>14 million in 1904
>44 million jump in 1900
>mfw when revenue expands
"It is a glorious day for the Republic, and therefore the world."
An execution preempted: A lethal Otsu incident, Russian empire centered TL
- Thread starter yboxman
- Start date
- Status
>14 million in 1904
>44 million jump in 1900
>mfw when revenue expands
"It is a glorious day for the Republic, and therefore the world."
LordKalvert
Banned
There isn't a sterling yen conversion because the Yen is on the silver standard until after the Sino-Japanese War. About 1897-98 they convert to the gold standard
Yen and rubles are essentially interchangeable after that
Nice, reasonable update.
definitely better than outright war, neither side would really win.
yboxman
Banned
#7 Homecoming
Samara, Russian empire, September 10th 1891
It is the hour of the wolf, the dark before the dawn. And he cannot sleep, his skin still clammy with the memory of his nightmare.
He is running through the shadows of the alien Japanese city, pushing his way through a crowd of faceless strangers, trying to find him. He knows that if he only runs swiftly enough he can make it all right again.
George leans across the rail of the porch of the Millitary governor’s mansion. Below, the guards are making their rounds, though they seem none too swift about it. He can see the furtive glow of pipe exchanged between the soldiers in violation of several regulations, smell the harsh tang of the Persian Tobacco popular on the Volga.
“Where is Nicholas? Where is your brother?”
The voice thunders from the sky, from the shadows of the city’s alleys in the thundering baritone of his father.
It occurs to him that he could slip past them, make his way to the river, buy passage to Astrakhan and from there across the Caspian to Baku, or Tukmenistan or even Persia. He need never return, never face his family’s unspoken accusations. Never face HIM.
"I do not know! I can’t find him! Am I my brother's keeper?"
The shadows shift and the crowd pushes him back, throws him to the ground.
"You WERE his keeper! You were supposed to guard him with your life! What have you done George? Your brother's blood cries from the earth!”
His father, rarely emotive is furious, towers over him, even larger than life.
“I tried to save him! I tried!”
“But you were too slow. Why? Did you want to be Tsar so badly?”
It is Nicholas, his body mutilated with the wounds inflicted upon him, rotting after a week at sea, and the ship is swaying beneath him, caught in a storm which has no beginning and no end.
“I never wanted to be Tsar! I never wished you dead!”
It was a lie, of course and no less of a lie for beeing self repeated so many times over the years. Of course he knew Nicholas would be Tsar from the moment he was old enough to think. In their childhood games they would occasionaly play the part of his loyal servants. But even then, before he came of age, it occurred to him that he would make the better ruler.
As he grew older he banished thoughts of the throne, and means by which it might be his, from his mind. Rather, he poured his energy into pursuing a future career in the Navy, confining his dreams to visiting exotic ports, and exotic women around the world (1).
Traveling across the vast breadth of his country over the past months have made clear to him the incredible burden, the near impossibility, ruling it would present. Unlike his brother he lacks the luxury of Myopia, and cannot help seeing beyond the glittering façade of formal receptions. He has insisted on visiting the homes of the villagers lying beyond the military outposts and government buildings where he has been quartered and has been shocked at their poverty.
Worse is the knowledge that as poor as these settlers are, their lot is often better than the overpopulated and land poor (2) villages of European Russia.
Many of them of are the descendants of exiles, the detritus of a society torn by strife which has murdered his grandfather a decade ago and which his father has mastered only through ruthless application of an iron fist.
He has insisted, as well, in visiting the Katorgas from which they, or their parents, had emerged. He knows they are necessary. Yet they too appear in his nightmares, the hostile stares of their inmates joining the long litany of his accusers..
“You murdered me in wrath! A deadly sin! Accursed, accursed, accursed are you from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive my blood from your hand!” (3)
Tsuda Sanzo. He tried not to learn his name, but the newspapers proclaimed it. His neck is hanging at an angle, his skull caved in, and his fingers are curled into talons grasping for his throat.
As ever, thankfully, the nightmare ends here.
Dawn rises, banishing both nightmares and fantasies of escape from his mind. He has been sentenced to rule this magnificent, miserable land and from this sentance their is no reprieve. As his entrouge rouses he will make his way, not to a Volga riverboat, but to the Eastern Terminus of the Moscow-Samara train line. A distance which would have taken many weeks by carriage or riverboat will be overcome in less than two days.
His father will not wait, in spit of his cautious inquiries. He wishes him invested as Tsesarevich at the Cathedral of the Dormition to re-establish beyond question the stability of succession.
Moscow, Russian empire, September 12th, 1891.
His entire family, those who yet reamain, is there to meet him on the Platform. His petite mother, Maria Fedronova, His younger brother Michael, beautiful Xenia, blooming into Womanhood and little, Fey and tartar faced Olga.
Above them all towers,as always, his father. Massive, Slow of movement and speech but not as mind, he does not share the apperanc eof any of his children, or of his deceased father and elder brother for that matter. To many of his subject he is bogatyr, a re-incarnation of the warrior stock which had founded Russia and later liberated it from the yoke of the Golden horde.
And nothing, nothing, shocks George as much as his appearance does. His skin is sallow and puffy as if his blood is not circulating properly in his veins and he leans on a cane to aid his movements (4).
He straigtens up when he sees his son and, even more shockingly, embraces him. When he releases him there are tears in his eyes, the first he has ever seen.
