that represented the old order of the Sultans or Habsburgs, including the Ottoman built University of Belgrade. The University was razed and captured professors were executed as collaborators and traitors.

Belgrade’s liberty was short lived. After hearing of the uprising and assassination of the Army’s Field Marshall, that the Austrian General Chief of Staff Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, released reserves from the Ottoman Front for immediate redeployment to Belgrade. By March 3, 50,000 Austrian soldiers, including many Croatian, Slovakian and Bosnian units, had the city encircled. After two days of siege, the Austrians stormed Belgrade.

Knowing immediately that holding off the attack was impossible, Karadordevic ordered the S.W.L.A. to scatter, and continue the struggle in the countryside. Of the estimated 13,000 revolutionaries, only 3,212 are known to have escaped. The two leaders of the uprising were among the escapees. Simovic escaped across the border in Sarajevo, and Karadordevic escaped across the front lines smuggled in a coffin, down the Danube and into Sofia. It is from these two cities that revolutionary flames were fanned.

The seeds of two more successful uprisings, germinated on March 15, 1916. When Karadordevic and Simovic reached their respective destinations, they contacted cells of revolutionaries that were poised to act once Belgrade was free. Pieces were moved into place. By the time similar uprisings were in place across the Balkans, the Belgrade Uprising was thoroughly crushed. On March 13, Karadordevic contacted the Bulgarian People’s Army, ordering the uprising to take effect. Simultaneously, Simovic launched the uprising in Bosnia.

In the early hours of March 15, the Bulgarian People’s Army and Bosnia Liberation Front launched attacks against the garrisons of Sarajevo and Sofia. The Turkish garrison in Sofia was massacred after their surviving high ranking officer surrendered. During the uprising, Albanian units in the garrison switched sides, descending on their Ottoman overlords. The success of the Sofia Uprising sparked off rebellion across Bulgaria and Wallachia. In the streets of major towns, Ottoman governors and mayors were victims of Revolutionary justice.

By March 19, the lower Danube was completely under the control of the Revolutionaries. The Bulgarian People’s Army and Wallachian Liberation Army decisively defeated an Ottoman army at Serevin, near the Serbian border. The Austrian Army attempted to exploit this rebellion, which caused the uprising in Sarajevo to succeed. Serbians in Sarajevo linked with surviving units of the Serbian Worker’s Liberation Army, and spread the revolution into Zenica and Tuzla.

On March 21, 1916, in Sofia and Bucharest, Revolutionaries declared independence from the Ottoman Empire, establishing the Bulgarian and the Wallachian Peoples’ Republics. On March 22, the Bosnians declared independence from the Austrian Empire. The Bosnian Socialist Republic entered into an alliance with Wallachia and Bulgaria, and launched a joint invasion into Serbia. Both Austrian and Turkish armies inside Serbia were trapped by the invading Revolutionaries. Bulgarian units in the Ottoman Army rose up, killing their Turkish officers and captured much of the artillery.

Ante Trumbic, leader of the Croatian Socialist Army, captured Zagreb on March 28. He was a colonel in the Austrian Army and a secret member of the International Brotherhood of Workers. Once Bosnia declared its independence, Trumbic and his Croatian legion mutinied along the Balkan Front and marched on their homeland. Along with thousands of soldiers, a Croatian squadron flying Petrel D. IVs based in occupied Serbia joined Trumbic’ mutiny.

While ethnic units were defecting and mutinying in piece meal, on April 12, the entire Greek contingent in the Ottoman armed forces rose up against the Turk. Revolutionaries in Athens, Thessaloniki and even Constantinople drove the Turks out, forcing the Sultan across the Bosporus. Soon after, the Greeks declared independence with the Revolutionaries declaring a Hellenistic Socialist Republic.

Assisted by Bulgarian allies, the Greeks wasted little time in riding the Balkans of its largest concentration of Ethnic Turks. There has been some debate among historians as to the true goal of the Bulgarians and Greeks in April 1916. Their ultimate goal was simply to rid their homelands of Turks but whether or not that meant killing or deporting was left to the interpretations of local commanders. In Constantinople, more than twenty thousand Turks were killed in the first week following the capture of the city.

Bulgarian Turks were not shown the same level of ruthlessness as the Greek Turks. The hundred thousand living in lands claimed by Bulgaria were given two weeks to vacate the country. Most took to the Black Sea and fled to Anatolia. A smaller percentage headed south in the mistaken belief they could find refuge from harassing Bulgarians. Instead they ran into vengeful Greek. A number of trains full of Turks were boarded by Greek mobs, their contents looted and many of their occupants killed.

In the Ottoman Navy, Greek officers and sailors took control over several ship, including the Battleship Sultan Selim (which was renamed Leonidas). Ottoman loyalist, under the command of Turkish Admiral Musha Seydi Ali intercepted the mutineers at their assembly point off the coast of Rhodes. Under the command of Pavlos Konstantinos, a high ranking member of the Greek Communist Party, two Revolutionary battleships, four cruisers and seven destroyers engaged a Loyalist force of nearly double the size. Konstantinos was a student of Greek history, and when the Ottoman fleet demanded he surrendered his ships, he responded simply ‘come and take them’.

Key to winning the battle, Konstantinos credited the defection of several ships during the battle. The Crimean executive officer of the Turgut Reis seized control of the battlecruiser during the middle of the fight and turned its two hundred fifty millimeter guns on Seydi’s flagship, killing the admiral and effectively shattering the organization of the Ottoman fleet. Since the ethnic content of the Ottoman Navy had a disproportionally high number of Greek and Crimean sailors, the surviving Turkish ships were held up in port while the Ottoman government commenced purging it of revolutionary elements.

By May 1, 1916, the armies of the Ottoman and Austrian Empires were in an advanced state of decay. Forces were pulled away from the fronts to deal with ethnic uprisings and revolution. The state of Austria was in crisis by May 4, when a combined force of the Hungarian Revolutionary Army and the Croatian Socialist Army crossed the frontier into Austria Proper. Loyal Austrian soldiers were pulled from the front with the Ottomans, who had their own problems and from the Swedish Front, who took advantage of the Revolution to push into Crimea and Moldova.

Two events prevented Vienna from falling to the Revolutionaries. One was the fact that discipline within the Hungarian and Croatian national armies were poor, and the soldiers took to pillaging towns and seeking revenge for centuries of oppression. The second factor was that the Kaiser saw the writing on the wall and ordered units of the German Army to occupy German Austria along with Bohemia, to prevent the Revolution from spreading into Bavaria. At this point, the Germans had no immediate plans for reconquering the Austrian Empire. Instead they sought to contain the revolutionary plague well outside the Fatherland.

By July, the situation within the armies of both empires is utter chaos. No longer did the Turks or Austrians have an army. Austrian and Turkish units within their respective armies have abandoned the front lines and have retreated into their heartlands to defend their homes and families from the vengeance the repressed people tend to deliver. The newly formed Hungarian army, under the command of Revolutionary Zoltan Tildy, has even stepped beyond the Balkans and made incursions into Poland-Lithuania, against the wishes of the IBW.

With the collapse of the Austrian Empire, the German Empire relocated its own soldiers from the Eastern Front to hold on to German Austria and Bohemia. The German Empire would later annex both of these territories. The German Army clashed with Croatian forces under the command of Ivan Mestrovic. Mestrovic was born in Split in 1883. Through most of his early life, he dabbled in the arts, and even trying his hand at sculpting.

In 1905, his career was cut short when he found himself conscripted into the Austrian Army. Like many Croatians, he resented having to serves masters in Vienna, even if he would not have minded attending art academies there. It was while in the army that he met Ante Trumbic. It was from Trumbic that he became enthralled by socialism and the ideas of classless society, though he was never a member of the IBW. His Revolutionary zeal grew during the Great War, and more so when the Ottomans entered the war. He saw the injustice of his people dying for aristocratic elites and arms dealing capitalist in Vienna.

When the Revolution came, Mestrovic found himself thrust into a position of authority. It was not a position he wanted; after all, he only wished to be an artist. However, it was a position that he excelled. Mestrovic was not so much a tactician as a leader of men. He led by example and his fellow Croatians never hesitated to follow him into battle. He also had sense enough to listen to his inferiors in rank, especially since they knew more about the morale of the lower ranks than he.

With charisma to lead and sense to listen, Mestrovic is known as one of the greatest Revolution. His victory over the German Army while at Graz. The Croatians took the city on July 17, after defeating a weak Austrian garrison. On July 30, the German Army sent a division against the Croatians defenses. The Croatians captured enough machine guns to turn back the German assault, forcing them into their own network of trenches. For the moment, it appeared a new front would form during the Great War.

