The Seventh HoS/HoG List Challenge

[Callan]

Hello everyone and welcome to the Sixth HoS List Challenge!

This challenge was fun but it's been dormant for a few months and this is an attempt to revive it. Credit to Venocora setting up a fun idea. They set up the rules well so I will simply quote theirs:

How it works is simple: every so often there will be a theme, and the challenge is to write an alternate Head of State list (with an accompanying description of no less than 200 words) based on that theme. The theme is intended to be a prompt, and as such the amount of focus you give to the theme can vary as much as you wish. Political lists in alternative formats (including cabinet and political trajectory lists) are also acceptable. Lists shoud meet a low threshold of plausibility nad coherence. Unless stated otherwise, the list can be for any country in any time period.

The theme for this month's challenge is “The Golden Age”.

Entries should be posted in this thread and you can submit as many entries as you please. However, only the first will be considered to be competitive. At the end of the contest - May 25th - a public vote will be held to decide on a winning list. Entries are open with immediate effect.

Any questions or theme suggestions are welcome either in this thread or sent to me by PM.

Good luck everyone!

 

[Time Enough]

Balls, used up my Gould/Alperovitz one already. Back to the drawing board.

 

[Bene Tleilax]

Balls, used up my Gould/Alperovitz one already.

Geddit.

 

[Japhy]

I'm on it

 

[Time Enough]

1945-1956: Harold Macmillan (Liberal)
1945 (Majority) def: Clement Attlee (Conservative), Aneurin Bevan (Ind. Labour), Oliver Baldwin (New Party), Katherine Mansfield (Social Credit), Malcolm MacDonald (Cooperative Party)
1950 (Majority) def: Clement Attlee (Conservative), Aneurin Bevan (Ind. Labour), Oliver Baldwin-Evelyn Sharp (New Party-‘Left’ Social Credit-Cooperative)
1955 (Minority) def: Derick Heathcoat-Amory (Conservative), Aneurin Bevan (Ind. Labour), Oliver Baldwin (Reform)
1956-1962: Derick Heathcoat-Amory (Conservative)
1956 (Majority) def: Harold Macmillan (Liberal), Aneurin Bevan (Ind. Labour), Oliver Baldwin (Reform)
1960 (Majority) def: Frank Byers (Liberal), Richard Crossman replacing Aneurin Bevan (Ind. Labour), Norman Smith (Reform)
1962-1965: Julian Amery (Conservative)
1965-1973: Frank Byers (Liberal)
1965 (Majority) def: Julian Amery (Conservative), Richard Crossman (Ind. Labour), Jack Jones (Reform)
1969 (Majority) def: Julian Amery (Conservative), Richard Crossman (Ind. Labour), Jack Jones (Reform)
1972 (Majority) def: Geoffery Rippon (Conservative), Jimmy Reid (Ind. Labour)
1973-1976: Edmund Dell (Liberal)
1976-1985: Martin Attlee (Conservative)
1976 (Majority) def: Edmund Dell (Liberal), Jimmy Reid (Ind. Labour)
1980 (Majority) def: Trevor Jones (Liberal), Les Huckfield (Ind. Labour), Paul Ekins (Reform)
1984 (Majority) def: Trevor Jones (Liberal), Les Huckfield (Ind. Labour), J.G.Ballard (Reform)
1985-1988: Timothy Riason (Conservative)
1988-1992: Mike Thomas (Liberal)
1988 (Majority) def: Timothy Riason (Conservative), Robert Lindsay-J.G. Ballard (Democratic Labour-Reform Pact), Reg Prentice (National)
1992-: Robert Lindsay (Democratic Labour)
1992 (Pact with Reform) def: Mike Thomas (Liberal), Frances Maude (Conservative), Eric Clapton (National), J.G.Ballard-Hilary Wainwright (Reform), Lindsay Granshaw (Social Democrats), David Alton (Christian Democrats), Kevin Curtis (Socialist Workers)

From Gold to Gone:
The utter collapse of the Liberals in the 92' election is often cited for different reasons, some attribute it to the full blown embrace of the 'Neo-Gladstonian' economists, some blame the surge in support for the Eco-radicals in Reform amongst the Youth population, other attribute it to the splinter groups that appeared in the final years of Thomas's tenure (described as 'Rats Deserting A Sinking Ship'). I argue you can find cracks during the Golden Years of Macmillan and Byers in which the embrace of Keynesian Economics was used to cover over the slow splintering within the Liberals that had occurred in the 30s. The open splinter parties lead by Malcolm MacDonald and Oswald Mosley whilst were the most obvious examples of the Left within the Liberals incredibly stagnant especially in the aftermath of the Gladstone III and Simon leadership who's uninspiring Free Trade orientated visions of Liberalism would lead to 10 years of the Red Tory Imperialist Clement Attlee taking over.

Macmillan and Byers would symbolise the domination of the Liberal 'Left' for much of the Keynes years but this Golden Age was one of slow burning stagnation, the Technocratic Managerialism of Macmillan would ensure that British industries were unable to compete with there Deutsche Demokratic, Yugoslavian and Japanese counterparts (amusingly much of the problems with Britain's industries would eventually hit the Corporatist Japanese state) and Byers sticking with Keynesian based economics as the economy proceed to inflate would prove to be his death knell. But the Golden Age would also see the raise of the Neo-Gladstonians from the Right of the Party who weren't fond of the 'Social Market' ideals that had come into place. Edmund Dell would be the first figurehead of this movement, but in time, Beith, Jay and finally Thomas would all be figureheads of the Monetarist strain of Economics within the Liberals during the Wilderness Years of the 70s and 80s (which also see the eventual rebranding of the Independent Labour party to the Democratic Labour Party under Lindsay).

