From: “Years of Infamy: The Black Twenties” by Maurice Yewdall and Ernest Young (1988)—
Analyses of Societist Combine planning and intrigue during the conflict are frustratingly vague by their nature, lacking much solid information on which to base their authors’ assertions. Paradoxically, and irritatingly, the Combine was the one part of the world on which few eyes were fixed as both war, and then plague, consumed the attentions of the nations. Few intelligence resources were expended on ‘the blank space on the map’, as French ‘Auxiliaire’ intelligence officer Fabien Denard put it. Those accounts written after the fact by such intelligence officers must be taken with a grain of salt, coloured by hindsight and defensiveness. They frequently play on the idea of Alfarus as an omniscient, diabolical mastermind whose elaborate plan took every circumstance into account, and which no mortal mind could possibly have foreseen. They were often also writing in the period after the Silent Revolution when the Combine turned on Alfarus’ memory, and therefore it was considered ‘safe’ to implicitly praise Alfarus as a worthy opponent – and, even more implicitly, portray the Combine as so intolerant and inimical to normality that it had turned against its greatest champion.
In reality, there was no such plan of monstrous complexity, of course. None could have possibly foreseen the outbreak of the plague pandemic or how the war developed before it did. The frustrating part is that we cannot, strictly, disprove such far-fetched claims, however. That would require documentation of the actual analyses made, plans formed and meetings held by the Combine under Alfarus, and no such documentation is available to us: secret in its own time, edited, purged and sanitised by the Biblioteka Mundial in our own. If the original versions of those documents still survive at all, they are in some deep refuge of the Grey Archives, likely never to see the light of day again.[23]
What evidence do we have, then? What claims can we make? What evidence exists usually comes in the form of eyewitness accounts, often diaries or memoirs, penned by ordinary Societist Amigos and Amigas. Those freely available in the nations are usually from those who defected over the years; it is important to distinguish accurate accounts from the invented propaganda they sign their names to under certain regimes, which bear no more resemblance to the truth than the ideologically pure, dully heroic, invented historical memoirs frequently published in the Combine itself. Often the most useful accounts are those from individuals who defected, not to the nations, but to a rival Societist group, most usually in Danubia. Whilst making much of petty ideological divisions that seem mind-numbingly trivial to those of us fortunate enough to have grown up under a flag, in terms of strict accounts of events, these are usually the most reliable. Best known among these, of course, are the Memoirs of the First Born by Primerus Markus Garzius (q.v.) and other Celatores. There are others from Agendes (Agents) which are more directly relevant, but due to the Societists using the ‘Tribal System’ [i.e. cell system] developed by the Jews in the Crimea, no Agende ever knew more than a tiny part of an overall plan.
It is important to distinguish between Agendes and cadre members. Agendes were undercover officers of the Fakuldi Aposdolorum or ‘Apostolic Faculty’, the organ of government responsible for sending ‘apostles’ or ‘missionaries’ for the Sanchezista cause overseas. Many of these did so openly, individually or as part of trade missions, the latter often serving as unofficial diplomatic contacts (as the Combine officially refused to recognise the existence of any national government). Others, however, did so undercover, attempting to infiltrate the nation to which they were assigned: these were the Agendes. Agendes were trusted men, and a few women, of reliable background, almost invariably born in the Combine (or what was the Combine by 1922). Some were maintained as ‘hibernadores’ (a term which has entered other languages), who would not undertake a mission immediately, but would quietly carry out a normal life for years until called upon to act.[24]
Cadres, on the other hand, were locally-recruited stalwarts who also usually remained undercover, though a few openly displayed their membership when the Combine wished to make Societist sympathies visible to the crowd, e.g. in trade unions. Cadres were kept at arm’s-length, and generally regarded as ‘useful idiots’ which could be sacrificed as pawns on a whim for temporary advantage. Indeed, there was an unspoken assumption that anyone who would join a seemingly-hopeless cause under such circumstances was, by definition, too much of an unreliable dreamer to be of use in the Final Society once achieved, when such men would be liabilities and practical men would be needed. Some tie this to the idea that (contrary to the official BM narrative) Alfarus himself only joined the Party once its ascent had begun – but this, inevitably, remains debated.