On August 2, 1916, German, Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth agreed to a formal cease fire in order to combat the Revolutionaries within their respective territories. The Austrian Empire ceased to exist by August, and the Ottoman Empire received its final nail with the Janissary Massacre at Skopje on July 28. The last of the Janissaries in the Balkans were holed up in Macedonia, surrounded by Greek, Albanian and Serbian armies. Upon breaching the defenses of Skopje, all Turkish soldiers were killed by the Revolutionary Armies. No quarter was given, nor asked for, as the Janissaries fought to the last man. Those too wounded to fight were bayoneted where they fell.

When German annexations were recognized in the Treaty of Versailles, the Croatians withdrew from Austria and returned to their own frontiers. Croatia itself was starting to come apart with tensions between Serbs and Croats living within its borders. In Bosnia, fighting was already happening. Once the last of the Austrian holdouts surrendered, Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks began fighting for control of the country.

While Balkans fought Balkans, the outside world looked towards the Balkans with a land-rush mentality. The threat of outside invasion did little to curb the violence. It was not until the Italian Federation invaded Slovenia, annexing the country in 1918, that made the Balkan nationalities to pause and take notice. At the start of 1919, the Balkan states knew that socialist states would have to work together, or they would be picked off one by one.

 

[Marko]

Trying to peace together the backstory is slightly puzzling, but the general feeling I am having so far is "interesting".

 

[The Kiat]

Trying to peace together the backstory is slightly puzzling, but the general feeling I am having so far is "interesting".

That's because you didn't buy my book!

Basically, the Balkans are the way they are because Russia wasn't constantly nickling-and-diming Austria and Ottomania. Thank the dual monarchy of Russo-Sweden for that.

 

[Marko]

That's because you didn't buy my book!

Basically, the Balkans are the way they are because Russia wasn't constantly nickling-and-diming Austria and Ottomania. Thank the dual monarchy of Russo-Sweden for that.

Sorry. I didn't know you had a book

 

[The Kiat]

II) Unity
During March and April of 1920, Belgrade hosted a convention of leaders from throughout the Balkans. Presiding over the convention was the man who started the Revolution; Peter Karadordevic. Rapidly approaching eighty years of age, his health was further taxed by keeping the unruly Balkans under control. It was through his force of personality that the Congress of Belgrade occurred at all. Despite the clear threat from outside powers, the Balkan nations could not come to consensus on how to approach it. Nationalist wanted to create a loose confederation, or even just an alliance. Karadordevic had other ideas. His faction of the Congress moved for political unification of the Balkans into what would nominally be a federation of socialist republics.

His staunchest ally in the Congress was the Croat Ante Trumbic. Near the end of the Congress, he gave a speech that clearly outlined that if the Brotherhood of Workers did not hang together, they would most certainly hang separately. Furthermore, he was a Croat, and Karadordevic was a Serb. If Serb and Croat could put their histories aside for the cause of progress of man, then any nationality in the Balkans could. It was with this Congress that the nation of Balkans was established.

On May 1, 1920, the delegates signed the Articles of Federation, a document that forged a union between the Balkan states. It was on May Day that the Union of Balkan Socialist Republics was founded. This is not to say that the Congress was without debate. Many resisted unifying the Balkans and surrendering their sovereignty to Belgrade. The loudest of the opposition also failed to show up the day following their anti-union speeches. It is believed that the IBW quickly purged these delegates; the first of many purges that would plague the communist Balkans.

After the articles were signed, and quickly ratified by the communist parties in their respective nations, the new Supreme Soviet elected its first Premier, none other than the General-Secretary of the IBW Peter Karadordevic. His reign was short lived; in late 1920, he suffered a massive stroke, and shortly into 1921, the first Premier died, leaving a power vacuum that threatened to tear the Union apart. Ante Trumbic quickly promoted himself to General-Secretary, and Premier of the UBSR.

Trumbic’s coup was not entirely bloodless. Many leaders of the Balkan Revolution vied for power and only a few supported Trumbic. Chief among his supporters was the famed leader Ivan Mestrovic, a fellow Croat. The fact that Croats were rallying around Trumbic was enough to cause delegates of other nationalities to take notice. They did not want the new Union to turn into one-ethnicity rule like another Austria or Turkey. They fought for a diverse leadership. Trumbic agreed, for the time being, to install one person of each nationality to the heads of the various departments of government.

The Karadordevic legacy was more than uniting fractured peoples. His pet project; government control over food supply, is credited for diverting famine on more than one instance during the 1920s. The plan called for the state to purchase excess grain while prices were low, and stockpile it. When prices rose or production dropped, the excess grain was dumped on the market, thus controlling prices. State control over farms, and collectivization of said farms was also hoped to maintain high productions. Though the process of collectivization caused shortages, it was the Ministry of Health that prevented famine from ravaging the Balkans.

More damaging to the populace of the Balkan Union than collectivization, was that of crash industrialization during the late 1920s and ‘30s. To industrialize, the IBW virtually enslaved the people it claimed to liberate. Under the regime of Trumbic, the first step in industrialization was undertaken. To build factories, one must be able to deliver raw material to the factories. With this in mind, Trumbic designed plans to improve, and in some instances create an infrastructure uniting all the Balkan nations. Tens of thousands of kilometers of rail and road were laid down between 1922 and 1927. To supply the road gangs with a constant stream of workers, Trumbic ordered a series of purges to weed out counter-revolutionary elements.

Many in his government that earlier opposed him found themselves charged with treason. There was only one case of proven contact between the accused, a Hungarian with ties to Vienna, actually worked with outside governments against what Trumbic decreed to be the Union’s interest. He was interrogated under torture and revealed a list of people who were his accomplices. Trumbic believed the confession to be genuine and not to just the pleading of a man trying to make the pain stop. He ordered all on the list to be arrested, questions and tried. Again, more names appeared and more.

To combat a web of dissension and treason, Trumbic established the Bureau of Peoples’ Security, and placed Revolutionary general Mestrovic at its head. Mestrovic lacked Trumbic’s paranoia, and when given full autonomy to track down traitors he general forewent lists given under torture for a more scientific approach to police work. When the first telephone network went online in 1929, Mestrovic had the first eave’s dropping program in place. With only people in important positions using the telephones at first, it was reasoned only they could truly be a threat to the Union or the Revolution.

Mestrovic was viewed as a benevolent guardian while Trumbic received the reputation as a ruthless tyrant, one who would stop at nothing to purge the land of enemies. He wanted all of the Union’s enemies to be executed, for the threat to be permanently removed. It was Mestrovic who convinced him to terminate the ring leaders but spare those corrupted by their influence. Through hard work the misguided might be led back to the path of righteous Marxism. Thus the Bureau of Corrective Labor Camps was established.

The first to be sent to forced labor camps were everybody who benefitted under the old regime. Oddly enough, this included the very middle class that supported the Revolution to begin with. Anybody with ties to the old regime’s administration was immediately sentenced to hard labor. Tax collectors were simply shot. Some of Trumbic’s own comrades found themselves in labor camps. Dusan Simovic was sentenced in February of 1940, and would have likely died in the work gangs, if not for the counter-revolutionary crusades of the 1940s.

Conditions in the road gangs were brutal for even the healthiest of individuals. One stretch of highway through the Carpathian Mountains became known as the Road of Skulls, for the numbers of workers who died during its construction. During the winter of 1925, on a road that would connect the Transylvanian BSR with the Wallachian BSR, some twenty thousand workers died of exposure. Some of the dead’s only crime was being born to parents who worked for the Ottomans.

No matter how bad the road gangs were, the miners suffered even worse. Those sentenced to the mine seldom lived to see freedom. In the coal mines of the Bulgarian BSR, a tight quota system was in use. Those who did not meet their quota of coal did not receive their quota of ration. When they did meet their quotas, the quotas were often increased due to mine management believing the miners could worker harder. Similar quota systems were used in the forestry gangs of the Hungarian BSR.

By 1927, steel mills sprung up across the Balkans like mushrooms. Workers who toiled in these mills lived longer lives and received better treatment, but it was just as hazardous as the mines. Safety inspection was unheard of, and when workers suffered injury they were removed and replaced. In the Novi Sad Iron Works, an average of one worker per week was killed during 1928. Oil production was not as hazardous on average, but an explosion at the Ploesti fields

Trumbic’s first five-year plan called for the full scale industrialization of the Balkan Union. Before the Balkan Union was founded, some ninety percent of the Balkan population worked in agriculture. The first five-year plan in 1922, called for this to be reduced to fifty percent by 1932. The forceful relocation of hundreds of thousands of peasants further disrupted food production. To compensate, the second five-year plan called for mass production of agricultural machinery to replace the lost workers. Though production dropped, government food rationing prevented famine from taking hold. The time between 1922 and 1932 were a lean time for the Balkans.

