White Eagle, Revolutionary Eagle?
- Thread starter Batrix2070
- Start date
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
It all really depends on whether autor can sell it and the reader is able to suspend disbelief in favor of reading the action.
I think it's all about the fact that in this timeline Europe won't get wiped out to the same extent as OTL so America won't have it as easy as OTL. (Especially that I don't plan for Poland to go to war with Entente, only with Russia, yes there will be some blows but nothing on a level that would force those countries to go into debt to USA).
Although let's not kid ourselves, they will be a superpower but not that much. But like I said this is something I want to do for fun unless I can find a way to make it work. Then it will become canon.
liberty90
Evil Neoliberal Cat
I have great tolerance for one ASB at the start of the story, or for fantasy characters known from the start of the story. So the time-travel of a country if fine, Wędrowycz is fine, even some vampires or some magic would be fine. xd
But after initial worldbuilding happens then I would like things to be internally consistent and without new forms of magic discovered deus ex machina? Like, no conquering America without good reasons (or estabilished at the start mind-control magic used on leadership), no troops/ammunition/supplies teleporting without ships, and enemies that can think instead of holding in their hands metaphorical Ball of Stupidity. Realistically, they would obviously try to capture examples and try to copy polish stuff, and to create alliances to contain Poland.
Polish commie leadership is also far from... consisting of geopolitical geniuses.
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Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Well, what I'm trying to tell you is that this is a loose omake idea for now, but if I can find a way to make it work, then we'll get serious about it.
liberty90
Evil Neoliberal Cat
Remember also, please, that polish communists - while MUCH saner than bolsheviks IMHO - were far from always right/good/pleasant/logical/reasonable etc. I understand that writing patriotic "the ideal poland" is tempting, and tech difference is greatly in polish favor, but this was... far from perfect leadership.
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
I remember, and here I have to find the right way between, the cretinism and the reasonableness of the authorities. But I always have the card of Wyszynski plus Wojtyla. I can always go the way of democratization. Or I have the possibility to pull out of the shadow some commie who will be a pragmatic to the point of pain man in Baćka's pseudo-idiots style.
Generally, I have a lot of ideas and I am looking for a way in which to go.
Buba
A total creep
Yup. They often were "competence impaired".
And nasty.
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Or I'll go with voting, and let the vox populi decide.
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Let's be honest, they were mostly idiots who were pulled out of sinkholes because there were not enough sensible people to fill the right positions and not many people wanted to get red. Hence, I'm going to slightly color their intelligence with a few exceptions
liberty90
Evil Neoliberal Cat
But on the other hand, I can already imagine disgusted Trotsky writing how wasteful it is that in Poland some people own private cars, or how Poland can tolerate individualistic agriculture... XD
Anyway, controversial opinion and many people would disagree: Jaruzelski was less stupid than Gierek (...who is very fortunate that there is now no need to pay any debt).
Anyway, controversial opinion and many people would disagree: Jaruzelski was less stupid than Gierek (...who is very fortunate that there is now no need to pay any debt).
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Oh, Trotsky is just the tip of the iceberg, the socialists and communists who come to Poland will be quickly disappointed when they see that communism is not here.
No mistake here, technically both Jaruzel and Kiszczak were not stupid people, if Poland was normal both would have gotten high anyway. They were just one of those reasonable people who made the whole business work, surrounded by a sea of idiots or people not suited for their positions.
Gierek, on the other hand, was just an ordinary miner who knew how to work his way up. In a free Poland I think he would have become either the president of some union or the mayor of a small town.
The point is that the most important level of running the country, the intermediate one, was filled by morons. Normal people weren't there too often, and when they did happen, if they didn't have a backing from higher up, or at least solid support from below, which was a real threat, they were suppressed by the rest.
BTW, it still exists today, although thanks to the disappearance of the one who created the whole mess - Moscow - and the collapse of the sick system - communism - those idiots are slowly dying out and being replaced by normal ones, but this process is slow, In order for this process to be completed, today's 50-year-olds must retire or die out to a large extent so that normality can finally return, because the children of these communist stooges are even bigger idiots than their fathers and without their old backs they simply will not get back into power and will return to where they came from. (Except of course for those who are smart).
Another thing is that Gierek's idea was not stupid, and some of his investments were very reasonable and, more importantly, future-oriented. The problem was something else, namely the 90s and the activated intermediate level idiots, who in a situation where the system collapsed did not know how to manage without supervision. Add to this the fact that Barcelowicz de facto made a mess with his privatization and did not care about the origin of capital and you have a whole series of collapses of companies which could have survived if they had been managed by someone normal. (And if the trade unions weren't as fucked up as they sometimes were, the fact that FSO is dead today is thanks to them).
Add to this the fact that the commies started to enfranchise, and Barcelowicz didn't want them to do it because he knew they were idiots, so you have what happened that even good companies that could have survived were slaughtered.
And the most important problem of Gierek was that he tried to apply a capitalist and reasonable number (after all, debt to the state and debt to a person behave quite differently) on a socialist-communist country. If this had been done in capitalist Poland, the debt would not have been a big problem, in fact our debt today is bigger in percentage and number than the one incurred by Gierek.
But unfortunately, the People's Republic of Poland was a communist country and Gierek's ambitions for Poland to become the France of the Eastern Bloc had no chance of success. (I think it was because of his childhood and youth spent in France, where he had the opportunity to see how the French did it and tried to transplant their solutions to our land).
His ambitions collapsed and were unrealistic for two reasons, the first I have already discussed, that is a monster in the form of central control of the entire economy, the second was the USSR.
