by Gideon Defoe
Franceville
1889–90
Population: 540
Languages: lots
Currency: pigs
Cause of death: born a hundred years too early
Today: part of Vanuatu
///tipping.scary.blurts
In terms of ‘natural disasters’, Vanuatu is rated by the UN as the number-one riskiest place in the world – beating out Tonga, Guatemala and Bangladesh.* By the seventeenth century a constant barrage of earthquakes and hurricanes had led the indigenous Ni-Vanuatu people to develop a ‘patient tolerance for calamity’.† Which was lucky, because the Europeans were about to turn up, and that always goes well.
The archipelago of Vanuatu is made up of about 80 islands. It has a bountiful supply of coconuts and a possibly over-bountiful supply of languages: 113. That averages out as one language per 15,000 people. The most important currency was – and to an extent, still is – pigs.‡
Initially settled by the Melanesians, the seventeenth century brought the arrival of the Portuguese and their usual crappy gifts of whooping cough and influenza. The first visitor was the explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, who, in the grand tradition of explorers getting everything wrong, mistakenly believed he had discovered the rumoured Great Southern Continent. It would be 160 years until the next European encounter, when French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville paid a cursory visit. A few years later Captain Cook sailed through, cheerily christening the islands ‘the New Hebrides’. Cook was followed by assorted whalers and would-be sandalwood traders. They found the locals difficult to deal with. When the British Sovereign sank in 1847, the surviving crew swam ashore only to be killed and eaten. Relations were not off to a great start.
But the traders and newly arrived missionaries persisted. They set up plantations and exchanged goods for land, though the Ni-Vanuatu had no concept of land ownership. Then more unlucky missionaries turned up and got eaten. Just as the British were starting to think this was all maybe more trouble than it was worth, the French arrived. Supremely petty in the way that superpowers tend to be, the Brits instantly decided that they were damned if they were going to let their old enemy take control of the islands, cannibals or no.
Colonialism gets a deservedly bad rap, but there is something almost as bad: half-arsed, sort-of-but-not-quite colonialism. This was the fate of the New Hebrides, caught between two imperial dads spoiling for a fight. To stop the rivalry devolving into a full-blown war, Britain and France reached an agreement: the archipelago would be under the guard of a joint naval commission. What this actually meant was general lawlessness and no proper government.
Some neglected ‘in between’ nations like the Republic of Cospaia run with this state of affairs and never look back. But the inhabitants – both native and colonist – of the New Hebrides didn’t find it particularly appealing, and pious missionaries were especially fed up that they couldn’t legally get married. So, in Franceville (now Port Vila) on the island of Efate, they decided to do something about it.
They announced themselves as an independent commune, hoping to establish some basis in international law. They unveiled a flag and appointed a president. A constitution was drawn up. This tiny enclave became one of the very first nations to practise universal suffrage, regardless of race, gender or creed. Though obviously you could only get elected if you were a white male, let’s not get carried away, guys.
Then, like an unappealing couple in a geopolitical romcom, the British and the French suddenly managed to see past their rivalry and realised they had loads in common: namely that they were both greedy old reactionaries who weren’t going to let people think self-governing was an option, because that was the kind of talk that brought down empires. So, they sent their boats in to dismantle Franceville. A problem had been dealt with, but the untreated cause of that problem went on to fester. And a hundred years later it would erupt again, in the unlikely form of a messianic bulldozer driver and the ‘Republic of Vemerana’ …
* As if life there wasn’t already fragile enough, it was the inhabitants of Vanuatu who invented bungee jumping, using vines and rickety towers.
† Noted in the Pacific Island Discussion Papers, 1999, World Bank.
‡ The most valuable and sought-after type of pig in Vanuatu is the ‘hairless hermaphrodite pig’ from the island of Malo.