The major point of argument in considering Societist plans during the 1920s is how advanced and solidified any particular plan was. We, ourselves, cleave to the notion that if plans did exist, they were largely formless, more an expression of principle than serious and well-developed schemes. More akin, perhaps, to the ‘war plans’ nations’ military commands may draw up against unlikely foes for political reasons, seeking additional funding from their governments. Where serious plans were demonstrably advanced, they were usually in areas where the Societists had already been expanding for some years, such as the Nusantara and, especially, Africa. This has frequently been ignored by western treatments, which focus almost exclusively on alleged, probably phantom Societist schemes to undermine and overthrow their own countries.
It is clear that Alfarus and his allies always intended to apply the Doctrine of the Last Throw to the conflict, but it seems they did not settle on particular targets, but rather looked for what opportunities would arise. It does seem reasonable to accept the claim that the Societists had a particular interest in Spain (for chauvinistic cultural reasons they would hotly deny) and there was a focus for cadres and Agendes there even before the wheels began to come off the Duc d’Orléans’ shaky state with the aftermath of the Argonauta incident (q.v.) The Portuguese civil war also began to play into their hands, especially when the French government washed its hands of the matter.
Elsewhere, though, any formal plans look more modest. Bets were hedged, a few chips scattered to every number of the Rouge-et-Noir carousel rather than all-in on one scheme. It scarcely seems unreasonable to suggest, as one defector did, that Alfarus had much more advanced plans aimed at seizing the Philippine Republic and its thorn-in-his-side Refugiados if the opportunity presented itself, rather than the actual areas he would go on to attack. The Societists’ moves would be informed by a rather different opportunity.
The one exception to this was French Guiana, and this was where history turned on a happenstance. The Societists had been watching France carefully. Their analysts (it seems) had adopted a narrative of inherent French decline as a world power, some years before their counterparts to the north in the Novamund did the same. This was almost certainly heavily influenced by a sense of Societist triumph, especially emanating from Alfarus himself and his lieutenants, that the French and their IEF had been ejected from South America. Some Grey Societist critics in Danubia would later opine that the Combine had simply appropriated the national mythology of the UPSA it had replaced, substituting the defeat of the Duc de Berry in the 1900s for the defeat of the Duc de Noailles in the 1780s.[25]
Of course, the fact that Berry was now the Dictateur of France, struggling to maintain national unity as support ebbed to the new opposition alliance that would become the Ruby Party, this also fed fuel to the Societists’ interpretation of France as a nation in decline. While France had mostly managed to keep the war far from her borders (with the exception of the time of danger with the bombings from Belgium), she seemed locked in an unwinnable struggle, plague undermining her from within. The same was true of many nations, of course, but the Societists regarded the dethroning of France, as what had generally been regarded as the world’s top power at the start of the century, as being of great existential importance for the triumph of their movement.
They did not seek to actually conquer and destroy France proper, of course, but rather sought a more symbolic humiliation. The Iberia strategy was part of that. A second, and perhaps more obvious part, was to finally annihilate the last non-Societist territory on the South American continent: the French colony of Guiana. Colonised since the seventeenth century, this last free territory had been used as a penal colony in the nineteenth century by Bonaparte, until the revolt of the Jacobin ‘Phantom Republic’ in 1826.[26] After the defeat of the revolt, prisoners had typically been sent to Pérousie instead (a policy not universally beloved by the free Pérousien colonists) while Guiana had continued as a useless appendage, not lost along with Nouvelle-Orléans almost because no-one thought to ask. Or rather, continental Guiana was simply always included with the more strategically important islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique. The products of those colonies – sugar from the latter, Cayenne peppers from Guiana – had become less important in the late nineteenth century as global trade opened up, but they were a way for France to maintain a military foothold in the Caribbean. In the Pandoric War, both Americans and Meridians had been forced to alter their Caribbean war plans to avoid antagonising neutral France, the ‘Vulture’ that could tip the tide of the war by joining either side.
