5 Felinos, Year 20
Agl-on-Eusta,
To Hermann Henscher, Chairman of the Committee of Public Command
Major Anagret Pel
Citizen Chairman of the Committee of Public Command,
I write you this letter in the dead of night, for the entire day, both to me and to you, has been devoted to the service of the Republic: today the enemy attacked us twice from the skies—both assaults were heroically repelled by our soldiers, and the remainder of the day we spent in military exercises, raising towers, and digging trenches. I am an infantry major of the Republican Army, currently serving within the Southern Front Army under General Saskelburg’s command.
The crisis and scarcity afflicting the entire Republic have also touched the army: many soldiers lack proper uniforms, wear clogs made of cardboard and wood, and some have neither, binding their feet with straw—which I shall do myself until the last soldier under my command has adequate footwear; the food is poor and insufficient. Yet, the Army is conscious of the hardships that the entire nation endures, and so long as there is bread, gunpowder, and steel—though we hear that in other regions our soldiers are even short of gunpowder, and we confirm the words in your newspapers that we shall, if necessary, charge the enemies of freedom with bare bayonets—I personally eat the same bread given to the soldiers, and forgo the meat to which officers are entitled, inspired by the example of the Public Command Committee and its Republican modesty and selflessness.
I hail from Grendorf, in the eastern massif, where the most loyal Republicans reside. When the Republic seized power in our region, I was eighteen years old, and I did not hesitate to choose a vocation that, before the revolution, was not open to women: to enroll in the Republican Military Academy. As a child I listened to tales of the nine battles of Neuland and heroes of old and longed to be like them, yet only when I discovered the Republican doctrine did I see that a greater destiny was predestined for us than for our ancestors, for they were not Republicans.
Rising before the sun, swimming in cold rivers, riding horses, all kinds of military exercises, the thorough study of mathematics, learning to handle all weapons, meager sustenance, and sleeping on a hard surface —harsh for a young woman—as well as the War itself as the purpose of all these preparations, brought me delight, for Republican doctrine had taught us the high and noble meaning of it all. Since receiving my first officer’s commission four years ago, I have carried out all duties conscientiously with the sole aim of serving the Republic, and that service has in itself given me greater satisfaction than rapid advancement in the military hierarchy, which I have also earned by it.
I attained the rank of major only after a group of former majors were annihilated for participating in a royalist conspiracy, in which they allowed numerous aerial attacks on vital Republican strategic positions without providing adequate resistance.
Two further proofs strengthened me irrevocably in the Republican doctrine.
The first was this: when, in fear of aerial assaults, certain soldiers of my unit who lived in the nearby villages fled to their homes, their own parents refused to embrace them, honoring the strict Republican law; and these soldiers, ashamed, returned the very next day to their posts, risking the severest punishment for their desertion, from which they were spared only because the summary tribunal judged that the Republic has need of every armed man ready to fight, and that these men, after the disgrace they had suffered, burned to redeem themselves by heroic deeds.
The second reason is the law of Republican friendship.
My friends from my native town, whom I have known since childhood, who would give their lives for me as I would for them, now all serve in the army within my very unit, and our fellowship only increases our devotion to the Republic. When you know that every decision you make bears upon the lives of those you love most dearly, and when you fight an enemy who fires at you and at them alike, even those of lesser Republican consciousness come to understand the gravity of the struggle; while those whose consciousness is great know at all times that the entire Republic is one great family, and that every act performed for her is at once the protection of their most beloved.
I know also how precious the Republic is from what she has done for my own family and fellow citizens.
My two younger sisters, left alone in the world without anything when our poor parents died in the epidemic—and who, under the old regime, would surely have ended in the streets and the most dreadful ruin—now have as guardians the friends of our parents, who by law are bound to care for them as for their own children. Their upbringing and lives, as with all children and youth, are under the strict supervision of the public censor, an old man who has lived a blameless life, which guarantees that they shall grow into good people and good Republicans.
There are no longer children abandoned to the streets to beg; all attend school, where each is provided a bed, a meal, instruction, and dignity, and where they learn many forms of knowledge and prepare themselves for the labors they shall one day undertake in life.