USSR was a country, which didn't like, when its satellites did something more than it intended, even if it would help it. (Not to go far, when our navy wanted to have its own missile corvettes, the USSR said no, because we're not allowed to, that's all, and that's why we had to buy corvettes from the Soviets, because we were supposed to produce only minesweepers, bulk carriers and landing ships within our socialist EU, I forget what it was called. Even if our people wanted to and had the capability to produce other classes of ships, and most importantly if we were allowed to, we could produce them all in Poland without a single Soviet part. Do you think why all our destroyers after the war were ex-Soviet? Even though our shipyards assembled much larger and more complex ships than what we were getting from the Soviets).
I don't mention poverty because it's a package deal with socialism.
Buba
A total creep
Yet another cause for Gierek's failure is the external economic situation - the depression (and turmoil) kicked off by the oil price hikes after October War and the inflation caused by Nixon killing the Breton Woods System.
As to ships - building merchants (even if complex) and warships are two different things. There is such a thing as "military standard" - e.g. electric wires have three times as thick insulation, every line is tripled so that power can be rerouted in many ways etc.
Poland had zero capacity for building warships in 1945. And look at how poorly designed and made those torpedo boats were. In the COMECON (RWPG - Rada Wzajemnej Pomocy Gospodarczej) division of labour Poland got to build LSTs.
This was probably not far from the limit that Polish yards were capable of making.
A simple, not that far from merchant ship still needed input of Soviet professionals.
It takes many years to build up institutional knowledge capable of designing and building warships. Check the navweapons site for the story on how German capability in this area atrophied during the Weimar years.
If ISOTed Poland designs and builds a DDG - it will suXXorf 2 da maXXor. Simply because that is the way of the world. It will be design no. 3 or 4 which will work as intended without sinking or killing its crew
As to ships - building merchants (even if complex) and warships are two different things. There is such a thing as "military standard" - e.g. electric wires have three times as thick insulation, every line is tripled so that power can be rerouted in many ways etc.
Poland had zero capacity for building warships in 1945. And look at how poorly designed and made those torpedo boats were. In the COMECON (RWPG - Rada Wzajemnej Pomocy Gospodarczej) division of labour Poland got to build LSTs.
This was probably not far from the limit that Polish yards were capable of making.
A simple, not that far from merchant ship still needed input of Soviet professionals.
It takes many years to build up institutional knowledge capable of designing and building warships. Check the navweapons site for the story on how German capability in this area atrophied during the Weimar years.
If ISOTed Poland designs and builds a DDG - it will suXXorf 2 da maXXor. Simply because that is the way of the world. It will be design no. 3 or 4 which will work as intended without sinking or killing its crew
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Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Well, as I say, since we weren't allowed to do anything else anyway and the Soviets didn't like the independence of satellites, all the warships were very underdeveloped. (And lack of will) Without the Soviets it would have been possible to try it, because we had plans, but when they tried to build a prototype of a rocket corvette for testing, a whole bunch of flaws came out, which were in the design, but we weren't allowed to, so it wasn't possible to finish it as it should be. We also had to learn how to build such things and so on. Because we had the tools, we had the research skills, but not the competence to build things, and as you said, you just had to learn. The most important thing is simply to stick to the path instead of taking the easy way out (it's like with Iryda, it had flaws, its new engine too, but there was no will to finish the project despite the problems and accidents).
it will suXXorf 2 da maXXor- and what does that mean?
Nevertheless, it's a story, so let's give up some shortcomings and let's say it works ok, it's not a miracle but it works and it gets the job done.
Although I think that the first class of new destroyers will be something between classic and guided missiles and will have a lot of shortcomings, but they will be able to do their job well. (After all, how did other navies start? Before good Fletchers we have slightly worse predecessors, Poland de facto faces the need to build solid shipbuilding traditions for its needs).
Buba
A total creep
I am channeling my immature side
Sucks to the max in normal writing.
Syf. Badziew. Szmelc. Bardacha.
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Well, if this was the real world it would have to be but for the purposes of the story it will be a level up.I am channeling my immature side
Sucks to the max in normal writing.
Syf. Badziew. Szmelc. Bardacha.
Czyli zamiast Badziewia w stylu Poloneza będziesz miał, nie wiem starego Opla? Albo Coś w rodzaju fiata 125p.
A nie mam lepsze porównanie, będzie tym czym Fiat 136p jest przy prawdziwym Fiacie 136, lub Fiat 125p przy Fiat 125. Cud nie będzie, ale da radę. Albo lepiej, to jak Żuk kontra Lublin 51.
I remember ,that some polish doctor described communism as pathocracy,becouse it was ruled by pathological people.
Other said,that all psychopats which he meet belonged to commie party.Worst cases in SB.
Forget which,as usual.
And,it is true,that after 1945 normal people do not wonted join,so it was cryminals and jews.That is why jews ruled till 1956 - cryminals was good for breaking bones,but nothing else.
P.S Please,bring vampires and vilage of apemans!.Maybe yetisyns,too?
Day I A moment of Silence, or perhaps a harbinger of Madness?
Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
April 1, 1974
People's Republic of Poland
Terespol
12:44
"We on support, I hear you have a problem with some Tsarist Russians." Decided to joke to lighten the atmosphere newly arrived Captain Jan Krogulec. "A problem...good one. We're in the black fucking ass, not a problem!" Retorted a disgruntled Captain Konrad Dwojak, who had the honor of defending himself desperately against the Russian onslaught.