The Republic of Vemerana
May–September 1980
Population: 40,000
Currency: pigs
Cause of death: a coconut war
Today: part of Vanuatu
///tardy.scrap.intensified
The Phoenix Foundation sounds like something from the hackier end of the Bond movies, one of those shadowy cabals of evil, big-business types who have meetings in a hollowed-out volcano. Which isn’t too far off the mark. Michael Oliver was a real-estate millionaire from Nevada. Harry D. Schultz published a popular newsletter about how to avoid taxes (Margaret Thatcher being an avid subscriber). Both were fed up at having to pay for boring things like roads and hospitals that they might not personally use, and about having to obey laws that might not personally suit them, so they came up with a predictable rich-guy plan: start a new, totally libertarian country.
They’d already tried with the Republic of Minerva, a half-submerged reef in Tonga, but that hadn’t panned out because it was a deeply stupid idea. An effort to get a tax haven going in the Bahamas also came to nothing. Third time’s the charm, so they tried again in 1980, now targeting the island of Espiritu Santo.* It was here they got involved with bearded, messianic, half-Scottish former bulldozer driver Jimmy Stevens, who also went by the name ‘Moses’. He was already head of the New Hebrides Autonomy Movement, which – a little counter-intuitively perhaps – was campaigning against the imminent autonomy of the New Hebrides (on the cusp of becoming the nation of Vanuatu).† Jimmy Stevens called, in a slightly vague, cultish way, for a return to ‘the old ways’: a respect for the local beliefs and social structure that had been messed up by years of neglectful French-British joint rule. He issued a set of badges showing various ranks in the movement, from his own badge – ‘chief president’ – all the way down to the slightly less important rank of ‘school children’s guard’. Funded to the tune of 250,000 dollars by the Phoenix Foundation (and blissfully unaware that his personal aims only represented Phase One of their sinister plan), Stevens led an uprising on the island, blockaded the airport, blew up a couple of bridges and proclaimed the Republic of Vemerana.
The New Hebrides government tried to get the British to help out, but the French hadn’t shaken that old sense of rivalry and forbade it. So, it was down to nearby Papua New Guinea to send a small force, starting what the foreign press patronisingly dubbed the ‘Coconut War’. It wasn’t much of a conflict. Stevens’s followers were armed with bows and arrows, and the islanders were mostly quite friendly to the Papua New Guineans. When his son was shot after driving through a roadblock, a distraught Stevens declared that he had never meant for anyone to get hurt and the movement quickly fell apart. The Pacific Moses surrendered and wound up sentenced to 14 years in prison.‡ The New Hebrides became Vanuatu. Somewhere, the Phoenix Foundation no doubt continues to do its slightly shadowy thing.
* A cult on one of the islands today worships Prince Philip, which suggests a shortage of decent stuff to worship.
† There were two political parties, and both wanted slightly different types of self-determination. Stevens’s version placed a lot more emphasis on free love/multiple wives.
‡ Jimmy was let out of prison four years early, on the condition that he paid the government the sum of 30 pigs.
Along with a nice flag and a hummable anthem, an important attribute for any new country is a catchy name. Ideally, something succinct like ‘Spain’ or ‘Chad’. At a stretch you could go with a bit more of a mouthful like ‘The United States of America’ or ‘Papua New Guinea’. Or, if you really want
to push the boat out, why not try:
The Soviet Republic of Soldiers & Fortress-Builders of Naissaar
December 1917–February 1918
Population: <500
Cause of death: Germany
Today: part of Estonia
///foresight.grow.dazzle
The USSR had an untidy start. It doesn’t matter how neat your beards or slogans are, you can’t take over something the size of the Russian Empire in a day. When the Bolsheviks’ October Revolution rippled out from St Petersburg, it did so in fits and spurts. General confusion ensued. An improbable number of self-declared nation states popped up in a matter of months: the Republic of North Ingria, the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, the Hutsul Republic, the Lemko Republic, the Crimean People’s Republic, the Kuban People’s Republic, the Kars Republic, the Don Republic, the North Caucasian Emirate, the Trans-Caucasian Federation, the Republic of Idel-Ural, the Alash Autonomy, Kokand, Basmachi, Green Ukraine. This isn’t even a complete list. If you haven’t heard of them, it’s because for the most part they fizzled out virtually before they’d even got going.