Now, the shoe was on the other foot; it was France locked in a tightly balanced conflict, and the Societists of the former UPSA who stood to benefit, even as Guiana filled with refugees and defectors fleeing Societist rule. Even with the few detailed records we have access to, it is obvious that Alfarus had plans in place to take the remaining French colonies as early as 1923, and these became more advanced as the war and plague grew worse. He placed his lieutenant Pedrus Dominikus in charge of the operation, but the question was timing. Dominikus commented, in one reasonably well-attested remark recorded in a civil servant’s memoir, that the trouble with the Doctrine of the Last Throw was knowing when ‘last’ was. Alfarus’ wife, Maria Vaska, agreed, comparing it to finding the end-point of a titration in a chemical analysis (showing her knowledge of her brother’s chemical business, now absorbed into the state). Strike too soon, and the French people would not be sufficiently exhausted and mutinous to oppose a new war to counter the Societist fait accompli. Too late, and the war with the Vitebsk Pact would have drawn down altogether, perhaps freeing up French forces sufficiently for the conflict to be sold to the French people.
History might have turned out quite differently if Alfarus had pulled the trigger sooner. But the ‘Changarnier Lectelgram’ affair of August 1924 changed everything. Unbeknownst to the world at large, which had focused on the claim that Changarnier had offered Pérousien land to Cygnia in return for America remaining in the war, a different conclusion had been reached. Changarnier had been acting without authority, and Gilmore (then Foreign Secretary) hotly denied any such ‘selling American boys’ lives for a mess of pottage’ had been contemplated. What was carefully not said was that, with the idea broached, Gilmore had then negotiated with Madame Mercier (via the rather more secure method of one-time pad encryption) and secured just such a deal. Rather than Pérousien land, which Cygnia had comparatively little use for, the Americans had instead demanded and received the remaining French Caribbean possessions – Guiana, Guadeloupe and Martinique. A secret clause in the treaty committed both sides to maintaining its secrecy for the duration of the war, which served both their interests; it would be an embarrassment for the French Government to admit such a desperate concession had been necessary, and Gilmore could not give fuel to his accusers while the scandal was still raging.
In the end, Gilmore became President in September 1924 and immediately began new Pacific offensives against Russia and her Vitebsk Pact allies: Operation Pearl, followed by Operations Cavalier and Roundhead, and finally Operation Covenanter. Gilmore was honouring his end of the treaty, but selling it to the American people as a conflict of worth in itself for American self-interest – a claim that frequently wore thin, leading to criticism of His Imperial Majesty’s Government and rumbles that the coalition with Magnus Bloom’s Mentians might break down. Only mutual dislike of the idea of the Marleys’ Supremacists riding a tide of public discontent to an undeserved majority kept Bloom and the Liberal Overripe faction on side.
The small Patriot party repeatedly called for an end to the war, despite inviting historical comparisons with their conduct at the end of the Great American War that had ended them as a major party. The Patriots were then led by Dame Eleanor Cross, an ally and protegée of LG Manders (whose own career had sadly been cut short by illness) and the first female party leader in American history. However, fairly or unfairly, in this era they are often better remembered for the backbench speeches of their former leader John Wyatt, who had worked as part of Lewis Faulkner’s Social American Coalition. Wyatt was perhaps the only person in the Continental Parliament who truly understood the Carolinian psyche, and through his contacts still had his finger on the pulse of public opinion in the ‘Sleeping South’, as it was dubbed even in those days. Only Wyatt understood just why the Carolinians were outraged at the official embargo on Societist imports of Tremuriatix (which had continued unofficially despite Alfarus claiming not to export to ‘warmongering bandit regimes’). It mattered not that, like many nations, the Americans had offered Vienna Green and lead-based insecticides in its place, though Carolinia frequently fell to the bottom of the table for Birline distribution.[27] Wyatt knew that it was not simply the toxic side effects of these products which had angered the Carolinians, but also that they were far less well suited for controlling the boll weevils attacking Carolinian cotton plantations, which Tremuriatix had excelled at.
A general refusal by Parliament to engage with Carolina’s problems heaped fuel on the fire slowly burning down there, with repeated riots against conscription and rationing. America always had plenty of food, but the plague and conscription meant she frequently lacked the workers to harvest, process and transport it; crops rotted in the fields and more than one herd of cattle or pigs were culled by desperate farmers. Not only were there often insufficient workers to man the transport infrastructure, but the railways were often locked down without warning to try to control the spread of individual outbreaks of the plague. ‘Man’ is perhaps the wrong word, too; Cytherean politics would see a post-war boom as women were recruited as drivers and factory workers. At this time, female suffrage for Imperial elections was still limited to married women and women over thirty years of age, which excluded many of the young, unattached women who gravitated to these roles. In the post-war world, angry young women would be a new political force, calling for workers’ rights yet unwilling to work with the macho Mentians who had helped President Tayloe block further expansion to their suffrage in the 1910s. They would also have an important role to play in the campaign for electoral reform in general.
