A Young Woman's Political Record 52 (Patreon)

AN: Thanks again for everybody's support.

ooOoo

June 30, 1941

Berun at night was lovely as ever from the air. I hoped it would stay that way, too, that the war wouldn't degenerate to the point that we had to black out the city. Unfortunately, I couldn't take the time to admire the view. I had a deadline to meet.

I violated more than a few of the regulations regarding the minimum altitude to be maintained when flying over an urban area. Not to mention that anybody else would have been shot out of the sky if they flew towards the Chancellor's Residence at high speed. In this case, though, I had no qualms about abusing my privileged position for my personal convenience.

Visha was waiting in the dim glow of the porch light in the backyard as I came rocketing in for a landing. A heavy dose of body reinforcement let me slam on the brakes and touch down with a modicum of grace.

"You're back!"

I patted my chest in relief. "Made it with time to spare."

I froze as the sound of bells tolling midnight washed over the city. Well, I had kept my promise to make it back on the same day that I flew into battle. Technically.

Visha smiled. "I'm just glad you're safe."

"Those commies were never going to lay a glove on me," I said, "not while they were on the march."

I'd have to be a little careful if I wanted to negotiate my way around a fortified Russy anti-aircraft setup, but the mobile anti-aircraft fire that they could manage while they were trying to push forward and seize territory was nothing serious. Similarly, I'd be nervous about taking on one of their big bomber streams, but their patrols and penny-packets of airplanes that they scrambled in response to our attack weren't worth worrying about.

Even while I was still over enemy airspace, I'd been far more worried about meeting my deadline with Visha than anything the Russy military could throw at me.

"I was a little worried their mages would show up," Visha said.

"To be honest, I worry a little more every day their mages don't do anything," I said. "Besides, I wouldn't mind a chance to knock the rust off."

Until we saw them in action, those mages could be anywhere. Once we had a solid read on their location, I was confident that our mages could handle them easily enough. The problem was all the havoc they could create before our response forces arrived.

I didn't really expect I'd ever be fighting off NKVD mages on my own, but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to see a little action. If Visha and I ever had to go on the run, the aerial mage skills I'd been neglecting could be the difference between life and death, after all.

"Don't say that," Visha said. "What would the country do if you were in a battle and something went wrong?"

Visha had gotten more vocal about my physical safety since we'd gotten together romantically. I tried not to take it as a slight against my skills. It was more likely that in the first bloom of romance she had a tendency to get a little overprotective.

"I don't know," I said, "I'd say the country has a solid deputy chancellor waiting in the wings."

As much as I wanted to keep Visha happy, I wasn't above a little teasing.

"Hmph," she said, "what would I do, then?"

Unfortunately, I still hadn't built up any defense to her puppy dog eyes. The only thing I could do in response was make a tactical retreat.

"All right, all right," I said. I pulled Visha into a hug. The physical contact seemed to be what she had needed. She relaxed into the embrace, tension draining out of her.

I felt bad that she had worried. In my defense, though, I hadn't taken the trip up to Legadonia just because I wanted to shoot some commies. That didn't hurt, of course, but far more important was the opportunity to get into the Allied Kingdom's good books.

The Allied Kingdom hadn't covered itself in glory in the war so far, but that was to be expected. They were a peaceful nation that needed a certain amount of time to ramp up to fighting form. Much of their strength lay in their strong economy and the ability to gather resources from around the world to fuel their military machine. Turning those strengths into direct military power would take a while, but in the long run they would be more than capable of pulling their weight.

The fact that they had reached out to us for some help in sparing them the consequences of an early war stumble was a wonderful opportunity. That was why I had decided it was important not only to send help, but to appear myself in person to provide a vivid reminder of where the help was coming from.

And, yes, I had jumped at the chance to shoot some commies.

I thought for a moment that Visha had fallen asleep standing up, until she suddenly jerked herself upright. She pulled away from me slightly, but didn't make any move to escape my arms.

