United Hoffnung Republics

The United Hoffnung Republics was a complex of territories that formed a loose federation that covered the majority of Propeterram. Developing out of the affiliated Hoffnung kingdoms and republics that formed following the collapse of the Hijjian Empire, it would last until the Great War.

Origins
Recorded time has existed within Propeterram for almost a millennia longer than anywhere else. However, most of the early history of the Hoffnung peoples comes from the perspective of the Hijjians, their northern neighbours. Scholars from the Hijjian Empire described the Hoffnung as a tribal people who lived in hilltop forts. The two peoples had a mutually beneficial relationship, with the Hoffnung peoples providing raw resources in exchange for complicated finished Hijjian luxury products. In Hoffnung Pre Recorded Time archaeological sites pottery has been found from as far away as Ghurrka. After the PRT Collapse, while at the edge of the early trade system, the Hijjian Empire fell into decline. Through a series of wars with the Hoffnung peoples, the Hijjian Empire ultimately collapsed, leaving to the Great Exodus.

Hoffnung clans and tribes began to formalize into kingdoms through to 300 RT. This was driven heavily by the arrival of Alternianism, which brought with it Syerdawnic and Sudfellian organisational tecniques and writing systems. Maldrecoy, Neuirripin, Schleswig, historically the largest Hoffnung settlements began to become major walled cities. By 500 RT, Falsueg, Baadensaar, Vilsea, and Seabring had become powerful kingdoms in their own right. Hoffnung civilization would also spread to Tyria. Lelystad would become a major Hoffnung settlement rivaling some of the cities in the mainland.

The Hoffnungs emergence as prolific traders would increasingly put them in conflict with the major empires of southern Propastra. Conflict over the islands of Tyria and Dekhalia would spark wars between the Baadensaars and Sudfell as well as Falsueg and Orissca. In both cases, the Hoffnung trade fleets would prove more than capable of fighting against the militaries of the north. Baadensaar and Falsueg would emerge as a major power in this era and staunch rivals. The two would gain many client states throughout the Sea of Coin and the Bay of Bounty through 700-900 RT. They would also bring Hoffnung culture and civilization to the Hessians of the Eastern Propeterram.

Höllenkrieg
In the 950s RT, the Hoffnung states were all monarchies following largely a Syerdawnic legal system. This meant that the eldest would inherit all of the titles of their parent. This had historically always been a source of some instability even in the powerful states of Baadensaar and Falsueg. However, this became a particularly notable issue when Prince Briener of Eisenstadt was set to inherit the Vorland and Baadensaar throne. King Horn of Falsueg challenged the legality of this. A major conflict ensued. The Höllenkrieg expanded to include the sheildbrothers of Sudfell, Golacielo, and mercenaries from across the continent. The war continued on and off until 1103 RT, effectively destroying much of the Hoffnung West. Many towns would remain abandoned after the war, never being rebuilt.

Formation of the United Hoffnung Principalities
The Höllenkrieg impoverished much of the Hoffnung aristocracy and devastated the countryside. With little to gain even in victory, the children and grandchildren of the nobles who had started the war agreed to end the conflict. The Treaty of Maldrecoy aimed to ensure another Höllenkrieg never again occurred. In the spirit of peace and hope, a Hoffnung state would be formed, uniting all of the Hoffnung principalities and kingdoms into one unified polity. Baadensaar would be split to ensure a balance of power, but its historic capital, Maldrecoy, would become its capital. A Hoffnung King would be elected from the nobility by electors chosen from the aristocracy. Burgstaller, an elder statesman and a neutral figure from Holstinij, would be the first man to earn this title. He would also be the last.

The world was by now a very different place in 1103 RT. Armies on both sides of the Höllenkrieg were largely funded by wealthy mercantile houses in the major cities and a great deal of power had shifted into the hands of the countries middle class. They were not particularly happy with the power granted to the aristocracy by this new UHP. Major merchant houses began to lobby Burgstaller for greater liberties from the nobility. Burgstaller was hesitant to grant these rights to the merchants and the urban middle class, knowing full well that for the nobility to recover, they would need taxes from trade. Furthermore, those who had moved to the cities to man the workshops that had powered the war industry now found themselves struggling. These two issues came to a head in 1113 RT with the Maldrecoy riots. Burgstaller was killed by an angry mob, and the palace was seriously damaged. It is believed that the guards meant to protect him were paid by the local merchants to ensure he was not protected.