“You have avenged your brother’s murder and have helped guide Russia away from the brink of war. In all ways have you upheld the honor of the Romanov name and of Holy Russia!”
The crowd bursts into cheers. Is it for their benefit that the words were spoken? His father’s grasp on his arm is all the answer he needs.
Moscow-St Petersburg, Russian empire, September 14th, 1891.
Later, much later, when the invesiture is done, and when the imperial family has boarded the train to the capital, father and son have time to speak privately.
“Who are they?”
Alexander glances at the crowd of men, women and children, burdened down with possesions who are horded into the train-yard behind the departing imperial train.
“Them? Zhids. I've ordered their expulsion from Moscow and St.Petersburg as well. They’ve been flouting the may laws (5) and the ordinances limiting them to the pale of settlement (6) for too long. I won’t have it. Your grandfather, who mistakenly coddled them, and allowed them to settle in the shadow of the Kremlin, was murdered by filthy Jewish assassins (7) and I have no intention of allowing them to roam freely in our capitals. But enough of them. We have serious matters to discuss.”
Alexander is silent for a time, swollen face gazing outside.
“You understand why I accepted the Nipponese blood money instead of going to war?”
“We could have gained nothing by war that we did not gain by the indemmity.”
“Yes. A Tsar must think of his country first and everything else, revenge and family included second. Why else?”
“The Trans-Siberian railway. We need time to complete it.”
“That too. A war would have meant a halt to construction on the pacific side. There are too many loans riding on its completion. Any delay, any delay, might be fatal to our finances. Once it is complete our hand will be strengthened and we can act with confidence in the Far East. Until then, we must be cautious. But that is not all. Tell me son, what did you think of the Japanese?”
George thinks for a moment about busteling shipyards, considers the protected cruiser just launched. About the well disciplined soldiers and sailors, and the bustling energy which seemed to pervade the rapidly expanding cities. Thinks as well about the Enigmatic Japanese emperor with whom he could not communicate directly
“They are a rapidly changing people who are yet rooted to their past. In ten years time, or twenty, they will have ships and armies which may challenge ours. That is what I do not understand. If Russia aims to expand in the East, why not crush them now, before they are a threat?”
Alexander spreads his massive hands.
“Because we can’t. Britain would never allow it. Your grandfather launched a war by land to liberate our South Slavic Kin from Turkey. Russia spent Great blood and treasure on this campaign and what did it gain? Nothing but the reacquisition of Besarbia and Kars. All Britian needed to do was to move its ships into the Bosporus and at once the concert of Europe united against us and forced us to withdraw empty handed, while Austria acquired two rich provinces without shedding a drop of blood. How much more so in war against an Island nation? But there is more. Japan is not our greatest potential foe in the far East.”
“Who then? The Chinese?” George laughs.
His father doesn’t.
“Father, comparing China to Japan is like comparing night and day. They are backward and decadent, 30 years behind Japan, 50 years behind Russia!”
“But they are catching up. Slowly, but they are catching up, just as Peter the great caught up with the West. They are building railways and shipyards, factories and modern armies. And unlike the Japanese they are not a small island nation, they are an empire nearly as large as Russia and far more populated (10). Our longest land border is with China and the soldiers guarding it are outnumbered 10:1.
The land on which the Eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian is built on was taken from them and they want it back. Early in my reign I was forced to evacuate Kuldja and lower the Russian flag because the Generals were not sure we would prove victorious in the Far East (8). We need Japan to balance China and we must never allow ourselves to have a grudge with both countries at once. I had hoped to achieve an alliance with Japan (9). That is impossible for now of course. But bad blood, in time, fades. The Japanese have made amends. There may yet be common ground to be found. Indeed, perhaps the Qing will provide it for us.”
George swallows his heated retort. He cannot, at this time, imagine the Japanese as allies.
Father and son are silent for a time, as the train leaves the farmland at the outskirts of Moscow and is swallowed in the patch of primeval forest which still covers most of Russia.
“We must speak of your own future now. Have you given thought as to how you may best begin preparing yourself for your future responsibilities?”
“I have. Appoint me to oversee the committee supervising the construction of the Trans-Siberian. I will learn much more by participating in it’s deliberations, and ensuring construction proceeds with the utmost swiftness, than I will by attending futile lessons and ceremonies”
A smile creeps onto Alexander's craggy face.
"Well thought. I will attach you to Witte as soon as you are settled in. There is one other thing we must discuss. You need a suitable wife"
George swallows.
"It is... too soon."
Alexander clasps his sons arm and nods once sharply before leading him to rejoin the rest of the family.
"Very well. But do not wait too long. "
(1) Hardly alone in that fixation. Navies in the 19th century were what SF and starships were to the children of the 1960s. Or perhaps it is the other way around.
(2) Relative term. They are land poor and “overpopulated” only in the sense that they are producing less than a quarter of the harvest for acre that a German farmer would, leaving little surplus for the peasants, especially after taxes. Partly because of lousy farming practices, partly because of sub-optimal soil, and partly because the areas with the best soil suffer from frequent drought and no irrigation.
(3) Nightmares really suck. You can’t have a rational argument with them without them changing the subject.
(4) OTL, The Nephritis only struck him two years later. But grief can really push your system over the edge.
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Laws
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
(7) Well, no. Actually the assassin was a Catholic Pole. His two accomplices at the scene were great Russians. The Nihilist group he belonged to had nearly thirty members of whom one, one was an apostate teenage Jewess runaway who played a minor supporting role (mostly as the squeeze of the assasins). But propaganda is a funny thing. Spout it long enough and you believe it.