Yet even when deprived of an Imperial vote, many of these young women across America often still had voting rights in their Confederal assemblies, or other ways of making their voice known. By contrast, the people of Carolina – male, female, black, white, red – remained stuck in limbo, their status remaining indeterminate, unable to vote either for a national government or participate in that of the Empire. To be sure, the older Carolinians had grown up under rigged elections and a one-party state, and that party merely a managerial cipher for a distant colonial power in Córdoba. But the youth wanted more, and even the older generations were growing discontented. There had been long ages in Carolina’s history with whites on top, times with blacks on top as an arm of enforcers for the Meridians, and times where all that mattered was who owned shares in which company.[28] But at least the rules had been clear. Now, no-one knew what might happen from day to day; governance in practice was often achieved by the unofficial ‘Neighbourly Communities’, as the Americans withdrew their own troops for the war with Russia and replaced them with unenthusiastic New Irishmen, or even Mexicans and Cubans. From the point of view of the older Carolinians, who remembered the Meridians sending New Granadine and, indeed, Cuban troops to occupy in their place, it was very much a case of ‘meet the new boss; same as the old boss’. Like their counterparts a quarter-century and more earlier, these troops were often heavily susceptible to corruption, and enjoyed relations with some of the more unscrupulous ‘Neighbourly Communities’ that effectively amounted to rule by crime syndicate.
Between September 1924 and October 1925, French forces were surreptitiously withdrawn from Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe, and supposedly replaced with American ones, although the latter were often understrength as Gilmore sent more and more forces for the Pacific operations. A number of warships allegedly committed to the islands ended up being redirected mid-voyage through the Nicaragua Canal to the Pacific. By October 1925, the Americans had built up a small force in the colonies, including the lineships HIMS Vanburen and HIMS Martin. It was at this time, as General Bissell’s forces were being pushed back from the siege of Savelyevsk, as Gilmore was under pressure from all sides and some even questioned his position, that he bit the bullet and broke the secret clause of the treat with France: he needed some good news. (At one point he would claim that everything was AW as Operazione Fulmine had triggered a breakthrough in Europe to the extent he could claim that the war was ‘effectively’ over; this would probably not have cut much ice even if he had not made his announcement before the launch of Fulmine).
Gilmore announced that America had taken possession of France’s now-former possessions in the Caribbean. With the Starry George flying over Cayenne, and the last Russo-Belgian islands conquered early in the war, he could now claim the Caribbean as ‘an American lake’, with its islands and shores either under the direct control of the Empire or of her Philadelphia System allies.[29] That is, except for the coastal areas of the former areas of New Granada and Venezuela, and the tone of Gilmore’s speech implied that America might choose to exert her claim over the latter at some point. Some biographers argue this was an attempt to win the favour of Princess Daniela, who remained an influential member of Fredericksburg society despite having been the cold shoulder by the Faulkner Ministry. But conversely, both Daniela and the exiled, ageing Jorge Suárez – who had become more of a society curiosity than an enemy captive, barely kept under house arrest – were prominent figures in warning not to underestimate the Combine as a threat, in contrast to Gilmore’s blasé allusion to the idea that Alfarus would just roll over and let America take Venezuela back.
The Tuilleries hotly condemned the revelation, though never quite denying it; regardless, only a few days later Operazione Fulmine would grab the attention of all the Paris papers. It was in the Combine, those lands which Gilmore had casually implied the conquest of, that the French withdrawal from the Caribbean excited the most comment. Historians continue to argue how much of a surprise the move was to Alfarus and the Combine. Given the Societists’ impressive network of spies and codebreakers, it seems rather unlikely that they could entirely have failed to notice the movement of French forces out of the Caribbean and their replacement with American ones. This also ties into the much more contentious debate over the extent to which the Societists had penetrated the American Government at this time, and in particular the claim that a high-level mole existed.[30] At the height of the Second Black Scare, some even claimed that a member of Gilmore’s Cabinet (or Gilmore himself!) was a Societist true believer, this supposedly being the only explanation for their incompetence at a time of crisis.
