Holy crapcakes, Batman. I have been working on this since August, when I randomly felt like typing out Scotland and France meeting each other as children in the middle of the woods. And then I kept writing for five hours straight. And then I edited it. [/so proud]
This is pretty much my love-letter to fanfiction...
To get something out of the way right now: I know at least one person will take offense to something in here. I'm sorry, it's really hard writing to please everyone, especially when they're personifications. I would just like to take a moment to remind everyone that I'm a character writer, and I tried to focus on the character's relations while in the midst of historic events, not making every tiny, controversial detail right. Also remember that a people and a government are two different things. Thank you.
If you see an inaccuracy, please tell me, but don't beat me over the head with it. Love you all.
This thing is full of how I interpret history (AS A GIANT DOORSTOPPER BOOK WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF MISSING CHAPTERS!), inaccuracies, sentimentality and god-knows what else. I lost track halfway through the cameo of Northern Ireland.
Also. I'd really love to see my Google Search record. I bet it's gorgeous.
The notes in here are monstrous, and I should really just make a whole 'nother chapter for them. Unfortunately, dA won't let me do that so you're stuck with it in the A/N.
And yes. I do realize Beithe is actually a letter. I have a friend named E and there's a certain famous character named L. I don't think calling someone Beithe (which sounds more like a name than El or Ee. ) is too far-fetched. 8\
And if no one could guess, I ship France/Scotland LIKE BURNING -keyboard smash-.
NOTES! SO MANY NOTES!
Barclay's name ( "birch trees" ) anglicized it becomes "Berkeley" : [link]
Beithe (an ogham letter [ [link] ] and the Celtic word for Birch, a type of tree symbolizing rebirth) : [link]
François' name (Franciscus means "free" in Frankish Germanic. Germania is François' father, all the tribes are his brothers. Big, unhappy family much? ) anglicized it becomes "Francis," which is how Barclay, Arthur and Alfred would say it : [link]çois#Etymology_3
Aodhan (The Irish version of "Aiden/Aidan," which is derived from the old Irish word for "Fire" [Áed or Aodh, the website isn't that clear, but it's one of them] ) : [link]
New France/Canada, which was named after the native word for the land, "Kanata" (he was very badass during WWII, but you can google that yourself, because this link leads to New France) : [link]
Events as listed:
Gallia&Alba meeting– not historical, after the building of Hadrian's Wall, after Rome totally failed at invading Scotland.
Gallia&Alba meeting again– not historical, after 1066 and the Norman Conquest of England by William the Conqueror. Soon after taking over England, the French nobles also dribbled into Scotland, resulting in adopting some French culture. Unfortunately, some of the ingredients in Scottish cuisine were not affected…
The Creation of the Auld Alliance and After – The Auld Alliance was proposed by Scotland's king John Balliol because the English were acting like Scotland belonged to them, which made Scotland wary of invasion, so Balliol sent out a fleet to France and set up the alliance. About out one year later, guess who started a war with England? Yeeeaaah. Scotland did. And then they made a movie out of it. That movie is Braveheart, which I did not watch for historical accuracy, I watched it because it was epic.
Anyway. The Wars of Independence start with the First War of Independence, in which Scotland has Robert the Bruce and Balliol (Jr? Maybe? Unclear sources asdfghjkl!) arguing over who gets to be his king, and he asks England to mediate. England is like, "Sure, but if I decide who becomes king, Edward I (Longshanks) secretly really becomes king, mmkay? Also, soldiers are coming to make sure you make him king. Have fun with that." and then Scotland went back and forth being beaten to shit and beating England to shit and gaining his reputation as a badass. William Wallace was apparently also rather brutal, having the flayed skin of a particularly hated English treasurer killed at the Battle of Sterling Bridge being made into a belt for his sword.
Subnotes on this war!
Wallace was made Guardian of Scotland after winning Sterling, got the title Guardian of Scotland taken away after losing Falkirk, ran around causing havoc for a few more years, went to France in 1302 to ask for help, came back in 1303, ran around a bit more, was captured, dragged through the streets naked and executed. The guy got around.
Andrew Murray, who is not even mentioned in Braveheart, was just as or even more successful then Wallace in his rebellion. Wallace's rebellion was in the South, while Murray's rebellion nearly single-handedly reclaimed the North. They banded together after admiring each other's accomplishments, but Murray was killed at the Battle of Sterling Bridge. No one made a belt out of his skin, but I don't think there are any statues of him, either. Wallace is still Barclay's favorite, though, because he just radiates patriotism, which is very attractive to nations, especially in the 1300s when nationalism hadn't even been inventedyet. I mean holy shit.
Also. Robert the Bruce was the one people called Braveheart, and more importantly, he never fought for England because his rebellion only really started in 1307 after Wallace's execution. He never betrayed Wallace, and it was a really, really big screw up to do something like that in the movie. I am disappoint, movie. :[
The Second Scottish War of Independence– it kind of ran into the Hundred Years War a little bit. Scotland's clans are acting up after the death of Robert the Bruce. Balliol (Jr? my source disliked differentiating them) is back and asks England's help invading and taking over Scotland. Scotland is invaded and taken over. France does in fact intervene this time, but the battle is brought to the continent, setting off the Hundred Years War, which started a few years before the Second War of Independence ended, but that didn't matter much because Scotland fought in the 100 Years War on France's side anyway! Scotland held England off from completely defeating France during the wars for long enough that Joan of Arc was born. France kind of wanted to laugh at her at this point in time. Afterwards, he mostly blocked her from his memories until Napoleon mentioned her a looong time later.
