alternatehistory.com

21 September


Richard Gatling demonstrates his two models of Gatling Gun to the US Army and Navy. The smaller model, firing rifle-calibre bullets, makes a reasonably good impression - his idea that a regiment of 1,000 men could be replaced by forty men operating ten Gatling guns is considered overoptimistic (and his idea that this would reduce the size of armies by 96% is seen as total fantasy) but the ability of the gun to offer continuous fire is seen as a potentially useful feature.
The Navy in particular thinks that, with the recent use of spar-torpedo boats by the Confederacy, a Gatling Gun or two for defence might be useful if a place can be found to put them on an ironclad. (Their use on a Monitor of the current type is seen as impossible, and there are inevitable sacrifices with a casemate ironclad as they would be outside the armour - but an armoured frigate cannot really be fully armoured anyway, so there would be no particular increase in vulnerability.) This would not be to damage the vessel but to drive the crew below decks.
The larger model, firing one-pound shells, is less well recieved. The Navy considers it to be unable to do damage to ironclads or indeed most ships (and as such to offer little in addition over the smaller model), the Army thinks that a one-pound shell is barely worth the effort of firing it, and both are not impressed with the unreliability of the mechanism if forced to try and handle such large shocks of firing.

The US Navy orders two Gatlings for further evaluation, and the Army orders one. All three are of the smaller type.


24 September

King Frederick VII of Denmark has a health scare caused by a rumour about pneumonia, resulting in the debates and arguments about the succession (and the constitution of Schleiswig and Holstein) coming into high gear.
The Schleiswig-Holstein question is already the most complicated matter in Europe - one famous joke by Lord Palmerston states that “Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it" - but the core of the problem is relatively simple. Danish inheritance law differs from that of the duchies of Schleiswig and Holstein, and with King Frederick VII childless the two inheritances are shortly to diverge for the first time in centuries; coupled with this is that there is a gradual increase in German linguistic and cultural dominance as one moves down the Jutland peninsula. The status quo is currently enforced by the London Protocol, which holds that further integration or disintegration of the Danish Federation is to be viewed negatively.

Bismarck is currently grumbling about the marvellous opportunity that may be going to waste.