God and my right | ||||||||||||
| Capital (and largest city) |
Bourne | |||||||||||
| Language official |
English (British) | |||||||||||
| others | English | |||||||||||
| Religion main |
Church of England | |||||||||||
| others | Roman Catholic, Baptist, Islam | |||||||||||
| Ethnic Groups main |
British | |||||||||||
| others | White American, Black American | |||||||||||
| Government | Democratic Constitutional Monarchy | |||||||||||
| Area | 833 km² | |||||||||||
| Population | est. 53,000 | |||||||||||
| Currency | Pound | |||||||||||
East Britain was a British survivor nation in the south of the English county of Lincolnshire. Founded in 1984, East Britain changed its name to the Kingdom of the Parts of Holland in 2011.
History[]
Formation[]
After Britain was pounded by Soviet nuclear missiles on 26 September 1983, emergency plans went into effect to put administration into the hands of Regional Government Headquarters (RGH's). But many of them were unable to function in those chaotic days. Lincolnshire was to be governed from an old military cold store in Loughborough, Leicestershire. But the facility was unable to restore its power or telephone connection. It also drew one prominent evacuee: Anne, the Princess Royal, who had been brought to the facility together with her children. Communication was so poor that the personnel had no way of knowing whether Anne's mother or siblings had survived. For all anyone knew, she was the legal sovereign, so her safety was a top priority. Just days after Doomsday, Loughborough's commander decided to abandon the facility.
Loughborough cold store
Bawburgh bunker
In the town of Bourne, the local council had acted quickly and firmly to maintain order - at least relatively well compared to the surrounding regions. The Loughborough convoy was able to stop in the town for a few days, just long enough to make radio contact with a functioning RGH on the Yorkshire coast. The convoy moved on. It was the last direct contact that Bourne would have from any organ of the national government for many years.
The next closest RGH was in Bawburgh near Norwich in Norfolk. But it too was abandoned, in this case after an attack by Soviet conventional bombers that incited a panic and sent most survivors fleeing for safety elsewhere.
During the next year, the Brunnian council did what it could to hold things together while waiting for help from the United Kingdom. But help never came, and the British nation only disintegrated further. Starvation and exposure claimed millions. In southern Lincolnshire, a natural disaster then added to the misery. Much of the east of England is naturally covered in the Fens, the land kept dry by a system of pumps, power stations, embankments and watercourses. With no way to run or maintain the pumps, serious floods began in the weeks after Doomsday, damaging fields and homes. In the unnaturally cold nuclear winter that followed, much of the east became a sheet of ice. People from across the flooded and frozen region sought refuge in Bourne, just outside the flood zone; it was more than the town could provide.
By March 1984, when Bourne hadn’t had contact with any higher authority for six months since Doomsday, the District Council advanced a new plan. The district would form its own emergency British government, if necessary taking charge of affairs for the entire region. The council seized control of Bourne’s main industries, set up the State Guardsmen for self-defense, and set up camps for displaced survivors.
The councillors also voted themselves a new name: the East Britain National Council; the local government for which they legislated became the Provisional Administration of East Britain. With half of Lincolnshire a nuclear wasteland and the state of much of Britain still unknown, the council was appointing itself to be the legitimate authority in charge of an indefinitely large part of the country. The name East Britain represented the council's intention to take care of regions beyond Bourne - while affirming the town's British nationality and identity.
Spalding Wars[]
Green-areas targeted by nuclear weaponry. The areas of future East Britain survived.
In the bleak conditions of postwar Britain, survival became a zero-sum game. The country simply did not have enough - food, supplies, shelter against the cold and the elements. This meant that if a person or group used resources to live, they were ipso facto denying them to someone else, very often by force. So communities who might have worked side by side instead fought one another for survival. This pattern repeated itself all over the country; in Bourne, choked with migrants due to its position on the edge of the Fens, it was perhaps inevitable.
What was now calling itself the National Council thus privileged subsistence for original residents of the town over migrants from neighbouring communities. Unrest occurred periodically and became almost routine in the winter, when the floods rose and food supplies dwindled. The imbalance only got worse with the years. The same floods that devastated many fenland towns proved a boon for Bourne, giving it access to productive, fertilized farmland. Meanwhile people who had migrated to the vicinity of Bourne faced segregation by place of origin and were deprived of adequate resources. Most were kept in temporary facilities as if they were going to return to where they came from, years after that possibility was closed. The camps evolved into permanent shantytowns.
