Imperial Diet VII

[Northnovas]

To address young Dieter's remarks.
I thank you Edmund for your input. I am not disputing Fritz's ability has a general he absolutely saved the Franconia House from collapsing with the enemies at the gates and internal strife. You know nothing of Duke Arnold's ability to support his nobles with the best troops. He defended the citadel in order for us to gain professional troops to continue the fight. He shared his wealth. He may not have been at all fighting but he was there for support. Without his leadership their would be no Austria!!
He lead through diplomacy with Edmund in Prague. It was not about having sufficient men it was about priorities. He also stayed out of the Swabian ordeal.

Andreas your question the plan of the Outremer is in the documentation of this Diet. The goal is protecting Jerusalem and we learned the hard way. Duke Arnold is the one to get us back on footing in the Outremer.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Alexander Luther:

*Noticing Elberhard's empty chair, he smiles. It appears that the Kaiser has gone out for a quick rest. "So much the better," he mumbles.*

Electors! Good people of the Reich! It warms my heart to see you all here, in Nuremburg, safe and organized. Finally, after the all the turmoil of the past years, I do hope that we are ready to rebuild our great Empire once again.

I have been invited to the Diet here, albeit in a non-voting capacity (he glares at the empty chair) to present my views and hopefully bring a formal end to the religious conflict that threatened to tear what was left of the country apart.

However, it is clear to everyone that I am no longer a simple theologian. Ever since early on in Siegfried von Kastilien's fateful reign as Chancellor, I, for the most part, have been around military men, political men. Men who were concerned with far more than religion. These people had more temporal strategies, strategies for winning battles, wars, strategies on how to go about the little politics that took place during the Cataclysm. Electors, it is safe to say that I have picked up a little bit of their thought patterns and knowledge.

And from what knowledge I do have, one thing is clear: We need to unify, and we need to show the world that we are unified. We need to show the world that there is no longer a Swabian Civil War, which I regret to have ever been a part of. We need to show the world that, once again, our House Armies will rise up and threaten all of those unfriendly nations that border our superior one. We need to show the world that, once again, we are united under Kaiser and Chancellor!!!

*His eyes darken.*

Most notably, we need to show the Byzantines.

These traitorous scum betrayed us. We had a good alliance going for over a century. We had a mutual defense pact in Outremer that seemingly only we, thanks to Matthias Steffen, honored. We even had damn fool of a Kaiser, God rest his soul, ready to "rule" with a much older, wiser Emperor whispering in the shadows through his daughter. But it was not enough!

Electors, they wanted Italy. They wanted Outremer. They wanted Austria. And by all accounts, they cared little for merely taking over the place. When they invaded, they killed. Slaughtered thousands, tens of thousands of innocent women and children. Electors, this was by no means a simple war of conquest. This was a war of extermination, a war to wipe us off the face of the map for some unknown offense we committed to them. A war of extreme greed.

Well, I say it's payback time. We need to show them, militarily and morally, that we are the stronger. We need to show them that we can conquer them and still be civil to their innocents. We need to show them that you can never threaten the Reich and get away with it!

I propose, along with the support of Kaiser Elberhard himself, a resolution that will focus our efforts for the next several decades, on eradicating the Byzantine menace once and for all!!!

Charter Amendment 14.4: All Byzantine settlements are to be conquered and incorporated into the Reich by 1500. To demonstrate the moral superiority of the Reich, no captured Byzantine settlements may be exterminated and all loot from them must to be donated to the Papacy.

Yes, this war will be long. Yes, it will be costly, and in more ways than one. But, Electors, there are some things worth the cost. There are some things that nobody can forgive. Rome, Bologna, Venice, Antioch; they lie in ruins, nearly deserted except for the unholy barracks that house Satan's instruments of destruction.

The first steps to this are to, naturally, take back what is ours. But then, we shall continue. We shall keep striking, keep fighting, keep pushing until Greece, and Turkey, and Constantinople itself once again is taken!

And then, Electors, when the last city falls, the world will shake. The world will tremble at our power, our might, our wrath. And the world will know to never anger the Reich again!

Siegfried von Kastilien had a dream. He wanted the Roman Empire reunited. And he shall see his dream occur. We will be reunited - through conquest! Under the golden Eagle! Where every Byzantine, still living in prosperous cities that pay taxes to Rome, kneels before their true ruler: The Kaiser of the Reich!

Electors, what say you?!