Roger Courtland
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While the nations of the Excalbian Isles avoided World War I, they did suffer under the Great Depression. Economic collapse in the Dominion of Upper Virginia led to the rise of a socialist party that attempted a violent revolution in 1932. In the face of the revolution, President Olanis Coleman vacilated between repression and concession. With the revolutionaries literally at the doors of the Presidential Palace in the City of Courtland, President Coleman retreated to a bunker in the basement and telegramed his resignation to General Roger Courtland, Commander of the Dominion Army.
General Courtland, the grandson of the Dominion's founder, Peter Courtland, had been urging the president to destroy the rebels. With the president's resignation, General Courtland assumed full power as Commander-in-Chief and ruthlessly suppressed the revolution, suspending the Constitution and instituting authoritarian rule. General Courtland created a Provisional Ruling Council, consisting of himself, the Attorney General - the only member of President Coleman's cabinet to remain in power - and the Chairman of the Dominion Chamber of Industrials.
Under General Courtland's leadership, the Dominion proclaimed neutrality in World War II.
