Kingdom of West Wiltshire (1962: The Apocalypse)

History
The  Kingdom of West Wiltshire  is a totalitarian UK survivor nation based in Wiltshire.

The following article is impart based on rumours, victims' accounts and defectors' reports about the hermit state and is thus unreliable.

Doomsday
The only major neighbouring attack was a heavy attack on in Bristol and Southampton, plus 3 1kt bombs on various parts of Gloucestershire. Wiltshire was also hit by 3 1kt bombs, 2 on Swindon and 1 on RAF Lynham.

After Doomsday
The nuclear winter lasted between October 1962 and March 1963. A nuclear summer then lasted between April 1963 and September 1964. A major famine, plus a typhoid and Legionella outbreak killed many across the country in 1963 and 1964. The locals did not want to share at first due to desperation an later also out of meanness. The leader of Trowbridge UDC, Terrance Arnold Drake, took the chance to cement his power. He was a successful doctor and set up an emergency board to fight the Typhoid and Legionella outbreaks. His decisive leadership saved many lives and he gained much respect and kudos. He was indeed clever and a savoir as was his deputy, the Devizes builder Andy Richard Pool, who helped repair several sanitation works. It was shortly after this that Mr Drake chose to declare himself king and Mr Pool his Lord Chamberlain. Sadly, both their over-sized egos and totalitarian views boded for the worse.

The nation would struggle with various raids by the tribesmen from Oxfordshire, Swindon and the New Forest for many years. When the Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), also known among farmers as 'blue-ear pig disease' also killed most of thief pigs in late 1967, they managed to ration out the remaining food fairly and prevented any notable food riots, but wrongfully accused villagers from the unincorporated village of Chippenham of causing it in order to avoid a panic, since it was a regional plague that had hit other unincorporated villages and tribes in both Wiltshire and the New Forest to.

The animosity with Chippenham proved a brilliant tool to exploit. The regime had successfully managed to alienate it with the public of West Wiltshire by 1970.

As time passed the situation stabilised, the population grew and plans were put forward to re-colonise eastern Wiltshire and southern Gloucestershire. People were glad crime was at an all-time low and that the country was stable, but regretted the increasingly draconian and centralised nature of the regime.

In order to keep the nation from falling apart harsh new laws the decreed in the early years that included- mini-skirts being banned in 1968 and thieves right hands being cut off as of 1970.

1971-1977
The quickly developing nation was would also begin it's political maturing. The ad-hock regime had become a full blown dictatorship. Whilst it go everyone was organised and co-operating, which was good thing, but order was maintained by a rule built on fear and lies.

As the need for land and security grew the nation exspanded in to new territories. As it did so, it enslaved and forcibly assimilated several tribes to the north and south east during the mid 1970's, culminating in the conquest of Chippenham. Why hit out at Chippenham? The lye that diverted attention over the PRRSV pig killing plague had now become a handy political tool, as had the generally over-parochial nature of the natives.

They fancied building a bigger and better nation, but still at the occupied territory's experience. The more farm land and resources they could garner the better. The conquest of the unitigrated village Chippenham happened in 1976 and that of Wilton and Salisbury in 1977 and 1978 respectively.

Wessex and West Wiltshire first clashed in 1977 over a border dispute in the Dorset town of Shaftsbury. The peaceable town in the remnants of former city of Bath was also approached by Wessex re-integrated at this time. West Wiltshire felt cheated by Bath, who they had been trying to charm over for the last 3 years. The leadership used this to justify further demands for food and leather donations by the citizens to the state. The state did not sell most of it to tribesmen for goods as they claimed to, but horded it for themselves!

First Contact
First contact was made with the Gloucester in 1976, Wessex in 1977, Isle of white in 1979, Southern English Republic in 1982 and Buckinghamshire in 1983.

1984-1988
As relations with liberal Wessex, anti-slavery Buckinghamshire and the democratic Isle of Wight deteriorated, so they rose with the fascist Southern English Republic, who also supported the use of tribesmen as expendable slave labour. The mass slave labour issue would be what would alienate them from both the rest of the former UK and its allies in Western Europe.

Wessex and the Isle of Wight watched the growing situation with alarm and hastened there colonisation of the New Florist, so as to pre-empt any colonization by West Wiltshire settlers. The Gloucester and Stroud Co-dominium was also fearful about it's future.

A second severe famine (caused by a series of harsh local floods) and a cholera outbreak hit the region, killing many people during 1985 and most of 1986. The Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), also known among farmers as 'blue-ear pig disease' struck also again and killed some pigs in mid 1985 to late 1986.

As this struck, Wessex in Isle of white sent in food aid to the country, but it was misappropriated by the rulers, as was what little the occupied territories made. Southern English Republic (SER) took the opposite view and gave arms and technical help to the government in order to maintain its grip on power. Buckinghamshire also began to distribute pro-democracy literature as to undermine the authoritarian regime in general.

The socio-economic burden the occupied territories had to carry grew as the native citizens of W. Wiltshire largely maintained their pre-famine life styles and the ruling clique profiteered at the experience of all!

Rebellion
The locals in Wilton and Salisbury towns felt ripped off since produce taxes went up in 1986. Both towns had periodic riots sever since. Wessex would later save Salisbury and Wilton after hearing about this.

