Open Letter to the Royal Duana on Foreign Policy (1916)

[Esterlen 4461]

 

 

 

 

OPEN LETTER TO THE ROYAL DUANA

On Foreign Policy

 

Luis Francesc Jacint-Almeida i Martin 

Royal Balianese Academy

14 Tobias' Bounty

1916 IC | 49 BA

 

VIVA AL REGNE!

 

To the esteemed dones and donas of the Royal Duana,

 

God save the King and blessings upon your houses.

 

By way of introduction, I am Luis Francesc Jacint-Almeida i Martin, known more commonly simply as Almeida, and I am a senior academic at the Royal Balianese Academy. My father was an Imperial settler, but I was born in Atrus, and raised as part of the first generation of new Balianese. The corpus of my work relates mostly to anthropology, culture, history and economics, and that being so, I am loath to venture into the realm of politics. However, so great are the concerns of many at the Academy that I felt it necessary to voice them on my colleagues’ behalf, in the setting of this published open letter. 

 

I am writing to you today with respect to the crisis unfolding in the Heartlands. The parties involved in this civil unrest I shall not name in the first part of this letter, because their identities are irrelevant to my fundamental concerns. As you know, while Atrus and the Terra del Sur have thrived under the rule of the Balianese, the Heartlands have contemporaneously evolved increasingly towards dystopia since at least the time of Fratricida. To quote my esteemed colleague, Guillermo Ruttledge, ‘it is said the sun is blotted out by the towers of keeps and manors’. Urbanization has culminated in a greatly depressed quality of life for the average Heartlander, who now leads an existence that can only be described as nasty, brutal and short. Having lived there as an expatriate for several years in the service of Constanz-Anton, I know this both personally as well as theoretically. As Balianese, these lands may comprise our ancestral origin, but they are not our home now, and have not been for some time. 

 

"Al Bicolore"

(The Bicolor, representing fe, stat i prosperitat.)

 

Therefore, it has concerned myself and several of my colleagues at the Academy to hear rumors that the Royal Duana is contemplating a military intervention in the Heartlands on behalf of the so-called ‘King’ of the Aunishmen. If this is true, it is, put simply, a streak of foreign policy madness, and is one we are desperate to warn you against for a number of reasons. Tin-pot dictators and petty tyrants have risen and fallen in the Heartlands, many of whom last less than a decade before they are expunged by their own miserable people. Meanwhile, we have enjoyed untold stability and peace in our slice of the world. Hence, I must ask you these questions:

 

What cause could we possibly have to sacrifice the lives of Balianese soldiers so that these glorified ‘chieftains’ may rule an extra five years, before their inevitable deposition? 

 

What cause, beneficial to our foreign policy, do we achieve by such an action? What do we gain except the eternal acrimony of the insurgents?

 

In what scenario do we benefit more? That where we send our boys to die in a land we were forcibly exiled from, in order to nebulously ‘keep the peace’ there? Or where we continue to build our own country towards prosperity, among fellow Lotharistas? 

 

Of course, that is the purely utilitarian argument. An ideological position can just as easily be asserted: that of the reprehensible character of the self-declared ‘King’ of the Aunishmen, and that of his well-documented antipathy towards the Balianese people and ruling dynasty.

 

This imperiled ‘monarch’, if one can call him that, commenced his reign by breaking a treaty co-signed by the late king of Balian, His Majesty John the First. After being elected as president of the Harvest Confederation, a union bound together by constitutional documents affirmed by all the monarchs of Canondom, he immediately and unilaterally declared himself ‘king’ of a polity hitherto only referenced in Holy Scrolls, and proclaimed no treaty bound him. Those who opposed this brazen violation of law were henceforth deported. He was saved from his own people only by the malaise of contemporary Haeseni foreign policy.

 

Thus, he proclaimed himself restored to a throne his last ancestor held centuries ago. In the intermittent time, his family had been reduced to the status of woodland-dwelling bandits out in the Cragenmarch, admixing with all manner of highwaymen and criminals. Having spent his formative years raised on tales of Johannian greatness and Novellen perfidy, in between bites of hardtack and roasted rat, this glorified desperado developed a hatred for all Balian represents. For decades, his goal was the extermination of the royal dynasty that rules our country, and still this is evident in his rhetoric. After a storied career as a terrorist living in a cave, he managed to connive his way into a throne through pure circumstance, and now expects the faithfulness which he refused to give any other ruler. 