A more credible claim involves the parliamentary private secretary of Gilmore’s Foreign Secretary, Archie Cooper (son of the former Liberal President 1887-92, Dennis Cooper). This PPS, one Gerald Sawyer, was later found to have attended a Human League event in 1896 which opposed America’s participation in the Pandoric War, and at which a prominent American Societist had spoken. There were also some unexplained stays at various hotels in the Fredericksburg area, allegedly at times when the Societists ‘trade envoy’, Ambrosius Kalvus, was also nowhere to be found. But the evidence against him never quite added up, and the idea he was recruited to be the Societists’ man on the inside remains hotly denied by his family and estate, who say the accusations ruined his career in the 1930s.
A popular image circulates that Alfarus called an urgent meeting on hearing of Gilmore’s speech in October 1925, and it was at this meeting that the Societist strategy was plotted. The source for this idea appears to be its depiction in a number of triumphalist postwar Societist films which depict the meeting, followed by villainous reimaginings in American films. Little evidence exists for such a meeting, but that could be said about almost anything the Combine’s government did in this era given the later purges. It seems likely that at least some of the eventual plan was already in operation, given early signs of the trade of territory with the movement of warships. Whether it was at this meeting or earlier, Alfarus ordered the Societist Agendes and cadres in Guatemala and Cuba to begin actively working for uprisings and sabotage, while others would stand by. There is some evidence that this may have begun far earlier, with the ultimate goal of attempting to make the Guatemala Canal unusable simply to force the Americans to pay the Societists to use the Pablo Sanchez Canal in the former Panama instead, more for the sake of humiliation than financial gain. Now, however, it took on more earnest meaning.
Alfarus had no intention of being cheated of French Guiana. In some ways, this made things easier; now, there was no reason for the Combine to contemplate conflict with France, which ran the risk – though an increasingly diminished one – of dragging in all her allies in the ‘Pact’ or ‘Bouclier’. Instead, there would effectively be only one opponent – the old foe, as was doubtless in the minds of those at the alleged meeting regardless of their professions to Good Sanchezista Thought. America, or Septentria as some still preferred to dub her in the privacy of their own minds, unwilling to surrender the name for the whole twin continent in favour of ‘Novamund’. Their enemy was the Empire, and her unreliable allies.
While we have made it clear that depictions of this meeting are based on little more than wishful thinking, it is worth noting two revelations that are often associated with it, formerly secretive conclusions that were allegedly revealed to the whole of Alfarus’ inner circle at this point...
*
From: “100 Greatest Film Scenes of the Twentieth Century” edited by A. J. Collachoff (1999)—
Number 29: Alfarus’ Meeting (from Kapud, 1930, Novalatina, The Enemy, 1935, English, Cette Hideuse Puissance, 1941, French, and many more).
The cabinet meeting in which Amigo Alfarus plotted the Combine’s entry into the War of the Black Twenties has taken on a life of its own in film, with countless depictions both positive and negative. In many ways, the scene needs no introduction. It is often used as the touchstone basis for judging different actors’ portrayal of a man who defines an era, yet will always be an enigma...
(page missing)
LUPUS: ...it is the way of the world, the ineluctable tide of history. Be angered not by the savage who thinks the civilised man weak, when he sees his city of farmers and scribes, where not every man has to fight for his life’s breath. He will learn differently when he faces the city’s professional army in battl-
ALFARUS: Indeed, Amigo Lupus, your wisdom benefits us all. (Pause) We must not act from anger at this bandit charlatan’s insults. We must act coolly and logically, as befits those who are above the proletarian scuffles they name war.
MOLINARIUS: According to the plan. Always according to the pl-
ALFARUS: Quite so. (Pause) Amigo Dominikus, tell us of your plan.
DOMINIKUS: Sík, Amigo Kapud. We have been revising our plans throughout the – ah, the late period of intensification of the eternal conflict between the bandit regimes. Initially we proposed to neutralise the members of Karlus Borbonus’ gang, as we thought it would be at the time-
ALFARUS: Your commitment to Dual Thought is commendable, amigo, but in the interests of time, you may simply refer to them as the French. It is clear what you meant.
DOMINIKUS (pause): Sík, Amigo Kapud. We planned to face – the French, that is, at sea, with a Sea Celator force of overwhelming strength, at least two lineships to their one, before landing our ground, ah, police action forces and crossing the land border. By ‘border’, I of course mean-
ALFARUS: It is understood. Presumably, you now seek to do the same to the American force there?