"I almost forgot," she said, "I have good news!"

"Oh?" I asked. To be honest, now that we were this close I was a lot more interested in what the rest of the evening held than in hearing about her day. I could be patient in pursuit of my objectives, though.

"The elections committee made their report to the Diet today," she said.

"Finally," I said, "when's the election?"

It was embarrassing that it had taken so long, but it would be a relief to have a proper president again. After the time the committee took to put their plan together, there shouldn't be any doubts about the election, either.

"They recommended that we not disrupt the war effort by holding elections," Visha said.

How ridiculous. What had they been doing this whole time? I could almost respect somebody who put in the minimum effort needed to perform their jobs well enough not to be fired, as it made a certain economic sense, but to slack off this blatantly was a real slap in the face.

"How did that go over?" I asked. I'd been a little worried at the Diet's lack of independent action since the war began. I hoped they had disciplined the idiots on the committee harshly enough that I wouldn't have to get involved.

"Naturally, the Diet passed the Enabling Act by a unanimous vote," Visha said. 

What?

"What?"

"They know our best chance of victory is to unite behind you," she said.

"That's..." I said, before the penny dropped, "this all just happened to take place the one day I was gone?"

Visha smiled like the cat that caught the canary. "I knew you'd be too modest to let the Diet do the right thing if you were here."

I wanted them to take independent action to take work off my plate. Not to shove more duties on my shoulders. Setting aside how this would look to foreigners, now even within Germania I was going to be seen as responsible for the whole outcome of the war.

"Still-"

"If you're that upset about it," Visha said, some of the cheer dropping from her tone, "you'll have to stay home and keep an eye on the Diet instead of charging into danger next time."

Touche. If I abandoned work to gallivant around on the front lines, it made a twisted sort of sense for more work to be waiting for me when I got back.

Rather than admit defeat, I decided it was time to change the subject. I scooped Visha up into a bridal carry with just the slightest assistance from magical reinforcement, and made my way inside. Visha may have carried the day, but the night was still young.

ooOoo

July 16, 1941

One thing that I had been neglecting since the war had started was my duty to tend to public opinion. It was, once I took a moment to consider it, a glaring oversight. As a politician whose job depended on the public mood, it was vital that I do my part in shaping that mood so that the public would think I was doing a good job.

I had excuses, of course. I had to do my part to put us on a path to winning the war. The public mood would hardly matter if we were subjugated by foreign conquerors. Again.

Also, to some extent managing the war was managing the public mood. Nothing cheered up the common man like victory. Besides, it didn't take much of a propaganda campaign to justify our decision to go to war when enemy armies were threatening our borders.

All of which was to say that my neglect hadn't done much real damage so far. That would change if I kept it up, though. The days of quick and relatively bloodless victories were coming to an end as we got to grips with the Rus. Our OZEV allies had shouldered more than their fair share of the casualties from manning the defensive line in Dacia, but the numbers were coming back into balance now that we were taking on more of the defensive burden.

Things would only get worse when we finally mounted an offensive against the Russy Federation. Obviously, the worst case scenario would see millions of our troops dead and all of Europe under the Russy yoke. Set that aside, though. Even if things went well, in the most optimistic scenario we would still lose hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the process of neutering the communist menace.

That was hundreds of thousands of workers, no longer contributing to our GDP. Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers, no longer helping to balance our government's budget. Hundreds of thousands of families, looking for someone to blame for the loss of a promising young man.

If I wasn't careful, all of those people would look at a war kicked off by the actions of a government I had supported, against countries that I had antagonized, leading to losses in a campaign I approved of, and they might arrive at the conclusion that the death of their loved one was my fault. Setting aside any actual culpability, there was also the fact that I was a politician who was famous nationwide, leading many people to treat everything the Germanian government did as my idea. Thanks to Visha's recklessness, I couldn't even shove some of the blame on an incoming president, since we wouldn't have one until after the war was over.