(8) That’s a eupherism for being certain they would lose the Transussuri, face staklemate in Mongolia and roll over the Chinese in Xinjiang. They were hoping gains in the West could be traded for losses in the East.
(9) OTL. The Japanese were nearly ready when Alexander died and Nicholas II was unenthusiastic. George has more of a grudge against Japoan than Nicholas did but he is also more intelligent. SO it could go either way.
(10) Fu Manchu and the “yellow peril” were born in the European imagination at this time. The tabloids were replete with invasion scenarios where a modernized Qing fleet invaded Australia and India. It was not fully appreciated how inadequate the Qing Self Strengthening efforts really were until the Sino-Japanese war.
Samara, Russian empire, September 10th 1891
It is the hour of the wolf, the dark before the dawn. And he cannot sleep, his skin still clammy with the memory of his nightmare.
He is running through the shadows of the alien Japanese city, pushing his way through a crowd of faceless strangers, trying to find him. He knows that if he only runs swiftly enough he can make it all right again.
George leans across the rail of the porch of the Millitary governor’s mansion. Below, the guards are making their rounds, though they seem none too swift about it. He can see the furtive glow of pipe exchanged between the soldiers in violation of several regulations, smell the harsh tang of the Persian Tobacco popular on the Volga.
“Where is Nicholas? Where is your brother?”
The voice thunders from the sky, from the shadows of the city’s alleys in the thundering baritone of his father.
It occurs to him that he could slip past them, make his way to the river, buy passage to Astrakhan and from there across the Caspian to Baku, or Tukmenistan or even Persia. He need never return, never face his family’s unspoken accusations. Never face HIM.
"I do not know! I can’t find him! Am I my brother's keeper?"
The shadows shift and the crowd pushes him back, throws him to the ground.
"You WERE his keeper! You were supposed to guard him with your life! What have you done George? Your brother's blood cries from the earth!”
His father, rarely emotive is furious, towers over him, even larger than life.
“I tried to save him! I tried!”
“But you were too slow. Why? Did you want to be Tsar so badly?”
It is Nicholas, his body mutilated with the wounds inflicted upon him, rotting after a week at sea, and the ship is swaying beneath him, caught in a storm which has no beginning and no end.
“I never wanted to be Tsar! I never wished you dead!”
It was a lie, of course and no less of a lie for beeing self repeated so many times over the years. Of course he knew Nicholas would be Tsar from the moment he was old enough to think. In their childhood games they would occasionaly play the part of his loyal servants. But even then, before he came of age, it occurred to him that he would make the better ruler.
As he grew older he banished thoughts of the throne, and means by which it might be his, from his mind. Rather, he poured his energy into pursuing a future career in the Navy, confining his dreams to visiting exotic ports, and exotic women around the world (1).
Traveling across the vast breadth of his country over the past months have made clear to him the incredible burden, the near impossibility, ruling it would present. Unlike his brother he lacks the luxury of Myopia, and cannot help seeing beyond the glittering façade of formal receptions. He has insisted on visiting the homes of the villagers lying beyond the military outposts and government buildings where he has been quartered and has been shocked at their poverty.
Worse is the knowledge that as poor as these settlers are, their lot is often better than the overpopulated and land poor (2) villages of European Russia.
Many of them of are the descendants of exiles, the detritus of a society torn by strife which has murdered his grandfather a decade ago and which his father has mastered only through ruthless application of an iron fist.
He has insisted, as well, in visiting the Katorgas from which they, or their parents, had emerged. He knows they are necessary. Yet they too appear in his nightmares, the hostile stares of their inmates joining the long litany of his accusers..
“You murdered me in wrath! A deadly sin! Accursed, accursed, accursed are you from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive my blood from your hand!” (3)
Tsuda Sanzo. He tried not to learn his name, but the newspapers proclaimed it. His neck is hanging at an angle, his skull caved in, and his fingers are curled into talons grasping for his throat.
As ever, thankfully, the nightmare ends here.
Dawn rises, banishing both nightmares and fantasies of escape from his mind. He has been sentenced to rule this magnificent, miserable land and from this sentance their is no reprieve. As his entrouge rouses he will make his way, not to a Volga riverboat, but to the Eastern Terminus of the Moscow-Samara train line. A distance which would have taken many weeks by carriage or riverboat will be overcome in less than two days.
His father will not wait, in spit of his cautious inquiries. He wishes him invested as Tsesarevich at the Cathedral of the Dormition to re-establish beyond question the stability of succession.
Moscow, Russian empire, September 12th, 1891.
His entire family, those who yet reamain, is there to meet him on the Platform. His petite mother, Maria Fedronova, His younger brother Michael, beautiful Xenia, blooming into Womanhood and little, Fey and tartar faced Olga.
Above them all towers,as always, his father. Massive, Slow of movement and speech but not as mind, he does not share the apperanc eof any of his children, or of his deceased father and elder brother for that matter. To many of his subject he is bogatyr, a re-incarnation of the warrior stock which had founded Russia and later liberated it from the yoke of the Golden horde.
And nothing, nothing, shocks George as much as his appearance does. His skin is sallow and puffy as if his blood is not circulating properly in his veins and he leans on a cane to aid his movements (4).