The town of Spalding, located across the Deeping Fen from Bourne, was one of the worst affected by floods. Considerably larger than Bourne before 1983, death and migration reduced it greatly during the aftermath. But the town became the focus of discontent and resistance toward the self-declared primacy of Bourne's National Council.
Clashes between the Spaldingas and Bourne occurred throughout the 90s. During this time, Spalding adopted an identity drawn from English nationalism in contrast to Bourne's more British identity. The conflicts mark a transition between the Britain of the nuclear war's aftermath, in which most people saw each other as fellow countrymen and fellow survivors, and the subsequent chaotic era of competing city-states. In the late 1990s, the National Council began to approach the rivalry more like an all-out war and took steps to eliminate Spalding as a threat. Bourne's State Guardsmen were utilised in set-piece battles for the first time. East Britain's superior organisation and discipline proved decisive despite Spalding's access to more weapons, largely acquired from criminal groups.
The Battle of Welland[]
The State Guardsmen in the late 90s were shaped by the command of one Steve Cartwright. Cartwright had been a bus driver prior to Doomsday, but after his conscription into the Guardsmen, he was recognised as a natural military leader. He and a group of colleagues brought an emphasis on drill and discipline that transformed the Guard from a local brute squad into a fighting unit. Cartwright also had a gift for tactics and reading a battlefield. In 1996, the National Council gave him the title of High General.
Two years later, the reopening of hostilities gave the new Guard their first experience of combat. The Guardsmen faced an army a third larger than their own and armed with pistols and rifles. The Guardsmen were armed mostly with spring-guns, shotguns, and long knives. The first attack came with a rattle of gunfire as the enemy launched an attack with their rifles. Casualties fell, but General Cartwright had taken the precaution of equipping his soldiers with thick wooden shields. They were primitive but effective and are estimated to have saved hundreds of lives. In the camp behind the Guardsmen, civilians were toiling away, using drainpipes and filtered marshgas from the Fens to construct gas propelled artillery. Cartwright had to hold his ground as he waited for his artillery to be finished. A charge by the Spaldingas in an attempt to drive back the Guardsmen was utterly decimated by a well timed volley by Cartwright. The Spaldingas were shocked at the speed at which the disciplined Guardsmen reloaded their guns. In a few short minutes, the Spaldingas charge was crushed. But any attempt by the East British to charge themselves would be even more brutally put down. It had taken four volleys to down the charge. It would only take one to decimate the East British. But they need not worry for the artillery was now ready. With improvised explosive devices loaded into their artillery they opened fire. The buildings in which the Spaldingas sharpshooters and the remainder of that army resided was blown apart as incendiaries of swampgas, grenades of improvised gunpowder and rocks bludgeoned the masonry. Two hours later the remnants of the enemy army crawled from the rubble and offered their surrender. They were placed in an internment camp and the Union Flag was raised over the rubble.
The battle was a profound change in the political landscape of the east of England. After years of escalating tension, two English towns had faced each other in an all-out war.
The Battle of Tulip Flower[]
The last and most famous of the Spaldingas-East British War took place in and around an old tulip field in May 2001. The artillery of both sides had been bludgeoning each other for weeks. There was no hope of using the terrain as cover since it was completely flat and there were no trees. This time, however, the Guardsmen were equipped with captured weaponry from the Spaldingas. Of course this weaponry was only temporary as they did not have the infrastructure to provide ammunition for these guns. Large quantities of ammunition were only available for shotguns. The artillery stopped on 3rd May 2001 and the East British soldiers rose from their trenches and charged. The Spaldingas troops fired and many soldiers fell. What they couldn't know was that this forces was equipped with specially thickened uniforms to dull the effect of bullets. What they also couldn't know as that under the mist of the early morning, General Cartwright was committing a flanking action. Just as the Spaldingas troops lowered their weapons, believing the bodies in front of them to be dead, a charge came into their right flank. The soldiers were caught completely off guardas they suffered not only a blow from their right flank but the 'dead' soldiers in front of them got up again and helped their friends. The enemy was routed and the Spaldingas officially offered their unconditional surrender.