Furthermore, Trumbic called for the production of steel to reach one million tonnes by 1932. Coal and oil would both reach a combined two million by the same year. Electricity was planned to be in fifty percent of Balkan homes by 1932, but this quota fell short. In 1932, a purge of the Bureau of Energy removed some of the Balkan’s more capable administrators. Dams were built across the Balkans, leading to a further displacement of peoples. These were rounded up and sent to training camps, were they would be trained in industries such as steel, fabric and machinery.

The third five-year plan, 1932 to 1937, called for a five hundred percent increase in the production of agricultural machinery. By 1936, each collective farm had at least one tractor. The tractors were of poor quality, and a trained mechanic had to be provided by the state. Upon learning of the design flaw in the Model 1931 Tractor, Trumbic purged the entire design board of Mikail-Grosniv Industrial Bureau. Along with farming equipment, the production of automobiles was to increase by two hundred percent.

In the same five-year plan, Trumbic called for the establishment of a military-industrial complex in the Balkans. Before 1932, the Balkan Union had no armor, a few Great War aircraft; some rusting ships based in the Greek BSR, and only limited manufacture of bolt-action rifles. Several bureaus were established, chief among them was the Belgrade Arsenal. The Belgrade Arsenal was expected to deliver fifty thousand pieces of artillery by 1937. It exceeded its quota by one-point-three percent.

Trumbic’s death in 1938 disrupted the fourth five-year plan. During the months of July and August, members of the IBW vied against each other for power. The position of Premier devolved into a more ceremonial role, where a new premier would be elected out of the Supreme Soviet once every two years. The real power remained the general-secretary. By 1939, Ivan Mihailou, from the Macedonian BSR, seized control of the Party. His reign would be the shortest. Within a year, the first of the Crusades against communism would strike the Balkans.

Mestrovic and others in the Bureau of Security retained their positions despite the change in leadership. There was some talk among Mihaliou and his supporters to purge the top ranks of the Bureau. Two things prevented the purge. Firstly, there were no suitable replacements for such a vast and complex organism as state security. Secondly, Mestrovic knew enough about every member of the Supreme Soviet to bring them down with him should he ever fall. Mestrovic was indeed a dangerous man, yet unlike Trumbic he treated security as a surgical instrument and not as a sledgehammer.

For the peasant in the Balkans, the Balkan Union offered some improvements in their quality of living. By 1940, electricity and indoor plumbing were in a majority of towns and all the cities. Some of the positive acts of the IBW were to enact universal education in two dozen languages across the entire Union. Education became mandatory, and the literacy rates tripled from 1920 to 1930. Along with education, the state provided health care. Before the Revolution, most Balkans relied upon folk remedies and superstition to combat ailments. By 1940, modern medical care was universal, albeit technologically a generation behind the rest of Europe.

For the average Balkan, the State and the Party was everywhere. The State not only planned the economy, but the way its people would live out their lives. Religion, which is diverse in the Balkans, was suppressed for that very reason. Churches and mosques were seized by the states and converted into schools, courthouses and even offices for the state security. The Haiga Sofia in Constantinople became the headquarters of the Red Navy. With ancient beliefs suppressed, the people only had the state to look to for guidance.

For food and other daily supplies, the average Balkan was forced to wait in queues for hours just to get their weekly ration of meat or dairy, or even for a new pair of shoes. The same waits accompanied a Balkan no matter where they went. If they wished to visit the doctor, they had to wait in line. If they wished to ride the rail, the same. A Balkan spent much of their life waiting. The rest was spent worrying. They dared not complain, for nobody was certain whether the person in the next flat was an informant. The Bureau utilized anonymous tips. Sometimes the threats were real, but more often or not, they were imagined by the informant. A Balkan’s life was a mixed blessing compared to their parents; a higher standard of living, but quite possibly, a shorter life.

The Union of Balkan Socialist Republics was still a third-rate military power by 1940. Despite Trumbic’s attempts to force industrialization, the Union still lacked the industrial power to match any of the world powers in military hardware production. The Belgrade Arsenal produced more than enough artillery pieces to defend the frontier; however, ammunition production was lagging due to Trumbic’s purges. The practice of mass execution or relocation of entire department heads due to lack of satisfactory work was halted by Mihailou. He saw the logic in keeping experienced hands, even if they do error from time to time.

At the start of November, 1940, the Red Navy had refitted the ships captured during the Balkan Revolution. Only a handful of new ships were built, none larger than a destroyer. Trumbic never believed any war would be a naval war. Instead, he focused industry on Army production. This includes the Macedonian Tank Works, which produced some seven thousand Red Star tanks. The Red Stars were of high quality however the Red Army lacked the tank doctrine to use them properly. The Tank Works survived the Crusades, despite air raids from all sides, and continued to produce tanks for all sides during the Balkan Wars.

At the time of invasion, the Balkan Union’s GNP was a third of that which Germany possessed. Multiple embargoes against it hurt its economy. It did have trade with Kurdistan, Armenia and the Arab Republic. By 1940, it also had diplomatic relations with most countries, the notable exceptions being lack of ambassadors from Amsterdam, Stockholm and Berlin. Its largest export was the Revolution itself. Advisors from the Balkan Union were embroiled in the Chinese Civil War; supply Mao with weapons and aiding in combating other factions and the Japanese.

Overall, by the time of the Invasion, the Balkans was finally starting to climb out of the Dark Ages and join the modern world.

 

[The Kiat]

III) Crusade
By 1940, the government of the German Empire, Republic of Poland-Lithuania and the Russo-Swedish Empire had enough of communist agitation within its borders. Germany spent a great deal of effort controlling and Germanizing the Czechs in its border. Despite their repressive efforts, Czech nationalism continued to plague Berlin even after a generation of rule.

The pan-Slavic nature of the Balkan Union caused a great deal of trouble in one half of Russo-Sweden’s crown. In the Kingdom of Sweden, revolutionary zeal was virtually non-existent. Charles XIX could not say the same about his other crown. For over two centuries, the Swedish Kings were also Russian Tsars, and over that period Sweden became more Russian than Russia did Swedish. The most recent cultural shift came in the establishment of the Swedish Orthodox Church as the dual monarchy’s state religion.

The Russian citizens were not the primary target of revolution. The total population of Russians, if added to the Balkan Union would drown out the other nationalities by sheer number. Nobody in the Union wished to become Russian dominated. Ukraine was a different matter. For years, revolutionaries smuggled pamphlets and weapons into the Ukrainian provinces through the Crimean BSR. Ukrainian farmers were on average far better off than their counterparts on Balkan collective farms and had little incentive to overthrow their monarch. Their lack of zeal did not prevent revolutionary agents from trying to incite the population.

Poland-Lithuania suffered the most from exported revolution. Their elective monarchy was abolished at the end of the Great War, but the country still retained a large nobility. Nominally, the Polish-Lithuanian National Assembly was elected by the people. In reality, the former nobility and the wealthy dominated the government while the franchise was solely dependent upon property qualifications until 1935. After universal manhood suffrage was implemented, the composition of the National Assembly began to shift leftward in the political spectrum. In 1938, the Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of outlawing the Communist Party.

As the origin of the revolutionary menace was apparent, Germany, Poland-Lithuania and Russo-Sweden joined in alliance against the spreading red tide in 1939. In the following year, Italy joined in the anti-communist alliance. Offers by Turkey to join the alliance were rejected, though Russo-Sweden made use of Turkish bases. General-Secretary Mihailou was not overly alarmed by the new alliance. Since the birth of the Balkan Union foreign powers have called for its containment. He expected yet another round of embargoes and sanctions.

On November 30, 1940, Mihailou and the Union of Balkan Socialist Republics were introduced to modern warfare. On that morning, more than a thousand German and Swedish aircraft appeared over the skies of the Balkan Union, bombing targets in every major city north of the Danube. Budapest suffered the worst; firestorms raged in the city on the night of December 2 and 3. It was only an early morning snowfall that ended the flames.

By December 1, more than two hundred thousand German, Italian, Polish-Lithuanian and Russo-Swedish soldiers had already crossed the Balkan Union’s frontier in the opening move of Operation Krusader. Three main thrusts were in the works; one to Budapest under German command, a second to Zagreb under Italian command and a third to Bratislava under nominal Polish-Lithuanian command. Zagreb was the first to fall when Italy’s 2nd Armored Cavalry division entered the city with minimal resistance. Bratislava was declared an open city an occupied the following day on December 6.

Budapest proved to be a tougher nut to crack. Two divisions of the Red Army, under the command of General Vladka Macek, denied the city to the 5th Panzer and 2nd Infantry divisions of the German Army for two weeks. During the time of the battle, Budapest suffered daily aerial bombardment despite having the heart of the city burnt to ashes at the start of the war. The Battle of Budapest was a vicious fight, with German forces leveling the city block-by-block to dislodge and destroy the Red Army. Germany’s allies in Krusader loudly condemned German excesses in the battle. The ruins of Budapest fell on December 23.