He straigtens up when he sees his son and, even more shockingly, embraces him. When he releases him there are tears in his eyes, the first he has ever seen.
“You have avenged your brother’s murder and have helped guide Russia away from the brink of war. In all ways have you upheld the honor of the Romanov name and of Holy Russia!”
The crowd bursts into cheers. Is it for their benefit that the words were spoken? His father’s grasp on his arm is all the answer he needs.
Moscow-St Petersburg, Russian empire, September 14th, 1891.
Later, much later, when the invesiture is done, and when the imperial family has boarded the train to the capital, father and son have time to speak privately.
“Who are they?”
Alexander glances at the crowd of men, women and children, burdened down with possesions who are horded into the train-yard behind the departing imperial train.
“Them? Zhids. I've ordered their expulsion from Moscow and St.Petersburg as well. They’ve been flouting the may laws (5) and the ordinances limiting them to the pale of settlement (6) for too long. I won’t have it. Your grandfather, who mistakenly coddled them, and allowed them to settle in the shadow of the Kremlin, was murdered by filthy Jewish assassins (7) and I have no intention of allowing them to roam freely in our capitals. But enough of them. We have serious matters to discuss.”
Alexander is silent for a time, swollen face gazing outside.
“You understand why I accepted the Nipponese blood money instead of going to war?”
“We could have gained nothing by war that we did not gain by the indemmity.”
“Yes. A Tsar must think of his country first and everything else, revenge and family included second. Why else?”
“The Trans-Siberian railway. We need time to complete it.”
“That too. A war would have meant a halt to construction on the pacific side. There are too many loans riding on its completion. Any delay, any delay, might be fatal to our finances. Once it is complete our hand will be strengthened and we can act with confidence in the Far East. Until then, we must be cautious. But that is not all. Tell me son, what did you think of the Japanese?”
George thinks for a moment about busteling shipyards, considers the protected cruiser just launched. About the well disciplined soldiers and sailors, and the bustling energy which seemed to pervade the rapidly expanding cities. Thinks as well about the Enigmatic Japanese emperor with whom he could not communicate directly
“They are a rapidly changing people who are yet rooted to their past. In ten years time, or twenty, they will have ships and armies which may challenge ours. That is what I do not understand. If Russia aims to expand in the East, why not crush them now, before they are a threat?”
Alexander spreads his massive hands.
“Because we can’t. Britain would never allow it. Your grandfather launched a war by land to liberate our South Slavic Kin from Turkey. Russia spent Great blood and treasure on this campaign and what did it gain? Nothing but the reacquisition of Besarbia and Kars. All Britian needed to do was to move its ships into the Bosporus and at once the concert of Europe united against us and forced us to withdraw empty handed, while Austria acquired two rich provinces without shedding a drop of blood. How much more so in war against an Island nation? But there is more. Japan is not our greatest potential foe in the far East.”
“Who then? The Chinese?” George laughs.
His father doesn’t.
“Father, comparing China to Japan is like comparing night and day. They are backward and decadent, 30 years behind Japan, 50 years behind Russia!”
“But they are catching up. Slowly, but they are catching up, just as Peter the great caught up with the West. They are building railways and shipyards, factories and modern armies. And unlike the Japanese they are not a small island nation, they are an empire nearly as large as Russia and far more populated (10). Our longest land border is with China and the soldiers guarding it are outnumbered 10:1.
The land on which the Eastern terminus of the Trans-Siberian is built on was taken from them and they want it back. Early in my reign I was forced to evacuate Kuldja and lower the Russian flag because the Generals were not sure we would prove victorious in the Far East (8). We need Japan to balance China and we must never allow ourselves to have a grudge with both countries at once. I had hoped to achieve an alliance with Japan (9). That is impossible for now of course. But bad blood, in time, fades. The Japanese have made amends. There may yet be common ground to be found. Indeed, perhaps the Qing will provide it for us.”
George swallows his heated retort. He cannot, at this time, imagine the Japanese as allies.
Father and son are silent for a time, as the train leaves the farmland at the outskirts of Moscow and is swallowed in the patch of primeval forest which still covers most of Russia.
“We must speak of your own future now. Have you given thought as to how you may best begin preparing yourself for your future responsibilities?”
“I have. Appoint me to oversee the committee supervising the construction of the Trans-Siberian. I will learn much more by participating in it’s deliberations, and ensuring construction proceeds with the utmost swiftness, than I will by attending futile lessons and ceremonies”
A smile creeps onto Alexander's craggy face.
"Well thought. I will attach you to Witte as soon as you are settled in. There is one other thing we must discuss. You need a suitable wife"
George swallows.
"It is... too soon."
Alexander clasps his sons arm and nods once sharply before leading him to rejoin the rest of the family.
"Very well. But do not wait too long. "
(1) Hardly alone in that fixation. Navies in the 19th century were what SF and starships were to the children of the 1960s. Or perhaps it is the other way around.
(2) Relative term. They are land poor and “overpopulated” only in the sense that they are producing less than a quarter of the harvest for acre that a German farmer would, leaving little surplus for the peasants, especially after taxes. Partly because of lousy farming practices, partly because of sub-optimal soil, and partly because the areas with the best soil suffer from frequent drought and no irrigation.
(3) Nightmares really suck. You can’t have a rational argument with them without them changing the subject.
(4) OTL, The Nephritis only struck him two years later. But grief can really push your system over the edge.
