The Davostag Revolution (Skrigere: Dovgerske; Befäska: Dovgerska Revolutionen), or Davostagian Revolution, commonly referred to as the Union Revolution, the Davostani-Kivonian Revolution, or the Unionist Revolution, and known at the time as the Davostani Revolution, but officially known in Davostagian historiography as the Great Davostagian Revolution, was a period of social and political upheaval in Davostag beginning in 4792 and is considered to have ended in 4796 with the foundation of the Union of Davostan and Kivonia. The Revolution overthrew the Lundell Government; established a revolutionary order; catalyzed violent periods under the Nybergian regime of Robertson; which led to a military-supported dictatorship under Cederstam.
Cause[]
Anti-Lundell protesters in October 4792
The results of the election for the National Convention which took place on the 18th September 4792, were according to the Provisional Election Committee hard to count, as every recount apparently gave radically different results. A close ally to President of the National Convention Georg Lundell and member of the legislature proposed to continue the current term which held the Non-partisans with 378 seats and the two other parties, the Fladborgian Club and the Nybergian Club holding 165 seats and 157 seats respectively. This would mean that the non-partisans would continue in power for 2 more years. The two political clubs were of course outraged over this and demanded that a proper recount to be made or that a new election be called. One month after the National Convention election and no results being made public, a anonymous leak was made from the Office of the Provisional Election Committee, this leak claimed that Georg Lundell had his chief of staff Anders Manstrøm meet with the Chairman of the Provisional Election Committee Henrik Lagerblad to discuss "something important", this "important something" apparently were a "controlling" of the votes and making sure that the "correct results" had been made. The plan seeming to be to change the election results slightly to make the non-partisans remain in power, however, it appeared as if the non-partisan lost so radically that it could not be changed slightly. A change of plan was made to delay the results, for what reason is unknown.
The opposition parties attacked hard against this leak on Lundell calling for him to resign and inciting for the people of Davostan to protest and if necessary to revolt violently against Lundell, his government and the non-partisans. The Nybergian Club went further than their moderate counterparts and calling for a revolution to overthrow what they called "the Lundell tyranny". This recognition by one of the parties in the national legislature had made protesters more violent every day. With yesterday a police building being stormed in the city of Stormfall, this resulted in the protesters getting their hands on lethal weapons, such as handguns, and different kinds of rifles, most of them being automatic. On top of all this, another leak came from the Office of the President of the National Convention, claiming that Lundell had frequently spoken to his advisors and close confidants about a "Kingship", the doubt of not really knowing what it meant disappeared when the leak was reinforced by the fact that Lundell had asked his most senior advisor Pernilla Andersen to make a unpublished poll about what the people thought of "monarchism". The Nybergian and Fladborgian Clubs immediately mocked the President as "King Lundell", with protesters now shouting "down with the King!" and with critical analysts calling him the "Provisional Monarch".
One rumor went that the Leitz Squadron, the organization which has been called "a state within a state", purposely led the protesters to the police building. Another rumor goes that Lundell had asked Director-LS of the organization of help to deal with the protesters, but that the Director-LS simply said that the LS was "in the service of the people, not against them", which has somewhat reinforced the theory that they are actively involved in the instigation of the to-be revolution. The Minister of Defence and national hero Isabella Cederstam verbal fought with President Lundell to try to make him give in to the people's demands, when Lundell refused she resigned as Minister of Defence. Cederstam started to actively support the demonstrators and it is said that she contacted her former friend Grand Admiral Leitz to refuse any order given by the government.
The consequence of the two months of demonstration had been the increasing violence of the demonstrators who had begun burning cars and looting stores, even burning up the stores afterwards. Because of the sheer amount of protesters, the police had a hard time dealing with them. One thing that made the to-be revolutionaries even more angry was that President of the National Convention Lundell's stubbornness to not give into their demands. Even some non-partisans had began question the leadership of Lundell, many of those had openly expressed worry over the fact that Lundell actually had made a poll to see if he could use it to become a King. The Nybergian Club's leader Maximus "Max" Robertson said to a reporter that "His Majesty's [Lundell] days are numbered".