Summary of the Auld Alliance Dynamic– Scotland does all the work but both Scotland and France nearly die anyway. Scotland also gets a lot of French wine out of it, and France gets money from Scotland's drinking habits that he picked up back in the day when he'd pay a whole slave to Rome for a jug. No, really.
1560 – Auld Alliance officially ended because Scotland turned protestant. The Scottish Regent (and mother of Mary, Queen of Scots) went to France requesting aid in beating back the protestant faction of government by force. France, a catholic nation, agreed, and the protestant Scottish government sought aid from also-protestant England. This almost ended very, very badly. The Auld Alliance was ended (though Scots kept automatic French citizenship) and French troops returned home to fight the clusterfuck known as the French Wars of Religion against their ownprotestants, the Huguenots, until one Huguenot finally got on the throne and converted to Catholicism, passed reforms giving Huguenots rights and started joining wars for strategic and political reasons. Such as their late arrival in the 30 Years War, that allowed France to wipe the other Catholics' buttockses and become the strongest power in Europe!
Canada being given to England - ….by the 1700s, France isn't the strongest power in Europe, anymore. D8 After losing the 7 Years War (the French and Indian War as it's known in North America) France was forced to give up some of its territory and decided to give up New France territories rather than its more profitable Caribbean ones. Scotland by this time had been part of Great Britain since 1707, after a seven-year famine at the end of the 1600s and a financial crisis leaving Scotland on the verge of bankrupsy, Scotland's nobles requested to join England in exchange for money, though the population at large opposed it. It's apparently debated if the money was the reason for Scotland's recovery or not. England, who was also suffering as a result of the 7 Years War and worried about invasion from Scotland was like "Oh, sure! This way we can share the same king and not kill each other. But we're restricting your trade. Sorry, dude. Also, now that we've given you money, we'rebroke and are taxing our colonies for every cent in them." America does not approve, and this leads to a chain reaction called THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION!
1776 - …. Which happens to collide almost at the same time with THE FRENCH REVOLUTION! The French Revolution resulted in spreading nationalist and capitalist ideals over conquered lands in Europe and ended with Francenarrowly avoiding being gangbanged by every power in France due to a little thing called the Congress of Vienna where a man named Talleyrand ( [link] ) represented France and essentially said "hate the crime, not the criminal" and pinned the blame on Napoleon rather than France as a whole, essentially getting France off of paying reparations to the rest of Europe and letting him off with a finger-wag, then setting up an agreement in Europe that if one nation got too big for its britches, the others would take it down to size (you might know it as The Balance of Powers). This resulted in NO MAJOR CONFLICTS IN EUROPE FOR LIKE, 100 YEARS. Small wars and revolutions abounded, instead, including the Haitian Revolution, I think two more French revolutions, and Crimean War giving the inspiration for the poem Charge of the Light Brigadebecause of a communications error. Which I think it was incredibly dumb, but don't mind me.
1903- …apparently 100 years of relative peace was beginning to grate on Europe's nerves, and pretty much all the nations are looking for a fight. France cancels Scotland's automatic French citizenship I mentioned way back in 1560, and have yet to find a reason for it online. Help? Oh. And Europe wants war. Did we mention Europe liked war? It's one of the reasons America is isolationist at the time, and was so reluctant to enter WWI—the Americans thought "oh, Europe's fighting again. No biggie, just let them sort themselves out… that many dead? Well it's still not our problem, we didn't start it."
1916 – the middle of WWI. Europe has gotten its war. After Prussia untied HRE/Germany with the help of Otto Von Bismark by trouncing Norway, Austria and France in rapid succession way back in the mid 1800s (100 years of peace is subjective), the rest of Europe got the impression that warfare with new weapons would be over quickly and efficiently. In 1914, they realized that no, it was not quick and efficient when both sides were of equal power. All of Europe now had the most shiny and modern weapons, but were still fighting like they were in 1812 and in Napoleon's army. Australia's Archduke is assassinated, Australia practically begs for a war and the Balkans accept, Germany's pulled in as an ally, Russia claims to be helping protect the Slavs and declares war on Germany and Austria. Russia is allied with England and France so they're pulled in. And suddenly all of Europe is fighting each other, leading to a stalemate that became the first real world war, literally wiping out an entire generation of people. In the middle of it, Ireland decided it would be a GREAT time to revolt against England, who was having its resources drained from fighting the Germans in France. This was known as the Easter Revolt and from then on it kind of spiraled into 1920s creation for the Republic of Ireland, the NRA and The Troubles. And calling them 'troubles' is like calling WWII "The Difficult Time." But by the 1920s there is a North Ireland owned by England and a Republic of Ireland, which is independent. N. Ireland proceeds to be confused about whether it wants to be independent as well or is happy being with England, and dissolves into civil war over it that lasts though the rest of the century until the 1990s.
