More than two thirds of the officers, including the General Staff, presented their mass resignations this morning in protest for the disbandment of the Armed Forces of Istalia
Soldiers in Colsamia greeted by istalian unitarist supporters exiting their baracks
8 December 5047
COLSAMIA - Like a bolt from the blue, the news is leaving the nation, the government and most of the political forces astonished: in protest with the coming reform of the Armed Forces proposed by the League for Indipendence of Quanzar, almost 34,000 officers of the Armed Forces of Istalia, out of 41,000 active, submitted their resignations to the Ministry of Defense this morning.
In representation of the resigning officers, not just any group of officers went to meet the Minister of Defense Susanna Langella but the entire General Staff of the Armed Forces did: General Piero Barbero, Chief of Defense Staff, General Nicola Casu, Chief General Staff of the Army, Admiral Ismaele Khashoggi, Chief of Staff of the Navy, General Nina Sangiorgio, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and General Federico Tarquini, General Commander of the National Gendarmerie.
In the various facilities of the Armed Forces, offices, barracks, depots and practically in every operational station of the Gendarmerie (at least one is present in every single municipality of the country), throughout the day there were continues parades of men and women who symbolically, with a solemnity more suited to funerals, they freed themselves from various ranks and badges of the armed forces by depositing them at the foot of the flags of their respective corps presenting the last solemn farewell, the only places where the old colors of Istalia could still be seen.
There have been very few and sporadic occasions that have seen senior officers intervene, resignations having been submitted on the same day of this blatant abandonment which would have instead required an adequate period of notice, but beyond that it must be said that those few officers who opposed it literally did not have the means to stop their subordinates as insubordination spread among the troops too during the day. The National Gendarmerie, which are entrusted with the functions of military police, turned out to be together with the Navy the armed force that saw the greatest defections and that even faster than the other forces began to see the mass abandonment of positions in the evening even among the non-commissioned officers and the troop.
The members of the General Staff, on the other hand, have already declared that they will free themselves of ranks and badges only in a month, at the expiry of the usual notice period, but during this period they will not exercise their usual functions and therefore will not take any measures against increasing defections between officers and troops.
With the journalists who in a very short time besieged the entrance to the Palazzo di Travertino, the Chief of Staff of Defense Piero Barbero presented himself for the last time in front of the cameras reading a statement that was probably ready for months:
After long reflections and heated debates among the leaders of all components of the Armed Forces, it is with a boulder on our hearts that my colleagues and I have decided to leave our positions in the hands of the Minister of Defense and to submit our resignations as members of the Armed Forces.
Unfortunately, the impossibility of maintaining faith in the solemn oath we made in defending the nation has become evident when precisely the nation has now been destroyed by the will of this and the previous governments with which it is now evident the impossibility of working together as well as the impossibility to obey.
Although we have endured constant criticism and humiliation over the past decades trying to serve the country at the best of our ability, today the Armed Forces have been reduced to a scapegoat and sacrificial victim of political forces driven by fear and resentment, a retaliation against those citizens and compatriots who did not want to give up in the face of the abuses and suppression by part of fanatics and extremists.
As it is now clear how uncomfortable our position is for the current political establishment and to save time for those who are dangerously and selfishly undermining the defense capabilities of the country, in conscience my colleagues and I have preferred to withdraw rather than become accomplices of the destruction of institutions that for centuries with pride, courage and loyalty have defended the country, the people and the values that have made this nation great.
Furthermore, we cannot blame the countless officers as well as the valiant troop for their willingness to follow the example of their commanding officers, because the shame and the humiliation of the events that have taken place in recent decades that have gripped our consciences are felt in equal measure both by the simple soldier and by the highest leaders of the Armed Forces.
We have sworn to defend Istalia and the Istalians even with our lives, but alas they have been corrupt and fed by radical and maximalist fringes, totally incapable and opposed to dialogue and compromise, guided only by the blind pursuit of power and promoters of a true dictatorship of the majority, although in the absence of real numbers that reflect this situation in light of the disappointing electoral results of recent years, in contempt of the sensitivity and requests of a considerable portion of the population that is still alive and present in the country, we now feel ourself incapacitated to respect that oath that today we can only consider definitively dissolved because it was betrayed first and above all by those who destroyed the country and who are tarnishing and distorting a millennial history of unity, brotherhood and tolerance, a history of struggles and sacrifices for defend this land from those who have tried in every way to destroy it.