And as if to emphasize his words, the Russian artillery in the Fortress sounded, firing a short salvo of terror into the city destroying some buildings or tearing a hole in the asphalt. One of the shells hit not far from where both captains were standing, fortunately on the other side of the building they were standing next to.
"I can just see that." Krogulec said, "Are they firing like that all the time?" Dwojak shook his head "No, they've been firing like that ever since the shooting started, in the morning before they hit they did a bit of a handicap artillery preparation, razed the eastern part of the city, destroyed some houses in the north and shelled the GPK but after that they started firing sparingly and mainly to terrorize civilians because their fire was concentrated on the train station so we had to move the evacuation to the south, you saw that yourself."
Krogulec wondered "Strange, what happened that they shoot so little?" Because he was able to count the number of guns firing and the number of shells falling without any significant effort. "I don't know." Began Dwojak with a feigned expression "Maybe it's because the Fortress powder magazine along with the main ammunition supply... was located in Terespol?"
"What?" Said Krogulec bluntly "What do you mean the powder magazine was in Terespol?" And Dwojak giggled mischievously "And so how did they design this Fortress after all there was no border here right?" Krogulec nodded "It is now, and the Russians didn't rebuild the Fortress after the war because they didn't need it unless in the form of a museum, and the powder magazine with a small part of the walls was on this side of the border. They didn't need the powder magazine and the Army didn't know what to do with it, so they gave it to us and we turned it into a warehouse."
Krogulec burst out laughing after that "Oh fuck. So they're up the ass with wrestling?" He said all the while amused by the irony of the situation. "Seeing how poorly they shoot, then yes." Replied Dwojak just as cheerfully.
The Russian Empire
Brest Fortress
12:43
Colonel General Vladimir Laiming felt a sting as if someone was laughing at him behind his back. No less, he ignored this feeling instead of letting it blind him. And listening to the Fortress artillery captain standing in front of him, it was hard to refrain from letting himself go.
"Captain, did I understand correctly that we have only fourteen crates of ammunition for the artillery already? Because you only recently remembered that the main part of the stockpile was moved to the powder magazine in Terespol barely a year ago? So we have shot ourselves out of almost all the ammunition?" Said the General with each successive question with an increasingly angry tone "Are you guys crazy or have you gone mad?" He asked to the officer standing bravely yet increasingly red with shame.
"No, General just..." Tried to answer the Captain "Just what?" growled the General getting into his words "Only that I have nothing to do with the fact that our powder magazine has evaporated and we have no access to it." The Captain began to explain.
"Well yes, of course you have nothing to do with the fact that Terespol suddenly changed for us to this thing ruled by Lachians! Good God, Captain, I wouldn't blame you in my life for something that no one but God or the Devil had any influence on." Replied the bewildered General, "But on how quickly we will use up our ammunition we will!" He added shattering the Captain's hopes of getting out of this brawl unscathed. He would have probably yelled at the captain for the next few minutes announcing to the whole world what a moron the captain was if not for a loud and very unpleasant sound that ripped the air.
"What is that devilish sound!" growled the General loudly then as the noise got closer and closer he grabbed himself covered his ears with his hands trying unsuccessfully to drown out the sound. Only when the noise was unbearable someone shouted something and pointed to the sky. Laiming followed his hand and began searching the sky.
It took him a while before he noticed a strange silver object coming from the west, flying relatively high in the sky, higher than any airship or aeroplane he knew. It was small and looked like an arrowhead crossing the sky going eastward like the comet omens of old, giving the more superstitious soldiers reason to fall to their knees and lament that their doom was at hand.
The general did not succumb to the foolish superstitions of his unsuspecting and often drawn from the biggest holes of conscription soldiers, instead trying to shout the noise of thunder he shouted "To the cannons idiots! Shoot this devil down!" No one reacted any less, the airborne silver arrow mesmerized all his subordinates and its ear-cruel noise mocked his inept attempts to herd his subordinates into action.
After a couple of attempts, Laiming gave up and instead focused on this flying freak which was circling over the area. The general began to wonder what this Polish devil was doing in Brześć and its surroundings because for a few minutes it disappeared in the distance only to return after a while. He spent unproductively half an hour like that before the realization of what the arrow was doing fell on his head like a sledgehammer.
"He's a scout." He muttered under his breath, to which the hapless captain responded "What did the General say?" Laiming turned to him and repeated "That thing flying above us is a scout! He... is gathering data for the invasion..." He finished bluntly suddenly realizing what was going on.
It lasted a moment before his posture suddenly changed again to a general defiant one instead of the slumped one he had when he observed the object. He didn't know what to call it, an airship is not an airship and its speed is much faster than those lousy aeroplanes he had a chance to name. They might as well have been standing still next to him.
"Adjutant!" He shouted loudly but nothing happened "Adjutant to me!" He repeated without effect. "Sasha, for fuck's sake get to me before I order, I'm going to rip both your shitty legs off your ass because you're not using them!" He growled harshly and only now did the adjutant who, for a better view of the thing, ran higher to be able to see at least a little bit of what was actually there, viariacally run over to him.
"On command sir General!" He said with a perfectly regulation salute, even a guard salute, but with a squeaky voice that made people take him for an overgrown teenager, another thing he looked like a kid although he drank for five more than once wanting to prove he was short and not a kid who somehow got into the army.
"Fly to the telegraphist and have him send a message to St. Petersburg warning of the impending invasion and that we need reinforcements and at once." Sasha only nodded and just as he was about to leave the Polish machine suddenly dived down sharply, then began firing in terror across the courtyard of the fortress, the bullets glaring overhead and nearby caused a sudden panic, but discipline and training made the soldiers instinctively start looking for cover.