The Revolution[]
Deposing "King" Georg Lundell[]
On the 24th January 4793, the revolutionaries stormed into the residence of the President of the National Convention with arms and arrested Georg Lundell. More similar arrests were made against other Government Ministers. Some of the revolutionaries wanted to execute Lundell at the spot but one of them who has been regarded as a revolutionary leader, Alexander Segertopp stopped them from killing the President and instead ordered them to imprison him in an occupied police station, in central Kivonia. After hearing of this the Nybergian Club called for an emergency meeting of the National Convention, there they threatened the non-partisans and those skeptical of going over to the side of the Revolution of being severely punished in "the name of liberty and virtue". The Nybergians proposed a three-partisan coalition, with all three of the Nybergians, Fladborgians and the Non-partisans in the Government with former Minister of Defence under Georg Lundell and national hero Isabella Cederstam as the new President of the National Convention. This proposal was met with ease by the non-partisans who feared that the radical Nybergian Max Robertson would head the government. Cederstam graciously accepted the position and began her term immediately on the 26th January 4793.
Revolutionary Government under Cederstam[]
Cederstam the day before she became President of the National Convention
Isabella Cederstam began working to restore order to the nation and called for "national calmness". The people of Davostag had for the most part followed her advice, even the most violent of revolutionaries. The Cederstam Government was a moderate one which did not suppress the Revolution nor encourage more violence in it. It was under this Government that the policy of making the Revolution "the Order of the Day" became de facto. Cederstam quickly took charge together with Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Boysen to fix the destroyed infrastructure around Davostag, with the Ministry of Finance helping with costs, some of the finances for the rebuilding had been taken from an Endralonian financial aid given to Davostag in 4792.
Isabella Cederstam also ordered the Minister of Trade and Industry to begin setting up bases for the 'Unholy Sea Enterprise' (USE) the Government recently formed with Endralon. The Eliseborg port, the closest major port to Endralon, had been commissioned to be expanded simply for the reason of this new Enterprise, which many economists in Davostag and Endralon had stated could increase the economies of both nations drastically. The fact that normal government policies was carried out as if nothing was going on truly reflected the idea that the Revolution had become the Order of the Day.
Nybergian Reign[]
Revolutionary flag adopted as the National flag in 4793
On the 6th August 4793 the President of the National Convention Isabella Cederstam announced her immediate resignation to the National Convention. She stated that the Revolution was not proceeding as imagined and that the increase of the violence against normal civilians was something she could not tolerate, but that her hands were tied by "forces behind the throne", Cederstam hinted in her speech that she had been forced out of the office, most likely by the Nybergians. Her successor was appointed at the same meeting of the National Convention, that being Maximus "Max" Robertson, the leader of the Nybergian Club and one of the leading proponents for more violence in the Revolution. The Nybergians once more threatened the National Convention into accepting Max Robertson as the new President of the legislature, this was reluctantly done by the Convention as the revolutionaries had begun attacking and in some instances killed non-partisan members of the legislature. The new Nybergian Government was filled with only Nybergians and the Club began unlawfully throw out non-partisan members of the National Convention and steal their seats for Nybergians, thus allowing the Nybergian faction of the legislature to acquire illegal but total dominance over the nation, something that the people did not really care about. Possibly because of the Nybergian fanatical stance towards the revolution and the Union of the Davostanis and Kivonians.
Reign of Terror[]
The first act of the new President of the National Convention was to vote on the future of former President Georg Lundell. The Nybergians called for his public execution, something that disturbingly upset the rest of the legislature, but without the majority the non-partisans and Fladborgians could not do much but accept the reality that the national legislature had just voted to execute a former head of government. With the Nybergian seizure of power, the revolutionaries around the nation went ballistic against anyone who could be a suspect of anti-revolutionary activity, with Lundell loyalists being murdered openly on the streets. The border control officers had even stopped Lundell loyalists from fleeing the country with some even arresting them on the spot and handing them over to the revolutionaries. President of the National Convention Max Robertson also introduced an alternative method of carrying out executions, the guillotine. He declared:
The Revolution needs to progress. We as humans need to evolve into higher beings through better moral virtues. And we can achieve that if we clean ourselves from the immoral. Those who go against the Revolution, go against human progress and must be freed in the most humane way possible. That is why we introduced the guillotine.
Execution of former President of the National Convention Georg Lundell
The guillotine was used in public squares for every citizen to see, the Nybergians had also began issuing lists of public officials and other people suspected of anti-revolutionary behavior, who were sent immediately to the guillotine. The Fladborgians had not made any public opposition to the Nybergian policies, but "the air could be felt" as one reporter put it when he visited the National Convention in late 4793, with Fladborgian ideals going against the methods of their sister-club. The Fladborgians had been pretty clear about their stance against totalitarianism, something the Nybergians did not seem to care about.
The execution of Georg Lundell was carried out on the 7th August 4793 in a public plaza in central Kivonia. Hundreds of thousands of people came to see the event that would go down in history as one of the most brutal ones. President Robertson announced the sentence at the plaza which went as following:
Georg Lundell, has been accused and sentenced by the National Convention of treason, hubris, and anti-revolutionary sentiments against the good will of the citizens of our virtues Republic. His actions have gone against the moral ground which our nation and its citizens was founded on. We hereby sentence "the King" to die!