Thomas's Austerity heavy, inept and Scandal filled tenure would end the Liberals in Britain but the rot had already set in much earlier. Whilst Lindsay is still being evaluated as we speak, many are saying the his time in office for the Left could prove to be Sunny and more Golden than the Fools Gold of the Liberals ever could.

 

[theev]

"Golden Age"

2009 - 2011: George Papandreou (PASOK)
2009 (Coalition): Kostas Karamanlis (ND), Georgios Karatzaferis (LAOS), Aleka Papariga (KKE), Alexis Tsipiras (SYRIZA), various (OP)
2011 - 2013: Antonis Samaras (ND)
2011 (Coalition): George Papandreou (PASOK), Alexa Papariga (KKE), Georgios Karatzaferis (LAOS), Alexis Tsipiras (SYRIZA), Fotis Kouvelis (DIMAR), Nikolaos Michaloliakos (XA)
2012 (March) (Coalition): Evangelos Venizelos (PASOK), Alexis Tsipiras (SYRIZA), Alexa Papariga (KKE), Nikolaos Michaloliakos (XA), Fotis Kouvelis (DIMAR)
2012 (December) (Coalition): Alexis Tsipiras (SYRIZA), Nikolaos Michaloliakos (XA), Evangelos Venizelos (PASOK), Fotis Kouvelis (DIMAR), Alexa Papariga (KKE)
2013 - 2013: Panagiotis Pikrammenos (ND leading Caretaker Government)
2013 (July) (Appointed): Nikolaos Michaloliakos (XA), Alexis Tsipiras (SYRIZA), Antonis Samaras (ND), Evangelos Venizelos (PASOK), Dimitris Koutsoumpas (KKE)
2013 - 2013: Nikolaos Michaloliakos (XA)
2013 (August) (Majority): Alexis Tsipiras (SYRIZA), Antonis Samaras (ND), Evangelos Venizelos (PASOK), Dimitris Koutsoumpas (KKE)
2013 - 2013: Lucas Papademos (Independent leading Caretaker Government)
2013 - 2013: Georgios Epitidios (XA led Military Government)
2013 - 2016: Eleni Zaroulia (XA)
2016 - 2018: Ioannis Lagos (XA)
2018 - 2019: Ilias Kasidiaris (XA)
2019 - 2020: Eleftherios Synadinos (XA)
2020 - 2021: Georgios Epitidios (XA)
2021 - 2021: Konstantinos Barbarousis (XA)
2021 - 2021: Pavlos Fyssas (as Speaker of the Executive Council of the Autonomous Administration of Southern Greece)

Ultimately, the predicted 'Green Wave' of 2009 would crest before voting began in Greece. Perhaps it was the instability caused by America's War in Iran or the uncertainty in global markets after the bankruptcy of several American financial institutions that made voters trend back towards Greece's 'Big Two' political parties. Regardless, the Ecologist Greens were only able to hold down a handful of seats instead of the double-digit figures they once hoped for. However, Prime Minister-designate George Papandreou and his center-left PASOK were deprived of their predicted parliamentary majority by just two seats and - instead of facing the uncertain results of another election - opted to form a coalition government with the Greens.

Greece's nightmare began shortly after Papandreou's election. A budget crisis followed in short succession by a series of credit downgradings would lurch Greece towards fiscal chaos as the Papandreou government scrambled to react by quickly initiating rigid austerity measures. But these initial measures would not be enough, not even close. Eventually, Greece was forced to seek a bailout but this would only come on terms set by the EU and the IMF. More austerity was to come.

Riots and political revolt engulfed Greece as a third austerity package passes through parliament. Political tension would only continue to escalate and by the early spring of 2011 daily protests were taking place in major Greek cities. It was only a matter of time until the Papandreou government would fall. After passing a fourth austerity package in June, Papandreou's government could not survive a no-confidence vote and an election was called. Antonis Samaras' center-right New Democracy were able to form a government with the aid of the right-wing Popular Orthodox Rally. A number of minor parties were able to capitalize on anti-austerity sentiment to get into parliament in the election of August, 2011 - most notably the Golden Dawn Party, a political organization with clear links to neo-Nazi criminal groups.

Samaras' government struggled to deal with crises at home and abroad. A fifth austerity package was necessary to reach a second bailout agreement with the EU and IMF but its passing would cause Popular Orthodox Rally to drop support from the government and lead the country towards another election in March where this time New Democracy and PASOK were forced to form a unity government. Additionally, fallout from the Arab Spring made the Middle East a much more unstable place. The Governments of Libya, Egypt, and Tunisia fell - and it seemed that the governments of Syria and Iraq would not survive much longer. An unprecedented refugee crisis gripped the nations of southern Europe. Tens of thousands of refugees that originated from anywhere between Baluchistan and Algeria became trapped in Greece as the international community struggled to organize a response.

Golden Dawn's openly fascistic rhetoric increasingly resonated with the people of Greece. Greece's nominally right-wing government was - in the view of Golden Dawn - constantly caving to the interests of the EU and migrants instead of those of the Greek People. A seventh austerity package passed in November would once again bring down the government and this time Samaras was forced into an even more awkward coalition that barely obtained a majority. Golden Dawn was now the third largest party in the Hellenic Parliament.

In January, 2013 Qasem Solameini's Government of National Restoration re-took the Iranian capital of Tehran just weeks before new US President Barack Obama announced American withdrawal from the nation. In May, the Islamic State - one of many Sunni Syrian militias funded by the McCain State Department - took the Syrian capital of Damascus and were poised to take Baghdad in a matter of months. Although exaggerated by far-right propagandists, the humanitarian crisis stemming from Middle Eastern chaos was genuinely worsening for southern Europe.