Then the machine flew low over the fortress at tremendous speed, the General was startled when the plane flew soundlessly over him and then a sudden sharp thunderclap made him fall down catching his bleeding ears and all the other soldiers with him, while all the windows in the buildings broke at the same moment.
The loud buzzing and screeching in his ears subsided after a few minutes and the General noticed that everything seemed a little quieter to him than before the flight. He shook his head to shake himself and then looked at Sasha, who was pale and staring at something in front of him. The general followed his gaze until he saw the corpses against the wall, the thing that killed them must have been powerful, because there were huge holes in the wall. Traces of bullets which easily tore apart human flesh to a state like meat in a slaughterhouse, while bricks tore in half.
The general could not stand it and suddenly vomited, only the fact that besides him many others reacted the same way would make the general's honor and pride not suffer. Once he was back to normal, he clapped his adjutant on the back, knocking him out of his trance. The latter jumped slightly and looked terrified at the general still remaining unnaturally white "Remember what you were supposed to do?" Said Laiming in a weaker voice, Sasha nodded "Then add to that, to watch out for everything under the sign of the red and white chessboard, they are dangerous."
"And scary as the devil himself, General." Added Sasha from himself in an even weaker voice. The general nodded in agreement "And scary as the devil himself, but don't add that, okay? We want them to take it seriously and not as the madness of some lunatic."
The Adjutant nodded, "Well, go on then" The General said with a light pat on Sasha's right shoulder. As Sasha walked away, the General chuckled quietly to himself under his breath. "Damn, the Lachs are indeed devils, what other devilish things do they have in store?"
People's Republic of Poland
Village of Podborsko, Western Pomerania
13:45
"Fuck you traitorous Lachs!" shouted one Soviet soldier angrily in Polish with a Russian accent before a rifle salvo silenced him and a few other reluctant defenders of the village's nuclear weapons dump.
The Polish colonel shrugged his shoulders at that, then turned to the officer approaching him. "Captain Cena, facility secured?" "Yes, Colonel Pasterz." Replied the Captain with a very long and bushy mustache with a distinctive Boonie hat. Whereupon they heard a muffled explosion and an earth shattering "And that's like what?"
"This? Well, a couple of Ruskies hid in an isolated bunker refusing to surrender, and you yourself said that time was of the essence, so my boys decided that they would turn the bunker into a Russian coffin for the poor." Replied the Captain Cena as if he were talking about the weather.
Colonel Pasterz nodded. "Well, tough luck, they didn't want to take advantage of a favorable offer, that's their business." Whereupon he added, "And the Mushrooms secured?"
"Mushrooms secured, pickers now counting baskets." Replied the Captain, the Colonel smiled contentedly. An easy and simple mission which, despite strong improvisation, ended in astonishing success. Intelligence had done a good job and the Russians did not know until the very end what was in store.
Despite considerable risk, nobody perished, except maybe the Soviets, but nobody would care about them, the world would not get rich from lack of a few Russians, right? Nevertheless, the protection of the atomic weapon depot, one of three in Poland, was pacified, some killed in action, some shot for example and the most important part, the depot personnel, taken prisoner and "volunteered" this time for the Most Serene Polish People's Republic.
The Colonel's good humour was passed on to the Captain moments later when it was confirmed that everything was in order. "Great, send to Headquarters, Mushrooming in Koszalin is complete." Colonel Pasterz replied. And the Captain Cena dimly saw the advantage that Mushrooms give to Poland.
Warsaw
Office of the First Secretary
Gierek paced anxiously from wall to wall in his office, and was asked to leave by Jaruzelski so as not to interfere with military operations after the 7 a.m. briefing.
He did not like it, although he got every hour fresh and partly reassuring reports about what was going on at the borders, nevertheless every now and then he looked at two maps, one big, standing on a stand and showing a map of Poland and marked on it with pins in three colors, orange, yellow and red, all investments planned, being built or already in operation.
Just yesterday this map, was a relief to his heart, showing him which investments from his dream plan were completed, which were under construction and which were planned. He liked how many of them were yellow pins just waiting for the final phase or red pins indicating that the investment was already working and paying for itself, and very few were orange. Well, yesterday there were not enough orange pins, after all, today he was going to plan another series of huge investments, together with the appropriate ministers and other specialists, which would raise the standard of living in Poland and make Poland at least the 10th economic power in the world.
Now? Even the yellow ones hurt his eyes and heart, many of them would have to be kept for some time, because war needs would be more important. And here we come to the second map, an old one, about seventy years old, from the times of the Tsars, showing the then dead and alien to his contemporaries world. A world that ceased to exist barely five years after his birth.
He was then a small child, the son of a family of miners from the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie region, when the whole world that was already disintegrating for young Edzio, after all his father had died in a mining accident barely a year before.
He did not fully understand what was going on, why his stepfather and mother and many other adults were happy, what it meant that Germany had lost, in Russia a revolution, or why many older boys and men were going to war with some Bolsheviks who were supposed to be Russians and yet were inferior.
He remembered how his mother prayed fervently with others in the church for Poland and for God to give them victory over the Bolsheviks near Warsaw. He remembered how, encouraged by his mother, he prayed to God to do what he asked. He remembered the euphoria of those days and how foolishly happy he was.
He also remembered his later disillusionment with the problems of living in a Poland twice destroyed by war and his emigration for bread to France.