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Laws
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
(7) Well, no. Actually the assassin was a Catholic Pole. His two accomplices at the scene were great Russians. The Nihilist group he belonged to had nearly thirty members of whom one, one was an apostate teenage Jewess runaway who played a minor supporting role (mostly as the squeeze of the assasins). But propaganda is a funny thing. Spout it long enough and you believe it.
(8) That’s a eupherism for being certain they would lose the Transussuri, face staklemate in Mongolia and roll over the Chinese in Xinjiang. They were hoping gains in the West could be traded for losses in the East.
(9) OTL. The Japanese were nearly ready when Alexander died and Nicholas II was unenthusiastic. George has more of a grudge against Japoan than Nicholas did but he is also more intelligent. SO it could go either way.
(10) Fu Manchu and the “yellow peril” were born in the European imagination at this time. The tabloids were replete with invasion scenarios where a modernized Qing fleet invaded Australia and India. It was not fully appreciated how inadequate the Qing Self Strengthening efforts really were until the Sino-Japanese war.
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There's some great writing in this thread! Subscribed!
I suppose Alex III will die earlier then, this should give more time to George, but will he smart enough to save Russia? This has the potential to turn into extremely utopian territory if both Stalinism and Nazism can be avoided (that's not a bad thing, if you can achieve it plausibly btw).
I suppose Alex III will die earlier then, this should give more time to George, but will he smart enough to save Russia? This has the potential to turn into extremely utopian territory if both Stalinism and Nazism can be avoided (that's not a bad thing, if you can achieve it plausibly btw).
yboxman
Banned
Thanks!
Trying to keep the style from descending into the whole "dark twilight of the soul" , but heck, this is Russia after all. One must be true to the spirit of Gogol and Dostoevsky.
I don't do Utopian, dark attempts at realism is more my style. Strongly recommend Jonathan Edelstein if "the triumph of the human spirit" is your thing- He's also twice the writer I'm ever likely to be.
Avoiding Stalinism and Nazism is relatively easy- WWI just needs to end sooner before either the Russian or German institutions and legitimacy collaps under the pressure. Avoiding them without something nearly as bad developing or persisting is another thing entirely.
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." - J. Robert Oppenheimer
yboxman
Banned
Are royal weddings amongst first cousins permitted?
I'm doing the next post, "Three weddings and a funeral" next and I'm stuck with the matchmaking.
The essential question is whether Tsar George I can get away with marrying a first cousin. If he can't and he must also marry the daughter of a royal house, then his choices boil down to exactly Three women. And one of them is Alix.
If he can marry his first cousins then there are a number of other, possibly more interesting choices. Anyone know what the rules of the Russian orthodox church are at the time?
I'm doing the next post, "Three weddings and a funeral" next and I'm stuck with the matchmaking.
The essential question is whether Tsar George I can get away with marrying a first cousin. If he can't and he must also marry the daughter of a royal house, then his choices boil down to exactly Three women. And one of them is Alix.
If he can marry his first cousins then there are a number of other, possibly more interesting choices. Anyone know what the rules of the Russian orthodox church are at the time?
According to the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, Vol. IV, p. 569 (it was the most authoritative encyclopedia of pre-revolutionary Russia), the Russian Orthodox church did not allow (as of 1891) marriages between partners of "the first four degrees of kinship." First cousin is exactly the fourth degree of kinship for another first cousin. Fifth degree of kinship marriages (between first cousins once removed) were conditionally allowed, provided the ruling bishop of the partners granted a dispensation.
I don't know whether the family law could be bent for a tsar in the late 19th century (it was definitely violated left and right under Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century, when that monarch married as many times as he wanted, ignoring clearcut legal prohibitions; however, last Romanovs were absolute monarchs, but not despots, and they tried to comply with all provisions of the Orthodox family law as best as they could).
yboxman
Banned
No eligible daughter. Ditto Spain, Portugal, Italy, Rumania, Sweden. Denmark, Hanover, UK and Greece have siblings of Dagmar/Maria Fedronova as consorts or rulers. Margaret of Prussia/Germany already betrothed (and politically problematic. and only one degree removed from fist cousin).
The "King" of Montenegro has two eligible daughters aged 18 and 17. And then there is Alexi
. Probably another German or Italian princess from a deposed house in the woodworks but that's not very interesting.No. Meiji's surviving daughters are too young (ditto for Korea. and, of course, the Qing). And though it would make for an interesting possibility and just barely possible given George's adventurous streak and taste for the exotic it might be more than his subjects or Clan elders can bear.
Unfortunately, countries have an unfortunate habbit of doing as little as they can to get by and adopt radical reform only in response to a crisis. China will continue as OTL with slow, patchworkmodernization up until 1895. What happens then depends on how and whether a Sino-Japanese war breaks out. If it doesn't then the hundred day reform probably doesn't occur, but then neither does Cixi and Yuan's coup which means the Boxer Rebellion might be supressed without European invasion.
1890 is a bit late to save the Qing but it just might happen.
yboxman
Banned
#8 Three weddings and a funeral.
October 20th 1892, St Petersburg
He was dead. The Titan who had held Russia in a Grip of Steel, who had, like a veritable Samson, saved his family from a railway wreckage by holding up the roof of their carriage, was dead.
He was struck down not by an assassin’s bullet, or the ineveitable ravages of old age, but by a failure of the Kidneys.
And George wasn’t there to say goodbye.
