The Great Martian War, 1913-1917

[freivolk]

I say the Show was really good. It was a acceptable Mixture between WWI and WotW. I was a bit surprised, that the landing happened in Central Europe, but it made sense. After all the Show wanted to keep the british cornerstones of WWI recognisable, like Schlieffen Plan, Marne Battle,Trench War in Flandern, Somme-offensive, Lusitania, USA joins the War late and the Battle for France. And I think they did it so, that it made storywise sense. But I must admit my biggest problem is also, that there is no mention of Russia. I mean some Tannenberg-equivalent, where a russian-austrian army tries to attack the Landing Crater, get trashed but buys the Westfront some time would be nice.

 

[freivolk]

I´m making a One-Shot-scenario for "The Great Martian War 1913-1917"

This is part one. Forgive me my bad english.

The Great “Martian” War 1913-1917 – 100 years later
PART ONE
The Documentary of the British History Channel was just one of several hundreds, which were produced for the 100 Anniversary of the beginning of the war. And it was definitive not one of the best. Still you have to remember, that the History Channel is a private Network and it has to admit the sentimental taste of their prime demographic, the lower middle classes of the British Empire. For this people the Western Front IS the Great “Martian” War and mentioning of things which doesn´t interest them, like the Battle of Königgrätz (where the sacrifice of one million Austrian and Russian soldiers bought the Allies the time to stabilize the Western Front) could lead for them to switch to one of the in the moment so popular lumberjack reality shows on other channels. Even the mentioning of the Battle of Constantinople was seen as inopportune, because after the ANZUK-Federation recently leaving the Empire, no one wants to hear about brave Aussie-boys keeping the Dardanelles open. And we shouldn´t forget all the other great historic and scientific accurate shows on the History channel, like “Ancient Alien Myth Buster”. (Aliens? No, dear Sir, it wasn’t Aliens, which build the great Pyramids.)

 

[freivolk]

The Great “Martian” War 1913-1917 – 100 years later
part two
Maybe it’s easier to understand this narrow British view on the War, if you realize, that the Sun finally start to set over the British Empire. The British King (Edward VII was pushed in the arms of one of the many exiled german Princesses. The marriage was a disaster, but produced a male heir) is still Emperor of India, but the Indians act nowadays as if they own the Empire. Actually it was India’s push for more indian immigration to Australia, which led to the ANZUK-secession. South Africa has his first colored Premier Minister and in the Rest of Africa the black middle-class becomes more and more impertinent. Even the Irish talks today more and more about expanding their Home rule to true Dominion status. And in Space the Empire plays since a long time just the second fiddle to the Yankees and now falls also falls back against Pan-Europe, Russia and China.
In such a situation its understandable that the British look back at that, what they called their “Finest Hour”, with a lot of sentimental feeling. And even non-british Historians admit, that with the Fall of Germany and Austria, France bleeding dry, America coming late and Russia collapsing, Britain was the heart and brain of the Anti-Martian alliance. Britain captured the Herons (okay, the Italians and the Austrians also captured a Heron in the Alps, but only the British discovered the special nature of the Spiders), Britain deciphered the “martian” technology (with the help of german and american scientist) and Britain developed “Trojan Horse”. So it seems understandable that for the average British it seems, that the Empire defeated the “Martians” nearly singlehanded, just with a little help of the French and the poor, brave Germans. And didn´t Britain paid a great price for this victory. 2 million brave, young men vanished, the hundreds of thousands who died on the plague.
At least it can be admit, that the Empire was rewarded for his sacrifices. The nearly unlimited and cheap source of Dark Energy and the wonders of the victicite feeding in the last hundred years a nearly permanent economic boom, who guarantees every subject of the Empire wealth and social security.
Britain is still a rather conservative society. Yes, equality in gender and racial issues has been reached a long time ago, but in a world were one income is still enough to support a family there is some social pressure on woman to stay at home and there is still a lot of talk that’s it’s the white man’s burden and privilege to protect and rule the world (ignoring the millions of Indian, African, Turks, Arabs and Japanese soldiers who also fought against the “Martians”). The political landscape in Britain is still dominated by the Tories and the Liberals (the Labour Party was integrated in the Liberal Party after the War). The influence of the King in the Government is still comparable to 1913, probably because in the War the image of King Georg (maybe unjustly) overshadowed both War PM´s. Asquith was nearly a non-entity and even if Churchill leaded the world on the way to victory, his stumbling about the Irish question and his image as a political enfant terrible after the War tarnished his reputation.
Long time after the War, the Empire still could see himself as the first of the Nations. But today it has to accept his relative decline. Some argue it should at best join Pan-Europe, to at least preserve European dominance against such parvenu nations like Russia, China or the goddam Yankees.
__________________

 

[freivolk]