DOMINIKUS: In a manner of speaking, Amigo Kapud, but we have made some changes to our plan. May I ask Amigo Juradus to speak?
ALFARUS: Acceptable.
JURADUS (gulps): Amigo Kapud. For some time, we have been experimenting with mobile naval bases for celagii – effectively, floating aeroports built on lineship hulls. Their immediate use is obvious – imagine being able to place an aerodrome within talcodii of an enemy coastal target.[31] But there is also-
ALFARUS: By ‘enemy’, of course, you are referring to those sadly held in bondage by the bandit gang regimes.
JURADUS: ...
ALFARUS: It is clear what you meant. Continue.
JURADUS: ...sík, Am-Amigo Kapud. Er, this...period of conflict has yielded clues that these floating aeroports, ‘hiveships’ as some have named them, are of even greater import than we believed. Celagii are effective not only again land targets and other celagii, but are increasingly effective against enem – uh – opponent ships. The, that is, the Americans have demonstrated this against the, the Russians, but many in the...bandit regimes still refuse to accept it.
ALFARUS: Curious. Why?
DOMINIKUS: They are hidebound by old ideas, Amigo Kapud. They have always seen lineships as a sign of strength. They cannot accept that, perhaps, a lineship with a crew of a thousand could be sunk by a one-man celagus with a steeltooth which cost a fraction of the price.
LUPUS: It is the ineluctable tide of history. The men of bronze could not accept their rich, invincible chariot armies could ever be overwhelmed by the men of the sea. Because they could not accept this, civilisation was almost set back a cycle.[32]
ALFARUS: I understand. Amigo Juradus, if you were given full control of the Classes’ Sea Celatores, with no interests to appease, unrestricted freedom – what would you do?
JURADUS: Me, Amigo Kapud? (Gulps) I...J would cease building lineships. The future of naval combat will be based on fleets consisting of one or more hiveships at the centre, defended by smaller vessels like dentists to prevent them being sunk by ironsharks.
ALFARUS: Curious. No lineships at all?
JURADUS: No, Amigo Kapud. They have no purpose. By the time they reach a battle, it will long have been decided. Even the biggest guns have no range compared to that of a celagus from a hiveship.
ALFARUS: This, in your surmise, is not something the bandit regimes will contemplate?
JURADUS: Not for a long time, Amigo Kapud...in my surmise. There are too many hidebound interests. When one looks at their response to the American success at Gavaji, their response was to try to court-martial the man who did it. They will be waiting for old admirals to die off, like some elderly relative so you can redecorate the house.
ALFARUS (actually smiles): Thank you, Amigo Juradus. If what you say is correct, we have a valuable opportunity. I understand we already have more hiveships than the...Americans.
DOMINIKUS: Sík, Amigo Kapud. Whereas they are still building on lineship hulls, we have switched to a cheaper method.
JURADUS: Uh, for now, Amigo Prokapud. We have reports that the Americans have started building a new hiveship from scratch...
ALFARUS (slaps table): Then this is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss. Make sure you are right about our celagii being able to sink American ships, Amigo Juradus, and you may go down in history as a Hero of the Classes.
JURADUS (overwhelmed): Uh, sík, Amigo Kapud!
MOLINARIUS: So we have an advantage at sea, Amigo Kapud. And American naval forces are committed in the Pacific. But so too are many of their land forces. How far can we stretch the Doctrine of the Last Throw, if this is truly such an opportunity?
ALFARUS: I see why I keep you around, Amigo Molinarius. I wish Amigo Caraíbas could see us now. Yes, let us not be modest in our ambitions. It is not merely at sea where we shall have an advantage.
DOMINIKUS (surprised): Amigo Kapud?
ALFARUS (speaks into a speaking tube): Maria...or should I say Amiga Vaska, for I am calling on you in your official capacity, my love. It is time. (Distorted sound from speaking tube) Yes, the time for absolute secrecy is over.
DOMINIKUS: Secrecy?
ALFARUS: A few years ago, I was informed of a new breakthrough from our chemical industry. Combined with Amigo Juradus’ strategy, it shall be the last piece in our plan to use this bloody, pointless conflict to earn a victory for the Classes. None of the flag-waving bandits will see a win, but the Classes will.
MOLINARIUS: I have not heard anything of a new breakthrough. In connexion with chemicals to tackle the plague? Are you proposing to turn our enem – opponent’s soldiers by offering them such?