1930s– Great Depression. Hitler fairly elected. Saves Germany from complete ruin. Totally fucks up his chances of being the German version of Abe Lincoln by turning into an omnicidal maniac. Also, people die.
WWII – You know what WWII is. Germany did actually start this one in a twist, because their military was taken away so when they built their new one they made sure to get all the latest technology. They were given Czechoslovakia as a peace gesture that made poor Neville very popular until Germany went on to invade Poland in 1939 before anyone could mobilize. France's fast surrender was because he had outdated weaponry from WWI while Germany (having had his army entirely dismantled before) had the latest and most deadly weaponry in the world at the time. Germany had started encouraging breeding campaigns (similar to Russia in modern-day) to increase the population, while France was hoping for peace and hadn't done anything like that, and as a result had half the population of before WWI and was literally unable to fight against such odds. The government offered a truce in exchange for half of France staying free. This became "Free" France (as opposed to Vichy France) and was actually controlled by a puppet government under Germany. However, just because they weren't officially fighting, France (like POLAND and THE BALTIC NATIONS) had an incredibly badass resistance, which by the time Paris was liberated, had gotten so ballsy people were openly slandering and disrespecting Nazi troops in broad daylight. That's not a good thing. Especially since, the liberation of Paris was apparently not actually planned to happen, but after hearing that the Parisians were acting rowdy, it was decided on by a few troops to ignore some other choice orders like "get to Berlin" and liberate Paris instead. Once it wasofficially started, British troops were supposed to attack along with the American and French troops, but the British troops asked not to be included for PR reasons.
In other news on WWII-Morphine begins to be used widely as a painkiller (the storage thingy looks more like a toothpaste tube, but Francis is a painter, and I was too lazy to look up when they started putting toothpaste in tubes, so going with the safe bet) . Sulfanilamide, a 'miracle powder' that clotted bleeding open wounds is put in use and saves many soldier's lives on the battlefield. America&England's 'special relationship' starts forming. Sealand (BABY PETER!) in use as a fort has soldiers suffering from being isolated, paranoid and cramped together on a tiny little metal outpost and start going mad. Still lots of dying.
America drops the bomb – but you knew that. While it's criticized, the reasoning back then was that if the atomic bombs hadn't been dropped, Russia and America would have forcefully surrounded the island of Japan and firebombed (like the Blitz, but with more potential for wide-scale fires) and invaded on all sides until surrender or annihilation were reached. This could have potentially destroyed almost all of Japan as well as killing many American and Russian troops. Stalin knew about the Manhattan Project long before some of the other leaders did because of Soviet spies, but he was notinformed that America would actually be using the bomb until after it had already been dropped, and most certainly did not like feeling out of the loop. The destructive power of the bombs worried Russians, who had been on worsening terms with America since about 1917 (aka- starting communism) and closing the borders once the famine became worse and worse. The few reporters that did manage to send word from the USSR described scenes of people dropping dead in the street and parents eating their children for food. America didn't like Russia all that much after that, and Russia was convinced that America was planning to use the nukes to attack them, next. There was obviously only one solution to this problem….
The Cold War- …. You know the Cold War, too. John Maclean was a Scottish Socialist and way back in 1918 he was the Bolshevik Representative in the UK. Fast forward to the Cold War and the UK is torn between their special relationship with suddenly axe-crazy!America and sympathy for has-been-axe-crazy-longer!Russia. Scotland takes the roll as the communist sympathizer, first because of John Maclean, second for the town on New Lanarck (in Scotland) , which was a relatively successful experiment in Socialism (there's a difference!) which seems to work on a small scale in certain conditions. France's position in the Cold War has always been a bit muddled to me personally, and I think that though the entire war he never definitively picked a side, given his iffy relationship with the US and England, but also his old friendship with Russia, social programs, protests but still capitalistic system. Eesh. He picked the side of "I don't want the world to end," I think.
Vietnam - Poor Suong ;_; America still feels bad about this, if it means anything to anyone. The French surrendered again rather quickly (still because of the lost half the population thing, which still affects France to this day, actually… and they're also surrounded in the middle of the jungle so yeah. ) Vietnam was set up as a democracy and about to elect their first leader when America (possiblyedged on by France, which if that's the case, we are now doing the 'government-is-not-actually-the-entire-country' dance again) America realized that the freedom fighters were socialists, so America started a civil war. Russia helped the Red North and America aided a corrupt democratic government in the South. Around that time, people started ignoring France's previously impeccable battle records and calling the French cowards. In modern day, they're still pretty scary if you look at their air forces, but don't throw it around too often. (headcanon: France and a lot of other nations kind of lost most of their bloodlust after WWI. Just saying. WWI would probably do that to a person. )
The last two bits- Not historical. I don't even know what it is, really. 8'DD God, this thing is too long.
If anyone has any questions, you can ask me. Or google it.
Because Google is our FWIEND.
(I don't own Hetalia)