Lecce (1983: Doomsday)

Lecce
Provincia di Lecce
Επαρχία του Λέτσε
Timeline: 1983: Doomsday

Subdivision of Sicily


Flag	Coat of Arms
Map of the Lecce Mandate

Capital

Otranto

Largest City

Lecce

Other Cities

Gallipoli, Tricase, Maglie

Language
Official

Italian, Griko, Sicilian

Others

Greek

Government

League of Nations Mandate

Governor

Dimitrios Grapsas

Civil Administrator

Carlo Mercuri

Area

2,799.07 km² km²

Population

approx 182,385

Admission

January 1, 2020

Lecce is an autonomous province of the Sicilian Republic. Lecce Mandate was a multinational zone occupied by a League of Nations mandate and administered by Greek military in the aftermath of the Second Sicily War, being put under their administration at its end. It was equal to about one-half of the former Lecce Province of Italy. The peninsula saw most of its population flee to more intact countries in the Mediterranean, with the native Griko population finding refuge in the Greek islands. Greeks - both native Grikos and newer migrants from during the Mandate - refer to the area affectionately as Longobardia after the old Byzantine Province in the area. In 2020, the Lecce Mandate was peacefully turned over to Sicily, which retains it as a separate province with an autonomous leadership council.

History[]

In Roman times the region was in the Provincia Calabria. As contained the nearest ports to the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, under the Roman emperors it was often used as a point of embarkation for the East. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Lecce was sacked by the Ostrogoth king Totila in the Gothic Wars. It was conquered by the Byzantines in 549, and remained part of the Eastern Empire for five centuries, with brief conquests by Saracens, Lombards, Hungarians and Slavs, along with minor Italian states like the Duchy of Benevento.

The County of Lecce and Principality of Taranto, both active in the province, were two of the largest and most important fiefs in the Kingdom of Sicily from 1053 to 1463, when the county was annexed directly to the crown, the principality having already been annexed seven years previously. In 1480, without warning, an Ottoman Turkish fleet invaded the town of Otranto, landing near the city and capturing it along with its fort. The Pope called for a crusade, with a massive force built up by Ferdinand I of Naples to fight them off. The Neapolitan force met with the Turks in 1481, thoroughly defeating them and in 1537, the famous Turkish corsair and Ottoman admiral Barbarossa captured Otranto and the Fortress of Castro. The Turks were eventually repulsed from the city and the rest of Puglia. To avert another invasion by the Ottomans, a new line of walls and a castle were built in the first part of the 16th century.

In 1943, fighter aircraft based in the area helped support isolated Italian garrisons in the Aegean Sea fighting Germans during World War 2. Because they were delayed by the Allies, they couldn't do anything to prevent an Italian defeat there. In 1944 and 1945, B-24 long-range bombers based here flew missions over Italy, the Balkans, Austria, Germany and France.

Doomsday[]

Lecce Province, while escaping any direct attacks, would suffer fairly soon after Doomsday from fallout blowing in from the nuclear attack on the naval base at Taranto. In the coming years, much of the Central and Northern regions of the province were abandoned, with the refugees fleeing northward, westward and across the ocean to the Balkans (with a significant core of the community fleeing to the Ionian Islands). A fair number would flee the southern reaches as well, leaving Lecce significantly depopulated.

Post-Doomsday[]

Very little authority remained in the area by 1984. Outside of the northern parts of the Province, west of the now-abandoned city of Lecce, and isolated villages in the south.

The Greek islanders of Heptanesa, hearing about the intact yet abandoned peninsula from its former inhabitants, established a pair of short-lived outposts alongside the returnees in the region. Other matters, such as continuously darkened skies leading to poor crop yields, snipers claiming lives in the depopulated villages, and other led to their rapid abandonment. The only finds of significance were at the small air base near Lecce, where all usable equipment was looted and brought back, along with a handful of survivors. Soon after, the Sicilians would move into the mainland, bringing Lecce into a second wind of prominence.

A general offensive by the Sicilians in 1987 into Southern Italy did not take control of the province immediately. Due to forces surviving in number at Bari, the Sicilians first had to take that city. It would end up falling amidst little resistance in July of 1988. This provoked another wave of refugees, many of which went northward or southward from the area - the Griko communities also fled to Heptanesa, where they would eventually form a major lobby group, along with displaced Italians, to retake the area. Frequent calls for regaining the area would happen from these groups in the future. The last areas of Lecce Province not under Sicilian control would be taken in August of that same year.