ALFARUS: No, Amigo Molinarius, though that will also be part of our strategy. This is quite different. When I first learned of it, I knew I must keep it secret, even from men as trusted as you, until the time was right. Now it is.
(MARIA VASKA enters the room and Alfarus rises to greet her with a kiss)
ALFARUS: Amiga Vaska. Tell these gentlemen of the Alkahest...
[23] Note the date of publication of this book.
[24] Referred to in OTL as sleeper agents.
[25] See Part #12 in Volume I.
[26] See Part #117 in Volume III. This is a slightly misleading way of describing it – Governor Carpentier had effectively turned over administration of his colony to Jacobin political prisoners as a secret ‘Phantom Republic’. The incident in 1826 was this being discovered by the Duc d’Aumont, sparking open conflict.
[27] Vienna Green is a name also used in OTL, but Paris Green is a more common nickname for copper(II) acetoarsenite, a powerful insectide and green pigment also used to kill rats in sewers (hence the names Vienna and Paris). It was also the compound that, according to some, poisoned Napoleon due to being used for his green wallpaper, only to emit toxic arsine gas as it degraded. By this point it had largely been abandoned in favour of the milder lead arsenates; the text specifically brings it up because it comes with the implication that the Americans were fobbing the Carolinians off with older products with toxic side effects. However, even in OTL Paris Green was still being sprayed by aeroplane in Italy and Corsica as late as the 1940s as a means to kill off malarial mosquitoes. It is the first modern chemical insecticide and, despite its disadvantages, is the one often being used by less fortunate countries in TTL to kill plague rats.
[28] It is worth noting that the idea that blacks were ever truly on top in Carolina is an exaggeration based on complaintive propaganda by white Carolinians. It is true black Carolinians were employed as political officers and middle managers by the Meridians, and many white Carolinians would have lived in fear of what they decided. However, that is describing an extreme situation, usually in the cities with many Meridian and Hermandad troops on hand. While the Meridians might well have burned a white village in reprisal if one of their black tax officials was found lynched there, they would probably have brushed off that official if he had learned that the same village had lynched his sister instead. The Meridians’ regime cared about attacks on their own image of power over Carolina, not the welfare of their collaborators. And, of course, this relationship meant that the whites supposedly living in fear of the blacks could, in fact, threaten their families in such a way to counter their authority. So the power dynamics are not so simple and would be highly dependent on the individual situation and case.
[29] To be more precise: the northern and western shorelines of the Caribbean are part of either Carolina (status ambiguous, but effectively American-occupied), Nouvelle-Orléans (an exclave of Westernesse), Nueva Irlanda, Mexico and Guatemala (all American-allied kingdoms through the Philadelphia System). The islands themselves consist of the Republics of Cuba and Jamaica (also PS allies), Puerto Rico which is part of Guatemala, Hispaniola which is part of the Confederation of Old Virginia, and the smaller islands are all either colonies or integral parts of the Empire. Before the conquest of Russo-Belgian controlled Tortuga and Tobago, the last American annexation was Trinidad – which ironically before the Pandoric War had been Meridian, whereas the Americans lost nearby continental Venezuela to first the Meridians and then the Societists.
[30] The term ‘mole’ in an espionage context was popularised by John Le Carré in the twentieth century, but was actually first used by Francis Bacon in the seventeenth. Le Carré said this was a parallel evolution he was unaware of, and it does seem an obvious term to use for a ‘deeply buried’ agent regardless.
[31] The standard unit of measurement of length under Societism is the codus or cubit, equal to about 52 centimetres. A talcodus (3,600 cubits) is equal to about 1.9 kilometres or 1.2 English miles. These are based on a (somewhat flawed understanding of) ancient Mesopotamian and Sumerian units.
[32] Lupus is alluding to the ‘Bronze Age Collapse’, which has seen earlier scholarly attention in TTL. The idea that civilisation was ‘nearly’ set back a cycle is due to the Societist interpretation that it survived in Egypt alone, then slowly spread back to the rest of the Near East. Although the Societists have tried to incorporate less Near Eastern-centric models of the rise of civilisation, paying more attention to the Indus Valley and early China than their counterparts elsewhere, this chauvinism of the Fertile Crescent as ‘the’ cradle of civilisation is still present.
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