During the battle in and around Budapest, three German and one Polish-Lithuanian division had the capital of Belgrade surrounded and under siege. The Siege of Belgrade lasted almost as long as the battle for Budapest. The day before the city surrendered, January 6, 1941, much of the higher echelons of the IBW vacated the city. Mid-level functionaries, faceless cogs in the bureaucratic machine, managed to melt back into the population. The higher ranks of government were not so lucky.

Among those captured following the surrender of Belgrade was General-Secretary Mihailou. Attempts to force him to order the Red Army to stand down all ended in failure. What exactly was to be done with the leaders of the IBW was in debate. With so much trouble caused in Bohemia, the German government wanted Mihailou and his comrades tried as terrorists. Charles XIX suggested an international trial as the Balkan people were as much victims of his regime as any Germans.

Of those leaders who escaped, Mestrovic took up his former life as a revolutionary, linking up with the Red Army south of the city. He tried to rally the Red Army and almost succeeded in stopping a joint German and Russo-Swedish advance at Pristina. The Battle of Pristina, fought January 28-Febrauary 9, was the largest tank engagement of Krusader. It saw one German and Swedish armor division square off against three Red Army divisions of armor. At least on paper they were armored divisions. In reality the fielded fewer tanks and APCs than the invaders. They made up for this deficiency with anti-tank guns.

The battle was ultimately not decided by armor or guns but by control of the air. The Russo-Swedish Air Force dominated the skies. Their careful aim for enemy targets, as opposed to large-scale bombing of the city, drug out the battle longer than the Germans believed necessary. The Red Air Force was largely a fiction. In truth, the Balkan Union had fewer than five hundred aircraft, all of them biplanes. Designs for a modern monoplane were at the preproduction stage before the war permanently derailed it.

The Battle of Pristina offered the last line of defense against the southward drive of the German Army. Units of the Red Army rallied around General Nikos Zachariadis in the defense of Greece. After a few skirmishes, Zachariadis decided guerilla tactics would work better against the German Army than a stand up fight. The last hold of active resistance, the city of Sofia, fell to the Russo-Swedish Army on February 27. On March 1, the victorious allies unilaterally declared the Balkan Union dissolved and proceeded to mold the Balkans into shapes that suited them.

Following the end of fighting, Poland-Lithuania dropped out of the alliance. With the treat removed, the government in Krakow saw no reason to spend money on trying to pacify the region. Once Poland-Lithuania was granted Slovakia, they saw their objectives complete and withdrew their soldiers from deeper in the Balkans. The reaction of the Krusader alliance was cool to Krakow’s decision, with Berlin expelling their ambassadors.

There would be no war between Poland-Lithuania and its former allies for holding down the Balkans would require the bulk of their forces. The Balkans were reorganized into three zones, with the Italians controlling the coast, the Germans the center and Russo-Sweden the east. Italy created a Croat state out of Croatia and Bosnia as well as took control of Greece. To control Croatia, Italy turned the Catholic Croats against the Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Bosniaks. In Greece, they attempted to revive a Latin Empire.

Russo-Sweden established a protectorate over a conglomeration of Transylvania, Moldova and Wallachia in the new state of Dacia as well as drew up proposals to annex Crimea. The German zone saw the establishments of Hungary, Serbia and a new Bulgarian Empire over Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. In all of these new states, puppet governments were installed and any dissent quickly crushed.

The allies hoped for a quiet occupation as the Balkans reformed to suit their purposes. They were quickly disappointed. Less than a month after the dissolution of the Balkan Union, Marxists guerrilla struck at German patrols in Novi Pazar. Chief among the resistance leaders was Joseph Tito. Born in Kunrovec, Croatia in 1892, Tito participated in the Balkan Uprisings. He was a young officer in the Croatian Socialist Army, serving under Trumbic during the capture of Zagreb.

He spent the immediate years after the formation of the Balkan Union as a party official in the Croatian Soviet. During the Later Trumbic Years, he was elevated to the Supreme Soviet of the Union, as were many of Trumbic’s fellow Croatians. He was part of Croatia’s representation during every Party Congress between 1936 and 1940. When the Krusader allies invaded the Balkan Union, Tito melted away into the Croatian countryside, along with units of the broken Red Army.

Tito’s partisans began their attacks against the occupiers in early-1941. Their raids were minor at first; small unit patrols vanishing, road side bombs knocking out trucks, even one stunt were a partisan smuggled a fine, itchy powder into a laundry frequented by the Germans. Tito’s campaign picked up in pace when his partisans captured the garrison in Split. The Italian reaction to partisan attacks proved to be weaker than the Germans. By the end of 1941, Tito, Zachariadis, Mestrovic and other resistance leaders decided to focus on Italy first, believing them to be the easiest to repel.

Zachariadis launched a reign of terror against the Italian occupiers in 1942, attacking them at their favorite pubs, while in market and general anywhere they could be found in less than platoon strength. By May 1942, Italian patrols were increased to reinforced platoon strength and orders went out that no Italians were to leave their bases in numbers less than twenty. Even in their garrisons, Italian soldiers were not safe. Garrisons in the Peloponnese suffered almost nightly mortar attacks from June 9 to June 22.

The Italian Federation eventually gave up plans for a new Roman Empire. Greece proved increasingly ungovernable. Croatia was another matter. There was no single nationality that could unite against the occupiers. Tito struggled in his native land to keep Croats and Serbs from killing each other. Resistance cells organized along national lines often ended up fighting each other. It was clear to Tito that his multi-ethnic resistance organization would be the only one to defeat the Italians.

Aside from Marshall Tito, another of the old guard resistance was Zoltan Tildy. Instead of fighting Germans directly, he remained in his homeland of Hungary and did battle with the vassal government installed by the foreigners. Tildy’s campaign did not have the magnitude of bloodshed that Tito knew, but he did prove successful in throwing a monkey wrench into the Hungarians works. His raid on the Hungarian Air Force’s Szolnok base and destruction of numerous fighters warranted this comment from an analysis in the Luftwaffe; “Monkey wrench nothing, Tildy threw the whole monkey into the work.”

Sweden decided to disengage itself from the Balkans in March 1944; three months after Italy threw in the towel and abandoned its Croatian creation to its own devices. On June 18, 1943, Sweden annexed Crimea. Stockholm viewed the Crimean Peninsula as an important asset to the Russo-Swedish Empire. Dacia was another matter. A stable government was established and the Red Menace no longer existed. Charles XIX declared Operation Krusader a success and ordered his forces to leave Dacia.

The Dacian government lasted until 1945, when Mestrovic led an invasion of Greek, Croatian and Serbian resistance. Resistance cells in Dacia, quiet for the past six months rose up to greet Mestrovic. Dacia had the appearance of a stable state because the resistance spent much of 1945 building up their strength. When they rose up in force, it caught the Dacian government off-guard. The government in Bucharest collapsed quickly as its members fled to the Ukraine and Crimea for sanctuary.

By early 1946, Germany was withdrawing soldiers from its Bulgarian and Serbian puppets. They had barely stable government, and instead of being drawn into another round of war, the new German chancellor convinced Kaiser Frederick Wilhelm to declare the crusade a success and depart. Even if the Balkan Union did reform, its power was broken and the crusade woke up nationalist sentiments that lay sleeping for the past generation.

The Kaiser heeded the advice and gave the order. It was not until July 1946, that German soldiers began to leave Hungary, the last bastion of occupation. Each of the German vassals’ governments fell before the year’s end. Though the Union was over and the Balkans in ruins, Mestrovic, Tito and other resistance leaders declared victory. After more than six years of occupation, the workers and peasants of the Balkans drove out the invaders. As it would turn out ‘driving out’ the invaders was the easy part.

 

[The Kiat]

IV) Second Union
On May 1, 1947, the International Brotherhood of Workers reinstated the Supreme Soviet and met in Belgrade for the first time since 1940. Many of the previous party members and representatives were absent from the Soviet. One of the notable exceptions was Ivan Mestrovic, one of the few Old Guard to have survived the Crusade. The first order of business for the Party was to regain control over the Balkans. After the war ended, violence still rocked the Balkans. Brigands and highwaymen roamed the Balkan Union. Allied occupation brought nationalism back to the surface after a generation of IBW suppression. Not only did the Red Army have to battle brigands, but they were forced to battle nationalistic militias staffed with partisan veterans of the occupation.

The first order of business was to clean their respective houses. Untold numbers of Balkans collaborated with the Germans and their vassals. In Wallachia alone, fifty thousand people who took part in the Dacian Government were executed or sentenced to corrective labor in 1947 alone. The ideological pull distracted the government from more pressing matters; such as repairing the Union. The infrastructure, which was not the best in the world to begin with, was utterly destroyed by the invasion. Industry was in shambles, and would take as long to rebuild as it took to construct in the first place.

