Adrianic Confederation

[Adriaticus]

The Adrianic Confederation is both an old and new sovereign creation on the southern part of the Adrianic Coast. For centuries this area was known as the Republic of Regusa, a crowned republic that experienced periods of independence and suzerainty under Venice, the Ottoman Empire, France, and ultimately Austria.

The Confederation was originally known as the Confederation of the Adrianic Crownlands since the two charter component states were the Austrian Crownlands of the Duchy of Dubrovnik and the County of Kotor (or Cattaro). The Adrianic Crownlands is the name borne by the NationStates Althistory nation, and it remained part of the Confederation's long-form legal name until the admission of Montenegro 85 years later.

The Confederation was the result of the Act of Confederation of the Adrianic Crownlands passed by the Habsburg Provisional Assembly on July 14, 1918. The Act authorized the loose union of these two crownlands and granted each broad autonomy that later allowed each crownland to declare independence from the Austrian and Habsburg Empires by September 1918.

[Imperator Rex]

By 1917 the leaders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire began to realize that their polyglot collection of nations would start to dismantle itself because of the strains brought upon it by the Great War. Independence movements in many parts of the empire diverted resources and rallied the masses against continued prosecution of the war. Karl I and his advisors were already aware of the Allies' plans to pull the empire apart and assign large tracts of land to Poland, Italy, and the Serbian Kingdom.

The southern sector of the Austrian Littorial containing the empire's southern most crownlands, the Duchy of Dubrovnik and the County of Kotor, were populated by a mixture of Serbs, Croats, Muslim Bosniaks, and anti-Serbian Montinegrins. The Austrians knew that Serbia had a post-war eye on these two areas and would quickly absorb them. To counter this action, advisors thought it best to allow those two small crownlands to declare independence while still maintaining some connection to the empire via a personal union with the Austrian Monarchy.

After several weeks of negotiation and planning, the Austrian Reichsrat passed the Act of Confederation that gave these two crownlands the authorization and conditions for independence and confederation with each other. This was the final act of the Reichsrat as the legislative authority in the Cislethian part of the Dual Monarchy.

[Adriaticus]

During the turmoil of the Great War, the Croat and Montinegrin populations of the two littorial crownlands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were very uncertain of the future. Many of the Croats in the area of Dubrovnik did not trust the intentions of Northern Croats and the Serbs. Remembering how this noble families of the area were betrayed by the Venetians, the Ottoman Turks, the Serbs, and later the French during the times of the Regusian Republic, there was little interest in joining the independence movement of the other Southern Slavs.

Relatively untouched by the destruction of the Great War, both Duchy of Regusa-Dubrovnik and the County of Kotor felt secure and experienced less economic distress than other areas of the Empire. The Imperial and Royal Navy of the Dual Monarchy maintained a very busy naval base in the Bay of Kotor and near the docks of Dubrovnik. These two crownlands had never been administratively united and their only link they had in common since only 1815 was their overlord, the Habsburg Emperors.

As the new provisional government in Vienna was negotiating cease fires in attempt to withdraw the ailing empire from the war before it reached a point of disintegration, the people of these two crownlands started to become very nervous and fearful of a possible integration into the rumored Southern Slav kingdom under the control of Serbia.

[Basileus Romanus]

To add to the fears and uncertainty felt among the people of these two soon to be nations, the Byzantine Greeks were very interested in acquiring the coastal areas occupied by Dubrovnik and Kotor. The Bay of Kotor offered ideal protection from the rough currents of the Adriatic Sea and the hostile guns of the Italian and Austrian Navies. For the moment there was not too much the Byzantine delegation could offer since they were already engaged in their own independence movement to expell the Ottoman Turks from Constantinople and the surrounding areas after nearly 500 years of Ottoman rule.