List of Leaders of Dunsteen

There have been 30 individuals to have been **leader of Dunsteen** across 31 distinct periods in office since the formation of Dunsteen as a single unified nation-state in 1572.

The state of Dunsteen was first formed in August 1572, when King Wilhelm VI of the Kingdom of Dunsteen-Glücksburg united the disparate Germanic tribes and kingdoms of central Europe under his reign to form the Kingdom of Dunsteen with himself as Wilhelm I of the new state. Under Wilhelm I's descendants, the House of Dunsteen, the kingdom expanded across western Europe and ultimately subsumed the neighbouring Kingdom of France in the 1700s. In 1751, the House of Habsburg took the throne following the virtual elimination of the House of Dunsteen. Under Habsburg rule, Dunsteen expanded to absorb the Kingdom of Belgium and the Netherlands, which would later gain independence centuries later as the state of Morra. Following a military coup d'état in 1857, the Dunsteenian monarchy was abolished and replaced with an autocratic military-led republic.

Under the first Republic of Dunsteen, the armed forces remained the most powerful organisation in the country and ruled for all but sixteen of the sixty five years of the first republic. After military dictator Franz Joseph's 1922 death, congress reclaimed power and established a new presidential republic with increased checks and balances against the government; however, the republic was institutionally flawed and led to moves of constitutional dubiousness, such as Albert Lebrun's 19 year period in office or Rene Coty's attempted self coup in 1960. After a brief period of political upheaval, the second republic formed an evolving two-party system and drifted increasingly rightwards after the collapse of the National Party in the 1960s. In 2022, the Netherlands province of the Republic of Dunsteen proclaimed independence as the predecessor to would become the state of Morra, prompting mass institutional and political upheaval which destroyed the old two party system and allowed Alliance 90/The Greens to become the largest party.

During the presidency of Katharina Müller, the country's first female leader, Alliance 90/The Greens restructured the constitution to form a third Republic of Dunsteen, with a radically empowered congress and a presidency indirectly elected from the membership of congress

## Kingdom of Dunsteen

### House of Dunsteen (1572 - 1751)

In August 1572, King Wilhelm VI of the Kingdom of Dunsteen-Glücksburg united the disparate Germanic tribes and kingdoms of central Europe under his reign to form the Kingdom of Dunsteen with himself as Wilhelm I of the new state. Under the twenty year reign of Wilhelm I, the kingdom grew increasingly centralised as members of the House of Dunsteen married into major noble houses of the kingdom, producing heirs to sub-kingdom polities. Under Wilhelm's successor, Wilhelm II, the Kingdom of Dunsteen expanded its borders with military incursions into France and the Isgardian peninsula. After a set of relatively short reigns in the mid 17th century, politics in Dunsteen relatively stabilised after King Ferdinand led the armed forces to conquer the Kingdom of France in 1720; however, in a bid to prevent a palace coup, Ferdinand struck much of his family from the official succession, leaving no heir to the throne upon his death. Consequently, the House of Dunsteen collapsed in 1751 and was succeeded by distant relatives of the House of Habsburg.

### House of Hapsburg (1751 - 1857)

Following the death of King Ferdinand in 1751, Francis, Prince of Vienna was elected as king of Dunsteen and ascended to the the throne in December 1751 as King Francis I. Under Francis I, the Kingdom of Dunsteen expanded to absorb the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Belgium, whilst his successors expanded the country's colonial and naval size. After the eruption of a trade war between Dunsteen and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1834, King Francis II began a mass militarisation of Dunsteenian society in preparation for a war with Britain, but died before the war could be launched, leaving his successor Leopold to inherit a nation under *de-facto* military rule. Whilst King Leopold averted war with Britain, the armed forces effectively took control over the country under a state of martial law, granting vast power to the noble families who themselves controlled the armed forces through a complex network of personal armies and loyalties. After Leopold attempted to reform the armed forces, the nobility orchestrated a coup d'état in 1857 and proclaimed a republic under Johaan von Ostreg.