In the Bosnian Balkan Socialist Republic, tension between the Serbs and their Croat and Bosniak neighbors boiled over in 1948. The rise of the Serbian National Front, a hold out resistance band from the Crusade, began to raid over the border into Bosnia, burning Bosniak villages in northeast Bosnia. Bosnians naturally retaliated, and this set into action a vicious cycle, that would not come close to ending until the 1990s. The allied goal of destroying the Balkan Union was now achieved. It was the occupation, which led to rise of nationalism that inevitably spelled the end of the socialist experiment.

On August 14, 1948, the Serbian National Front, led by Mikhail Igorvik, stormed the Supreme Soviet in Belgrade, supported by Serbian Generals within the Red Army. The coup removed the Croat Mestrovic from power and placed Igorvik as the new General-Secretary of the IBW Non-Serbs within the Supreme Soviet were arrested. Igorvik drew up plans to replace the Supreme Soviet and all the Party Congress with Serbs and Pro-Serb Balkans. The coup was two years in the making.

During the years of 1947 and 1948, violence in Bosnia slowly spilled over into Croatia and Montenegro. Attacks against locals by Serbs resulted in attacks on Serbs. In response to this the Serbian B.S.R. sent in policing forces to defend its people. Order within the Balkan Union was never restored to the level pre-1940. This resulted in many dissatisfied people within the Union, especially in Serbia. As the heartland of the Balkan Union and birthplace of the Revolution, Serbians believed they should have the largest say within the Union.

It goes without saying that other nationalities disagreed with the Serbians. Instead of having endless open debates in the Supreme Soviet, the people resolved their problems by breaking bottles over each other’s heads. Reaction to the coup was almost predictable as the Supreme Soviet was discharges. On August 17, Greece seceded from the Balkan Union. As it became clear that the coup has effectively turned the U.B.S.R. into a Serbian Empire, more states left the Union. Bulgaria joined on August 24, followed by Moldova on September 1, and Bulgaria on September 12. Croatia attempted to secede, but Igorvik ordered it flooded with Red Army units loyal to Serbia.

On December 25, 1948, the survivors of the coup met for the final Party Congress of the restored Balkan Union. Due to failures of the Party, and the Serbian Coup, the survivors voted to disband the Balkan Union. Better to be independent states than provinces under the thumb of the so-called Serbian Empire. Most IBW would work to turn their own nations into socialist states. Not all were in favor of giving up. A faction of the Congress lead by Tito swore to fight on until Igorvik was removed from power and the Balkan Union restored.

The first of many wars in the Balkans erupted with the Serbian invasions of Bulgaria, Transylvania and Hungary. With the dissolution of the Balkan Union, Serbia inherited a disproportionally large amount of the Red Army, which Igorvik did not hesitate to wield. Belgrade intended to force those states back into compliance. Their attempts failed. The Serbian Army’s advances into Bulgaria and Transylvania stalled, while they were ignominiously thrown back from Hungarian territory.

Neighbor began fighting neighbor across the Balkans. Serbia soon found itself fending off a Hungarian invasion, while Greek and Macedonian militias skirmished across their border. Nowhere was the violence more appalling than in Bosnia. Bosnia was the most ethnically diverse of the Balkan states; home to Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, along with smaller enclaves of Montenegrins and Albanians. If blood lines were not enough, the Bosniaks were Sunni, Croats Catholics and Serbs Orthodox. Nothing is guaranteed to make a civil war utterly uncivil than adding theological differences to the mix.

Following battles in Bosnia came the inevitable massacre. Croats slaughtered Serbs, Serbs slaughtered Bosniaks, and Bosniaks retaliated against both. Entire villages simply vanished from the map overnight. Bosnia suffered a case of total war that almost rivals the brutality of the Balkan Crusades.

The worst such massacre between the First and Second Balkan Unions occurred on May 7, 1952; the total ethnic cleansing of the Lasva Valley of its Bosniak population by the Croats. Officially, Croatia condemned the action, but recently circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise. During the assault, all the Bosniaks were expelled, with over four thousand men separated from the masses, taken to a shallow ravine and shot. The massacre was covered up by earth movers shortly afterwards.

By October of 1949, Hungarians were on the outskirts of Belgrade. A bulk of the Red Army deserted, while the rest were either trapped in the city or on Serbia’s other frontiers battling Transylvanians, Bulgarians and now Croatians accusing Serbia of supplying the Serbs in Bosnia. The Igorvik government toppled on October 30, when Igorvik was killed by his own secret police. The Head of Bureau of Security, Frederick Gimbovik, took the reins of government, immediately suing for terms with the invaders.

With the Serbian frontier secured, Hungary turned around an invaded Transylvania on November 20 of that same year. With so much of the Transylvania Army in Serbia, the Hungarians drove a hundred kilometers into the nation before stopping. The war would carry on for another two years, with no clear victor. Tragically, this particular conflict in the general Balkan Wars was a repeat of the Great War, with thousands upon thousands of soldiers dying in a no-man’s land between fortifications. The war ended in cease fire only after French mediation in 1951.

In May of 1953, Joseph Tito called together delegates from across the Balkans to attend a conference in Sarajevo. The goal of this conference was to re-establish the Balkan Union and write a new constitution. Many states declined or refused to even acknowledge the invitation. Of the Balkan states; Bosnia, Croatia, Wallachia, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Albania sent delegates. Two weeks into the conference, the Albanian delegates withdrew as it became clear the new constitution would not benefit them. Albania wanted control over Kosovo, which held many Albanians within its borders, but Tito refused to allow any transfer of territory.

The Second Balkan Union came into existence on August 21, 1953, with Sarajevo as its capital. It immediately saw itself at war with Serbia. This was partially a blessing in disguise, for it forced the Croats and Bosniaks of Bosnia to put aside their differences and unite against the Serbia and Serbs within Bosnia. Tito used all of his political clout to try and stop the violence within Bosnia, with limited success. He did start commissions to investigate the massacres, and even brought several Croats, including those involved in Lasva Valley, to justice. This caused some Croats within Bosnia to see Tito as a traitor, for he too was Croat. Tito’s applied his ruthless suppression of nationalism equally to all nationalities within the Second Union.

Serbia was forced to withdrawal any support for its fellow ethnics within Bosnia, as it became apparent that they faced a war on two fronts against the restored Balkan Union. Bulgarians and Wallachians were more than happy to engage in war against those whom they blame for the fall of the first Union. Despite pleas for vengeance, Tito had plans beyond the narrow views of his comrades. He wanted to restore all the Union, and to expand the IBW to places it had never held influence. He ordered embassies sent to the Middle East and East Asia. He did succeed in establishing ties with the Peoples’ Dynasty in China, as well as with rebels in Indochina and Mexico.

The Tito Plan also called for rebuilding the Union’s shattered industry and infrastructure. This was only partially enacted, and only insofar as warfare was concerned. The People’s Air Bureau opened in 1955, in Wallachia and produced several models of aircraft that saw action across the Balkans and later in post-colonial Africa. Sadly, the standards of living within all the Balkans fell below their pre-crusade levels. Poverty spread across the Union. Coupled with constant warfare this led to a Balkan Diaspora.

In response to the restored Balkan Union, Serbia, under the command of Gimbovik called for delegates to attend their own conference. In 1956, a Belgrade-led Balkan Union was established, with Serbia, Hungary and Transylvania joining. Zoltan Tildy has reservation about joining Belgrade, but unlike Tito, Gimbovik did promise transfer of territory. The Belgrade Council was not a Union in the same way as the Balkan Union, but rather an alliance of convenience. The year it was founded, Hungary threw its weight behind Serbia in a full-scale invasion of Bosnia. In return for their aid, Hungary would be awarded parts of Transylvania. The Transylvanians would be compensated with lands in Wallachia.

Sarajevo fell under siege during the first four months of 1957. The city was completely cut off from the outside world, with the exception of the air waves. The rest of Europe heard the pleas for help come out of the Bosnian capital, but none lifted a finger to come to their aid. Bosnia was just not strategically important. The Great Powers did impose sanctions against Serbia and Hungary, but with no avail. The governments in Budapest and Belgrade did not feel the sanctions, but the people did. It was the Balkan people that suffered the most, and sensing the ineffectiveness of the sanctions, they were withdrawn in 1959.

Thousands were killed during the Siege of Sarajevo, including General Stephan Filipovic, and the city itself was left in ruins. When the Serbs did finally capture the city, it was of little use to the conquerors or the vanquished. Following the Fall of Sarajevo, Moldova withdrew from the Balkan Union and switched sides, allying with the Serbians. This defection effectively dissolved the Second Balkan Union. Despite this betrayal, Tito did not give up on restoring the Union. He did, however, withdrawal to Croatia and led the Croatian Red Army in defense against Serbian incursions.