He was in the newly founded settlement of Novosibirsk (1) when the telegram reached him, inaugurating the construction of a bridge (2) across the mighty, sluggish, Ob and discreetly reaming the local project engineer for using Green wood on a portion of the line rather than using the ample funds provided to him (3) to purchase properly aged timber.
There could be no flaw in his brother’s railway. It had to be perfect.
They had held off the funeral until he arrived. They had also held their breath. The last time a succession had been contested was 1825, and the attempted coup had badly shaken the foundations of the state.
Whatever internal power struggles marred the extended Romanov clan all were agreed such a breach of decorum could never be permitted to undermine the legitimacy of the autocracy. And it hadn’t.
No formal Regency council had been formed of course. But the iron willed Maria Fedronova and his uncles Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich Romanov and Sergei Alexandrovich had quietly kept things in order prior to his arrival in St Petersburg.
And now he was here to belatedly say goodbye. The Ice from Lake Ladoga (4) had preserved Alexander’s body intact for his son’s arrival and his features,
“The continuation of the Regime depends on our ability to keep Russia in a frozen state. The slightest warm breath of life would cause the whole thing to rot.”
The cynical words of the chief Synod echo in his mind as his breath steams in the freezing room.
He thinks of a railway rapidly tying Europe and Asia, the Pacific the Baltic, together. He thinks of the laborers working at this great endevour, conscript soldiers and Katorga convicts, seasonal laborers and Chinese migrants. And he thinks, too, of an island nation, rapidly modernizing while its larger neighbor remains mired in obstructionism (5).
Can Russia be kept frozen forever? Can it be kept together in any other state?
“What should I do father?
Try as he might he can feel no echo of his father’s spirit. But the steam of his breath, and the slow trickle of melting ice around his father’s body provide their own answer.
January 1st, 1893, Moscow
Later, he can barely remember the ceremony. It last for hours, with all the pomp and mystery of a byzantine relic from the age of Justinian.
“You need have no fear of trouble makers during the coronation your majesty”, His uncle Sergei reassured him. By the time you arrive I will have completed the expulsion of the Zhids.
George hesitates, remembering a crowd herded into the trainyard, a barely glimpsed frightened expression on a girl-child’s face.
“I thought you had expelled them last year?”
Segei stiffens in his corset at he perceived criticism and nervously twirls his jeweled ring.
“Certain categories of Jews were granted a stay in their expulsion.”
“Which categories?”
“Skilled artisians, veterans… But a Zhid is a Zhid, Nyet? Your father was quite clear he wanted them all gone (4)”
George hesitates. He thinks of the soldiers building and guarding the long route across Siberia. How many of them were of Jewish blood?
In some respects this is the first decision he must make as Tsar. And Sergei has always been well respected and liked by his father and the rest of the family.
“What do you think Witte?”
Witte coughs nervously. The last thing he wants is to draw the ire of a powerful member of the Romanov clan.
“Internal security is not really my field of expertise, your majesty”
“Still”
The tone of command is new. George is surprised at how naturally it comes. But if he cannot rely on his ministers and advisers to speak truthfully to him, if they fear others more than they fear him, how can he possibly rule, and not merely reign?
“The crowned heads of Europe will all be attending the coronation your majesty. So too will Prime minister Ribot of France. Not to mention the Western Press. Our... Jewish policy is not well liked in the West. It would be, in my opinion, impolitic to draw attention to it at this time, especially as we are still negotiating the conditions for the French loans for our railway expansion. Perhaps it would be better if the expulsion is delayed until the coronation is concluded”
George nods.
“Well, what do you say uncle? After all, if the expulsion could wait a whole year, surely we can delay it by a few more months?”
“Your highness, your father’s express wishes were to complete the expulsions as soon as possible. It would send an unfortunate sign if you should repudiate his policies so soon after his death”
George frowns.
“Has any formal Ukase been proclaimed to this effect?”
Sergei hesitates
“Well, not as such, your highness”
“Then we need not be concerned with possible mis-interpretation of this delay. Whatever my father’s wishes may have been I am certain he would not be averse to securing the French loans. I will take the matter under advisement in June. Better that way. After all, we would not wish to relocate entire families in the dead of winter, would we?”
As the incense censor swings about him yet again and the Sonorous Church Slavonic chant drowns out the underlying murmur of the crowd he steals a glance at the royalty seated at the front pews of the Cathedral. His future bride is seated amongst them.
“You can’t put this off any longer. You must marry, and produce a heir and that is final!”
“But mother….”
“Don’t mother me! I have never chastised you for your mistresses, though I should think you could display better taste. A husband must, after all arrive at his nuptial night with some experience. But a royal born wife is what is needed and I have prepared a list of all respectable candidates.
I WILL make sure you have a chance to meet with all of them under appropriate circumstances in the events marking your coronation and you WILL pay each the greatest courtesy and do your very effective best to win the affections, or at least the consideration, of the young woman you find most befitting you.”
It’s really not much of a choice. Few among them are the right age, statues and sufficiently removed from him by blood. His position, unfortunately, is too new to consider marrying a non royal though he is quietly determined that his siblings will not suffer the constraints he must labor under.
Briefly, he considers the tall, stately woman in the back. If one must marry, surely it is better to be married to beauty? Then he recalls her haughty, distant demeanor at the reception. This is a woman used to getting her own way- and beauty, after all, can easily be obtained outside the marriage bed with a sufficiently understanding or selectively blind wife. And she is Sergai’s sister in law. Does he really want to grant him another venue of influence at court? He is also uneasily aware of the way the Romanov’s are increasingly viewed as Alien by their subjects. If he cannot marry a Russian woman of his own choice it is better he choose the next best thing.
