The 1955 Kresimiria–Kruhlstutt Crisis was a six-month confrontation between the Divine Republic of Kresimiria and the Kingdom of Kruhlstutt over the island of Gewiss, resulting in the independence of the Gewissien Republic. It began with King Johannes III’s public condemnation of the Kresimirian Great Purge in February 1955 and ended with the 1955 Gewissien Uprising on the Kruhlstutt occupied territory of Gewiss in August.
Background
Relations between the two states had been cold since the end of the Kresimirian Unification War in 1921. Kruhlstutt had initially supplied the Centralists with material support during the war to prevent a Pravoslavic-majority state (Boskenmark) from becoming a danger. However, after the theocratic state of Kresimiria was established, the aristocratic establishment at Kruhlstadt, the capital renamed Creuzholz in 1964, began to worry about the Republic’s theocratic and militaristic rhetoric. The Crown Council in 1955 still consisted of about twelve hereditary and industrial members.
Despite this, trade was commonplace between the two countries. Kresimiria’s economy was export-heavy, primarily steel and heavy machinery. A possible trade route was to cross the maritime inlet of Lake Vokavovic via Kruhlstutt’s western ports. The other would be to transport cargo on land via Porta Franca east along Kaskiv’s rail corridors to Treviglio na Stepi.
On 4 January 1955 Chancellor Kresimir Kresimirovic II issued the Decree of Administrative Purification, beginning the process of the Great Purge of 1955. The long-serving Chief State Councillor Petar Zima was dismissed and placed under house arrest, and his successor, General Borna Kulas, replaced the senior officers of the Council for Internal Affairs’ State Security Directorate with military men.
The King’s condemnation
On 12 February 1955 Kruhlstutt King Johannes III condemned the purge in a public statement. He stated that the closure of newspapers and the arrest of civil servants was an atrocity. The King, who had reigned since 1948, was generally regarded as more willing than his father to engage with liberal opinion. The Kresimirian Council for Foreign Affairs called the King’s remarks an interference in domestic affairs and expelled the Kruhlstutt correspondents in Sinj. Kresimiria also cancelled a transit protocol concluded at Cetingrad the previous year.
Tariffs and the Voka closure
In March, Kruhlstutt responded with a new schedule of tariffs on Kresimirian goods entering Kruhlstutt’s ports. In April the Council decided to entirely close the Voka inlet to vessels carrying Kresimirian cargo. The inlet is a deep-water channel connecting Lake Vokavovic to the western ocean, and Kruhlstutt’s brown-water flotilla could enforce the closure within sight of the Kresimirian shore. This caused immense economic upheaval with Kresimiria, at an already unstable time in the country.
Interdiction in the eastern approaches
In June 1955, Kruhlstutt’s navy in the Treviglio Strait by the island of Gewiss began stopping vessels off the Kaskivian coast that were carrying Kresimirian freight. In practice, the patrols searched and turned back merchants shipping any Kresimirian freight out of Treviglio and Porta Franca, and in several cases seized cargo.
The Kaskivian government protested. Prime Minister Lieto Ezzo did not want to risk a fight with a naval monarchy on behalf of Kresimiria’s trade. Ezzo contacted Matteo Vorelli, the former Kaskivian prime minister who was on good terms with King Johannes III. The embargo continued but Ezzo demanded free passage for Kaskivian ships who were not affiliated with Kresimiria.
Arms shipments
By late June the State Security Directorate in Kresimiria had concluded that the country would collapse if its trade continued to be blockaded, and the CIA began to devise a plan. Otonik Ordnance, the state-owned arms company in Kresimiria, began arms shipments to the island of Gewiss, within the steel they already shipped. However, the Council of Defence, unaware of the CIA’s plan, sued to stop this in Council for Defence v Otonik Ordnance, and the Inferior Tribunal ruled the export unlawful.
This created a legal obstacle, meaning that Otonik Ordnance could not legally sell the Kres-55 rifle to Gewissien dockworkers. So, the CIA began to discreetly requisition Otonik stores.
The Council for Internal Affairs denies that the shipments ever took place, but there are orders dated 2 July 1955 and signed by General Kulas which were revelead in a Kaskivian parliamentary commission in 1998 and was published the following year. The 1998 commission found no evidence that Lieto Ezzo’s government had known of the smuggling.
The CIA’s smuggled rifles went by rail to Treviglio on the grain freight routes, and from there at night in fishing boats to Port Sterling. The commission’s report found that at least several hundred Kres-55 rifles had reached the island. Gewissien commemorations and the Workers’ Vanguard’s own account claim thousands.
Once on the island, the weapons were handled by the underground committees around Arthur Vance and his deputy Thomas Graves.
Outcome
The uprising began on 14 August 1955, and the Kruhlstutt occupation force surrendered on 18 August after its ammunition, water and medical stores were exhausted. Four blockade frigates were scuttled.
Kruhlstutt’s response was largely silence, and was widely viewed as weak. The Kingdom backed down, continued to blockade Lake Vokavovic, but could no longer control freight on the eastern ports of Nastavak, losing a large part of its naval powers, severely damaging the reputation of King Johannes III’s government, and is a potential factor in why the crown gave up power after the 1964 Kruhlstutt Riots.
The tariffs were dropped and the inlet reopened to Kresimirian cargo without announcement in the spring of 1957.
Lieto Ezzo’s government publicly condemned the communist seizure of the island of Gewiss, but welcomed the free travel of freight in the Treviglio Strait.