DIMAR would withdraw from the Samaris' government in June, once again depriving him of a governing majority. Forced to go back to the polls, New Democracy finished in a humiliating third place - PASOK finished in fourth - and Golden Dawn were just a handful of seats away from attaining a majority. Greek President Karolos Papoulias appointed a caretaker government and the Greek political establishment scrambled in their final chance to halt the growth of Golden Dawn. They would fail.

Nikolaos Michaloliakos became Prime Minister with the slimmest possible majority in August, 2013. Within the span of a few weeks the new Golden Dawn government took measures to begin leaving the EU, deport as many migrants as they could, and crackdown hard on street protests. Amidst the chaotic first few months of his government, Michaloliakos was assassinated alongside two other Golden Dawn MPs on November 1st while visiting the part's headquarters in Athens. Immediately President Papoulias moved into try to appoint a caretaker government and call another snap election with the support of the other parties represented in parliament. But Golden Dawn and the people who propelled them into office would not stand for it. Michaloliakos' widow called for the party's supporters to take the streets and within a matter of days the party was able to seek out loyal elements of the military to aid them in seizing the Hellenic seat of power by force. After much bloodshed, a week-long constitutional crisis would end with Golden Dawn forcing their opponents to flee Athens.

There would be significant civil unrest but no civil war. Golden Dawn propagandists had a way turning the Michaloliakos assassination and the constitutional crisis that followed into a Reichstag Fire moment and were able to corral enough public sentiment to maintain control of the country. Prime Minister Ereni Zaroulia - the wife of the dead former Prime Minister - and her government were the first of several openly fascistic governments in Europe. Zaroulia's Golden Dawn administration does about what you'd expect for a fascist state. The EU is kicked out, corporatism dominates the new Greek economy, formal opposition is outlawed, protesters are routinely imprisoned, civil liberties are curtailed, and the barbarity of Nazism is let loose upon Greece's dissident, migrant, and immigrant populations. A lot of people die.

But eventually the crisis is over, though the average Greek is much poorer for it. Isolated from the greater world and forced to rely on fair-weather friends in Russia and their few likeminded allies in Hungary, Poland, and eventually Italy, Greece is forced to watch the rest of the world from the sidelines. Although Golden Dawn generally benefited politically from Israel's use of nuclear weapons to forestall the advance of the Islamic State, frequent headlines of naval ships sinking migrant boats cast a bleak haze over the normally stepford-smiling tv and radio stations.

A failed coup attempt kicks off a civil war in Turkey in 2016 and the resulting immigration crisis causes Golden Dawn to force Ereni Zaroulia into an early retirement and replace her with the party's biggest 'Turkey hawk' Ioannis Lagos. The Greek military intervention in Turkey would - despite its initial successes - turn into a complete disaster and would lead to Lagos' removal in 2018 and the subsequent withdrawal of Greek forces from Turkey. Ilias Kasidarias quickly takes control of the reigns of power and moves to bring Greece closer to Matteo Salvini's Italy but his eccentricities would earn him the ire of Golden Dawn's rank and file and he would be removed as the 'New Recession' hit the global market in 2019.

Eleftherios Synadinos would shakily hold down the seat of power as unrest brewed from the New Recession and the extreme poverty that many Greeks have been forced to live in became untenable. His assassination on October 28, 2020 during a parade in Athens would be the spark that kicks the Greek Revolution. Georgios Epitidios was tasked with leading the subsequent emergency government but within a matter of months it became clear that victory was impossible as major urban centers fell to leftist revolutionaries and a NATO military intervention took the north of the nation by storm. In early April, Epitidios, Zaroulia, and several other Golden Dawn higher ups would attempt to flee the country in a passenger plane only to get shot down by NATO forces. Konstantinos Barbarousis would be left behind as king of the ashes for little over a week before Athens' seizure by revolutionaries and his formal surrender to NATO.

Now, in the early days of May 2021 the situation in Greece is very different from what it once was. Pavlos Fyssas' Autonomous Administration of Southern Greece has served to unify the disparate factions of Greek revolutionaries but many wonder how he'll deal with the NATO-occupied portion of Northern Greece and whether or not unification is possible. Although President Sanders approves of Fyssas' Greek state acting in self determination - like the large similarly ideological Kurdish state that survived to clean up the rubble of much of the Middle East - many leaders in a much more jaded EU are reluctant to grant to much leeway to the Greeks out of fear of falling to leftist political revolts, electoral or otherwise.

 

[Doctor Sulemain]

Emperors of the Rhomans:

John I Tzimiskes, Reigned 969CE-981CE.

The 12 Year Reign of John I Tzimiskes saw the Rhoman Empire extend its territory further East and South then it had existed in centuries. A stretch of cities from Tripoli on the Levantine coast to Mosul in Mesopotamia were brought back into the Imperial fold, and a massive Slavic invasion of the Balkans defeated. Unable to take Jerusalem, John’s reign instead won the Empire the wealthy cities of the Levant, reconnecting at least in part the Empire to the great trade routes of the East. Dying at age 62 and heirless, he was succeeded by his 23-year-old nephew and Co-Emperor. His reign has traditionally marked the beginning of the “Makedonian-Kommenoi Golden Age”, as named by Edward Gibbon in his The History of the Decline and Fall and Resurrection of the Roman Empire.

Basil II Porphyrogenitus, Reigned 981CE-1025CE.

Reigning for 44 years, Basil II proved to be a remarkably successful Emperor. When John I died after the Battle of Mosul, his greatest moment of triumph, Basil successfully completed the rout of the fleeing Arab army, connecting John’s military legitimacy to his own personal legitimacy as Born in the Purple dynast. For the next nine years, Basil focused on domestic affairs. He reorganised the tax code, strengthening the economy. He invested heavily in the commercial infrastructure of Constantinople, reinforcing the city’s dominant trading position.