The Belgrade Council did not last long after their victory over the Balkan Union. In 1958, Slovakia rose up against Poland-Lithuania. Slovakia called for aid with its former allies, but all they received were humanitarian aid from Croatia. The aid was quickly intercepted by the Hungarians. Though Serbia wished to continue their campaign against Croatia, Tildy decided that Hungary has warred enough for the time being. Hungary withdrew from the Belgrade Council in 1959. Serbia withdrew three weeks later. The Belgrade-lead Union fell after only

While the Balkans burned in the flames of war, Turkey came under the control of the ultra-nationalists. The new Turkey had dreams of restoring the glory of the Ottoman Empire, along with the land lost in 1916. With the Balkans in turmoil, Ankara thought it would be an easy conquest. The first act of the brief Turkish Invasions was the near disastrous invasion of Rhodes. Though the Greeks garrisoning the island had no reason to expect attack, they reacted quickly to the surprise. Of the Turk’s air assault, twenty percent of the bombers were downed by the few surface-to-air missiles and obsolete turbo-prop Sea Eagles. The Turkish Air Force’s bomb sights were jokes, and most of the bombs fell a fowl of the Greek fortifications killing hundreds of civilians instead.

Three torpedo boats intercepted the Turkish invasion force. Though all three boats were destroyed, they were not before they released their torpedoes, destroying a troop transport and destroyer. Ten thousand Turks poured ashore to do battle with the roughly fifteen hundred Greek soldiers based on the island. The landing itself resulted in over a thousand Turks killed. Even after the Turks were in control of the city, surviving Greek soldiers carried out guerilla warfare against the invaders. In response, the Turks began executing Greek civilians for each of its own soldiers killed.

More successful, or rather less disastrous, was the crossing of the Bosporus by the bulk of the Turkish Army. Through October to December of 1953, the Turks placed Constantinople under siege, damaging much of the city. During the siege, over twenty thousand civilians were killed, and untold ancient building destroyed. The dome of the Haiga Sofia collapsed under the bombardment of Turkish artillery. The Turkish Invasions never reached inland in the Balkans, and were reduced to raiding along the Aegean and Black Seas.

At the time, the Greek government, under the control of Nikos Zachariadis, saw Turkey as a major threat. It was with some relief in January of 1954, when Jefferson Patterson arrived in Athens and offered his services. Patterson served his country, the Republic of Virginia dutifully during its war against North Carolina in the 1920s. When his government sued for peace, he was at a loss. He was a soldier at heart, but without a government, who would he fight for? The answer came in the form of the French Foreign Legion. Patterson rose in prominence during the Legion’s actions in New Granada and Sonora during the 1930s, as well as fighting against Mexican rebels in the 1940s. When the Balkan Union fragmented, Greece called out for help in supporting its new, imperfect Republic.

Patterson was accepted as advisor and made a general in the Greek Army. His first plans called for the relief of Constantinople. After campaigning against some of the more skillful rebels of his generation, Patterson was astonished by what he considered the stupidity of the Turk’s plan. To begin with, their navy could not hope to defeat the Greek Navy, despite controlling the waters around Constantinople. The Turks also had limited ability to engage in strategic bombings. Even then, they still targeted symbolic buildings, such as the Acropolis in Athens.

The Greeks lifted the Siege of Constantinople by forcing the Dardanelles, at high cost to their navy, and cutting off almost half the Turkish Army. Before the Turkish invasion force could even surrender, the Greeks landed one hundred thousand of their own soldiers on the Ionian Coast of western Turkey. In turn, the Turks attempted to evacuate their army in Europe to thwart the invasion.

One more nail in the Turkish coffin came with the intervention of the Dutch East India Company. The Turkish Invasions severely disrupted trade in the Aegean Sea, much so that the VOC was concerned that oil from Armenia and Kurdistan might be cut off. The VOC assessed the situation and decided their company would be best served if Greece was in control of the sea. The VOC began overtly supporting Zachariadis with arms shipment at a reduced price, and even escorting Greek merchantmen with their own private warships. By April of 1954, the Turkish Navy ceased to exist as a functional branch of their military.

It was not until late 1954 that the Ankara Government collapsed, turning Turkey into a failed state. Even more than fifty years after their war with Greece, Anatolia is still ruled by petty warlords and factions of the Ottoman Mafia. On January 1, 1955, Greece officially annexed the west coast of Anatolia. This was not the end of Greco expansion. While Greece did work to consolidate its new holdings, its attention soon turned to the state which called itself Macedonia.

Being part of Greek history, Zachariadis decided that any state which calls itself Macedonia should be under Greek control. It was more than historical; the fact that a large armor production facility as well with other military-industrial infrastructure existed within Macedonia did factor into his equation. With so much of the former Greek lands inside Greece, Zachariadis toyed with the idea of restoring the Byzantium Empire, perhaps even with himself as Emperor.

Patterson and several Greek generals advised against such a move. Byzantium could exist in all but name. Patterson pointed out that any move to restore the ancient monarchy might cause concern with Greece’s northern neighbors, for they were once part of that same empire. The generals of Greek birth were more opposed than Patterson. The Virginian saw in strategic terms, but the generals saw in political terms. How would it look if a former member of the IBW set himself up as a monarch? His own people would want his head, to say nothing of the rest of the Balkans. Empire or Republic, Zachariadis would not rest until Macedonia was part of Greece.

In 1969, the Greeks went to war with the Third Balkan Union. The war was slow going, lasting for four years and claiming two hundred sixteen thousand dead. The war concluded in 1973, with Greece annexing Macedonia. Only three days after the treaty was signed, the long standing Greek President Zachariadis died. General Andreas Papandreou replaced him as President until 1981, when elections were finally enacted.

Further north, following the collapse of the Belgrade Council, the Serbians were up to their old bag of tricks again; plotting to found a Serbian Empire on the ashes of the Balkan Union. As with every attempt, Serbia began its expansionism at Bosnia’s expense. Though this new wave of invasions lacked the ethnic violence of previous wars, it still ripped up what little of the roads and rails the Bosnians managed to repair since the fall of the Second Union. Bosnia itself fell under Serbian control from 1961 to 1963.

The Bosnians themselves, Bosniaks and Croats, were not content to let Serbia colonize their homeland. Resistance movements hampered Serbian occupation and administration. Despite previous levels of violence, the Serbian Army did not instigate massacres against the Bosnian population. They did, however, impose martial law under draconic conditions, including internal passports and identification cards. Those who lacked papers were arrests and held for long periods. Those who violated curfew were often assumed to be part of the resistance and shot on sight.

Even with lower levels of violence, the Serbians preceded to deport Bosniaks from regions bordering Serbia. The Serbian government planned to move Serbs within Serbia closer to the border with the motherland. This ethnic redistribution caused serious disruptions to supply, and even allowed near-famine conditions in some of Bosnia’s cities. Most of the resources were expended in transporting peoples and making the demography of Bosnia something that met with Belgrade’s approval.

In Kosovo, the Serbians decided to redistribute the demographics, but not in the same way as Bosnia. In Kosovo, Belgrade decided that it was time to expel the Albanians. The ethnic cleansing brought numerous protests from Albania, but protests were all they were. Albania attempted to garner Great Power support. The United Kingdom gave moral support, but locked in tensions with the United Provinces, and later war, they could do nothing but morally support Albania. By 1963, more than forty percent of the Albanians were refugees within Albania.

In May of 1963, Hungary once again went to war against Serbia. It was not that they supported the Bosniaks or Albanians, but rather they could see the writing on the wall. There was concern in Budapest that the Serbians might turn their eyes towards Hungary. The Hungarians struck at the relatively undefended eastern border of Serbia, breaching their defenses after only three days of brutal fighting.

On June 4, 1963, the Hungarian 3rd Division rolled into Belgrade, virtually unopposed. When news of the city’s fall reached the Serbian colonies, the Bosniaks and Croats of Bosnia and Albanians living within the Serbian border, rose up in revolt. The uprisings were almost as abrupt as the original Balkan Uprising. So forceful were they that Serbian units in Bosnia withdrew to the firmly Serb-held areas. On June 9, the Serbian government fell.

Terms for peace were rather lenient. Hungary had no interest in occupying Serbia, but demanded that it withdrawal from Bosnia and Montenegro, the former racked by civil war until 1971. There were no terms concerning Kosovo, which was a province within Serbia. Thus, the Serbians continued their cleansing. However, having much of their power broken, Albania went to war against Serbia. There was no declaration, but units of the Albanian army crossed the border to protect ethnic Albanians, and did manage to push Albania’s border several kilometers into Serbia.

