The Third World War started with a surprise attack. Perfidious Albion, showing its true colours, launched a shocking and sudden attack upon the German Empire, blasting apart its Northern battle squadron in its morrings in a Norwegian fjord. The six fast battlecruisers of Admiral Lord Fisher's Rapid Force, backed up by a round dozen fast attack craft, secured a great and easy victory, if one can word it in such terms. Destroying Admiral Holtzendorff's flagship, the Thuringen within the first few minutes, Lord Fisher's force went on to sink the remaining three battleships, two cruisers and five large patrol boats, hunting the last of them down outside the town of Narvik, and blasting it apart as the locals watched on, some cheering, some crying, as befits the polarised populace of this Northern colony of Berlin.
The same day that the German battle squadron was blasted into fiery oblivion, Secretary of War, the Duke of Marlborough made a statement in the House of Lords. Denouncing German moves into Morocco, and the recent German-Japanese alliance, his grace, Sir Winston Churchill, said, and it deserves to be quoted, "The Kaiser had it coming".
1911, and the world was to be convulsed by the third global conflict in fifty years. It was the curse of the age, war upon war, decade after decade of hostilities, both hot and cold. Ever since the Great European War of 1861-3, latterly renamed the First World War after the entry of the United States in 1862, and of the CSA in opposition, the fate of states has been in the hands of an increasingly small number of individuals.
Prime Minister the Earl of Derby would later reinforce his Secretary of War by issuing a statement from Number 10 Downing Street that said that "German support for the rebels in Ireland, and for anti-British positions in Mexico, and in China, created this crisis". On the back of the declaration of war, and without doubt sanctioned well in advance of it, British forces from Belize, Cuba and Miskitia invaded the Mexican Empire, and the Army of the Yangtse, under the command of Field Marshal, the Earl French, invaded China.
China, the eternal battleground, war front in both 61-63 and 79-84. But its neighbours, how much changed can a couple of decades make them. By the time of the Second World War at the end of the 1870s, Japan was a new country, an empire under an emperor, having kicked out the Shogun in the wake of its disastrous involvement in the First war. By the time the Third came around, Japan was a world power, possession of the Philippines having catapulted it to starburst qualities, and naval victory over China in 1889 having brought with it regional hegemony. But a hegemony always challenged by Britain, and with the Chinese Empire collapsing irredeemably in 1902, the instability of the warlord states meant that Brtain and Japan were always heading towards that fatal clash. But come 1911, and Japan was the power raging ahead, Germany its new ally, and Britain playing catch-up, its Army of the Yangtse barely holding onto the balance of power in Shantung.
Defeat, what did defeat matter? By 1911 all defeats of the past were now but way-stations on the way to the future. Russia, the USA, even Japan in its Shogunate form, had all risen again from 1863 by the time of the Second conflict. The Second war, 1879-84 saw a defeat for France, for Spain and for Italy, but by the turn of the new century all had been forgotten. France was again risen from its eternal ashes, Spain under its new Hohenzollern dynasty powerful without, yet weak within, and Italy under the breakaway Savoyard splinters stronger than it had been when fully legitimate. Abyssinia, Tunis, Greece, all had now been subdued and the new king was riding high in his martial glory.
Thus did Italy now cleave to Britannia's side, fighting to hold on to what it had, to keep at bay the rapacious wolves of a risen France, and the covetous hands of a Germany whose positions in Egypt and increasingly in Morocco, made it look back towards the centre. France, in Algiers, and the Ottoman Empire in Tripoli ruled with rods of iron and loins of gold, but Italy with its newer hold on Tunis, intrigued against by the French, and hated by many they had come to rule, looked a tasty morsel. German merchants, German warships had in recent years become more popular within this colony of Italy, and the Kaiser's choice of envoy, in choosing his close personal friend THE GAY BLOKE, for the Italian King's Tenth Anniversary Celebrations in Tunis, had shown not how much Berlin thought of Rome, but how much it valued its growing interests within the colony.