My uncle, whom neighbors had unjustly slandered as a royalist and an immoral man, exercised his right to demand that his accusers prove their calumnies publicly in the civic hall; and when they could not, they were deprived of voting rights for a year, and his honor was defended.
When that same uncle, who had borrowed money to build his house and had worked diligently to repay his debt, lost both house and stables with their horses to a lightning fire, the municipality paid his debt for him, since he bore no fault for his inability to repay it; and the State, though herself in such hardship, furnished him with new horses from the public stables, since they were essential to his livelihood.
Another kinsman, mocked in the village for his crooked back, received by order of the public censor an official apology in the castle from those who had jeered at him, and they too were deprived of voting rights for a year, for having shown themselves ignorant of the principles of Republicanism.
A miller and a blacksmith, who had long lived in mutual hatred over some quarrel from their youth, were compelled by law to lay the causes of their dispute before the assembled people in the castle; after which, illuminated by the light of Reason and of popular brotherhood, they compensated one another and solemnly reconciled, thus strengthening the Republic of fraternity, in which there is no place for petty conflicts that make it easier for the enemy to subdue us and rob us of liberty.
Gaming and prostitution exist no longer, not even in the army; they have been replaced by friendship and morality. Nor is there corruption, for all dishonest officials have been denounced by the censors to the Public Command Committee and removed.
All these are the fruits of your deeds, and of the deeds of your friends in the Club of the Friends of Virtue and the Republic.
For the strengthening of Republican Morality, passages from your newspapers, as well as your speeches in the National Assembly, are often read aloud to us soldiers. You have restored to the world its faith in Virtue, and your love of Virtue inspires all soldiers who, with weapons in hand, defend what you conquer and safeguard in your political struggle.
Your friend Wolf Schmeck, who practices the noblest of callings—bringing to mankind the greatest of goods, health itself—has likewise come under attack from men inferior to him who envy his knowledge and his qualities. In this regard I must proudly say that in the units under my command every such spreading of prejudice is strictly punished, and that throughout our camp all three races stand fraternally beneath one banner, while werewolves and vampires alike share the night watch as their friends and brothers take the rest of sleep they require.
Finally, I must speak of a personal reason for which I am grateful to the Republic and to you: the steadfast policy of the New Regime concerning the equality of women in the army. It has happened that certain soldiers, steeped in the notions of the old order, refused to show me respect as their officer and even spoke insults of me, for which they were duly punished. Yet what wounded me more was the conduct of some of my fellow officers.
I observed that officers of common birth and upbringing, from places where women were always deemed subordinate, nonetheless respected me as their equal colleague; whereas those officers of former aristocratic origin and education, who toward me were full of so-called “chivalrous” gestures before the Law of Republicanism forbade them, in truth looked down upon me because of my sex and did not accord me genuine collegial respect.
All the hardships we now endure while waging this sacred war are but pleasures when compared with the miseries of the old regime.
Yesterday, as I sewed the tricolour stars onto the uniforms of the soldiers—many of them scarcely more than beardless boys, newly recruited—stars they had earned by receiving wounds in the last clash with the enemy from the air, I saw how happy your decree made them: that, once liberty is secured, each of them shall receive a golden star to wear upon his coat at the very place where he was wounded, while those struck in the face shall bear this emblem above the heart itself. Such tokens, simple though they may seem, inflame their courage more surely than any trumpet.
Yet I must also tell you that not all within the Army understand your policy and all that you labor to accomplish. Voices are heard that favor various factions, some even distributing among the soldiers pamphlets of Representatives who have attacked the Public Command Committee.
Regrettably, even my own superior commander, General Saskelburg—whom I greatly admire as a commander and whose devotion to the Republic I do not doubt—refuses to attend the daily readings of the Republican doctrine, calling them “philosophizing useless to the soldier”; and when three officers slandered the Public Command Committee before him, he neither rebuked nor punished them, but merely replied that politics did not concern him.
Were I to hear any one of my soldiers speak without respect of the popular regime, I would without hesitation place him under arrest and deliver him to a military tribunal.
Citizen Chairman of the Committee of Public Command, for all these reasons I beseech you: do not depart from the principles for which you are my model, and make no compromise with the enemies of the People.
Honour the Constitution, citizens!
Major Anagret Pel