Therefore, before even considering an attack on Russy territory, I needed to go on a speaking tour and make sure that the people of Germania would put the blame for their ills in the right place. On the commies' shoulders.

The first step was a barnstorming tour of the Rhine industrial area. The plan was straightforward. During the day, I would take a tour of the massive factories as they churned out materiel in support of the war effort. At the shift change, as one set of workers came off duty and another was still waiting to go to work, I'd give a speech explaining and justifying the war. We'd record everything and edit the highlights into a propaganda film to be shown nationwide. 

A crude effort, but it ought to help. It's not like anybody was going to come out strongly against an attempt to paint our enemy in a bad light when there was a war on.

I felt a little bad to be commandeering the workers' time off. When it came to preserving my own career, though, some sacrifices had to be made.

It hadn't really struck me until I had a chance to get out of government buildings and walk around, but the war was having a noticeable effect on our demographics. Inside the factories, on any job that didn't put an obvious premium on strength and athleticism, it was even odds whether it would be filled by an old man or a young woman. Everyone seemed to be bearing with the situation with reasonable cheer, but I could imagine how quickly things would turn if the papers started reporting that the young men sent off to war wouldn't be coming back.

The factory itself was quite impressive. Watching as raw steel was shaped into tools of war stirred the soul of even a cynic like me. I kept my sense of perspective, though. The Russy Federation was a vast industrial powerhouse. They could match us factory for factory with plenty to spare. In a way, it was lucky for me that they were shackled to such an inefficient economic system.

The crowd that gathered to listen to my speech was at least half women. It was a big change from the last time I'd been out on the campaign trail. My crowds had always skewed more heavily male than the electorate. Back when I had Elya do detailed polling, I had always done worse with women. Any sort of gender solidarity the average female voter felt for a female candidate had been drowned out by their fears of a ruinous war with the Francois Republic. I could only speculate as to what their voting habits looked like these days.

Assuming there hadn't been any fundamental changes, women tended to focus more on the cost of war, while men were more inclined to believe in nonsense like honor and glory. Well, this might be a tough crowd to please, but they were exactly the sort of people who I needed to convince if I was going to keep public support high throughout an extended campaign.

I stepped on stage when my name was announced. After shaking hands with the plant manager who introduced me, I stepped up to the microphone. I took a moment to look the crowd over before I jumped into my remarks.

"Thank you all for coming to see me," I began. "I know you're working hard, and I appreciate that you're willing to spare me a moment of your time."

I received a round of applause for that. It was as good an indicator as any of the temporary popularity I was enjoying at the moment, popularity that I needed to transform into lasting support for the war.

"I'd imagine that for most of you the most pressing issue on your mind is the war," I continued. "It's certainly weighed on my mind, lately."

This time, when I paused, it was for a respectful silence. I looked over the crowd once more, making a point to make eye contact with individuals in the audience as I did so.

"I want to talk to you today about why we fight," I said. "Of course, we have no choice when we are beset by an invading army. But I want to talk about how, even if fighting wasn't something we had to do, fighting against communism is something that we ought to do."

As always, I found it easy and natural to slip into the rhythm of denouncing communism. I had to be a little careful. This world didn't have the same extensive documentation of communist atrocities that my original world had. The slaughters in southeast Asia hadn't happened yet, and hopefully never would happen. I couldn't even be entirely sure that the atrocities that had happened in my original world by this point in time had happened here.

I could make some reasonable assumptions, though. I could extrapolate from public facts, informed by that alternate future history. And I certainly didn't see any reason to give a bunch of commies the benefit of the doubt.

The crowd lapped it up. Of course, they were predisposed to believe anything negative about a wartime enemy. I did my best to take that credulity and mold it into contempt for communism itself. I could have gone on for hours, but I decided to close out the speech while I still had the crowd's close attention.

"And when the communist system fails, as it must, what will its masters do? First, they'll vent their pique on their own citizens," I said, winding up for the big finish. "Then, driven by envy, they will lash out at the successful countries around them, the countries that expose their inadequacy simply by existing."