As the last words of the speech echoed through the quiet crowd, the only thing that could be heard were the disturbing screams of a frightened man before he had his head chopped off. The radical revolutionaries of the crowd began cheerfully screaming all over the place, while some truly began to question the purpose of the Revolution. President Max Robertson then spoke once more to the crowd telling them that the revolution had just begun and that every loyalist and every sympathizer to the "Lundell tyranny" would suffer the same consequences as their master [Lundell].
Fall of Maximus Robertson[]
Romanticized painting of the "Fall of Maximus Robertson"
On the 14th June 4794, Fladborgians and dissatisfied Nybergians of the National Convention removed President Max Robertson from office. Ever since his ascension to the office almost one year earlier, Robertson had begun a reign of terror with anyone displaying any public anti-revolutionary thoughts being harassed and sent to the guillotine. This had resulted in an estimated 7,000 deaths by the work of the guillotine alone, while the total number of deaths of the Revolution was at an estimated 9,000 people. With Robertson becoming increasingly authoritarian and paranoid, he began pointing out "traitors to the Revolution" within the National Convention and many from the Nybergian Club itself, something that had affected the political faction to the core. This led to representatives of all factions within the National Convention meeting in secret to plan an overthrow of the now known "Dictator" Robertson.
As the President was going through a list of new traitors within the Convention, the leader of the Fladborgian, called Thorbjörn Ohlsson, spoke up against the President (which was the planned sign for starting the coup), President Robertson laughed at him asking Ohlsson if he had gone mad for "going against the virtues Revolution". The Fladborgian leader responded with "No it is you who have gone mad", which caused the majority of the Convention to rise up and started to loudly agree with the Ohlsson and instead motioned the execution of President Max Robertson. Reports says that this made Robertson go completely pale and froze up, seconds later he was dragged out by guards loyal to the National Convention.
Ohlsson Government[]
Soldiers of the Davostani Defense Forces restoring order in Metallikberg
Immediately after the arrest of President Robertson, the National Convention made Ohlsson the new President. He quickly invited the military to restore order around the country, mostly by arresting radical Nybergians and the most extreme of revolutionaries. The President also invited former President of the National Convention Isabella Cederstam to return to the capital and resume the office of President of the National Convention and to lead the Government. Both the military under Supreme Commander Wilhelm Leitz and former President Isabella Cedrerstam accepted Ohlsson's offer, with the latter being hesitant at first.
Cederstam's "dictatorship"[]
Cederstam reassumed the office of the President of the National Convention on the 18th June 4794. The first thing she did was to hold a speech to the nation in which she promised "absolute national unity" and "to respect the values of the Revolution" BUT that any more violence would not be tolerated and would be punished with a harsh imprisonment. Cederstam also abolished the use of the guillotine as a method of execution on the 20th June 4794, with Max Robertson being the last person of the Revolution to be executed by it on that same day.
After interviewing many people around the country, it had been made clear that the people were tired of the constant fighting, even if it was a war or a revolution and that they just wanted peace as a "normal" society like most nations around Terra. The new Government had heard these cries from the citizens and begun taking the Constitutional Convention - which was established by former President Georg Lundell - more seriously and had put it as the number one priority for the National Convention. The system of government most preferred within both the National Convention and around the nation had become a "Federal Union" between the Davostani and Kivonian peoples, an estimated 87% of the citizens wanted such a system. Political analysts had explained the popularity of this system to be a direct consequence of the Revolution, which was waged for the establishment of it. The National Convention and the Cederstam Government had looked into the best way to establish it and begun writing templates for a "Union Constitution".
Philosophy of the Revolution[]
The Red Flag was a popular symbol used during the Revolution
Political analysts had begun looking into what the underlying idea of the Revolution really was at the time. The Revolution did not seem to be just about getting rid of Georg Lundell, but the most important issue of the movement was actually Unionism. Unionism between the two peoples of Davostag, the Davostanis and the Kivonians which have had a bitter struggle against each other in the last centuries. This is very evident of why the Revolution had not completely stopped after the removal of Lundell. The most important issue of the Nybergians and Fladborgians were the creation of a Union state between the two peoples. This is also why the revolutionaries in Davostag had begun using a gold-yellow, white and black-dark grey tricolor as their symbol, these colors being declared just recently by the National Convention as the Union colors of the two people. Colors which was adopted during the peak of the Revolution.