Now, here he is again, no longer the one-year-old Edzio Gierek son of Kazimierz and Paulina Gierek from a simple pious mining family, instead there is Edward Gierek I Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, lord and master of the Polish People's Republic on the orders of the Red Tsar Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow like the former Tsarist governors of the Privislinsky krai trying to play Red Wielkopolski.
And this time, he has no patron, no brotherly Soviet Union and no imperialistic United States. He is an atheist who apparently got from God a clear second chance as well as a show of his POWER as if he said, well Poles-complainers, you have a chance, you go to the past more than 60 years earlier to another era where nothing can stop you.
How will you cope now, will you finally be satisfied?
Honestly, he did not know what to say, what to do. He nodded that he understood, but his mind tried to defend itself, tried to explain materialistically, but hidden behind bars that part of him which remembered how little Edzio prayed to God for victory over the Bolshevik horde, which later happened like a miracle, spoke again, for the first time in many decades of silent staring at Gierek.
See, Eddie? You have a chance, you have an opportunity. You, a simple miner who entered the party to finally rule Poland, you stand before a chance like no other during the last thousand years of Polish history. To lead the country towards greatness, towards the status of a power or even a superpower.
No longer do you have an evil red master in the form of the Soviet Union and its communist lie, instead the Russian Empire stands before you, standing bravely but hiding the rot spreading within, destroying the country from within.
You no longer have a good liberal enemy, in the form of the United States of America and its sweet western promises and ubiquitous navy, instead facing you is a country that sleeps, a country that fears the world, a country that tries to stay away.
You are in the world you were born in but died before you understood it, now you are back and the question is what will you give it? Opposite you are the Imperial Germans, a strange monster that is a nicer version of the nightmare you had as an adult, next to you are the other Teutonic Knights, those from the south in a barely surviving union of states that can only be kicked to pieces.
Behind Germany stands France, the country of your childhood, but different from the one you knew. It is still proud, still militant and passionate, the one that believes in ideals, not scarred by the fields of Verdun, the Somme and many other battlefields of World War I.
And above them all towers England, the British Empire, the United States before the United States. An empire over which the sun does not set for God trusts them in darkness guarded by a proud Royal Navy. Not yet struck by the German and Turkish hammer that has broken the chain that unites the British throughout the world.
In the distance, in the far east, there is Japan, which looks to the future with confidence, but no one suspects that the nightmare it will create for itself is already boiling in the pot.
And among them Poland, they don't know about us yet. They do not know about what it is. They don't know that the White Eagle has risen once again and returned to the maps despite the hardships and the desire to erase it. The question is whether Poland is a Phoenix, red from the fire of revolution.
Suddenly, the phone rang, interrupting this part of Gierek's monologue. Gierek quickly picked up the phone and the code phrase he was to remember came to his ears: "Mushroom picking was successful, boletes, boletes, and buttermilks collected. The cooks are beginning to prepare mushroom soup."
It took a moment before Gierek understood the code and then replied, "Okay, let the cooks focus on the preparations but let the soup not be cooked." A short moment before the voice said, "Understood." Then it hung up and Gierek hung up the phone.
And Edzio closed with a continuous interrupted monologue. Or maybe, as Mickiewicz nicely described Poland is a wraith, a Slavic vampire, and therefore cannot die because no one knows how to kill a wraith? And the only thing it wants is blood and it will sit on its soul after chopping with an axe the corpses of its killers to extract immortality from their souls?
Poland is not dead yet, for she is already dead and what is there is a wraith wanting revenge... Revenge on the enemy, with God, with God and in spite of God? Gierek looked at the locked Edz in his mind before replying "I don't know..." He then paused for a long moment before replying "But I know what I must do to keep our madness of blood and vengeance from running rampant and you will be needed for that." And Edzio just smiled, before Gierek woke up realizing that he was on the phone somewhere, only to hear the old voice of the True Father of the Nation "How can I help you, Son?"
People's Republic of Poland
Terespol
12:44
"We on support, I hear you have a problem with some Tsarist Russians." Decided to joke to lighten the atmosphere newly arrived Captain Jan Krogulec. "A problem...good one. We're in the black fucking ass, not a problem!" Retorted a disgruntled Captain Konrad Dwojak, who had the honor of defending himself desperately against the Russian onslaught.
And as if to emphasize his words, the Russian artillery in the Fortress sounded, firing a short salvo of terror into the city destroying some buildings or tearing a hole in the asphalt. One of the shells hit not far from where both captains were standing, fortunately on the other side of the building they were standing next to.
"I can just see that." Krogulec said, "Are they firing like that all the time?" Dwojak shook his head "No, they've been firing like that ever since the shooting started, in the morning before they hit they did a bit of a handicap artillery preparation, razed the eastern part of the city, destroyed some houses in the north and shelled the GPK but after that they started firing sparingly and mainly to terrorize civilians because their fire was concentrated on the train station so we had to move the evacuation to the south, you saw that yourself."
Krogulec wondered "Strange, what happened that they shoot so little?" Because he was able to count the number of guns firing and the number of shells falling without any significant effort. "I don't know." Began Dwojak with a feigned expression "Maybe it's because the Fortress powder magazine along with the main ammunition supply... was located in Terespol?"
"What?" Said Krogulec bluntly "What do you mean the powder magazine was in Terespol?" And Dwojak giggled mischievously "And so how did they design this Fortress after all there was no border here right?" Krogulec nodded "It is now, and the Russians didn't rebuild the Fortress after the war because they didn't need it unless in the form of a museum, and the powder magazine with a small part of the walls was on this side of the border. They didn't need the powder magazine and the Army didn't know what to do with it, so they gave it to us and we turned it into a warehouse."