Over the next two decades, the area would be slowly re-inhabited, by both those who had fled earlier in the 1980s, along with newer Sicilian settlers that moved into the region. The population remained minimal outside of the city of Lecce and its environs, where the efforts were based.

In part due to the presence of many of the original inhabitants against claims put forth by Sicily to being the permanent successors of the region. Heptanesans continued to scout the peninsula, if for no other reason than for their own security.

With the outbreak of the Second Sicily War in the fall of 2009, the Greek contigent of the Atlantic Defense Community would launch a pre-emptive invasion of the area far ahead of schedule, in an attempt to distract the Sicilians and cut them off from their Turkish allies. While eventually a failure, it would serve the allied military campaign several valuable lessons. Afterward, the area served as a primary base for the Sicilian campaign in the Adriatic (which they eventually lost), after which they moved their forces to the Latium front lines. A few months later, Greek forces launched another invasion of the region, this time landing near Otranto, in early December, 2010. This attack proved far more successful, and is thought to have been the primary reason for the Sicilian government deciding the war was no longer worth it after being pushed south of the ruins of Rome.

Under the terms, the League of Nations enacted a multinational mandate on the region. With the Greek forces being the de-facto representatives of the original inhabitants of the Lecce area, they became the most numerous force in the civil-military occupation. As with elsewhere, two nations were given primary authority of the mandate - in this case the Greek Federation and the Federal Republic of Venice. A stipulation of the peace agreements ending the Second Sicilian War saw to it that the Mandate would eventually hold a referendum on the region joining Sicily, the Greek Federation, Venice (the closest Italian state of the victorious forces), or independent. However, the date of the referendum itself was "left up to the discretion of the Mandate's leadership" meaning it could take anywhere from 6 months, 20 years, or more. Most of the Sicilian colonists in the Greek-controlled region were deported back to Sicily, with the handful that staying taking to isolated villages that remained underpopulated to this day.

Referendum and Present Day[]

Greek-Italian refugees returned during the Mandate period, sparking a revival in the Griko language, re-invigorated by two generations of diaspora in Greece proper. With many Greeks married to the Grecìa Salentinans electing to remain behind, this community was naturalized fully as Sicilian citizens as of 2020, although many retained separate nationality cards of the Greek Federation, Malta, Venice or others.

Some had expected that the area would end up being a bastion for "anti-Palermo Sicilian migrants", given its adjacency to the Sicilian Republic. But this was not to be. In 2020 Lecce elected by a razor-thin 50.2% majority to re-join the Sicilian Republic.

Today, Lecce's unique history is enshrined in its position within the Sicilian state as the Provinzia de Lecce. At the behest of the Griko and newer Greek minorities, "Griko" is a co-official language in the autonomous province (although in practice much of the Griko dialect has been supplanted by a strata Standard Greek acquired in the two generations in Greece).

Government and Politics[]

Lecce was under military occupation from the end of the War to 2019 and did not have direct civilian government. The Coalition troops stationed at the island, headed by Military Governor of the Mandate Dimitrios Grapsas, set up a six-man local council to run the area in civilian matters, even though the Mandate (in practice, the Greek and Venetian militaries) remained in overall control.

The people voted directly for the council and for a Civil Administrator for the territory, who was in charge overall of non-military concerns. To this end, Father Franco Coppola, a Catholic priest who returned from the Ionian Islands with displaced civilians, was elected to the post. Anyone who had been a government member under Sicily was banned from election to the local council. The local council was responsible for drafting and administering the referendum on Lecce's permanent status.

In 2020 the people of Mandate voted to re-join Sicily as an autonomous province. The ban on former officeholders was repealed, and foreign troops and the military government left the province.

Economy[]

Given the fighting that occurred in the area during all stages of the War, the main engine of the local economy is the reconstruction effort itself.

Construction of a new port at Otranto was undergone in between 2011 and 2015 - expansion of the harbor, and dredging it from ruins of the Third World War and every conflict after it took years. Today, Lecce is a popular "tourist" destination, with small numbers of War veterans returning with their families each year to fondly partake in local cuisine. The area remains cheaper than other areas in the developed Mediterranean, with many of its still-abandoned villages seeing new homesteaders arrive with each year.