"And for what? Communist apologists speak of the power of collective action. Look around you! What is this factory but an example of collective action? What is the Rhine industrial region? The Germanian army?" I continued. "This is the power of freedom, democracy, and the capitalist system to bring people together and perform works that shame anything the communists and their slave labor can manage. Together, we will see communism dumped into the ashcan of history, where it belongs!"

That got a rousing cheer from the crowd, at least. Only time would tell how much of that enthusiasm would stick around as the war's death toll started to mount. Even so, I was feeling pretty good about myself as I walked off the stage.

I felt much less sanguine when I opened my hotel room's door to find Elya waiting for me.

"Chancellor, I have important news."

I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. For good measure, I spun up my computation orb and put a sound muffling spell around us. Elya had probably already taken care of it, but better safe than sorry.

Once our privacy was assured, I braced myself for bad news. It was hard to imagine that she had traveled all the way out here to tell me about a happy surprise. "What is it?"

Elya stood at attention, none of her usual teasing attitude in evidence as she delivered her report. "The Russy Federation has started sounding out the Allied Kingdom for peace terms."

I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "It's a little late for that."

It took a lot of doing to rouse the Allied Kingdom to jump into a war. Once you did it, though, it took a lot more effort to knock them back out of the war. In both of the histories I'd learned, they'd kept plugging away for more than a decade to get rid of Napoleon. Not to mention their remarkable determination as they dragged down the Empire.

Our support in Legadonia hadn't been enough to stave off the Russy invasion, but we'd at least done enough to allow the Albish Expeditionary Force to retreat in good order. Their contribution to the war was a bit embarrassing overall, but they hadn't suffered the kind of disaster that would have them suing for peace, not as far as I knew.

"Support for the war in Albion isn't as strong as you might think," Elya replied.

I winced. She would know better than me. I would have thought our efforts to whip up a red scare would have the Albish people frothing at the mouth for war, but if we'd overshot the mark some might see it as a reason to seek peace while they got their intelligence situation in order.

"Do you know what the Rus are offering?" I asked. Even if the Albish were lukewarm on the war, they would need a generous offer to compensate them for the embarrassment of ducking out of a fight.

"They will demilitarize the west coast of Legadonia," Elya said, "and restore its independence once the war is over."

That was pretty generous. The official Albish line on the purpose of the war was Legadonian freedom, after all. They'd been quite assiduous in avoiding any participation in the broader conflict.

Of course, it was only generous to the Albish. We'd still be forced to beef up our air defenses all along the coast of the Baltic Sea to defend against Russy bombers launched from Legadonia. We'd been successful fending off their attacks on Dacia, but it was a result of hard work and dedicated resources. Duplicating that result in Daneland and northern Germania would require yet more of our limited resources.

"You're sure?" I asked.

She nodded. "Our source's success rooting out Russy agents has gotten him access to some high level discussions. He's quite upset at the government's wishy-washy approach to the communists."

I ran a hand through my hair. "The Albish can't possibly trust them to follow through."

"They aren't rejecting the offer out of hand," Elya said.

I sighed. I couldn't just confront the Albish directly over this without giving away that I knew things that I shouldn't. Even so, I had to do something to shore up their commitment to the war effort.

ooOoo

July 17, 1941

Thanks to my possession of my own personal combat orb, I could pop back to Berun for a quick meeting without interrupting my publicity tour. Even better, now that the Allied Kingdom was in the war, however half-heartedly, Mr. Lloyd had become very accommodating towards my personal requests.

He came to visit me at my office precisely on time. I offered him some refreshments before getting straight to business.

"How are your troops doing?" I asked.

"They have all successfully evacuated from Legadonia to Daneland," he replied. "Thank you for your timely assistance."