Sozialkrieg and the Formation of the UHR
With the death of Burgstaller, the nobility hoped to hold an election for a new King. However, in this time, the League of Coin had formed, made of the major trading houses and the urban middle class. As the nobles debated over who should ascend to the throne, the League of Coin began to draft a new constitution. Hero of the Höllenkrieg, Prince Mansfeld of Kassel, would be elected the King, but he would never see Maldrecoy. His royal procession would be intercepted along the southern banks of the Weinsburg River. The ensuing battle would mark the beginnings of the Sozialkrieg.

Despite having a professional army at its disposal, with veteran commanders, the manpower available to the League of Coin, and its control of the sea, would be decisive. By 1121, much of the UHP's aristocracy had fled or changed sides. The most notable force to change sides would be those of the Kingdom of Seabring, with Esser Bevrovenhart (later Esser Lowenhertz) tying his challenge to the throne with the League's efforts. The League of Coin was thus left to implement its new constitution. The new state extended the right to vote to all men who owned land. These men would elect representatives to the Haus der Republiken. A confederal system was agreed upon, with each state being given a great deal of freedom in its respective operation. Such would be the foundations of the UHR.

Golden Age
The UHR would spend its first century largely recovering from the Höllenkrieg and the more brief Sozialkrieg. However, an invention in Syerdawn would have major implications for the Republics fortunes. The first vulcore powered steam engines began to make their way to the UHR by 1200 RT but their full utility would take some time to be realized. Early engines were unreliable and inefficient. However, through the late 1200s and early 1300s, these engines would begin to find practical applications. By 1350, trains connected the eastern and western states of the UHR for the first time. By 1400, almost every major city had some industrial center.

This came with negative implications. Farming was revolutionized, and many farmers were forced to turn towards the cities for work. This included millions of Hijjians and Hessians who had lived as they always had for more than a millenia, undisturbed by the political and technological developments of the outside world. While their had always been tensions between the Hoffnung people and these two minorities, this new era that destabilized and destroyed so many livelihoods heightened the tensions. Mass pogroms of Hijjians became the norm. Ultimately, in 1471, the Government of Maldrecoy took action and the created the Hijjian Authority, displacing millions of Hijjians from their traditional territory. Those who did not move into ghettos within Hoffnung cities were moved into the 'traditional hijjian homeland' the mountainous and largely barren territory surrounding Nordentor.

The UHR would become the predominant power on Unus Solum through the latter half of the 1400s and early 1500s as the collapse of the Third Empire left a vacuum they deftly filled. Early airships that emerged through the 1500s would also allow the Hoffnung to circumvent the authority over the various states that it shared the Sea of Coin and Bay of Bounty with, leading to the declines of the local rivals such as the Orisscan and Imanian Empires. The Hoffnung would even attempt to colonize Enshaw in 1491 RT. However, this effort would collapse in only a decade. This would not be the UHRs only attempt at imperialism.

The UHR would begin to spread itself through sheer economic might throughout the 1500s. Historic rivals such as many of the Eastern Sudfellian Kingdoms and even Syerdawnic ones, would become client states. The Hoffnung would gain trade ports in the Mabuting islands as well as Yastlan. Many cities retain 'Hoffnung Quarters' from this era. Tax free zones where Hoffnung merchants often built homes away from home. Some even starting second families, marrying local woman drawn in by the wealth and safety of these miniature cities. By 1600, every King and Prince across Unus Solum lived with the knowledge that they could not cross an elected parliament made up of commoners in Maldrecoy.