The Great “Martian” War 1913-1917 – 100 years later
part three
The USA is the richest and economic most powerful nation in the world. She contributes the greatest part of the space-stationed planetary defence system of Earth. The USA has bases on the Moon and Mars (yes, Mars! We come later to this.). The Star spangled Banner (alongside the flag of the League of Nations) waves about the moons of Jupiter. For all that is, the USA should be the undisputed No. 1 on Earth. But most of the Americans have the feeling that this is still not true. Because the USA missed their “Moment of Glory” and that’s all the fault of Woodrow Wilson. Wilson still wins every poll for “worst U.S. president ever”. He is seen a downright despicable person, an Ebenezer Scrooge without any redeeming qualities, but with added racism and hypocrisy. But some revisionist historians start to see things different.
In 1913 it was obvious for Wilson, that the USA could in the moment not really send any troops to Europe. The U.S. army was small and it wouldn´t even be capable to defend the USA itself in case of a Martian landing in North America (what was still seen as a possibility at this time). So it was seen necessary to build first an army strong enough to defend America and support Europe at the same time. For this goal a timeframe of 18-24 month was assumed. Wilsons and the new formed Joint Staff agreed, that the forces should deployed as a full operational and independent army, not as small auxiliary units for the Allies. The revisionists see this as the main reasons of Wilson’s resistance against the Voluntary Corps, in which he saw just a ploy from Roosevelt for the 1916 presidential campaign (and yes, Roosevelt had definitive also 1916 in mind). But as the time came to deploy the planned expedition forces, Wilson started to hesitate. He was informed by the Allies about the about the planned Great Push and he wanted to wait for the results. If the Allies drove the “Martians” from Earth without more American loses, then it was for the better. The failure of the Great Push was a major shock for Wilsons. Like recently declassified documents show, he saw the War in Europe after that as already lost. It made no longer sense for him to send millions of Americans with obsolete weapons to Europe, just to let them vanish. So he ordered to start planning for a “Fortress America” as a stronghold of Humanity after the Fall of Europe. The Mexican intervention was part of this planning. There existed also a plan called “Noah’s Ark” to evacuate so much Europeans as possible to America.
This plans were kept secret, to prevent a falling out with the Allies, which would have cost the U.S.A. the chance to gain information’s about captured “Martian” technology. In the public Wilsons stayed vague about his reason for non-intervention, which contributed to hi image of a do-nothing-president.
More about the USA in the next chapter

 

[jetpack]

Has been done several times - a particularly good (in my eyes) take is the graphic novel Scarlet Traces a sequel to Well's book, or more specifically in regards to this Scarlet Traces:The Great Game set in the 40's after Britain has undergone a 2nd industrial revolution after the original invasion - Britain has become the dominant global power with Martian reverse engineered tech and takes the war to mars.

One of my favorite books is the 1898 unauthorized sequel "Edison's Conquest of Mars". I'm rereading it now actually. Back in the good old days when people didn't worry about plagiarism, Garrett P Serviss copied the War of the Worlds except with American locations, and then his editor asked him to write a sequel. The premise is that Thomas Edison (who was consulted by the author) analyzing Martian technology and reverse engineering better ships that work by electric attraction.

It is full of wide-eyed wonder, and jabs at the Kaiser. As pulpy and stupid as it is, it has pioneered a lot of common science fiction tropes, including space suits, ray guns, prehistoric aliens, showing off the ability to calculate the force of gravity.

 

[J.D.Ward]

Link to Project Gutenberg text:

Edison's Conquest of Mars

 

[zoomar]

I wish we could see this in the US. Even with all the logical flaws, it seems far more palatable than most everything on the History channel. And everything I've seen from the previews looks just like I'd like to imagine (a slightly later) War of the Worlds

Speaking of the History Channel, is it possible to consider the absence of Russia and Austria-Hungary from the story just an instance of typical "bad history" from the History Channel...ie: the Martian War did involve those other nations, but just that the British channel ignored it because we only care about what happened on "our" front?

 

[freivolk]

Speaking of the History Channel, is it possible to consider the absence of Russia and Austria-Hungary from the story just an instance of typical "bad history" from the History Channel...ie: the Martian War did involve those other nations, but just that the British channel ignored it because we only care about what happened on "our" front?

Basicly thats my idea too;

The Great “Martian” War 1913-1917 – 100 years later
PART ONE
The Documentary of the British History Channel was just one of several hundreds, which were produced for the 100 Anniversary of the beginning of the war. And it was definitive not one of the best. Still you have to remember, that the History Channel is a private Network and it has to admit the sentimental taste of their prime demographic, the lower middle classes of the British Empire. For this people the Western Front IS the Great “Martian” War and mentioning of things which doesn´t interest them, like the Battle of Königgrätz (where the sacrifice of one million Austrian and Russian soldiers bought the Allies the time to stabilize the Western Front) could lead for them to switch to one of the in the moment so popular lumberjack reality shows on other channels. Even the mentioning of the Battle of Constantinople was seen as inopportune, because after the ANZUK-Federation recently leaving the Empire, no one wants to hear about brave Aussie-boys keeping the Dardanelles open. And we shouldn´t forget all the other great historic and scientific accurate shows on the History channel, like “Ancient Alien Myth Buster”. (Aliens? No, dear Sir, it wasn’t Aliens, which build the great Pyramids.)