Spain was bound by blood Romanian to the German Empire, the Catholic branch of the Hohenzollerns having spread wing and taken root in Madrid upon the collapse of the Carlists in 1884, and the failure of the generals to agree a republic. With other branches of the Borbon dynasty devastated by combat, and with the French and Italians in disarray, Berlin had pushed for its candidate and in the chaos of peace, with Cuba under the British boot, and the Philippines a possession of their Japanese ally, Madrid had seized upon the proferred hand of friendship, and installed the Hohenzollern with pomp and hatred.
Japan would build upon victory secured on the coat-tails of Britain, to move from the Philippines in 1884 to a resounding defeat of the Chinese five years later, a regional conflict that precipitated the collapse of the last vestiges of power within that empire. For a decade peking would fight to hold onto its provinces, but with the European powers landing armies, building bases and reinforcing their positions directly, it had little chance. For a time Russia tried to play the richer cousin, lending money to the Emperor, selling warships at cut prices, but the death of Tsar Nikolai II and the accession of his nephew Nikolai III, meant that the mid 1890s saw a turning point there as well. A convulsive civil war erupted to end in 1902 with the eclipse of the central authority and the proclamations of the generals in the provinces that henceforth they would rule their own affairs, and pay tribute only to Peking - tribute that very rarely began to be paid, and where it did begin, very quickly ceased. The Emperor did not even rule his own domain, a general of the new school having established his rule over the land from Peking down to Tientsin; he was but a symbol of unity for a state that knew none, a man whom half the world still professed to believe ruled his dominions, but for the other half had ceased to be important. The United States of America, to mis-name the half-country, was foremost amongst those who severed all ties with the Imperial Court and accredited directly ambassadors to the strongest of the generals in their provincial powerhouses.
Iturbide's reborn empire was a child of the First World War, of French martial glory and of chaos wrenching the United States, as was, apart. Convulsion was a word that the Mexicans knew well, rebellions, revolution and coups d'etat a common place, always under the Emperor who sat above such things, but still controlled them. Oft-times it was whispered that he meddled in the coups themselves, backed one general over another, met in secret with rebel leaders, or with elder statesmen, always balancing thinly on the rail, but always there after the next convulsion has shaken the country down. But age sets in, and the greatest challenge is now upon him - invaded by Britain, how can he react?
This war would be the first with the new technologis of the air, of the road, and of under the sea. All wars see new technology, but many would argue that the outbreak of the Third World War would be more significant than anything that had come before. This would be the first war where airships played any part - true Italy had had some at the turn of the century in their conquest of Tunis and both Britain and Germany had deployed a few in China, but this would be as nothing compared to the war to come. Automobiles now ruled the road in technological terms, trucks and vans the vehicle of choice, where choice was possible, and amoured tractors a new development in artillery; and it would be a prescient man indeed who could predict where this might lead.
Battleships and battlecruisers ruled the waves, but the submarine was now taking up its place of palatial residence beneath it. A few prototypes had seen action in the Second World War, and Japan had even used one in 1889 to enter Kiaochau harbour and sink a Chinese corvette, but this new war would see the submarine given full and free rein. Whilst in battleships and battlecruisers the scores were easy to achieve, with the order of prominence being simple, in submarines it was far more complicated as many states had older models on the navy lists, some of which would prove to be just hulks, others serviceable but obselete, and yet others surprisingly useful in the early phase of the new conflict. An example of the first was the CSA with around twenty submarines on the list, but only a bare handful of any serviceable quality. Japan proved to have around a dozen serviceable submarines, but it quickly became apparent in operations that they were vastly out-classed, and a crash programme of new construction was ordered. Surprising the world, the Ottoman Empire made great efforts to get their five old submarines, dating back to the mid 1890s into action, and every one secured a kill, two of these ancient vessels going on to control swathes of the Aegean in the early months of the war, the most celebrated sinking the Italian battleship Pisa after almost ten hours of patient stalking.
But it would be the new submarine fleets that would make their mark on history, just as on the surface the modern battleships and battlecruisers were doing. With regard to the latter, the silver and grey behemoths of the blue, it was with them that Britain would start the war, and it was with them that it would anchor its hopes for the coming conflict. Nobody could deny that the annihilation of Holtzendorff's squadron was a bitter blow for Germany, not only removing its offensive power, but leaving the whole of their Norwegian colony open to British attack. Grand Admiral, the Furst von Tirpitz, was loathe to send any further ships to the furthest North, but a raging, ranting Kaiser convinced him to detach Admiral the Graf von Spee's 1st Battlesquadron from the fleet. It would not be taken off-guard, and made the journey escorted by two other battle squadrons, which then returned to home waters. The Graf von Spee made the most of his unwanted honour, soon taking charge of the Northern cruiser patrols and setting up raiding squadrons, and sorties into the Atlantic that soon began to have a paralysing effect upon British trade.