Krogulec burst out laughing after that "Oh fuck. So they're up the ass with wrestling?" He said all the while amused by the irony of the situation. "Seeing how poorly they shoot, then yes." Replied Dwojak just as cheerfully.
The Russian Empire
Brest Fortress
12:43
Colonel General Vladimir Laiming felt a sting as if someone was laughing at him behind his back. No less, he ignored this feeling instead of letting it blind him. And listening to the Fortress artillery captain standing in front of him, it was hard to refrain from letting himself go.
"Captain, did I understand correctly that we have only fourteen crates of ammunition for the artillery already? Because you only recently remembered that the main part of the stockpile was moved to the powder magazine in Terespol barely a year ago? So we have shot ourselves out of almost all the ammunition?" Said the General with each successive question with an increasingly angry tone "Are you guys crazy or have you gone mad?" He asked to the officer standing bravely yet increasingly red with shame.
"No, General just..." Tried to answer the Captain "Just what?" growled the General getting into his words "Only that I have nothing to do with the fact that our powder magazine has evaporated and we have no access to it." The Captain began to explain.
"Well yes, of course you have nothing to do with the fact that Terespol suddenly changed for us to this thing ruled by Lachians! Good God, Captain, I wouldn't blame you in my life for something that no one but God or the Devil had any influence on." Replied the bewildered General, "But on how quickly we will use up our ammunition we will!" He added shattering the Captain's hopes of getting out of this brawl unscathed. He would have probably yelled at the captain for the next few minutes announcing to the whole world what a moron the captain was if not for a loud and very unpleasant sound that ripped the air.
"What is that devilish sound!" growled the General loudly then as the noise got closer and closer he grabbed himself covered his ears with his hands trying unsuccessfully to drown out the sound. Only when the noise was unbearable someone shouted something and pointed to the sky. Laiming followed his hand and began searching the sky.
It took him a while before he noticed a strange silver object coming from the west, flying relatively high in the sky, higher than any airship or aeroplane he knew. It was small and looked like an arrowhead crossing the sky going eastward like the comet omens of old, giving the more superstitious soldiers reason to fall to their knees and lament that their doom was at hand.
The general did not succumb to the foolish superstitions of his unsuspecting and often drawn from the biggest holes of conscription soldiers, instead trying to shout the noise of thunder he shouted "To the cannons idiots! Shoot this devil down!" No one reacted any less, the airborne silver arrow mesmerized all his subordinates and its ear-cruel noise mocked his inept attempts to herd his subordinates into action.
After a couple of attempts, Laiming gave up and instead focused on this flying freak which was circling over the area. The general began to wonder what this Polish devil was doing in Brześć and its surroundings because for a few minutes it disappeared in the distance only to return after a while. He spent unproductively half an hour like that before the realization of what the arrow was doing fell on his head like a sledgehammer.
"He's a scout." He muttered under his breath, to which the hapless captain responded "What did the General say?" Laiming turned to him and repeated "That thing flying above us is a scout! He... is gathering data for the invasion..." He finished bluntly suddenly realizing what was going on.
It lasted a moment before his posture suddenly changed again to a general defiant one instead of the slumped one he had when he observed the object. He didn't know what to call it, an airship is not an airship and its speed is much faster than those lousy aeroplanes he had a chance to name. They might as well have been standing still next to him.
"Adjutant!" He shouted loudly but nothing happened "Adjutant to me!" He repeated without effect. "Sasha, for fuck's sake get to me before I order, I'm going to rip both your shitty legs off your ass because you're not using them!" He growled harshly and only now did the adjutant who, for a better view of the thing, ran higher to be able to see at least a little bit of what was actually there, viariacally run over to him.
"On command sir General!" He said with a perfectly regulation salute, even a guard salute, but with a squeaky voice that made people take him for an overgrown teenager, another thing he looked like a kid although he drank for five more than once wanting to prove he was short and not a kid who somehow got into the army.
"Fly to the telegraphist and have him send a message to St. Petersburg warning of the impending invasion and that we need reinforcements and at once." Sasha only nodded and just as he was about to leave the Polish machine suddenly dived down sharply, then began firing in terror across the courtyard of the fortress, the bullets glaring overhead and nearby caused a sudden panic, but discipline and training made the soldiers instinctively start looking for cover.
Then the machine flew low over the fortress at tremendous speed, the General was startled when the plane flew soundlessly over him and then a sudden sharp thunderclap made him fall down catching his bleeding ears and all the other soldiers with him, while all the windows in the buildings broke at the same moment.
The loud buzzing and screeching in his ears subsided after a few minutes and the General noticed that everything seemed a little quieter to him than before the flight. He shook his head to shake himself and then looked at Sasha, who was pale and staring at something in front of him. The general followed his gaze until he saw the corpses against the wall, the thing that killed them must have been powerful, because there were huge holes in the wall. Traces of bullets which easily tore apart human flesh to a state like meat in a slaughterhouse, while bricks tore in half.
The general could not stand it and suddenly vomited, only the fact that besides him many others reacted the same way would make the general's honor and pride not suffer. Once he was back to normal, he clapped his adjutant on the back, knocking him out of his trance. The latter jumped slightly and looked terrified at the general still remaining unnaturally white "Remember what you were supposed to do?" Said Laiming in a weaker voice, Sasha nodded "Then add to that, to watch out for everything under the sign of the red and white chessboard, they are dangerous."
"And scary as the devil himself, General." Added Sasha from himself in an even weaker voice. The general nodded in agreement "And scary as the devil himself, but don't add that, okay? We want them to take it seriously and not as the madness of some lunatic."