 

As Balianese, we appreciate merit, diligence and loyalty. I was initially uneasy when I heard that the Royal Duana’s foreign policy was realigning to treating such a person with kid gloves, but I contented myself with the fact that at least the Aunishman’s rhetoric against Balian would subside. As it happens, old habits die hard. Despite the signing of multiple treaties with the Royal Duana, the new Fratricida of Aaun has done nothing to moderate his own anti-Balianism. Every third sentence he utters, he proposes the eradication of all Novellen ‘usurpers’, condemns the ‘tyranny’ of our predecessor realm, the Petrine Empire, and lauds himself as the glorious liberator of humanity. Even today, in the context of a full-scale revolt against him, he smears his opponents as ‘Imperials’, ‘Petrines’ and ‘Novellens’ as if these labels constitute the worst a person can be. 

 

His contempt for our country, and our heritage, has not reduced despite the favorable treatment the Royal Duana has offered him. Given that he was a key part of the initial Harvest Confederation incursion against Atrus that led to the response of the Canonist princes, this should come as no surprise. Never has he shown any contrition. He has managed to evade all justice for that offense, purely through chance, so why now should we risk Balianese lives to help him continue in his ways?

 

(A depiction of the Harvest Confederation’s attack on the Baron of Castelorena’s wedding in 1891.) 

 

But perhaps most significantly, there is no reason to suggest that this dithering chieftain is in any way competent. Having inherited - through connivance - the territory developed by his predecessors, his only resource has been to strip off these land assets and grant them to more capable men. His rhetoric, condemning the Petrine Empire for its predominantly successful policies and instead espousing the absolute rights of vassals, has backed him into a corner where he simply cannot be recognized as a ruler at all. There is no concept of what it is to be an Aunishman. There are Adrians and Minitzers and Viennese (though only a handful), but not a single Aunishman. It is a national fiction bastardized from centuries old religious texts, and over the course of his powerless ‘reign’, this ruler has done nothing to develop such a thing.  

 

Conservative estimates indicate that only 2-3% of Aunish commercial activity takes place in a territory the ‘king’ has any control or influence over. The remaining 97-98% is instead facilitated by his vassals, the bulk of which is under the control of the insurgents who have so far only defeated him in battle. What kind of sovereign is so jeopardized that he controls only his palace at Vienne? It is true that Adrian commerce has flourished, but the King of the Aunishmen has never encouraged it with a single coin. 

 

We Balianese should bear no will against this Sarkozic rebel, for he has simply capitalized on the system - or lack thereof - maintained by his erstwhile master. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, this sovereign has doggedly clung to these ideologies out of sheer, acrimonious spite for us Balianese and our Petrine ancestors. Now, his realm is imperiled because of this intransigence. It is not our role, given all the factors I have enumerated, to help him out of this mess of his own creation. 

 

His Majesty, the late John I, understood the truth of the Aunishman’s dilemma. I pray that you esteemed dones and donas of the Royal Duana may advise his heir of his father’s own wisdom.

 

Vale,

Almeida

 

“Resistiré!”

(I will endure!)

 

A Balianese folk song, derived from one of the ancient proclamations of Peter III, Holy Orenian Emperor. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by Esterlen

[argonian 12836]

"It's unclear what the author means when he suggests that Haeseni foreign policy saved Aaun from Acre, or how he can simultaneously imply that Aaun's 'towers block out the sun' while also being some kind of rural, barbaric nation, but the common thread among these deluded claims is a total detachment from reality, likely caused by the trauma of Peter IV's disposal.

 

Perhaps if he'd taken a moment to consider that the King of Aaun had served Balian for years during and after the civil war, he would have found himself less hopelessly and cluelessly bitter.

 

Although, even then, all would be forgiven if not for his singularly incredible inability to spell a word of his own design: Aaunishmen."

 

Helsuren remarks, astounded by the sheer ignorance of George Kovachev's reincarnation.

[GoodGuyMatt 7060]

"It's so over..." said one hooded Ludrik Katzak, reading the paper and seeing its devastating effects on his Kingdom,