## First Republic of Dunsteen

### Martial Law (1857 - 1905)

In May 1857, the noble families and the armed forces toppled King Leopold in a military coup d'état after he attempted to reduce the power of the nobility, and instead installed Johaan von Ostreg as the country's head of state. However, von Ostreg unexpectedly betrayed the nobility which had given him power and formally abolished the network of titles and peerages which comprised the nobility in 1858, and instead chose to govern as an autocratic president at the head of a government under martial law. Upon von Ostreg's death in 1879, his brother Frederick von Ostreg assumed power as a military-backed strongman and prolonged the period of martial law; however, von Ostreg's military focused policies made him increasingly unpopular and in 1903, he was deposed by a coalition led by General Franz Joseph. Under General Joseph's leadership, martial law was ended and the first formal constitution of the new republic was installed, allowing Joseph to give way to an elected successor, Friedrich Ebert, in May 1905.

### Constitutional Period (1905 - 1921)

Following nearly fifty years of autocratic military rule, martial law in the Republic of Dunsteen ended in May 1905 with the inauguration of Friedrich Ebert of the National Party as the first democratically elected head of state of Dunsteen. Under Ebert, the constitution was fleshed out to expand voting rights to all men over the age of 21, whilst term limits and mandatory elections were also added to the constitution. In 1915, Ebert retired as president and was succeeded by his prime minister, Hans Luther, following the 1915 presidential election. Under President Luther, the office of prime minister was abolished and full power vested in the presidency, which allowed Luther to enact radical reforms, such as the further widening of the electorate to men over 21 to men over 18 and landowning women over 30. However, increased political plurality saw Luther lose his congressional majority in 1920, and in August 1921, Luther was killed during a violent coup d'état led by General Franz Joseph, who once again assumed the presidency.

### Martial Law (1921 - 1922)

Following a violent coup d'état which saw the death of president Hans Luther in August 1921, General Franz Joseph assumed office as president of Dunsteen after imposing martial law on the country and sought to return the country to autocratic military dictatorship after 16 years of what he perceived to be weak governance. However, with Joseph in his 70s, the new regime struggled to assert control over the country and largely collapsed in August 1922 following Franz Joseph's death. After a brief period of power vacuum, a new government was elected in September 1922 and formally ended military rule.

## Second Republic of Dunsteen

Upon the death of the military autocrat Franz Joseph in August 1922, congressional leaders proclaimed the formation of a second Republic of Dunsteen with increased constitutional safeguards and protections against coups d'état. In September 1922, Walter Simons became the first president of the new republic as the leader of the Democratic Party, which would go on to be the longest lasting and most dominant political party of the whole republic. In 1935, Albert Lebrun defeated the Democratic Party and returned the National Party to power for the first time since 1921; Lebrun's tenure of 19 years is the longest tenure of any democratically elected Dunsteenian leader. During the 1950s, the Conservative Party briefly emerged as a dominant force, before collapsing following the scandal laden presidency of Rene Coty and reforming as the Social Conservative Party during the late 1960s. Between 1960 and 2025, the Social Conservative and Democrat parties operated in a two party system as the only parties to control government during the period. The defeat of the government in the Morranian Independence War in 2022 saw the republic lose significant amounts of territory to the Transitional State of Dunsteen, and also had seismic political consequences as both major parties collapsed in support, giving way for Alliance 90/The Greens to gain control of government. In 2031, the presidential system of government was abolished and replaced with a fused presidential-parliamentary system.

## Third Republic of Dunsteen

In the political fallout following the independence of Morra from Dunsteen in 2022, the Alliance 90/The Greens gained power and became the largest political entity in the republic. In 2031, President Katharina Müller oversaw a constitutional restructuring to fuse the offices of president and prime minister, making the president an indirectly elected position akin to a prime minister in the Westminster system of government but with the powers of head of state and head of government combined into a single office.