Crises[]
In 2005 an energy crisis occurred when the gas plant in Bourne shut down. The gas supply it was connected to had reached a point of degradation where it was simply inoperable. The Council shut down the plant and temporarily used fermented sugar beet to produce alcohol for fuel. The Council then constructed some wind turbines near Pinchbeck to produce East Britain's energy needs. To do this East Britain occupied a few miles of South Holland.
In 2006 a project began to build more windmills to begin pumping water out of parts of the Fens after two decades of flooding.
Southeastern alliances[]
During the late 90s and early 2000s, East Britain cooperated more closely with two neighbouring survivor states to the south: Essex and Woodbridge. The three states had a similar mentality and approach: survivors ready to fight to keep what they had achieved. They found a common interest in the need to maintain order on the roads and rivers of the region. Law-enforcement actions against bandits and highwaymen led to larger-scale operations against armed groups in more remote parts of East Anglia.
The developing alliance provoked a reaction from factions of the True British Army, which claimed to control much of the east. By around 2006, TBA units in East Anglia had effectively reunited to resist encroachment by Bourne, Woodbridge and Essex. The Army were able to coordinate attacks on envoys and scouts that strayed too far into their territory.
As part of a greater offensive, East Britain contributed towards an attack on the East Anglian TBA. While Woodbridgers stormed across Norfolk and Essaxons launched an assault on Southeastern Cambridge, East Britons pushed southward with their Invasion of the Isle of Eels, which was meant to secure an overland link between the allies. The land was occupied quickly, but holding it was much more difficult.
After the wars had ended, it was felt necessary to show the saftety of the new territories and thus between July 3rd and July 10th Lee Evans, Prime Minister John Robson, and William Harrison of East Britain along with a large retinue and only token guards walked on foot from Spalding to Southend via Ely, Newmarket, Bury St Edmunds, Stowmarket, Sudbury, Chelmsford, and Billericay. It was intended to demonstrate that people could walk with confidence from one nation to the next, and it worked, drawing large crowds and media attention. Prime Minister Robson also took the opportunity to visit the graves of the Woodbridge soldiers found by East British troops after the Battle of Ely.
True Nationhood[]
These changes of the 2000s stirred a new nationalist feeling in East Britons, and during this period, East Britain began to reconstitute itself as a new nation-state rather than a self-declared British provisional government. On the 3rd May 2010, the National Council voted unanimously to call itself a "Kingdom," without naming a monarch. To serve as an interim head of state, it named an eminent member of the Council, William Harrison. Though an old man, he had worked tirelessly for the upkeep of his country and its people.
One year later, the Parts of Holland Act formally did away with the East Britain provisional state and established a new one, the Kingdom of the Parts of Holland. The name is derived from the name for southern Lincolnshire. This was hailed as sweeping away the remnants of the old order, and the creation of a new state, unique and independent in the British Isles.
Politics[]
Government[]
William was the Lord Lieutenant or viceroy, acting in the stead of an unidentified monarch as head of state.
East Britain had three tiers of government. The lower tier was the People's Assembly made up of 100 MAs elected from single-member constituencies. General elections were held every five years. The Assembly suggested laws and acts which, once approved by the body, were passed to the higher tier. The leader of the Assembly was the Chancellor, whose party would hold a majority in Parliament. The Chancellor would lead a major political party, generally command a majority in the Assembly, and serve as the leader of the Council. As such, the incumbent would wield both legislative and executive powers.
The higher tier was the National Council, a clique of politicians selected by the Assembly. There were 20 Councillors. Most had some kind of military decoration and most came from the town Bourne. They served for life. They had the power to block laws from the Assembly and amend laws from the Assembly before passing them onto the third tier, the Chancellor.
The final tier would have been the monarch, who was empowered to block any and all laws at any stage of development. They could also amend laws though this required a majority vote from both the Council and the Assembly. The monarch could also create laws and these go down to the Assembly for approval. These powers were created in 2010 and never vested in anybody.
Parties[]
Political parties did not exist for most of East Britain's independent history. Organized factions began to appear in the late 1990s. During that decade, party labels shifted constantly. In early 2011, at the moment when East Britain became the Kingdom of the Parts of Holland, all legislators found themselves attached to one of six parties, most of which were very new.