The Themes were formally reorganised as tax zones, and a new system of Katepanates and Ducates arose to replace them. The tagmata expanded, and eventually, an entirely professional standing army was reintroduced to the Rhoman world. Whilst the most elite regiments, and most of the cavalry, remained in the capital, permanent standing regiments stood guard at the borders of the Empire and garrisoned at strategic points throughout it. The new Imperial Army would be put to the test in 990CE, fighting the Bulgarian Empire under Samuel of Bulgaria. Whilst the exact causes of the war remain unknown as a result of the Great Fire of 1502, the war was a victory, in no small part thanks to the Varangian Guard and other Rus mercenaries resulting from the new marriage-based and Christianised alliance between Kievan Rus and the Rhomans. The result was the Western Balkans being brought back under Imperial control, and the remaining Bulgarian territory pushed north of the Evros river. By 998, the Emperor was a conquering hero. He was also a father and uncle.

He himself had a son and daughter, and a whole host of nephews and nieces aside. Basil took an unusually hands-on approach to raise his children, and both Leo and Anna received comprehensive educations. Leo became popular with the Army, whilst Anna achieved a reputation as a patron of the arts and culture, and the discovery of her personal diaries during construction work in the 1960s have made her a modern-day Sapphic icon. The period of 998 to 1015 marked a period of peace for the Empire, and Basil toured it from the Adriatic to Antioch in 1016-17, introducing his son and heir to the wider Empire. The next three years saw a gradual expansion of Rhoman rule into the rest of Armenia and the Caucuses, as Muslim rule declined, and Basil saw an opportunity for Imperial expansion and establishing a secure bastion in the eastern mountains. By 1021, Rhomania had extended its borders to the Caspian Sea. Baku was heavily settled by peoples from across the Empire and beyond, with even a small Hungarian community establishing itself there. For the next two years, Basil spent time in the East, becoming the first Emperor to bathe in the Caspian whilst a young Leo reigned in Constantinople. In 1023 Basil returned home, and Leo went East. In mid-1025 he received word that his father was gravely ill, and rushed home. He reached the capitol in time to say goodbye. On 15 November 1025 Basil II Porphyrogenitus, perhaps the greatest Rhoman Emperor since Constantine, passed away.

Leo VII Illyricanus, Reigned 1025CE-1050CE.

Leo VII would spend his reign trying to live up to the reputation of his illustrious father. He failed, but that is a mark of the achievements of his father not any particular commentary on his achievements, which were plentiful. Combined with the reign of his father and John I Tzimiskes before him, the Empire by the time of Leo’s death had managed the impressive feat of going 81 years without any major revolt or rebellion, although minor revolts and riots did occur depending on local conditions. But Rhoman armies did not destroy each other, nor did its citizens despoil their cities or murder each other. Internationally, the situation was rather different.

The rump Bulgarian state was once again pushing south, and for all its military might the Empire was hard placed to control the mountainous western Balkans, the former heartland of the Slavic realm. More concerned with securing Imperial territory in Southern Italy and in the Caucasus, along with preparing an invasion of Muslim held Sicily, it was only in 1030 that Leo was convinced by his advisors to march the capital tagmata west to support the frontier Katepanates and regional Ducates. He left behind two sons and two daughters, Basil and John, Ann and Irene. The next ten years were a slow slog as each mountain pass and isolated village corralled and controlled. It was not a cruel war by Medieval standards, but it was a relentless one. By 1035 the Empire was on the Danube, but Leo had to spend another five years reducing the Kingdom of Croatia, which had rebelled against the tributary status which his father had imposed upon it. As with the rump of Bulgaria, the independent Croat state was abolished and its lands reorganised into the standard imperial framework. Still, the local nobility was treated well, and the reorganisation was done with some degree of care for local sensibilities. The Rhoman Empire had expanded once again, but across the Adriatic, the cities of Italy watched with growing alarm. So did the Emperor in Germany and the Pope in Rome, although those issues would be ones for Leo’s successor to deal with.

His successor would not be his eldest son. Basil, named for his illustrious grandfather, grew to be a capable leader and general. Some compared him to Nikephoros II Phokas in his military capability and his zeal. Basil spoke often combining all the powers of Christendom against the Muslim world, naturally under Rhoman leadership. In 1048 aged 23, he led a combined force of Rhoman troops, Norman freebooters and Italian allies in an invasion of Scilly. Supported by the merchant republics of Italy, the combined force captured the entire island in a matter of months. But Basil did not live to see the victory, slain leading his men in the storm of Syracuse. With his death, command of the army fell into the lap of the Norman Robert Guiscard, a cunning warrior and general. Whilst still nominally under Rhoman control, Robert claimed for himself the ancient title of Hegemon and took Sicily for his own personal dominion. He would be the first of the Norman “Sea Lords”, but he would not be the last.

More immediately, the death of his eldest son threw the succession into disarray. His youngest son was considered incapable, although the particulars are lost to history. No women had ever ruled Rhomans in her own right before, and whilst he had an array of nephews, they too were either unwilling or other indisposed to the throne. In the end, Leo turned to his son in law, the husband of his eldest daughter Anna. Isaac Kommenos was a brilliant and popular general, although his generally acknowledged slackness regarding religious matters was unpopular amongst certain conservative elements in the capital. The next two years were spent introducing Isaac to the rest of the Empire beyond his power base in the eastern mountains and deserts, and when the Emperor’s cancer manifested itself in late 1049, Isaac and his wife were by the Emperor when he passed away. He was not his father. But he had never needed to be.