Decline
Through the 1600s, the industrialization that had empowered the UHR spread to Kowhoor, Corinta, and Sudfellsville. While much of the investment the brought about industrialisation across Unus Solum came from the industrial elite of the UHR, a decreasing amount of this wealth made it back to the country. Those who operated the machinery of the UHR had historically been kept content with the increasing number of luxury goods they were able to earn, but this was decreasingly the case. In light of this, the Nivellierer movement emerged, demanding universal suffrage for all adult males. Through the 1680's, the Nivellierer held increasingly well organized mass demonstrations. Fearing an insurrection, in 1684, the Nivellierers were granted their demands by the Haus der Republiken.

However, conditions for the majority of people in the UHR continued to steadily decline. The Nivellierer who felt that reform through the Haus der Republiken was impossible, formed the Bruderschaft der Arbeiter (Brotherhood of Workers) in 1691. In 1701, the BdA formed the Hoffnung Nationale Gewerkschaft (Hoffnung National Labour Union), which they hoped could eventually form a new body that could better represent the UHR's working poor. The HNG organized strikes and demonstrations, successfully shutting down major industries for weeks on occasion.

A major blow the UHR would come in the Arcean Civil War. Many of the UHR's institutions were heavily invested in industries throughout the former territories of the old Second Arcean Empire. However, there was a deep rift inside of the Haus der Republiken over support for Darius Cambyses, a Syerdawnic King whose campaign to build a new Arcean Empire. When Darius died, and his son Rordan ascended to the throne, support for the monarchy was at an all time low. As such, when the Revolution began, their was little support for the young Emperor. However, as the Revolution devolved into a Civil War, many within the Haus der Republiken began to push for an intervention to protect Hoffnung assets. Others, however, felt that a victory for Fintan Faucher, a mercantalist who wanted to establish a UHR styled system in Arcea, would be worth the damage in the long run. Neither side thought it realistic that Fylk's Aequalists would emerge victorious.

They were proven correct in 1768, with Faucher's forces marching into Nikea. However, Faucher's victory would be short lived, with Aequalists taking over the country less than a year later. Hoffnung property was expropriated, and investments list in their entirety. Economic collapse ensued in the UHR as the various camps within the government debated intervention. However, organized strikes in solidarity with the Aeuqualists in Arcea organized by the Hoffnung Nationale Gewerkschaft made such an act difficult. Ultimately, the UHR would fail to intervene, and the new Arcean state would survive.

Allgemeinekrise
Following the failure of the UHR to stop the establishment of an Aequalist Arcea, serious efforts were made to crack down on the increasingly powerful and militant HNG. The HNG would be barred from supporting Haus der Republiken candidates in the 1770s. HNG organized strikes would increasingly face direct repression. These repression efforts failed to stall the growing HNG who continued to organize ever broader sectors of the Hoffnung economy. The economy had failed to properly recover from the crash brought about the Arcean Revolution as many of the resources the Hoffnung economy relied on were no longer cheaply available. Ultimately, a clash was inevitable, resulting in the Battle of Jaegerstadt in 1781.

The battle would see over a thousand striking vulcore miners successfully hold off both company security and Vorland state soldiers in the foothills of the Tengersum mountains. The miners would only be defeated after the arrival of the Luftmarines, whose victory would come at steep cost and would require the intervention of airships from the UHR fleet.

The battle shocked the Haus der Republiken and the wider Hoffnung population. A campaign directed at dismantling the HNG was organized, with many becoming concerned with the organizations growing militancy. The HNG made a turn towards violent tactics, as its supporters were ousted from official positions. While no battle would match that at Jaegerstadt, the HNG continued to openly fight with private and state forces. Enforcing evictions to closing a bankrupt factory often came with the threat of open violence. Protests, whether they were organized by the HNG or not, were caught in the crackdowns. In 1790, the Haus der Republiken approved the use of lethal weapons against protestors and organizers. The 1792 Falsueg dock strikes would see most of the states HNG organisers killed by chemical weapons deployed by airfortress. Reprisals came later that same year with the Maldrecoy bombings, escalating the spiral of political violemce.