There were five major parties in the National Council: the Agricultural Party, the Expansionist Party, the Industrialist Party, the Municipal Party and the British Party. The Agricultural Party wanted state policy to encourage more intensive cultivation of the countryside and in particular more rapid draining of the Fens. It also favoured the establishment of large collective farms. The Expansionists favoured the ongoing military operations of the Organisation of British Nations, as well as the construction of new settlements and small-scale sustainable farming. The Industrialists favoured concentrating on domestic industry and avoiding further wars. The Municipal Party favoured local autonomy and concentrating on local development and population growth rather than the military. The British Party emphasized a restoration of the British national identity and co-operation between the British survivor states.
There was one other party in the Peoples Assembly, the Immigration Party. The Immigration Party encouraged immigration to East Britain to increase the population and the economy.
Law and Order[]
Life is a very precious thing in the sparsely populated Fens. For this reason, and because of the former UK's humanitarian past, East Britain had no death penalty. There were too few people already, so the preservation of what populace they had was paramount. There was an independent judiciary and trial by jury. The highest level of Judiciary was the National Court.
International Relations[]
East Britain established a strong partnership with Essex and Woodbridge. This grew into a firm alliance, culminating in the 2008 foundation of the Organisation of British Nations. East Britain relied on Woodbridge to provide them with more up-to-date firearms than aged shotguns and their crude melee weapons.
Although the dissolution of the United Kingdom meant that most people in East Britain stopped pretending to be a "provisional government for Britain", most also wanted to maintain an identity as British state. They showed little interest in the Celtic Alliance, seeing the closer countries of Cleveland, Northumberland and Woodbridge as more viable allies.
Military[]
The Royal Guardsmen were organised not long after the creation of the East Britain government, but the military was extremely weak for most of its history. With no ready access to weapons, except in the hands of farmers and their farmhands, the armed force had to diversify. In the mid-90s, a reorganisation produced a level of discipline that made the Guardsmen more effective as a fighting force. Beginning in the early 2000s, East Britain had increasing access to imported weapons, especially from Woodbridge.
Royal Guardsmen[]
Despite having a standard uniform of a simplistic green cap and tunic, there was no standard equipment. Bags and weapons had to be provided by Guardsmen and often they would not carry projectile weapons at all. Many armed with nothing more than crude and improvised melee weapons like knives, pikes, axes and staffs. Spring-guns were the most common projectile weapon alongside shotguns. Due to numbers, resources, and discipline, they were able to subdue significant opponents in the war against Spalding and the TBA.
While new firearms were used by officers, the most common projectile weapon for the soldiers was the spring-gun. Though an improvised wepon they are easy to make and tend to be similar in design. However the true forte of the Guardsmen is combat in a melee. Equipped with two standardised combat blades each which can double up as throwing knives, the Guardsmen excelled in hand-to-hand combat as proved in the Spalding Wars.
Royal Coastguard[]
The Royal Coastguard never grew beyond a few small boats with ballistas and mounted swivelling guns. They were crewed by men who wore blue versions of the the Royal Guardsmen uniforms. With equipment from Woodbridge, these ships could be heavily armed.
Economy[]
East Britain has very few natural resources like steel or coal. It does however have access to some of the richest farmland in the country and for this reason it is a farming powerhouse. It has some of the best quality dairy herds in the British Isles. They are a major purchaser of agricultural equipment from Essex and they purchase a lot of raw material from Cleveland and Lancaster.
Health[]
The health of most East British is quite good. The population is low enough for each person to get a good health service. There are small cases of radiation poisoning due to the countries placement in Lincolnshire. There are problems during the winter as the industry is pushed to the limits keeping people warm. But overall the national health is very good.
Media[]
There is no television in East Britain as the expertise didn't exist and it really wasn't necessary. Radio however is thriving as the competition with TV was removed. Various channels based on those of the old BBC and others exist. A local broadcasting corporation has been set up. The Peoples Broadcasting Subsidiary.
- PBS Home Service-The largest channel, based on Radio 4. Provides news, comedy, plays and book readings.
- PBS Music Service-A channel providing music from a diverse variety of genres.
- PBS Historic Service-A channel specifically for the broadcast of programs from before Doomsday.
There is a variety of magazines and newspapers.
See Also[]
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