Isaac I Komnenos, Reigned 1050CE-1080CE

Isaac was a Macedonian by relation, not blood. The Rhomans did not then and did not now count direct blood ties as the most important qualification for Imperial rule. But a connection to the previous dynasty helped, particularly in those less democratic days. The news of the Emperor's death spread rapidly, along with the rise of the new monarch. The Emperor was dead. Long live the Emperor! Yet all was not well.

Rhoman expansion meant that the Empire was no longer homogenous, threatened the Greek-speaking Orthodox worshipping state of the previous century. Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians remained its majority, but the Empire now included Apostolic Armenians and Arabic Muslims, not to mention Slavs of all kinds and variants of Christianity. Speaking Armenian, Arabic and Turkish from his years campaigning in the mountains, Isaac had a different vision of Rhomania, one defined by the possibilities of the new order rather than fear. But to the conservative establishment of the capital, their position and worldview was under an unforeseen ideological challenge. Over the 1050s, this opposition coalesced around John of Corfu, a grandson of Basil II and nephew of Leo. John of Corfu was a decent naval officer, but more importantly, he was a monoglot Greek speaker and steadfast upholder of Orthodoxy. The almost century-long streak of avoiding civil war was about to end.

The rebellion finally broke out in 1055, whilst Isaac was fighting Vlach raiders on the Danube. John had spent years building contexts in the West, with Robert in Sicily and the Pope in Rome. Whist no formal split had occurred between Rome and Constantinople, there had been slowly growing gaps between the Greek Rhoman Church and the Italian Roman one. John had promised to repair those gaps when he sat on the throne of Constantinople. And so, a hostile army sailed across the Adriatic. Whilst Isaac still had the capital regiments by his side, the elite core of the Rhoman Army, he was forced to raise levies and mercenaries to assist the Imperial Army in fighting the invaders-these auxiliaries even including the recently subdued Vlachs. The war was over different ideologies but was entirely rooted in the military history of the Rhomans. For two years hence, fighting ravaged the coasts and seas of western Greece, before Berber pirates forced a Giscard to withdraw to defend his territory. John and his family spent the rest of his days in exile in Rome, as Rhomania itself moved to pass them.

The next 23 years were spent mostly at peace, beyond the standard fighting on the borders which the Rhoman Empire has always had to deal with. The Turks continued to try to push through into the Anatolian plateau but remained checked in the mountains. Isaac, despite the recent western invasion, recruited Italian & Norman engineers to build mighty stone fortresses in the mountains, some of which still stand to this day. A similar process was repeated along the Danube, and Norman derived town names still exist in modern Bulgaria and Vlachia. In a rare surviving direct quote, he publicly stated that “ours is a republic of many peoples, united by our shared struggle and obedience to the will of heaven”. But it was the will of heaven that Isaac would have no sons. He loved his wife and had five daughters with her. But no sons. Fortunately, he had nephews, one of whom would go on to succeed him. Alexios Kommenos started off as a cavalry officer and gained renown as one of the finest horsemen in the Empire. It was under his auspicious that the Empire gained it’s first Western style shock cavalry, charged with shield and couched lance. The Latinikáchántra, or Latin Lancers, would be a mainstay of Rhoman cavalry through the next century. Little is discussed of Alexios’s time as heir, although he generally regarded as capable at his role, and popular amongst the people who mattered. He ascended to the throne in 1080CE, ruling an Empire larger and more prosperous then it had been in centuries. He would spend his life fighting to maintain it.

Alexios I Komnenos, Reigned 1080CE-1120CE

Alexios was on campaign for pretty much every year of his reign from 1085 onwards, the constant war marking the end of the Golden Age. The rise of the Fatmid Caliphate, the establishment of more Norman Sea Lords in the Levant, growing Venetian naval power and Armenian discontent meant that he was constantly on the move, constantly fighting. Whilst the Empire would endure, and the heartland of Greece and Anatolia would remain as they do its core territories to this day, Alexios was the last Emperor to rule from Croatia to the Caspian, from Ragusa to Mosul. His son John and grandson Manuel would strive mightily to maintain the Empire, as would their children, but the independence of Croatia, then Serbia, Bulgaria and the unification of an independent Armenia would over the course of the 12th Century reduce the size of the Empire. It would remain extant, as it does today. The fact that the Rhoman Empire still endures as the oldest continuous state in the world is in no small part thanks to the legacy of the Macedonian-Kommenoi Golden Age.

 

[Aznavour]

Pax Alexandrina
​

Rulers of Rome and Egypt under the Antonine-Ptolomean Dynasty

Mark Anthony (34 BCE -15 BCE)

with Cleopatra VII as Queen of Egypt

Nominally under Caesarion, as King of Kings (34 BCE - 20 BCE)

Iullus Antonius (15 BCE - 22 CE)

with Cleopatra Selene II as Queen of Egypt

Alexander Helios (22-26 CE)

Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (26-41), popularly known as Gnaeus Antonius

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (41-59), also known as Lucius Antonius and Ptolemy XVII Antonius

Fabius Valens (59-65) with Arsinoe VI as Queen of Egypt

Ptolemy XVIII and Arsinoe VI(65 - 71) in the East, General Gnaeus Julius Agricola in the West

Year of the Three Emperors (71 to 73) Titus Aufidius in Alexandria, Lucius Aurelius im Nicomedia, and Gnaeus Julius Agricola in Rome.





“It is by no means a matter of small importance, that of signaling with a proper date the demise of the Roman Republic, of searching for a proper grave in front of which to mourn and grieve for the last of the Romans, be them called Cato or Cicero, Pompey or Octavian.