Discreetly, he catches the eye of the Elena of Montenegro. And winks.
In the excitement of the coronation of the Tsar of all Russians it is excusable, perhaps, that few realize that another hunter has found her Mark. For Maria of Greece, though only 16, is bound and determined to have a throne of her own and she sets her eye, if not her heart, on the inexperienced King Alexander I of Serbia.
It is his infatuation, rather than that of the great Tsar, which would have greater, though unrecognized, impact on the shape of things to come. Neither Istanbul nor Vienna are pleased with the marriage and it’s potential impact on the Macedonian question and Sofia also takes note and speeds up negotiation with the other Balkan powers.
Within the next year, King Alexander I of Serbia will marry Maria of Greece.
Tsar George I of Russia will marry Elena of Montengro. And if the love in both marriages is one sided then at least convenience and ambition are sufficient to make a tolerable impression of domestic bliss on the subjects of the rulers. Whatever Romance is missing in the royal marriages is more than made up for in the joyous joining of Xenia of Russia with her second cousin Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia. They will share a life of joy, have many children, grow old and die peacefully in the home they share and be quietly forgotten by history.
Such a happy fate will not be shared by Tsar George, king Alexander or either of their spouses.
(1) Founded earlier TTL. General subsidies to settlers courtesy of the Japanese indemnity.
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novosibirsk_Rail_Bridge
(3) Most of the Japanese indemnity is earmarked towards railway construction, and particularly getting the TS done ASAP. It’s also getting even more VIP attention than OTL. The main line is going to be finished about a year earlier than OTL, fewer substandard materials will be used, and various chokepoints such as bridges, switiching stations and the Tranbaikal section are going to be completed together with the main line rather than be left for later.
(4) Currently it only freezes over in December. But in WWII it was frozen in November and in 1891 it would be frozen earlier still. No substantive evidence of climate change my ass.
(5) These are the sorts of logical deductions which a person travelling around the world and comparing China and Japan, and the state of un(development) in Siberia and Russia might reasonably make. Unless that person is named Nicholas Romanov of course.
(6) The expulsion of Moscow’s Jews was actually on Segei’s initiative, though Alexander III happily concurred. Even so Sergei often went beyond the instructions of the imperial Ukase. Not that he was ever reprimanded of course.
October 20th 1892, St Petersburg
He was dead. The Titan who had held Russia in a Grip of Steel, who had, like a veritable Samson, saved his family from a railway wreckage by holding up the roof of their carriage, was dead.
He was struck down not by an assassin’s bullet, or the ineveitable ravages of old age, but by a failure of the Kidneys.
And George wasn’t there to say goodbye.
He was in the newly founded settlement of Novosibirsk (1) when the telegram reached him, inaugurating the construction of a bridge (2) across the mighty, sluggish, Ob and discreetly reaming the local project engineer for using Green wood on a portion of the line rather than using the ample funds provided to him (3) to purchase properly aged timber.
There could be no flaw in his brother’s railway. It had to be perfect.
They had held off the funeral until he arrived. They had also held their breath. The last time a succession had been contested was 1825, and the attempted coup had badly shaken the foundations of the state.
Whatever internal power struggles marred the extended Romanov clan all were agreed such a breach of decorum could never be permitted to undermine the legitimacy of the autocracy. And it hadn’t.
No formal Regency council had been formed of course. But the iron willed Maria Fedronova and his uncles Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich Romanov and Sergei Alexandrovich had quietly kept things in order prior to his arrival in St Petersburg.
And now he was here to belatedly say goodbye. The Ice from Lake Ladoga (4) had preserved Alexander’s body intact for his son’s arrival and his features,
“The continuation of the Regime depends on our ability to keep Russia in a frozen state. The slightest warm breath of life would cause the whole thing to rot.”
The cynical words of the chief Synod echo in his mind as his breath steams in the freezing room.
He thinks of a railway rapidly tying Europe and Asia, the Pacific the Baltic, together. He thinks of the laborers working at this great endevour, conscript soldiers and Katorga convicts, seasonal laborers and Chinese migrants. And he thinks, too, of an island nation, rapidly modernizing while its larger neighbor remains mired in obstructionism (5).
Can Russia be kept frozen forever? Can it be kept together in any other state?
“What should I do father?
Try as he might he can feel no echo of his father’s spirit. But the steam of his breath, and the slow trickle of melting ice around his father’s body provide their own answer.
January 1st, 1893, Moscow
Later, he can barely remember the ceremony. It last for hours, with all the pomp and mystery of a byzantine relic from the age of Justinian.
“You need have no fear of trouble makers during the coronation your majesty”, His uncle Sergei reassured him. By the time you arrive I will have completed the expulsion of the Zhids.
George hesitates, remembering a crowd herded into the trainyard, a barely glimpsed frightened expression on a girl-child’s face.
“I thought you had expelled them last year?”
Segei stiffens in his corset at he perceived criticism and nervously twirls his jeweled ring.
“Certain categories of Jews were granted a stay in their expulsion.”
“Which categories?”
“Skilled artisians, veterans… But a Zhid is a Zhid, Nyet? Your father was quite clear he wanted them all gone (4)”
George hesitates. He thinks of the soldiers building and guarding the long route across Siberia. How many of them were of Jewish blood?