The Adjutant nodded, "Well, go on then" The General said with a light pat on Sasha's right shoulder. As Sasha walked away, the General chuckled quietly to himself under his breath. "Damn, the Lachs are indeed devils, what other devilish things do they have in store?"
People's Republic of Poland
Village of Podborsko, Western Pomerania
13:45
"Fuck you traitorous Lachs!" shouted one Soviet soldier angrily in Polish with a Russian accent before a rifle salvo silenced him and a few other reluctant defenders of the village's nuclear weapons dump.
The Polish colonel shrugged his shoulders at that, then turned to the officer approaching him. "Captain Cena, facility secured?" "Yes, Colonel Pasterz." Replied the Captain with a very long and bushy mustache with a distinctive Boonie hat. Whereupon they heard a muffled explosion and an earth shattering "And that's like what?"
"This? Well, a couple of Ruskies hid in an isolated bunker refusing to surrender, and you yourself said that time was of the essence, so my boys decided that they would turn the bunker into a Russian coffin for the poor." Replied the Captain Cena as if he were talking about the weather.
Colonel Pasterz nodded. "Well, tough luck, they didn't want to take advantage of a favorable offer, that's their business." Whereupon he added, "And the Mushrooms secured?"
"Mushrooms secured, pickers now counting baskets." Replied the Captain, the Colonel smiled contentedly. An easy and simple mission which, despite strong improvisation, ended in astonishing success. Intelligence had done a good job and the Russians did not know until the very end what was in store.
Despite considerable risk, nobody perished, except maybe the Soviets, but nobody would care about them, the world would not get rich from lack of a few Russians, right? Nevertheless, the protection of the atomic weapon depot, one of three in Poland, was pacified, some killed in action, some shot for example and the most important part, the depot personnel, taken prisoner and "volunteered" this time for the Most Serene Polish People's Republic.
The Colonel's good humour was passed on to the Captain moments later when it was confirmed that everything was in order. "Great, send to Headquarters, Mushrooming in Koszalin is complete." Colonel Pasterz replied. And the Captain Cena dimly saw the advantage that Mushrooms give to Poland.
Warsaw
Office of the First Secretary
Gierek paced anxiously from wall to wall in his office, and was asked to leave by Jaruzelski so as not to interfere with military operations after the 7 a.m. briefing.
He did not like it, although he got every hour fresh and partly reassuring reports about what was going on at the borders, nevertheless every now and then he looked at two maps, one big, standing on a stand and showing a map of Poland and marked on it with pins in three colors, orange, yellow and red, all investments planned, being built or already in operation.
Just yesterday this map, was a relief to his heart, showing him which investments from his dream plan were completed, which were under construction and which were planned. He liked how many of them were yellow pins just waiting for the final phase or red pins indicating that the investment was already working and paying for itself, and very few were orange. Well, yesterday there were not enough orange pins, after all, today he was going to plan another series of huge investments, together with the appropriate ministers and other specialists, which would raise the standard of living in Poland and make Poland at least the 10th economic power in the world.
Now? Even the yellow ones hurt his eyes and heart, many of them would have to be kept for some time, because war needs would be more important. And here we come to the second map, an old one, about seventy years old, from the times of the Tsars, showing the then dead and alien to his contemporaries world. A world that ceased to exist barely five years after his birth.
He was then a small child, the son of a family of miners from the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie region, when the whole world that was already disintegrating for young Edzio, after all his father had died in a mining accident barely a year before.
He did not fully understand what was going on, why his stepfather and mother and many other adults were happy, what it meant that Germany had lost, in Russia a revolution, or why many older boys and men were going to war with some Bolsheviks who were supposed to be Russians and yet were inferior.
He remembered how his mother prayed fervently with others in the church for Poland and for God to give them victory over the Bolsheviks near Warsaw. He remembered how, encouraged by his mother, he prayed to God to do what he asked. He remembered the euphoria of those days and how foolishly happy he was.
He also remembered his later disillusionment with the problems of living in a Poland twice destroyed by war and his emigration for bread to France.
Now, here he is again, no longer the one-year-old Edzio Gierek son of Kazimierz and Paulina Gierek from a simple pious mining family, instead there is Edward Gierek I Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, lord and master of the Polish People's Republic on the orders of the Red Tsar Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow like the former Tsarist governors of the Privislinsky krai trying to play Red Wielkopolski.
And this time, he has no patron, no brotherly Soviet Union and no imperialistic United States. He is an atheist who apparently got from God a clear second chance as well as a show of his POWER as if he said, well Poles-complainers, you have a chance, you go to the past more than 60 years earlier to another era where nothing can stop you.
How will you cope now, will you finally be satisfied?
Honestly, he did not know what to say, what to do. He nodded that he understood, but his mind tried to defend itself, tried to explain materialistically, but hidden behind bars that part of him which remembered how little Edzio prayed to God for victory over the Bolshevik horde, which later happened like a miracle, spoke again, for the first time in many decades of silent staring at Gierek.
See, Eddie? You have a chance, you have an opportunity. You, a simple miner who entered the party to finally rule Poland, you stand before a chance like no other during the last thousand years of Polish history. To lead the country towards greatness, towards the status of a power or even a superpower.
No longer do you have an evil red master in the form of the Soviet Union and its communist lie, instead the Russian Empire stands before you, standing bravely but hiding the rot spreading within, destroying the country from within.