While that was good news, I had been hoping for something a little more aggressive. Despite the news I'd heard from Elya, I was still holding out hope that Albion would choose to fight on. I wanted Mr. Lloyd to give me a sign that the plucky island nation who held out all alone against tyranny in my original world had an equally spirited counterpart in this world.

"Of course, of course. Where are they headed next?" I asked. "We can certainly make some room for them in Dacia if they can't wait to get back to grips with the commies."

Mr. Lloyd took a sip from his tea. When he set his cup down, his expression was carefully blank.

"While I appreciate your generous offer," he said, "I believe the expeditionary force will be returning to the home islands, so it can be ready to be deployed once an opportunity presents itself."

That was a lot less pluck than I'd been hoping to see. Well, maybe there was something I was missing in the bigger picture.

"I see," I replied. "Are there any plans in the works to create such an opportunity?"

"I'm not privy to every military plan," he said, "but I assume there must be."

That was just about the most tepid response possible, short of outright telling me that they were suing for peace. Ah, what a headache.

What happened? Had I been relying too much on my knowledge of what was, in the end, only a possible alternate future? I didn't think I had been. Certainly, the Allied Kingdom had meddled in European affairs with the self-confident nonchalance of a power that saw themselves as, at the very least, first among equals. They should have known that at some point they would have to back up their words with force.

I'd been prepared for the Albish lion to take a while to ready himself for battle. I'd never expected him to quit the field altogether.

The lion... that tickled at an old memory. I hesitated to rely on a half-remembered bit of future pop culture at this critical juncture, but plagiarizing from the work of my original world's screenwriters had served me fairly well so far.

It was clear that I had to do something. If I simply let events drift along it was looking like the Allied Kingdom would drift right out of the war.

"You know, I heard a story once," I said, "about a lion."

I almost immediately wished I had decided to rely on a more memorable movie for inspiration. It was too bad that there weren't any good motivational speeches from the Godfather that would fit this situation.

"Down in the African savanna, it's just full of all different kinds of animals," I said. "But just one king. The lion.

"He didn't inherit his title. No, he had to go out and fight for it," I continued. "Any animal that worked against him, that even talked him down, he'd tear them up. There he was, climbing on his throne with blood-stained paws."

I was pretty sure I'd gone off the script by now. Fortunately, it was easy enough to carry the analogy through to the end.

"He got older, though, slowed down a little, mellowed with age," I said. "Peace reigned in the jungle, and it was good to be the king."

"Then one day a hyena comes along, and laughs at him," I continued. "The lion lets it go. It's beneath his notice."

I made a dismissive shooing motion with my hand.

"The next day the hyena comes back, and laughs at him again," I said. "The lion doesn't do anything. He's tired. He doesn't feel like it."

I leaned forward. Mr. Lloyd leaned forward a little bit, just enough for me to know that I had his attention.

"The next day the hyena comes back again, and it gets a little closer, and laughs at him again," I said. "Then..."

I slammed my hand down on the table, enough to make his teacup jump. Mr. Lloyd flinched back. I smiled at him.

"Every now and then, you have to remind the rest of the jungle," I said, "why you're the king."

He returned my smile, though the expression was somewhat strained. "I believe I take your meaning."

"I think it's about time Mr. Churbull and I met," I said, "to discuss the nature of our alliance."

Satisfying though it might be, there wasn't much point to browbeating an ambassador. If I could appeal to Churbull directly, though, there was a chance I could talk him into staying in the fight. 

Not that I could rely solely on the power of persuasion. I would also have to do something to tilt the balance of the Allied Kingdom's incentives so that it become obvious that rejecting the Russy offer was the rational choice.

ooOoo

AN2: Tanya mangled Christopher Walken's terrific bit from the otherwise forgettable Pool Hall Junkies. I figure the salaryman would have been exposed to some memetic version of this at some point. I wrote the dialogue in the scene without reviewing the scene myself, so I think it's a fairly accurate representation of how somebody would take inspiration from a half-remembered scene and apply it to a new situation.