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  1. Athelstane

    Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

    We all recall Jacques Godechot's famous aphorism that the Bourbon dynasty and the émigrés who returned to France in their baggage train in 1814-15 had 'learnt nothing and forgotten nothing." And it was this disability that had brought down French monarchs in 1830 and 1848. All of which was well...
  2. Athelstane

    Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

    Indeed!
  3. Athelstane

    Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

    Not just him, but also Prince Robert d'Orléans, Duke of Chartres. In the ranks, wags took to calling them "Captain Parry" and "Captain Chatters." But yes, you're right, there was a lot of sympathy for the Union cause in liberal French society. In our history, Napoleon III dies in 1873. A little...
  4. Athelstane

    Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

    "a competent but unremarkable commander." It is interesting to put it this way. Breckinridge's true measure as a commander was, I think, somewhere between this gloss and the "New Stonewall" accolades he was collecting from Southern newspapers after New Market and Second Kernstown. He was one of...
  5. Athelstane

    Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

    Curious now what I missed in his postbellum career?
  6. Athelstane

    Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

    Harry Turtledove would approve!
  7. Athelstane

    Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

    Breckinridge really would be the best - even if he did not have quite as many opportunities to shine in *this* timeline's war as he did in ours - he had, after all, been vice president of the US, but also had won more votes in the South in the 1860 US presidential election than Jefferson Davis...
  8. Athelstane

    Robert Falcon Scott survives returning from the South Pole

    I have the 2012 Karen May article (PDF), by the way, if it would help.
  9. Athelstane

    Robert Falcon Scott survives returning from the South Pole

    It was during the Great War. U-boats were operating in the Atlantic, but not in the Barents Sea. It seems he wanted to steer as far clear of the war zone as he could manage.
  10. Athelstane

    Robert Falcon Scott survives returning from the South Pole

    Is it your sense that Karen May fabricated the order to Meares?
  11. Athelstane

    Robert Falcon Scott survives returning from the South Pole

    Oh, I think we have to count the Norge flight as his last expedition. (Successful enough that it is what establishes his claim to be the first man to *both* poles!) I cut Amundsen slack on his 1918-25 expeditions because he was attempting, literally, the impossible, given the state of...
  12. Athelstane

    Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

    He did, and it is a reasonable assessment to look at the surviving rump of the United States and still see a quite considerable industrial power (assuming it does not splinter further). But what it is now is a constrained regional power, rather than an unconstrained emerging world power...
  13. Athelstane

    Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

    Meanwhile, the Bonapartes suddenly have much better odds of sticking around for the rest of the century...though the broad trajectory already firmly in place by this point is towards a pretty democratic (albeit increasingly noisy) constitutional monarchy. Napoleon IV will not have nearly the...
  14. Athelstane

    Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

    Whoa Nelly. I don't want to say this just turned into a Britwank, but in just the last five years, the 20th century's two future principal economic and political rivals to Britain have been knocked clean off the chessboard. Or at least cleaved deeply into two, which amounts to the same thing...
  15. Athelstane

    Robert Falcon Scott survives returning from the South Pole

    The Terra Nova Expedition actually brought back quite a bit of science! https://www.nature.com/articles/481264a But I agree that the government would be thrilled if Scott reached the Pole first. (Though this does not seem to be the scenario the OP is asking about.) Asquith's government was...
  16. Athelstane

    Robert Falcon Scott survives returning from the South Pole

    I feel like I'm at risk here for turning into a Scott apologist, which I really am not, but... Again, I think the reality is more nuanced here. There are, without question, good grounds on which to criticize Scott's running of the Terra Nova Expedition! But bear in mind: 1) Yes, Scott flogged...
  17. Athelstane

    Robert Falcon Scott survives returning from the South Pole

    Markham deserves his reputation for being a largely toxic force in British polar exploration, I'm afraid. And, unfortunately, his position was such that his patronage and approval was something that Scott felt he had to constantly cultivate. I think there is not as much daylight between us...
  18. Athelstane

    Robert Falcon Scott survives returning from the South Pole

    I think the point, though, is that neither Scott nor most Britons of that age thought he had died "pointlessly."
  19. Athelstane

    Robert Falcon Scott survives returning from the South Pole

    There are uncertainties and error bars here, of course, and we can never be entirely certain. My gut sense is that Oates was probably too sanguine in his estimation of their capabilities at that point. But...I might not disagree with you about the risk of being stranded at the depot. It could...
  20. Athelstane

    Robert Falcon Scott survives returning from the South Pole

    I think the truth is closer to a middle ground on this. Shackleton would have been more likely to get back alive at that point in his career because he would have planned the composition, logistics and equipping of his polar party better than Scott did: That is to say, he would not likely have...
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