Salisbury town was the focus of a new conflict with Kingdom of Wessex, after the pro-democracy mayor lead a separatist revolt in 1989. The mayor felt he and his people were being taxed to harshly and abused by the Kingdom's government. That year’s tax boycott (they had previosly paid 60% of their food production to the King and his court, yet rumour said only 10% was sold to the SER or redistributed inside the kingdom). When Edward Lloyd refused to recognise the tax collectors authority and told his local militia to eject them things got really bad. The army arrived the next day and lay siege to the down that then declared UDI on August 5th, along with neighbouring Wilton. Local wells and streams were poisoned on the 14th and 15th days of the siege

A unit of 20 Wessex horse cavalry and an Isle of Wight armoured car arrived 6 days later. They defeated West Wiltshire and freed the towns (which joined Wessex 2 weeks later) in a 2 day battle with W Wiltshire's the 52 infantry men and 2 mortar crews.



As the West Wiltshire troops took over the derelict MOD Porton Down (also known to Salisbury and Wilton as "Death-town") in the rebellion. A few cans of L.S.D.-25, Tabun (GA), bis(2-chloroethyl)ethylamine, mustard gas, Sarin (GB) and E.A.-3148 were found and taken by them for future use. Fortunaly the cans were too old, leaked and killed the people who tried to take them. No more were found by Wessex when they took the site over 2 days later.

Wessex demolished the facility, made it safe and afforested the land in 1991. A final can of Sarin (GB) was found during this work and safely dumped several miles off the coast of Dorsetshire.

Retribution in the I.O.W.
In this sad incodent, a car bomb exsploded in Ryde, on Isel of Wight during the 8th of June, 1991. It killed 3 and injered 8, 1 criticaly. The goverment of W. Wiltshire would doing it confess to it in mid 1996.

 The more note worthy vitcmes were- 


 * 1) Bobby Jimmy Liecester (dead)
 * 2) Samuel Rey (dead)
 * 3) Chloë Gibbson (dead)
 * 4) Lee Jonathan Long (Kentish diplomat)
 * 5) Avril Long (Lee's wife)
 * 6) Caitlín Campbell (Ayrshire tourist)
 * 7) Zoé Leblanc (Walloon tourist)

The 1990's
The leadership was passed on in the October 1st, 1990, with the kingship going to his son John Lee Drake and the lord chamberlainship going to his son Nicolas Jimmy Pool. They would prove to be a bit more moderate than their fathers (who had died as a result of long turn over-eating, recent binge drinking and suspected diabetic coma).

The taxes would be relaxed in general after 1991, although the occupied territories did still pay more than the natives of W. Wiltshire. The redistribution of the horded flour and leather was welcomed to.

Trade began to grow with the SER after 1992 and with their technical and material help, it became a major supplier of flour, as well as some cider and scrap metal by 1996.

The small unincorporated village of Pewsey was bullied in to joining W. Wiltshire in 1995.

The new leaders were not given to hoarding resources, but were unwilling to give up there grip on power and denounced outside calls for an election in 1998 and 1999.

Present Day
The nation is less antagonistic to it's neighbours, but is still disliked due to the heavy usage of serf labour in the occupied lands and the uneven economic and social development of the nation's society. Ecanomic, political and military ties have increased with the SER noticeable since 2001.

Military
The armed forces abandoned the use of bows and swords in favour of rifles and pistols in 1995. The army is a volunteer force of 2,500 and a conscript force of 5,000.

Transport
Horses are still popular in the nation, despite the resent, but short lived, outbreak of equine ethmoid hematoma. there are a few alcohol and sunflower oil vehicles and a few petrol driven tractors in use across the republic.

Waterworks and food sources
Most water is drawn from local rivers, wells and a aquifer boar-hole near Westbury that was drilled by Southern England in 2008.

Economy
West Wiltshire is heavily dependent on trade with Southern England. The nations have developed to about the same standard of living, moral values and political attitudes. Both are long standing allies against the hostile tribesmen form the ruined cities of greater London and S.E. England.

It is agrarian by nature largely dependent on agriculture, forestry and selling looted metal from the ruins of nearby towns. A growing food processing, brewing and scrap metal trading industry are beginning to develop around Devizes, Warminster and Trowbridge.

Healthcare
Lung and thyroid cancer are no longer major issues, and are markedly less than they were before 1976.

Cider
A local cider has been commercially produced in Westbury and Clane since 1998 and it is the national drink. Some is exported to the PRUK and Southern England.

The arts
William Shakespeare was a 16th century Stratford-upon-Avon poet laureate and playwright, and is commonly considered to be the finest writer in World History. He is famous for his 38 plays, such as Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear, and Romeo and Juliet. Both before Doomsday and after, his works are still widely beloved and very popular in The Republic.

Media
The PRUK’s national newspaper has been in illegal circulation since 2009. Posters a nailed up as and when nessasery by the local authorities. A state-censored 5 page national news sheet has been printed weekly since 2006.

The Death Penalty
Murderers, sex predators, (rapists and child molesters, ect), traitors and enemy spies are executed with the hangman’s rope.

A TV journalist from Denmark was hung by West Wiltshire in 2005, after he was caught trying to exposé the government’s endemic corruption and human rights abuses.

Also see

 * 1) 1962: Doomsday
 * 2) List of surviving nations (1962: Doomsday)
 * 3) Editorial Guidelines- (1962: Doomsday)