In some respects this is the first decision he must make as Tsar. And Sergei has always been well respected and liked by his father and the rest of the family.
“What do you think Witte?”
Witte coughs nervously. The last thing he wants is to draw the ire of a powerful member of the Romanov clan.
“Internal security is not really my field of expertise, your majesty”
“Still”
The tone of command is new. George is surprised at how naturally it comes. But if he cannot rely on his ministers and advisers to speak truthfully to him, if they fear others more than they fear him, how can he possibly rule, and not merely reign?
“The crowned heads of Europe will all be attending the coronation your majesty. So too will Prime minister Ribot of France. Not to mention the Western Press. Our... Jewish policy is not well liked in the West. It would be, in my opinion, impolitic to draw attention to it at this time, especially as we are still negotiating the conditions for the French loans for our railway expansion. Perhaps it would be better if the expulsion is delayed until the coronation is concluded”
George nods.
“Well, what do you say uncle? After all, if the expulsion could wait a whole year, surely we can delay it by a few more months?”
“Your highness, your father’s express wishes were to complete the expulsions as soon as possible. It would send an unfortunate sign if you should repudiate his policies so soon after his death”
George frowns.
“Has any formal Ukase been proclaimed to this effect?”
Sergei hesitates
“Well, not as such, your highness”
“Then we need not be concerned with possible mis-interpretation of this delay. Whatever my father’s wishes may have been I am certain he would not be averse to securing the French loans. I will take the matter under advisement in June. Better that way. After all, we would not wish to relocate entire families in the dead of winter, would we?”
As the incense censor swings about him yet again and the Sonorous Church Slavonic chant drowns out the underlying murmur of the crowd he steals a glance at the royalty seated at the front pews of the Cathedral. His future bride is seated amongst them.
“You can’t put this off any longer. You must marry, and produce a heir and that is final!”
“But mother….”
“Don’t mother me! I have never chastised you for your mistresses, though I should think you could display better taste. A husband must, after all arrive at his nuptial night with some experience. But a royal born wife is what is needed and I have prepared a list of all respectable candidates.
I WILL make sure you have a chance to meet with all of them under appropriate circumstances in the events marking your coronation and you WILL pay each the greatest courtesy and do your very effective best to win the affections, or at least the consideration, of the young woman you find most befitting you.”
It’s really not much of a choice. Few among them are the right age, statues and sufficiently removed from him by blood. His position, unfortunately, is too new to consider marrying a non royal though he is quietly determined that his siblings will not suffer the constraints he must labor under.
Briefly, he considers the tall, stately woman in the back. If one must marry, surely it is better to be married to beauty? Then he recalls her haughty, distant demeanor at the reception. This is a woman used to getting her own way- and beauty, after all, can easily be obtained outside the marriage bed with a sufficiently understanding or selectively blind wife. And she is Sergai’s sister in law. Does he really want to grant him another venue of influence at court? He is also uneasily aware of the way the Romanov’s are increasingly viewed as Alien by their subjects. If he cannot marry a Russian woman of his own choice it is better he choose the next best thing.
Discreetly, he catches the eye of the Elena of Montenegro. And winks.
In the excitement of the coronation of the Tsar of all Russians it is excusable, perhaps, that few realize that another hunter has found her Mark. For Maria of Greece, though only 16, is bound and determined to have a throne of her own and she sets her eye, if not her heart, on the inexperienced King Alexander I of Serbia.
It is his infatuation, rather than that of the great Tsar, which would have greater, though unrecognized, impact on the shape of things to come. Neither Istanbul nor Vienna are pleased with the marriage and it’s potential impact on the Macedonian question and Sofia also takes note and speeds up negotiation with the other Balkan powers.
Within the next year, King Alexander I of Serbia will marry Maria of Greece.
Tsar George I of Russia will marry Elena of Montengro. And if the love in both marriages is one sided then at least convenience and ambition are sufficient to make a tolerable impression of domestic bliss on the subjects of the rulers. Whatever Romance is missing in the royal marriages is more than made up for in the joyous joining of Xenia of Russia with her second cousin Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia. They will share a life of joy, have many children, grow old and die peacefully in the home they share and be quietly forgotten by history.
Such a happy fate will not be shared by Tsar George, king Alexander or either of their spouses.
(1) Founded earlier TTL. General subsidies to settlers courtesy of the Japanese indemnity.
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novosibirsk_Rail_Bridge
(3) Most of the Japanese indemnity is earmarked towards railway construction, and particularly getting the TS done ASAP. It’s also getting even more VIP attention than OTL. The main line is going to be finished about a year earlier than OTL, fewer substandard materials will be used, and various chokepoints such as bridges, switiching stations and the Tranbaikal section are going to be completed together with the main line rather than be left for later.
(4) Currently it only freezes over in December. But in WWII it was frozen in November and in 1891 it would be frozen earlier still. No substantive evidence of climate change my ass.
(5) These are the sorts of logical deductions which a person travelling around the world and comparing China and Japan, and the state of un(development) in Siberia and Russia might reasonably make. Unless that person is named Nicholas Romanov of course.
(6) The expulsion of Moscow’s Jews was actually on Segei’s initiative, though Alexander III happily concurred. Even so Sergei often went beyond the instructions of the imperial Ukase. Not that he was ever reprimanded of course.
- Status