Our decision, and I am sure it's the same for many loyal officers and soldiers, must not be interpreted as a sign of giving up our will to defend the country, since today what is at risk is an ideal and I assure you that as long as there will be people ready to carry up the banner of that ideal, this will never die and it is precisely what at least I will continue to do.
Thank you
Really harsh words from General Barbero that certainly will not allow the current hegemonic political forces to sleep peacefully. The soon former Chief of Defense Staff, in the light of his words, seems to be willing to actively engage in the public, and therefore political, sphere to support his clear positions and it will not be a surprise if he should soon enter the ranks of Identity and Unity party with which it clearly shares its ideas and whose foundation and not indifferent political result in the last elections, according to many analysts and personalities close to anti-federalist movements, was the reason why the League for Independence of Quanzar, the most radical and maximalist of the two independence parties, decided to propose the abolition of the Armed Forces of Istalia and their replacement with separate Armed Forces for the Peninsula and the Island respectively, evidently fearful that the Istalian armed forces could assure support for what has been scornfully called "istalianism".
But it is not only some generals ready to enter the political arena who must cause concern the Government of the Alarian Popular Front and the League for Independence of Quanzar: in fact, within a few days the country will find itself practically without effective armed forces and clearly it will take time for the Armed Forces of Quanzar and Alaria to have full capacity.
The General Staff has however ensured that all those officers and troops employed in the strategic defense of the country, in short those in charge of managing the national nuclear defense capabilities, as well as the units deployed along the borders and the coast guard, will maintain positions until the country's nuclear capabilities are definitively dismantled, as envisaged by the reform, and until both in Quanzar and in Alaria the respective forces cannot replace them, but it will still be a rather small number of forces compared to the mass of resigning military members.
Another really worrying problem will be the State's ability to continue to guarantee effective public order: for centuries the National Gendarmerie has carried out police functions throughout the national territory such as to become the true face of public order for millions of Istalians. The relationship between the Gendarmerie and the population and society has always been very strong and traditionally the gendarmerie has been an important model of behavior within the Istalian culture and has always enjoyed great respect and affection widely spread among the population, regularly referred to as the "most loved" armed force by the Istalians. Moreover, it was certainly no coincidence that both the bodies defending the Presidents of the Istalian Republics and the Imperial Guard of the Empire were specialized bodies of the National Gendarmerie, certainly the most loyal among the military.
Numerous parliamentarians from both the Government and the League have already shouted about treason asking the Ministry of Defense for measures to be taken against those they consider to be deserters. Unfortunately, if the Government would like to act against the resigning personnel as against deserters, it would find itself forced to legally pursue up to over 250,000 men (almost two-third of the current forces available [OOC: given the current ranking of Istalia, I imagine that the numbers indicated in the wikia pages, which in any case have always been purely indicative, are no longer valid and therefore I imagined a significant reduction from about 750 thousand to a maximum of 350 thousand men, numbers calculated in the past also bearing in mind that for the Roleplay for Istalia it was recognized a population of over 150 million people]) with very compromised capacities to counter all this: it is in fact the task of the Gendarmerie by law to prosecute the military guilty of any crime but it goes without saying that with the Gendarmerie that is finding the greatest number of defections, the Government's ability to intervene will be seriously compromised. The involvement of civilian public order forces for military crimes, i.e. desertion, treason, etc... is not legally permitted, something that should leave the Government no other chance than to take note of the resignation and obviously no proceedings could be opened against those people who will be soon civilians, dishonorably discharged or not.
Thousands and thousands of men-at-arms who will return home as early as tomorrow, frustrated, angry and resentful and which many analysts expect to find soon supporting and demonstrating in favor of pro-istalian positions on the streets of the country. Outside barracks and installations, in a short time, numerous groups of Istalian unitarian supporters gathered applauding the resigning soldiers who, supported by the crowd, in numerous cases did not shy away from carrying out short scenes of protest to reaffirm their positions. With no more oaths or obligations to be respected therefore, a really delicate situation that could become a powder keg ready to explode at any moment.