 

[The Kiat]

V) Third Union
At the start of 1968, with the better part of a violent decade behind them, Joseph Tito once again tried to restore the Balkan Union. He called for all Balkan States to send delegate to a conference in Zagreb. Fewer delegates arrived, and even less agreed to a new constitution, this one authorizing more power to the executive branch. Of the ten states that attended, only Bosnia, Croatia, Albania, Wallachia and Macedonia ratified. The Third Union was weaker than the previous two, and infrastructure in Bosnia was all but shattered.

Tito’s first Five Year Plan of the Third Union called for linking all the states by road and rail. Hundreds of millions of guilders were spent in rebuilding Bosnia alone. The Third Union was almost a failure from the beginning. In the 1970s, they fought a losing war against Greece, where all of Macedonia was annexed by them. Further Greek air strikes into Bosnia and Albania severely damaged industry and infrastructure that had already seen two decades worth of on-again, off-again warfare. The plus side of the conflict saw that outsiders were getting involved within the Balkans.

During the Greco War, the Italians sent in a small expeditionary force into Albania to prevent the spread of Greek influence. The Italian Federation was already wary of Greece following their crippling blow against the former Republic of Turkey. Greek shipping began to overlap on Italian interests, and pirates were even operating out of the many islands in the Aegean Sea, targeting mostly Italian ships. They wisely avoided any ship waving the VOC banner. Thought Italy did not declare war on Greece, it did fight several small naval engagements against pirates and Greek patrol boats, along with landing a regiment in Albania to keep the Greeks from gaining any holds on the Adriatic coast.

The idea that Greece, despite its regional power, was ever a threat to the Italian Federation is somewhat of a misnomer. The Greek Navy consists of relics from previous wars, with a few modern modifications, while the Italian Navy had five guided missile cruisers and a small aircraft carrier. Italian nationalism played a role as well, for the Nationalist Party, with its ultra-nationalistic views, was playing on the Greek menace to gain votes. It did gain a coalition majority in Italy’s parliament, and went about trying to ‘rebuild the glories of Rome’. They did in part, restoring Ancient Roman structures in time for the 1972 Olympics, and even completely rebuilding the Flavian Amphitheater, the legendary Roman Coliseum for the games.

In the end, Italian intervention, albeit light, did not stop Greece from achieving its goals. By 1973, it was in control of the relatively intact industrial base of Macedonia. For two decades, Macedonia managed to avoid much of the Balkan Wars, mostly because it was a primary arms manufacturer in the region. This became doubly important following embargos and sanctions against the various states in the region. Greece had little to no interest in supplying any of its northern neighbors, and instead used the industrial pygmy to help rebuild its own country.

On January 17, 1979, Joseph Tito, the General-Secretary of the Balkan Union, was scheduled to give a speech outlining his new Five Year Plan in Sarajevo. The plan called for the completion of the public works and repair to the regions’ damaged roads and rails, along with expanding the production of consumer products. He was to speak in front of the Sarajevo Copper Works, a state-ran business that once produced copper plating and wiring, but was now retooled to produce cooking ware and hand tools.

His speech was not to be. At 9:16, only fourteen minutes before he was scheduled to make his appearance, Tito worked his way through the crowds outside of the factory. Though many of the International Brotherhood of Workers claimed to be ‘of the people’, Tito was truly the People’s General-Secretary. When he encountered one Pavel Minkail, he offered his hand and called the man comrade. In return, Minkail produced an Austrian-era pistol and fired three shots into Tito. The first two shots missed anything vital but the third shot entered his chest and ripped through his heart. Tito died only minutes later, while his personal guards and some of the local workers tried to get him to medical attention. As for the assassin, the instant he fired off his rounds, three of Tito’s guards drew their own weapons and gunned him down. Tragically, not all shots found their target in the crowd, and two other workers were wounded.

Tito’s death rippled across the Third Balkan Union. Days after his assassination, senior members of the IBW began fighting for control of the Party and the Union. It was not open civil war, but two of Tito’s senior party allies did vanish, and neither man was a Croat. By November of 1979, Croatian Statesman Andre Marik was in control. He placed fellow Croats in key positions in the government and military. Non-Croat Generals were purged from the service. In response, the Union began to fracture. It began with Albania withdrawing in January of 1980, followed by Wallachia in March. Wallachia did not so much as secede as it was taken control of from within by the Ceausescu Junta. By April, the Third Union was dissolved, and Croatian forced moved to occupy Bosnia while Albania split.

On January 7, 1980, the Romanian Nation was founded by a military junta commanded by Nicolae Ceausescu. Romania was first established by simultaneous coups in Transylvania and Moldova. The Romanian National Front was a nationalistic movement with occult undertones. The society saw the Romanian people as the lost children of Rome and Byzantium. They also traced their alleged roots back to mythological times, and had racial views that set them apart from the Slave. The fact that the original Roman genes had long since been replaced by genetic Slavs did not even factor into their racial superiority dogma.

The first and only, Tsar of unified Romania started his life on January 17, 1918, in the village of Scornicesti in the Wallachian Balkan Socialist Republic. Unlike many future leaders in the Balkans, Nicolae Ceausescu was born a peasant on the eve of the U.B.S.R.’s founding. Little is known about his early years, save for the official biography commissioned during his reign as Tsar. At the age of fourteen, he left his hometown and was relocated to work in the factories during the industrialization process along the Danube. Working conditions were tough, though nowhere near as difficult in the labor camps or those that Ceausescu would later impose upon his enemies.

During the crusade, the official biography runs accounts that have Ceausescu leading his own resistance band against Russo-Swedish occupation and their puppet state of Dacia. There is little evidence ever fired a shot against the Swedes, or was in the resistance. Dacian documentation recovered after the war reports that Ceausescu was arrest and interned for his membership in the Wallachian Worker’s Party. It is said that much of what he inflicted upon his countrymen later in life, he learned first-hand from his captors.

Following the war, the Balkan Union tore itself apart in civil war, as the occupation brought back ancient ethnic rivalries and vendettas. Ceausescu did participate in these wars, rising quickly through the ranks of the Wallachian People’s Army, obtaining the equivalent of Colonel by 1960. It was around this time he began to become deeply involved in the Worker’s Party, rising in rank as quickly here as in the army. By 1965, he was within the Party’s inner circle, and by 1967, he had enough support from Party men and the army to launch his own coup.

His enemies were dealt with quickly; some 20,000 alone were executed in his first year as General-Secretary. Most of the 1970s were spent in reforming Wallachia, and streamlining the previously inefficient councils. By 1978, Ceausescu had turned the country into a one-man dictatorship. His Romanian National Front soon eclipsed the decaying Worker’s Party as the new face of the state. During his first decade in power, he encouraged a cult of personality around him, elevating him to the Communist pantheon, alongside Marx and Karadordevic. His influence expanded well beyond his own borders, into the third incarnation of the Balkan Union, as well as Moldova, Transylvania and Bulgaria.

On January 7, 1980, juntas organized by Ceausescu and his foreign supporters took control simultaneously in Moldova and Transylvania. One of the RNF’s long standing goals were the unification of the Romanian people under one ruler, that being Ceausescu himself. On May 8, 1980, the three states, under the same guiding hand signed the Treaty of Unification, establishing Romania as a state. The state was not to be a socialist republic or any republic at all. Ceausescu saw himself as Caesar reincarnate, and on June 19, he declared himself Tsar Nicolae of the Romanian Empire.

Romanian plans for empire were evident from the beginning. On February 14, 1981, the Romanians Army, with the Tsar in personal command, invaded Bulgaria. Factions sympathetic to Romanian goals did exist within the Bulgarian government, and even moved to press for union with the new state. The vote did pass Bulgaria’s lower chamber of parliament, but was blocked by the upper chamber. When the Romanians crossed the border, they would cross as liberators, freeing the people from the tyranny of the minority.

Romania’s invasion of Bulgaria has to be the most bloodless conquest of the Balkan Wars. For the most part, the Bulgarian Army did not resist and their Air Force remained grounded. Romanian infantry marched into Sofia on February 20. It is now known that a Fifth Column was planted the year before by Ceausescu and his followers. Many in the government were appointed by a pro-unification president. When the Romanians crossed the border, no orders were issued calling for the Army to fight.

It soon became clear that it was indeed a Tyranny of the Minority. However, it was not in Romania’s favor. The minority were the pro-unification faction. The bulk of Bulgaria’s masses were against Romanian occupation. The Tsar had hoped to add Bulgaria’s industrial capacity to his own, but wide-scale strikes broke out in late 1981, that brought the Bulgarian economy to a halt. When the Tsar attempted to use his army to end the strikes, full scale rioting engulfed Sofia for three days. It was only after additional army units were flown in from Romania that the rioters were dispersed, and an addition week was required to extinguish the fires.