One of these damselflies was the Soviet Republic of Soldiers and Fortress-Builders. In the Gulf of Finland, in the icy seas between Tallinn and Helsinki, lies the pine-covered island of Naissaar. The name translates as ‘Island of Women’, which has led some to suggest it might be the same Island of Women, home to a mythical race of Amazons, recorded by Adam of Bremen a thousand years ago. But by 1917 it was populated by dour fishermen and the inhabitants of a recently constructed Russian fortress. In the muddle of revolutionary fervour sweeping through the continent, the crew of a nearby battleship, the Petropavlovsk – under the command of charismatic anarcho-syndicalist* Stepan Petrichenko – decided to seize the island. The 80-strong crew appointed commissars of finance, health and education. They also supposedly levied taxes on the locals, though this doesn’t sound particularly anarcho-syndicalist of them.
The newly independent Estonian government didn’t take kindly to what they viewed as opportunistic piracy rather than legitimate nation building, but because Estonia was promptly invaded by the German Empire, they didn’t have a chance to do much about it. It was the Germans who drove the revolutionaries off the island, barely two months after they’d arrived. The Petropavlovsk sailed off to Kronstadt, where Petrichenko and his crew started the rebellion that came as close as anybody to toppling the increasingly dictatorial Bolsheviks.† The republic of fortress builders was forgotten, and is now a nature reserve, littered with the old naval mines that were manufactured there.
* The simplest definition of anarcho-syndicalism is probably ‘the system medieval peasant Michael Palin subscribes to in Monty Python and the Holy Grail’.
† After Trotsky crushed the Kronstadt uprising, Petrichenko fled to Finland, but was later deported back to the USSR. He died in Russia’s largest jail.
Neutral Moresnet
1816–1920
Population: 3,000
Capital: Kelmis
Languages: Dutch, French, German, Esperanto
Cause of death: zinc deficiency
Today: part of Belgium
///toddler.passions.blocking
After Napoleon smashed Europe to pieces, the Congress of Vienna was a grand attempt to glue everything back together. It aimed to create a more stable balance of power, especially between distrustful neighbours Prussia and the Netherlands. These two rivals tried to thrash out a deal and draw a map everyone liked, but they found themselves with a sticking point. A mountain. More specifically: the mountain’s zinc mine.
Nineteenth-century Europe was about to get heavily into the steampunk aesthetic, and for that you needed zinc, which outside of Bristol was in short supply. Neither country wanted to let the other get their hands on such a valuable resource. The solution: they decided it would belong to nobody. An awkward triangle of ‘neutral’ territory was created, and the fact that this meant the people living there would be technically stateless didn’t seem to bother any of those in charge. Suddenly free from conscription, the war-weary inhabitants didn’t mind their disenfranchisement too much either.
The company that owned the mine controlled everything: it was the main employer, it ran the bank, the shops and the hospital. Which was fine, until inevitably, in 1885, the zinc ran out. Neutral Moresnet, having displayed a distinct lack of foresight, found itself in dire need of an economy. They set up a casino, because casinos had been banned in their new neighbour, Belgium.* But pointy-hatted killjoy Kaiser Wilhelm II didn’t approve and threatened to annex them, so the casino shut down. A different Wilhelm – the keen philatelist and local physician Dr Wilhelm Molly – had a go at issuing stamps, hoping that stamp collectors would provide a much-needed revenue stream.† But that was thwarted by the Belgians. More successful were the gin distilleries. Bars and cafés also flourished – there were upwards of 70, which is quite a lot for a place that started off with 50 houses and a church.
Moresnet developed a boozy, semi-lawless reputation (there was one single policeman, who spent most of his time in a café playing chess), which the mayor tried to curb by announcing that ‘the singing of dirty songs is to be prohibited’. Then, in 1908, Dr Molly had another idea he hoped would be a money-spinner: Neutral Moresnet would become the first and only Esperanto-speaking state. The populace threw a party, wrote a national anthem, and the country’s new name was unveiled – Amikejo, which means ‘place of friendship’ in Esperanto.
