*Lothar Steffen storms in, knocking scribes and servants down with a loud clatter.*

What abomination is this?! Naples and Palermo given over to the Byzantines?! Bavaria fought long and hard for those lands! By all that is holy I will not see that Eastern Ponce's armies on Italian soil! This is a blatant betrayal of all of Bavaria! I will not stand for this! Byzantine armies can now freely camp within a few days march of Rome itself!

Dietrich von Dassel:

Electors, I hope you're happy. Kaiser Siegfried has broken the record for quickly violating edicts set by Ulrich Hummel several years ago. Explicitly, I might add.

He has immediately gifted Palermo and Naples to the Byzantines as a "gesture of goodwill," completely ignoring the fact that that these are the same Palermo and Naples that CA 13.2 explicitly said were to be incorporated into the Reich! This jeopardizes the security of Bavaria to no end.

But I will not call for an Emergency Session. This was, after all, the Diet's decision to let this man run wild and endanger us all. So I'll continue to cheer on the Kaiser's tearing up of the Charter, cheer it on with the rest of you and hoot and holler as our Empire goes to Hell.

Matthias pales at the mention of the gift of Palermo and Naples.

Kaiser Siegfried, with a stroke of a pen, has reversed 300 years or more of history and brought the Byzantines back into Italy. The sacrifices of my father and other Bavarians is wiped away. I don't know which is more absurd, this or the fact the Sicilians then attacked them. I suppose we'll have to dispatch an army in a few years to bail our "brothers" out.

Gifting far off provinces to the Greeks is one thing, but donating the southern half of Italy to them, right next to our capital, is another. No one in the Diet. . .

Matthias looks around marking a few faces.

. . .or at least most of the them did not know of this, or would have voted for the Kaiser's agenda if this insanity had been made clear.

This is Madness! I did not lead the Reich for forty years so it could be lopped up and given piecemeal to those who do not deserve it!

Oh, but we've had another letter from the Kaiser saying all is well. An honor that he has deigned to grace us with a letter!

Nothing good will come of this. I was a fool to belive it would, and to vote how I did.

Madness!

This is indeed absurd surely the Kaiser cannot hope to stay in power for long if he does such things without even mentioning them to the Duke of the House whose territories he is throwing away.
A knife in the dark may become reality if he carries on like this, I know a few who are capable of ordering such an act. (this last comment is said under his breath)

Dietrich von Dassel:

And another thing. If our two Empires are to eventually re-unify - the definition implying that they are to become one - then what's the point of giving away provinces that we're going to get back? Answer me that, unless Emperor Isaac wants the negotations to proceed as difficult as possible for us!

Elberhard:

Dietrich is, of course, quite right. With re-unification, we are going to get the provinces back. His inference, of course, is quite wrong. The correct inference is that since we are going to get Naples and Palermo back, why create a hue and cry over losing them now?

But to answer Dietrich's question, the answer is @#$%^&!!!ing obvious: we give them away now so that we can get unification! Then we will not merely get these two provinces back, but gain many more from Constantinople eastwards.

And, of course, Emperor Isaac is making negotiations hard. Imagine if the situation were reversed, and Siegfried were going to negotiate with the Byzantines to put the entire Reich under the control of Isaac as Augustus. You'd expect him to bargain hard, wouldn't you?

Dieter Bresch - it is a good job I am hard of hearing or you would be out of 'ere, mate. Any whispering against the Kaiser that does come to my ear will bear severe consequences. And try to keep up - Palermo and Naples no more belonged to a Duke than Rome does! They were Imperial provinces.

Which brings me to my Bavarian brothers, Lothar and Matthias. My how they wail and protest! Yet, if we read Count Lothar's orders to the Bavarian Household Army, what do we find:

Because Palermo and Naples were not allocated to Bavaria, the Bavarians were not willing to spare a single man to defend them. And yet how they wail at their loss now. Such hypocrisy!

Compare this with the stance of our Swabian brothers. Long have they bled and died for Paris and Caen, which the Kaiser - in his wisdom - denied to their House. But they were true members of the Reich, willing to sacrifice for the greater good and not concerned solely with the self-interest of their House.

Finally, talking of good Swabians, I must return to my friend Dietrich. Dietrich seems to think that it is against our Charter to give away territories. Yes, Palermo and Naples were incorporated into the Reich - the Kaiser even voted for that. But that does not imply they may not be gifted at a later stage. Several times have we gifted territory to secure diplomatic or other advantages. The entire point of not allocating Palermo and Naples to Bavaria was so that the Kaiser retained the freedom to dispense with them as he pleased. If the Charter Amendment had not been past, the Kaiser would have been forced to dispose of them immediately - regardless of whether their use in diplomacy was opportune.

Or, indeed, regardless of whether the Bavarians had decided to keep their honour and promised to defend what they had ever so bravely captured.

Matthias rises and bites off each word he speaks.

Don't lump me in with my brother, mein Prinz. I have no say in HA orders, I am concerned that we have given away, with little visible gains, two territories that were once considered part of the heartland of the Roman Republic and Empire. And yes, as a Bavarian, I am deeply concerned that my House now has a new neighbor. I would also remind you that a Bavarian Household Army will be executing Imperial policy in Thessalonica, so you best not antagonize my House or my brother too much.

Whether this is legal or not is of little concern. The Kaiser, and it saddens me, you mein Prinz, have hid the truth of these negotiations from the Electors. You both sold us a false bill of goods during the last Session, and now we see what you both had planned all along. I wonder what wonderful new surprises await us? I salute you both in your ability to bribe and hoodwink this body, myself included, but we will only tolerate so much. Chancellors have been removed from power before, and that option, despite the disdain the Kaiser holds toward this body, in actions if not in words, we still retain.