The proclamation of Caesar’s dictatorship, the death of Pompey, the Donations of Alexandria or the Battle of Actium, perhaps the proper gravestone matters less, in the end, that the will, then heralded as divine, of Anthony and Cleopatra, and the irresistible pull of the living forces of history. It was the Eastern Mediterranean which saw the birth of Memphis, Troy, Athens, Phoenicia, Jerusalem and Alexandria, the greatest of all, and Anthony’s Will, that great betrayal denounced by Octavian Caesar and Virgil, was perhaps but an inevitable conclusion in the eternal conflict between East and West. Rome, of the martial and civic virtue, older or not, could not stand before Alexandria, nor could the resistance of Octavian at Actium or the martyrdom of Agrippa in Hispania reverse the course of history.

For a hundred years, the Antonine-Ptolonean Dynasty ruled a unified Mediterranean and a largely unified East. If Anthony’s wars could not completely subdue Parthia, the subjugation of Armenia, Nabatea and Media Atropatene, allowed for a the Roman-Egyptian Empire an hegemony over the East and a proper settlement of the terms of the Donations of Alexandria.

If the issues of succession often troubled the Alexandrian Throne upon an uncrowned Mark Anthony sat, as the deaths of Marcus Antonius Antyllus fighting Agrippa in Spain and Caesarion fighting Parthia robbed the Empire of able heirs, and the intrigues of the diminished Roman Senate perturbed the Pax Alexandrina, they did not threaten its foundations, nor the prosperity of the Empire.

The arts, philosophy and trade flourished under the reign of Iullus Antonius, who unlike his father took the title of King of Kings alongside the Consulship, and Alexander Helios, the son of Cleopatra and King of Armenia and Media-Atropatene. But the great court which would foster the likes of Seneca, Chaeremon, Claudius Ptolemy, Plutarch and Sabinus was not free of intrigue and power struggles, and the clash between Egyptian courtiers, Roman officers gone native and Generals who refused to do so even as they made Alexandria their seat. Of the latter, the most prominent was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, husband to Antonia Major and father to Domitius, whom Suetonius described as "arrogant, cruel, notorious and extravagant”, and dominated the Alexandrian Court from the Death of Anthony to his own in the year 23, which far from freeing the Empire from his yoke, was merely a pause before the complete slide of Alexandria into the hands of the Domitii Ahenobarbi and their associated strategoi.”

 

[TheHatMan98]

“A land of marmalade and spam” The turbulent and triumphant first 50 years of the British Commonwealth

Chairman of the House of Worker’s Deputies and President of the Cabinet

1919-1923: John Maclean* (Revolutionary Committee of the TUC)
1919 (Elected unanimously) def. No opposition
1921 Vote: 79% Approval, 20% Dissent, 1% Abstention

1923-1924: Ramsay MacDonald (Fabian)
1923 (Minority) def. Ramsay MacDonald (Fabian), Albert Inkpin (Communist), J.R. Clynes/James Maxton (United Labour), Tom Mann (Syndicalist), Niclas y Glais (Home Nations), Emmeline Pankhurst (Suffragettes), David Lloyd George (Radicals), Henry Page Croft (National)
1924 Vote: 35% Approval, 45% Dissent, 20% Abstention

1924-1935: J.R. Clynes (United Labour)
1924 (Coalition) def. J.R. Clynes/James Maxton (United Labour), Tom Mann (Syndicalist), Albert Inkpin (Communist), Ramsay MacDonald (Fabian), David Lloyd George (Radicals), Emmeline Pankhurst (Suffragettes), Henry Page Croft (National), Niclas y Glais (Home Nations)
1926 Vote: 77% Approval, 20% Dissent, 3% Abstention
1928 Vote: 80% Approval, 10% Dissent, 10% Abstention
1930 (Coalition) def. Tom Mann (Syndicalist), J.R. Clynes/James Maxton (United Labour), Arthur Cook (Vanguard), Sidney Webb (Fabian), William Gallacher (Communist – Trotskyist), David Lloyd George (Radicals), Emmeline Pankhurst (Suffragettes), Rajani Palme Dutt (Communist – Stalinist), Niclas y Glais (Home Nations)
1932 Vote: 65% Approval, 30% Dissent, 5% Abstention
1934 Vote: 52% Approval, 37% Dissent, 11% Abstention

1935-1940: Oswald Mosely (Vanguard, leading Popular Front)
1935 (Coalition) def. Oswald Mosely (Vanguard), Tom Mann (Syndicalist), J.R. Clynes (United Labour), William Wedgewood Benn (Radical), Sylvia Pankhurst (Suffragettes), Rajani Palme Dutt (Communist – Stalinist), Sidney Webb (Fabian), James Maxton (Independent Labour), William Gallacher (Communist – Trotskyist), Niclas y Glais (Home Nations)
1937 Vote: 80% Approval, 20% Dissent
1939 Vote: 53% Approval, 40% Dissent, 7% Abstention

1940-1948: Eric Blair (Vangaurd, leading Popular Front)
1940 (Wartime Coalition) def. Ernest Bevin (Syndicalist), Clem Attlee (United Labour), Eric Blair (Anti-Mosely Vangaurd), Richard Acland (Radical), William Gallacher (Communist – Trotskyist), G.D.H. Cole (Fabian), Oswald Mosley (Pro-Mosely Vanguard), James Maxton (Independent Labour), Rajani Palme Dutt (Communist – Stalinist)
1940 (Further Votes suspended in Wartime) Vote: 91% Approval, 9% Dissent
1945 (Coalition) def. Eric Blair/Ernest Bevin (Syndicalist Vanguard), Clem Attlee (United Labour), G.D.H. Cole/Richard Acland (Fabian-Radicals), Rajani Palme Dutt (Communist – Stalinist), C.L.R. James (Communist – Trotskyist), Oswald Mosely/James Maxton (Action)
1947 Vote: 88% Approval, 7% Dissent, 5% Abstention

