r mark on future histories of the era.
Whatever that might mean.

P x P

The Belgian Empire of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had
long since past into dust like the ruins of Ozymandias, leaving it a
diminutive, unimportant nation of temporal and unstable affluence,
subject to the whims and power-plays of its larger, more industrialized
neighbors. Like the Germans of the late 1930's, their aggression began
with a legitimate (if distorted) complaint. Glorious, upright Mother
Belgium had been raped again and again. That these feelings of injury
and lost wealth has survived for so many generations, provided a rather
grim example of the dangers inherent in an inbred culture which shuts
out change, clinging instead to a proud and class-conscious society.

In fairness, the pattern of outside domination and disrespect had
continued until the all too recent past. Their bitterness was not
wholly unjustified. That their own oppression of the Africans during
the days of the ivory trade had been a major source of their one-time
wealth, was not (like the skeletons in so many national closets)
something they tended to weigh into the balance.

6) N x P

The descendants of Switzerland had reasons and motives that were more
subtle, if equally implacable. Europe's perennial pacifist and bastion
of neutrality had been left behind for purely economic reasons. Its
stable and rigidly controlled economy was no longer needed by the rich
and powerful as a safe deposit box for (often unscrupulously)
accumulated wealth. Concurrently, its self-contained, standoffish
political posture had become obsolete, almost laughable in the face of
the growing opportunities of Space. Like so many other nations without
an early Space program, the inhabitable and exploitable regions close
at hand had been divided up without them. The modern-day Swiss
accepted the consequences of this flux without bitterness, outwardly at
least, but were now inexorably committed to improving upon Fate.

Still, the Swiss view of the coming campaign was somewhat different
than their ally's, less zealous, and their actual dislike of their
enemies and desire for battle were much less vehement. In their view
the Belgians were to provide the fire, they the cool edge of
professionalism. Between them they formed a somewhat inexperienced,
but sullenly determined foe, not to be taken lightly by the smaller, or
similarly stationed powers of the region.