You no longer have a good liberal enemy, in the form of the United States of America and its sweet western promises and ubiquitous navy, instead facing you is a country that sleeps, a country that fears the world, a country that tries to stay away.
You are in the world you were born in but died before you understood it, now you are back and the question is what will you give it? Opposite you are the Imperial Germans, a strange monster that is a nicer version of the nightmare you had as an adult, next to you are the other Teutonic Knights, those from the south in a barely surviving union of states that can only be kicked to pieces.
Behind Germany stands France, the country of your childhood, but different from the one you knew. It is still proud, still militant and passionate, the one that believes in ideals, not scarred by the fields of Verdun, the Somme and many other battlefields of World War I.
And above them all towers England, the British Empire, the United States before the United States. An empire over which the sun does not set for God trusts them in darkness guarded by a proud Royal Navy. Not yet struck by the German and Turkish hammer that has broken the chain that unites the British throughout the world.
In the distance, in the far east, there is Japan, which looks to the future with confidence, but no one suspects that the nightmare it will create for itself is already boiling in the pot.
And among them Poland, they don't know about us yet. They do not know about what it is. They don't know that the White Eagle has risen once again and returned to the maps despite the hardships and the desire to erase it. The question is whether Poland is a Phoenix, red from the fire of revolution.
Suddenly, the phone rang, interrupting this part of Gierek's monologue. Gierek quickly picked up the phone and the code phrase he was to remember came to his ears: "Mushroom picking was successful, boletes, boletes, and buttermilks collected. The cooks are beginning to prepare mushroom soup."
It took a moment before Gierek understood the code and then replied, "Okay, let the cooks focus on the preparations but let the soup not be cooked." A short moment before the voice said, "Understood." Then it hung up and Gierek hung up the phone.
And Edzio closed with a continuous interrupted monologue. Or maybe, as Mickiewicz nicely described Poland is a wraith, a Slavic vampire, and therefore cannot die because no one knows how to kill a wraith? And the only thing it wants is blood and it will sit on its soul after chopping with an axe the corpses of its killers to extract immortality from their souls?
Poland is not dead yet, for she is already dead and what is there is a wraith wanting revenge... Revenge on the enemy, with God, with God and in spite of God? Gierek looked at the locked Edz in his mind before replying "I don't know..." He then paused for a long moment before replying "But I know what I must do to keep our madness of blood and vengeance from running rampant and you will be needed for that." And Edzio just smiled, before Gierek woke up realizing that he was on the phone somewhere, only to hear the old voice of the True Father of the Nation "How can I help you, Son?"
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Batrix2070
RON/PLC was a wonderful country.
Meaning?
It's short for Graniczny Punkt Kontrolny (Border Checkpoint), in Terespol there is one for the usual place, and one for the railroad.
I wrote it like this and then forgot to correct it.
And I don't know what code is responsible for the nice line separating the text to post this for clarification
Great chapter.
I think,that Gierek is smart enough to not fuck up.And,with Primate Wyszyński help,Poland could be great again.
What to do with other countries?
A-H - they could made alliance there.All A-H need was somebody who schield them from bad Bear and do not take their lands like germans would do.
Becouse we probably do not take Lwów here,it is possible.
Germany - must be destroyed as state,and Bavaria,Saxony and Wirtenbergia made free againPrussians could play with themselves.
Russia - still strong country,so better take part of Kresy from them.Especially Wilno - city and countryside was still polish then.
I read memories of polish arictocrat Hipolit Korwin-Milewski/good book/ and he claimed,that there was no belorussians then/peasants consivering themselves locals/ and about 500 lithuanians in 1914 who was created by germans against Russia before WW1.Other considered themselves locals,too.
So,go there and convict locals that they are poles.
And no,we do not need to destroy Russia,only made it weaker.
France - ally for destroing germans.
England - as long as Poland do not create Navy or start conqering Europe,they should wait and see.Be wary of their spies,thought.
USA - let them sleep.
Japan - ally,convict them to take Siberia.Russia was unable to send army there in that time.Maybe send few Kurosawa movies,if Poland have them?
After all that,focus on getting rich and keep technological distance.Poland do not need world empire.
P.S kind of NEP must be done.Maybe ask poles from Russia to come? there was many succesfull polish bussinesman there in those times.
I think,that Gierek is smart enough to not fuck up.And,with Primate Wyszyński help,Poland could be great again.
What to do with other countries?
A-H - they could made alliance there.All A-H need was somebody who schield them from bad Bear and do not take their lands like germans would do.
Becouse we probably do not take Lwów here,it is possible.
Germany - must be destroyed as state,and Bavaria,Saxony and Wirtenbergia made free againPrussians could play with themselves.
Russia - still strong country,so better take part of Kresy from them.Especially Wilno - city and countryside was still polish then.
I read memories of polish arictocrat Hipolit Korwin-Milewski/good book/ and he claimed,that there was no belorussians then/peasants consivering themselves locals/ and about 500 lithuanians in 1914 who was created by germans against Russia before WW1.Other considered themselves locals,too.
So,go there and convict locals that they are poles.
And no,we do not need to destroy Russia,only made it weaker.
France - ally for destroing germans.
England - as long as Poland do not create Navy or start conqering Europe,they should wait and see.Be wary of their spies,thought.
USA - let them sleep.
Japan - ally,convict them to take Siberia.Russia was unable to send army there in that time.Maybe send few Kurosawa movies,if Poland have them?
After all that,focus on getting rich and keep technological distance.Poland do not need world empire.
P.S kind of NEP must be done.Maybe ask poles from Russia to come? there was many succesfull polish bussinesman there in those times.