1948-1959: G.D.H. Cole* (Fabian, leading Popular Front)
1948 (Coalition) def. Ernest Bevin (SynVan), Clem Attlee (Popular Labour), G.D.H. Cole/Richard Acland (Fabian-Radical), William Gallacher (Communist – Trotskyist), Rajani Palme Dutt (Communist – Stalinist), Oswald Mosely (Action)
1950 Vote: 79% Approval, 6% Dissent, 15% Abstention
1953 (Coalition) def. Clem Attlee (Popular Labour), Jack Jones (SynVan), Christopher Hill (Communist), G.D.H. Cole/Richard Acland (Fabian-Radical), Hugh MacDiarmid (Home Nations), Oswald Mosely (Action)
1955 Vote: 71% Approval, 20% Dissent, 9% Abstention
1957 Vote: 60% Approval, 36% Dissent, 4% Abstention
1958 (Coalition) def. Harold Macmillan (Popular Labour), Jack Jones (SynVan), Christopher Hill (Communist), G.D.H Cole/Richard Acland (Fabian-Radical), Hugh MacDiarmid (Home Nations), Oswald Mosely (Action)

1959-1963: Harold Macmillan (Popular Labour, leading Popular Front)
1959 (Coalition) def. Harold Macmillan (Popular Labour), Christopher Hill (Communist), Jack Jones (SynVan), Anthony Crosland (Fabian-Radical), Hugh MacDiarmid (Home Nations)
1961 Vote: 53% Approval, 22% Dissent, 25% Abstention
1963 Vote: 40% Approval, 23% Dissent, 37% Abstention

1963-1964: Bob Boothby (Civilian Head of Military Administration, Temporary)

1964-19??: Jennie Lee (New Left)
1964 (Coalition) def. Jennie Lee (New Labour), C.L.R. James (New International), Anthony Crosland (Fabian), Kieth Joseph (Social Democracy), E.P. Thompson (Communist – Revisionist), Mona Douglas (Home Nations), John Cairncross (Communist – Absolutist)
1966 Vote: 65% Approval, 35% Dissent
1968 Vote: 68% Approval, 30% Dissent, 2% Abstention
1969 (Coalition) def. Jennie Lee (New Labour), C.L.R. James (New International), Keith Joseph (Social Democracy), Enoch Powell (One Nation Socialists), Anthony Crosland (Fabian), E.P. Thompson (Communist – Revisionist), Mona Douglas (Home Nations), John Cairncross (Communist – Absolutist)

General Secretary of the Commonwealth of Great Britain

1919-1925: Office not yet established

1925-1930: Walter Citrine (Independent)

1930-1935: H.G. Wells (United Labour)

1935-1941: David Lloyd George (Radical, Popular Front)

1942-1945: Unoccupied (Responsibilities handed to the Chairman)

1945-1950: Harold Laski (United Labour, Popular Front)

1950-1963: Clement Attlee (Popular Labour, Popular Front)

1963-1965: William Slim (Military Administration)

1965-1970: Tony Benn (New International)

No one could have believed, when a Serb nationalist shot the heir to the Hapsburg throne, that his actions would be the catalyst of change in the world that made it unrecognisable within five bloody, torturous years. World War One was devastating, and the grave of five European Empires.

On the surface, Britain appeared not to have suffered as much as the others (it was not subject to starving blockade, like Germany; enemy shells didn’t reduce London to rubble, as happened to Istanbul; and the brutal repression by incompetent imperial authority did not lead to butchery off and on the battlefield, like Austria and Russia). While British soldiers marched to victory at Gallipoli, Amiens and Salonika, the working class suffered greatly as a result; this, twinned with a new self-awareness within the labour movement that the country couldn’t be run without them, meant that Britain was destined a showdown with its doggedly Anti-Socialist, bourgeois government.

The final straw came when returning soldiers were told they would not return to peace, but instead sent to Ireland or Russia to help destroy what many were thinking of as the new hope for Socialism and Peace. Revolution in and outside Britain resulted: riots, strikes and street battles between Pro and Anti-Government consumed Glasgow, then Tyneside, South Wales, Leeds and finally London, before on May Day 1919 members the TUC and leading figures of the Left declared the Commonwealth of Great Britain in Birmingham. While the Windsor Government fled to Canada, John Maclean would rise to the leadership of the new Republic and try to impose government on the anarchic situation.

Early Commonwealth was a difficult nation, forged out of war, under threat from Loyalist elements that did not bow to the new government. Intellectuals of the Fabian society were dominant at this time, though well-meaning and talented with socialist theory, they were out of their depths trying to impose order on the new nation: it would be years before the Commonwealth’s founding documents like the People’s Charter or H.G. Wells’ Rights of British Workers could be said to apply to all the Home Nations.

Eventually, stability would return as J.R. Clynes managed to form the first coalition to govern the Commonwealth quietly for the next 11 years. Clynes, with Tom Mann and James Maxton, would establish the Commonwealth as a more humane face of socialism more benevolent than both the Soviet Union and the British Empire that preceded it. New bridges were built with the Turkish and Weimar Republics, while old ones would be mended with the French and USA which insulated Britain from reprisal by revanchist Canada.

However, the onset of the 1930s quickly began to rock the boat again.