As business plans go, it’s not clear how becoming a nation of Esperanto speakers was going to make their fortune. And the kaiser, demonstrating almost no amikejo at all, continued to find the country irritating, repeatedly cutting off its electricity supply. Finally, World War I hove into view and Amikejo was fuŝado (screwed).
In the aftermath, at yet another post-war conference, the now strategically insignificant triangle of land was unceremoniously awarded to Belgium. But the Esperanto society still holds an annual disko (disco) there, which is bona (nice).‡
* Belgium had gained independence from the Netherlands in 1830 and was about to engage in its own bit of hyper-horrific country creation (see The Congo Free State).
† One stamp collector got so fed up with a French magazine stealing his articles about stamps, he made up an entirely fake Neutral Moresnet stamp and wrote about it to troll them.
‡ Useful phrases in Esperanto according to Google Translate: The entire concept of the nation state is complicated. La tuta koncepto de la nacioŝtato estas komplika. Would you like to buy some gin? Ĉu vi ŝatus aĉeti gin? This Kaiser guy seems like a bastard. Ĉi tiu Kaiser-ulo ŝajnas kiel bastardo.
The Republic of Perloja
1918–23
Population: circa 700
Language: Dzukian (Lithuanian dialect)
Currency: ‘Perloja litas’
Cause of death: new maps
Today: part of Lithuania
///unhappy.seizure.tweeters
‘They even had one spy. He was lame, but he could imitate the voices of birds and animals; he could change his clothes to look like an old woman.’ – Anne Applebaum, Between East and West
Grand Duke Vytautas was the greatest figure in Lithuanian history – along with his very talented horse, who according to myth once got rid of a flood simply by drinking it. Vytautas built his first church in the village of Perloja on Lithuania’s southern border, and then in 1387, having taken a shine to the place, he supposedly granted it a special charter, decreeing that no inhabitant could ever become a serf. When – many years later – a grasping landlord decided that he actually quite fancied having a few local serfs, Vytautas proved good to his word: Lithuanian soldiers turned up and dealt with the landlord in the way that everyone would like to deal with landlords.
But by 1918, World War I was grinding to an end, Europe was a wreck, and everything was up for grabs. The Russian Empire had collapsed to the B
olsheviks, the Germans were sweeping through the region – even though they knew they’d lost – and a resurgent Poland was trying to get whatever territory it could come by. Borders were being redrawn everywhere and the Perlojans were worried their long links with Vytautas and his magic horse would be lost in the reshuffle. They sent an envoy to meet the League of Nations representative at Vilnius. It didn’t go well; the problems of a tiny East European village didn’t figure highly on the League’s to-do list. It waved them away.
Back in Perloja they held a meeting in their little square, next to the statue of Vytautas, and discussed the problem. One thing led to another, speeches were given, people got emotional, and by the end of the day they had proclaimed themselves a republic. They already had a coat of arms that they could use as a flag (a bison with a cross on his head, so pretty good as far as national emblems go). They elected a prime minister, a minister of the interior, a finance minister and a judge. The judge was popular for his wise sentencing of a wife-beater to be beaten by his wife. A drunken priest was put in charge of the army – 300 local men with home-made uniforms. Plans were drawn up for a local currency with Vytautas on it. And, of course, they had their lone spy who could do bird impressions and dress as an old woman.*
As they had feared, the redrawn map put most of the village on the Polish side of the border. The Polish police would turn up, and the Perlojans would hide in caves until they’d gone. A number of skirmishes culminated in the villagers attacking what they thought were Polish border guards but who turned out to be a Lithuanian unit – the very people they were trying to remain loyal to. Realising the hopelessness of the fight, they put down their arms and reluctantly agreed to abide by the laws of Poland, though they commemorated their bold independent stand with a plaque. The Soviets would later invade, restoring Perloja to Lithuania but also deporting trucks full of locals to the gulags. Neither they nor the Nazis would manage to pull down the statue of Vytautas, despite their best efforts.