As promised, here is the second installment of my memoirs. In the previous edition, you had the opportunity to meet some of the people who shaped my early days. Today’s edition will focus on my first steps as a government member, the end of WWII and the NAP, as well as the domestic and foreign-policy developments in which I began to take part. Everyone mentioned here is important and will reappear throughout many future chapters as key players, so don’t forget them.

The military and diplomatic aspects of this period

On the military front, the coalition led by the BFTE alliance (One of the rare alliances that from my first day until today has only changed names while retaining the same or a similar core group of leaders and countries) seized the initiative in the war and began scoring victories on the battlefield.

The USA was on the verge of defeat, Brazil signed a separate NAP, and Croatia, with the help of its allies, began liberating its final occupied region, Pula. Polish fighters led by GhostOfForest put in an incredible effort, even though on the other side stood Cimi with what was perhaps the most elite MU in the game at the time along with other great Slovenian fighters. After that, we seized the initiative and launched a counteroffensive against Slovenia’s core regions. One after another, the Slovenian regions fell until only Jesenice and Ljubljana remained.

Following our progress, Manga brought Babo (Rest in peace my friend) and me into the alliance talks to advise him. The Slovenians knew the war was lost and offered Croatia full independence, which was everything we had asked for. Harreki, as the leader of BFTE, nevertheless insisted on the complete humiliation of Slovenia (I just realized that the greatest criminal ever to set foot in Eclesiar deleted his account, so unfortunately I can’t provide a link). He demanded that we wipe them out before agreeing to any NAP and insisted that we attack Jesenice that very day and Ljubljana after that for complete wipe.

That was when Manga did something that elevated him in my eyes and, despite all his flaws, showed what kind of man he could be. Instead of invading Jesenice, he decided to start a ping-pong between Maribor and Novo Mesto, resisting pressure from our allies rather than humiliating the enemy. Although the BFTE leadership was extremely unhappy with this decision — which would later result in our membership applying being rejected, along with several other developments between Manga and BFTE that I will cover later — the respect shown toward our enemy was undoubtedly one of the main reasons why WWII also became the last war between Slovenia and Croatia. A NAP with Slovenia was signed, and the rebuilding could finally begin.

The economic aspect of this period

My first task was to build our own companies and economy. Croatia decided to adopt a communist-style economic model based on Bulgaria’s system at the time, led by Harreki. For this system to work, we needed a state holding account to which all players would transfer their companies and which would be financed through player donations. That is exactly what we created. However, what would later prove to be a mistake was placing the holding under the ZDRUG Military Unit — today known as the Croatian Army which was owned by Manga. Although all citizens had access to it, the president and owner of the MU had the final say. We started aggressively. Citizens donated gold in exchange for supplies. The problem was that we simply did not have enough companies: the country had existed for only a few weeks, and many players could not receive enough supplies to use their full limits. This led to the first disagreements.

Furthermore, Manga had a habit of spending all the HRK from the holding late at night, converting it into gold at terrible rates on the MM and then buying equipment and boosters he needed for BH hunting. This caused growing dissatisfaction among many players, most notably SPMarine, El Scorpion, Motorina, and others who disagreed with his view that, as president, he was somehow “more equal” than everyone else. That dissatisfaction will eventually reach its boiling point in one of the next editions of these memoirs.

The post-war diplomatic offensive

The final major development that began during this period was a diplomatic offensive — but one that was not aimed at other countries. Instead, we focused on scattered Croatian players who, because Croatia had either not existed or had been occupied, were playing in countries such as the USA, Macedonia, Japan, and elsewhere.

The crown jewel of this offensive was Nebra — whose account has also been deleted — perhaps the strongest Croatian tank at the time. He played in Japan and hated BFTE because of WWII and its previous activities. Some of the players who joined us during this period included Jiren, WonderBoy, Markoman, Murkoff, Crni bombarder and many others whom I unfortunately no longer remember. Some of them never returned, choosing instead to leave their bones on foreign soil. Others came home—and their return would soon begin to reshape Croatia from within.

The war was over, but the peace that followed brought problems of its own. Disagreements over the economy, Manga’s leadership, and Croatia’s place in the international order were already beginning to surface. Those tensions combined with new members of community will be the subject of the next edition.

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