The Wall Street Crash brought the post-war capitalist states to their knees. While Britain went largely unaffected, globally few seemed interested in its alternative compared to Fascism or Bolshevism. Fascism had roots in the British Counter-Revolutionary movements of the early and mid-20s, though when it presented an international threat to peace it was largely exported from Britain, making Clynes’ government were inclined to ignore it.

Unfortunately, the rise of Vanguard would put pay to those hopes.

Vanguard: a loosely associated faction that began in the late 20s, under the leadership of Oswald Mosely would campaign for a mix of Revolutionary exportation, anti-fascism, re-armament, British nationalism, Pankhurst Feminism and Trotsky-ish Opposition. By 1935, Vanguard was the largest opposition to Clynes, successfully supplanting Labour as the largest faction, leading to the formation of the Popular Front, combing other opposition factions in the House.

Despite the Front’s purpose as a global opposition to fascism, it suffered from a fatal flaw: Mosely’s misdiagnosis of Hitler. To the new Chairman, National Socialism was a troubled but well-meaning ideology like Vanguard, anti-Bolshevik, anti-Capitalist and anti-Imperialist, rather than an extension of fascism at its worst and war hungry. Continuously, Mosely thought he was playing off Hitler against his other opponents – Mussolini in Spain, East Africa and Austria; Flandin in Southern Europe and the Levant; and Stalin everywhere – in reality, he was validating Hitler, making enemies of allies, all for little which Hitler did not care about, least of all friendship of ‘British pseudo-Bolshevism’.

When the monster reviled his face in 1939, announcing friendship with Mussolini, Edward VIII, and Stalin by invading Poland in concert, Mosely was left high and dry. As France began a meltdown into Civil War Europe looked ready to fall to Totalitarianism. Movement of token British forces to guarantee Scandinavia and the Low Countries were too little too late. No sooner was war declared than the House rose against Mosely to face the consequences of his actions.

Leadership of Britain fell to The Red Lion: Eric Blair, the best of Vanguard. Briefly, Blair was leader of Vanguard’s internal opposition, leading a rebellion by their Deputies at the 1939 Deputies’ Conference that came close to bringing down the Popular Front. He was the natural choice to lead the Commonwealth in its Darkest Hour. The Battle for France was brief, and Blair soon welcomed French Exiles, but Britain’s small, unorthodox army managed to halt the grind of the Wehrmacht in the Pyrenees and the Norwegian fjords, while the Republic’s Airforce and Navy attritted the Germans wherever they could.

After six gruelling years, a devil’s pact with Comrade Stalin and President Roosevelt, the Reich fell. The Commonwealth went through fire, and survived, the work of Maclean, Clynes and Blair succeeding where Churchill, Asquith and the Windsors had failed. Though not to say that the country was not the same as it had been going in. A quieter Revolution had gone on underneath the fires of war, and the British were as motivated to carve a decent place in the world as they had been going in to the Peace as they had to War – not wanting another Clynes-esque era of stagnation to compromise the fruits of victory.

Without a war, the Popular Front continued, despite expectations its time had come to the end. The main reason for this came when the respected Fabian G.D.H. Cole rose to the Chairmanship against the odds. Under Cole, the Commonwealth changed dramatically, as power had been centralised in the Office of Chairman in the War, the new government began changing Britain to its leader’s vision of socialism: the economy was liberalised from the state and TUC, handed over to the co-operatives and guilds associated with local government. Despite this new liberation of Britain’s economy, socially the country remained as conservative minded as ever, with the values on sexuality, gender, and ‘Christian’ (at least, as much as it could be in the absence of the legal head of the Anglican Church and separation of religion and the state). Lack of development of the Commonwealth socially from its Pre-Revolution state has since become a sore point the immediate post-war era, though would not manifest until after Cole’s death.

With the onset of the Sixties, the patience with the Popular Front was running out with many questioning by now whether or not the Commonwealth could claim to be truly Democratic and representative with an immortal coalition consistently holding on to power. Though much of the blame has since fallen on Chairman Macmillan, events that led to this and the unstable position of the Commonwealth were beyond his control – industrial production under threat from Europe, the scandals around Harold Wilson and the Cambridge Five, and crises apart of the Cold War in South Asia and Africa. All this contribute to the mass sense of apathy that grip the country, infecting even many Worker’s Deputies with turnout in the House often barely scraping 50%.

The situation finally came to ahead at the ’63 Deputies’ Conference caused a constitutional crisis were the Abstention vote almost outnumbered the Approval vote. Government would be paralysed for weeks, with the Chiefs of Staffs ultimately stepping in with the Civil Service to take control while the courts and House debated what to do next. In reality, the situation could not have come at a worse time as the nuclear clock came its closest to midnight, as America, China and the Soviets clashed over Taiwan, the Exiled British Empire took its chance to flex its muscles why the Commonwealth was in crisis. For seven days, the island of Jamaica became the centre of the world as two nuclear armed fleets stared each other down. The Interim government was proud due to its military nature, but vastly out of its depths given the situation. Only when the USA threatened both sides with intervention did they back down, and the world breathed a sigh.

In the Commonwealth, the People were galvanized and the political landscape changed utterly as the old factions of the House convulsed and even outright collapsed. When the new elections were called in 1964, a new order inherited the Commonwealth – the Popular Front was long gone: a new Labour faction was empowered, determined to put the social element back into socialism. Jennie Lee’s government was determined for the government to be transparent with the people, actually documenting and publishing its agreements with its coalition partners. The Britain of the 60s then fell in zeitgeist that swept the West and East, though in Britain it was uniquely encouraged from the top.

When the Commonwealth celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, it was left as one of the most stable powers on the global stage, climbing out of its infancy to a mature, powerful nation – stable and capable of projecting its image and will beyond its islands, out of the shadow of the Wars and Revolution that had defined it till that point.