Strikes continued into 1982 and 1983. Ceausescu was forced to import Romanian workers to take over the industry, causing a worker shortage within his own kingdom. By 1984, Romania’s position in Bulgaria was no longer practical to hold. The Tsar had some concerns about other Romanian state attempting to secede, but with enough of his own people in position, Romania remained united. By June 29, 1984, the last of the Romanian soldiers left Bulgaria, and it was “granted” its independence from Bucharest.

The occupation of Bulgaria put severe strains on the Romanian economy. Ceausescu worried that the withdrawal might be seen as a weakness and exploited by his neighbors. Over the next five years, the annual budget for the Romanian Military rose to 37% of Romania’s income. The Tsar began to show signs of mental instability in 1987, when he declared before parliament that not only would Romania have an army to rival Greece, but it shall have one to rival even Russo-Sweden. As Army and Air Force grew, civilian spending power declined. By 1989, the last year of the Empire, more than forty percent of the nation’s inhabitants lived below the poverty level. Food and supply shortages popped up in every city, and the nation’s children began to go hungry.

During the early 1980s, the Tsar worked thousands to death on constructing the Palace of the People in Bucharest. This palace still holds the record as the largest administrative building in the world, and is only outsized overall by a few aerospace assembly plants. The palace cost ten billion guilders, three thousand lives and four years to complete. Several districts of Bucharest, including some dating back to medieval times, were bulldozed to make room for the neo-classical monstrosity.

Life was not all good within the Palace. The heir designate, Nicu, took over reigns of the puppet parliament, and his sister Valentina was placed in charge of the Ministry of Industry and Technology. Both proved to be as ruthless as their father. In the case of Valentina, when the workers in a Sibiu Steel Mill went on strike, she ordered army units in the region to break the strike. Leaders of the union, as well as other Steel Unions, were put on trial as traitors to the Empire and executed between May and July of 1987. The only one of the Tsar’s children who was not cold-hearted and cruel was Zoia, whose defection to the Italian Federation in 1988, hit the Tsar hard.

What brought down the Emperor was not the will of the people or outside invaders, but his own socialist planning– or at least his own concept of socialism. By 1989, the total debt collected during the Imperial Years nearly equaled the country’s annual income. Banks began to stop handing out loans, and a few demanded payments. Cuts were made across the board, with the Army being the only exception. During the summer of 1989, hard times hit the country as stores ran out of goods and queues wrapped around city blocks. Some citizens were forced to wait in line all day for their bread rations.

Popular uprisings spread like a wildfire across the country in the Fall of 1989. The Tsar became more and more erratic, and in October of that year, turned against his own army chiefs. He went as far as to accuse General Michael Romani of treason when he refused to fire upon crowds of hungry Romanians. When he attempted to have Romani arrested, the Army mutinied. Like Ceausescu before him, Romani had the support of the Army when he pulled off his own coup.

The final straw came in October of 1989. With deficit spending at its end, the Tsar began to make cuts from education, healthcare and unemployment to support his bloated army. To this, the people of Bucharest rose up and stormed the palace with the same force as the Spanish had in the 1820s. Fighting broke out across Bucharest, with Ceausescu’s diehard supports fighting elements of the army that would rather see him deposed. His madness over the previous two years prompted many in the higher levels of the military to begin plotting his downfall. They feared that with all his spending on the army that the Tsar might actually be foolhardy enough to start a war with Greece, or God forbid, The Russo-Swedish Empire. In either case, the international community would be against them, and in the end Romania would lose. A defeat would spell the end of the new unified nations.

On October 8, the fighting in the palace was over, when General Michael Romani captured the Tsar and put him before an impromptu people’s court. By the end of the day, the Tsar was taken out into the courtyard and shot. At the end, his iron will that he worked so hard to project broke down, as he offered the guards taking him to his execution two million guilders each if they helped him escape. The next month filled Romania with the 20th Century pastime in the Balkans; endless purges. By December, the monarchy was abolished and a military dictatorship installed until such time as elections can be arranged. This period lasted until Romania joined the Fourth Balkan Union. They applied for admission on the last day of 1989.

Romania was not the only country with dreams of empire. Once again, Serbia rose up and took notice at her neighbor’s lands. As a rule of thumb in Balkan regional dynamics, it appears mandatory for Serbia to grab the land around her once per decade. However, Serbia did not start out to become a monarchy. Instead, this empire was ruled by the Communist Party of Serbia with goals of a Greater Serbia. No longer did Serbia desire, nor contain the ability to, rule all of the Balkans.

The Unification of the Serbian people began in 1982, with Serbia’s intervention in the growing Bosnian Civil War. By the 1980s, the ethnic distribution of Bosnia was divided sharply, with the Serbs living in the provinces bordering Serbia. Croats attempt at taking total control of the country forced a stream of Serb refugees to flood into Serbia. The humanitarian plight was exactly the justification Belgrade required to invade Bosnia without turning the international community against them. Not that Serbia ever required either justification or support. For once its invasion of Bosnia was not condemned.

For two years, Serbia pressed its way into Bosnia, and once again the country was torn apart by warfare. Croatia pressed back against Serbian advances, retaking cities occupied by the Serbians, and lashing out against the populace. In the case of Banja Luka, retaken by Croats on May 19, 1985, the Croats executed hundreds of Serbs and Bosniaks. Among the dead were dozens of Croats declared collaborators. When the town was again taken back by Serbia, on July 25, the atrocity was exposed to the world.

In response to the massacre, Belgrade decided to take a more direct approach to the Croat problem. On August 29, two divisions of the Serbian Army crossed the border into eastern Croatia. For three years Croatia and Serbia fought along a static front. The war would have continued to this day, if not for the fall of the Croatian government. Milan Kucan, follower of Tito back in the 1970s, led a coalition that came to power in Zagreb. Peace talks between Croatia and Serbia lead to a division of Bosnia that exists to this day.

The Treaty of Split effectively partitioned Bosnia. The Serbian portion of the country was fully integrated into Greater Serbia. After 1993, when Serbian Premier Slobodan Milosevic staged a coup against the parliament and declared himself Tsar of Serbia. Serbia began a full scale effort to expel not only Bosniaks and Croats, but also all Albanians from the portions of Kosovo under Belgrade’s control. Albania attempted to prevent the expulsion, but to little effect. Serbia of the 1990s was far stronger than the Serbia of the 1970s. The Serbian Empire survived the turn of the century, with Tsar Slobodan still in power as of 2014. The part of Bosnia under Croatia’s control accepted the Bosniak refugees and became the cornerstone of the Fourth Balkan Union.

 

[The Kiat]

VI) Fourth Union
The current incarnation of the Union of Balkan Socialist Republics came into life on December 8, 1988, when Croatia, Bosnia and free Montenegro signed the Zagreb Accords. Bulgaria ratified the Accords on December 19, becoming the fourth member. Following the toppling of Ceausescu from the throne, Romania joined the new Union in 1989. Romania’s revolution and ascension to the Fourth Union often marks the end of the Balkan Wars. The 1990s, despite ethnic cleansing in Greater Serbia, offered the first regional peace in fifty years. The Balkan Union also acts as an effective counter to the Serbian Empire, forcing a balance of power in the Balkans.

With peace, albeit a cold peace, in effect, the Balkan Union began rebuilding once again. This time, the outside world took an interest in the Union, despite it being a communist state. China, under the Peoples’ Dynasty, is the biggest investor in the Union, followed by Sweden and Italy in a distant third. In 1994, Greece hosted a general peace conference for all the Balkan states. The Athens Pact, negotiated over a five month period, finally settled borders between all the Balkan states. The Pact also guarantees the movement of ethnicities out of states where they are minority and into their ethnic homelands. This last piece was inserted by Serbia as a condition for them to sign. It also permits their acts of purification in a legal sense.

Foreign investment within the Balkan Union has risen to twelve billion guilders by 2005, with much of it going into developing the Ploesti oil fields, which suffered from lack of proper maintenance during the Empire-era in Romania. Further investment rebuilt the roads in Croatia and Bosnia. France and Britain signed free trade agreements with the communist state, and began to outsource some of their industries to the cheaper labor of the Balkan Union. The IBW appreciated the irony of the ‘capitalist fat cats’ own greed being used to power the Worker’s State’. The Balkan Union even hammered out an agreement with the VOC, for use of the Union’s Black Sea ports in exchange for technical support and modernizing facilities on the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts. The VOC uses these new ports as a base to protect the oil flowing out of Armenia.

The Balkan Union’s future remains uncertain. Despite two decades of peace, the concentration of ethnicities in ethnic homelands could still tear the Union apart. Attempts to expand the Union have thus far failed. Kucan extended membership offers to Hungary, Albania and even Greece. In response, Tsar Slobodan accused Kucan of attempting to surround Serbia, and such an arrangement would not be tolerated by Greater Serbia. Some say a war between the Union and Serbia during the 21st Century is inevitable; only time will tell.