The Schwarze Fackeln, a group of wealth citizens became increasingly active in the same period. The organisation organized public defense councils to protect those affected by the HNG. Through the 1780s and 1790s, hundreds of activists, politics, and intellectuals who criticized Hoffnung society or defended the HNG were killed. The Haus der Republiken, while originally tacitly supporting the public defense councils, became increasingly uneasy with them as their attacks extended beyond radicals and the HNG. None the less, the group would remain active throughout the remainder of UHR history.

Alongside the Schwarze Fackeln, various state nationalist groups also became more popular through the end of the century. The Three Mountain Movement movement in particular grew strong enough to wrestle itself control of the state government under the Bronzeplates Party Of Hesse. While not explicitly in favour of independence, the success of the group raised concerns.

The Great War & Foreman
The outbreak of the Great War was a complex moment for the UHR. The Haus der Republiken had expected the Aequalists would remain neutral, but they instead honoured the old Imperial Governments pledge to protect the continent from Shirudan invasion. Reluctantly, the ruling Associationists entered the war alongside the Arceans, whom until now they had percieved as the greater threat. Their support was limited however, with the Hoffnung never committing forces to fight alongside the rest of the Alliance, instead providing equipment and technical support. Nationalists and the Schwarze Fackeln however viewed this as a betrayal.

The 1801 March on Maldrecoy was not necissarily a direct result of the Hoffnung joining the war. Foreman, a Hessian Three Mountains member and General in the Hoffnung Army, viewed the action largely in the confines of a wider UHR skepticism of the era. However, as Foreman would come to later realize, the forces that coalesced around him when he shot Stadtsminister Otto von William on live TV had other motivations.

Through 1801, Foreman attempted to work with the Haus der Republiken to create a new constitution for the UHR, one that would afford more autonomy for its various member states. However, he found the dozens of coalitions with competing interests unmanageable. In early 1802, the Haus der Republiken was dissolved, with Foreman creating the temporary Ausschuss für die Reichsreform. Heavily influenced by Magna Tranfa's modernisation in Shirudo, he similarly hoped to empower the 'best' in society. Inadvertantly, he largely empowered the Schwarze Fackeln.

The HNG became a fixation of the temporary government, and in turn, their supporters in the ANLU. Increasingly violent crackdowns against HNG members, supposed HNG sympathizers, and eventually, even ethnic minorities in general as they were oft associated with the HNG became the norm. Thousands were killed a month by Neuetempest militias through 1802. Members of the HNG still sympathetic towards the ANLU began to make their way to Arcea during this time, either to escape the violence, or to train for what they viewed as an inevitable showdown.

Preceiving Arcea as the greatest threat, and unable to stop them from arming and training HNG militias, the UHR joined the Great War on the side of the Dominion. However, only the fleet would play a role in the war, with much of the Army tied up with ensuring security at home. Foreman became increasingly critical of the very committee he created in this time. While he supported the war effort, the Three Mountain Movement being pro-Shirudan since its inception, he became increasingly concerned with the lawlesness the committee enabled. In 1804, Foreman commanded the army to reign in the Neuetempests. While most of the army initially followed orders, several state forces refused, claiming that such an intervention was the exact sort of top down decree from Maldrecoy that the 1801 March had set out to end. Foreman then personally led the Hessian Army himself, fighting against both the HNG and the Neuetempests, hoping to end the chaos.

While military succesful, the 1804 and 1805 campaigns allowed the Ausschuss für die Reichsreform to effectively severe Foreman from Maldrecoy. They announced the confirmation of a new constitution in early 1806 while Foreman was fighting against an increasingly entrenched HNG in the Vorland foothills. The new constitution, largely drafted by the Schwarze Fackeln, did not enshrine states rights as initially envishoned by Foreman and Nationalists from other states. He returned to Maldrecoy in the Spring, promising to end the Ausschuss für die Reichsreform. In turn, the reform commitee turned to the Neuetempests for support. The Battle of Nationalstraße 5, 250 macros west of Maldrecoy would mark the beginnings of a Third Hoffnung Civil War. Despite defeating the Neuetempests handidly, Foreman marched his army back to Hesse, leaving the rest of the UHR to its fate.