A coup de main cannot easily be repeated once the enemy are on their guard, and though Admiral Lord Fisher once again closed with the Northern fjords it took only a submarine's torpedo to drive him off, the antiquated rust-bucket out of Trondheim firing not very accurately at the London but almost hitting the Albion that was making up the rear. Fisher ordered his ships home, not knowing that one shot was all that the ancient submarine was capable of, and not knowing that one submarine was all that the German navy had in these waters. Five days later a division of German troops put ashore at Narvik, setting up coastal defence batteries, and putting prototype aeroplanes up into the air. Who knows what would have happened if Fisher had pressed the attack - all one can be sure of is that there would not have been any further submarine attacks.
A month later that too was not to be the case. The Imperial Yards had been busy, and six submarines would reside at Narvik by late May 1911. The same could be said in reverse for many of the other powers involved in the Third World War; starting from a low, or non-existent threshold, by the time that three months had gone by Britain, France, Russia and Italy all had up-to-the-minute models of submarines coming out of their yards and into operational service. Some would score spectacular one-off successes - the sinking of the Swedish flagship by the Russian Krelbe or the two Spanish scout cruisers that the Italian Aquila sank in the space of two hours. Many would achieve nothing - the entire French Northern submarine squadron sank a grand total of three ships in the first twelve months of the war.
Trade warfare would change things. It was far from a taboo subject, though internationalists would like to point to treaties that the combatants had signed in previous decades. Once in a war, none of the powers felt bound by such high-minded agreements, and it was not long before rules that they had in fact fought for were being ignored by the very powers which had made the biggest fuss about them. From Narvik, Admiral the Graf von Spee organised the cruisers into effective trade warfare units, whilst in Queenstown, Ireland, Rear Admiral Roger Keyes did the same for the first tranche of British submarines to come off the slipways and into service. By mid 1912 everybody in theory wanted to sink everybody else's merchant ships and hang the laws that said otherwise. It would take only a year from the British attack on Narvik in April 1911 to the British attack on a German convoy to the USA in April 1912 for a new way of doing things to fully bed in - the five heavy and six scout cruisers under Admiral the Lord Hood would totally devastate the German convoy, despite Britain's signature on agreements outlawing such actions in international treaties of 1890 and 1905.
The next generation perhaps would not be so gullible, would not believe that what a country signed up to in peace time it would abide by in war time. Certainly no country ever really believed another, and it was only the poor mugs who had the misfortune to be citizens of a signatory country who might find themselves truly disillusioned. Certainly neither Grand Admiral, the Furst von Tirpitz, nor Admiral the Graf von Spee, ever expected Britain to abide by its treaty obligations, and this lack of such expectation of course enabled them to more quickly respond to and counter British actions in these areas. The same can be said if turned around, and for many countries who found themslves dragged into this war. But there were those who had assumed that treaties meant agreement, or who had hoped it did because they could not afford the alternative, and chief amongst the nations disappointed in a rude manner was to be the United States of America, misnamed Northern powerhouse, sandwiched between British Canada and the always unpredictable Confederacy.
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
The same day that the German battle squadron was blasted into fiery oblivion, Secretary of War, the Duke of Marlborough made a statement in the House of Lords. Denouncing German moves into Morocco, and the recent German-Japanese alliance, his grace, Sir Winston Churchill, said, and it deserves to be quoted, "The Kaiser had it coming".
1911, and the world was to be convulsed by the third global conflict in fifty years. It was the curse of the age, war upon war, decade after decade of hostilities, both hot and cold. Ever since the Great European War of 1861-3, latterly renamed the First World War after the entry of the United States in 1862, and of the CSA in opposition, the fate of states has been in the hands of an increasingly small number of individuals.
Prime Minister the Earl of Derby would later reinforce his Secretary of War by issuing a statement from Number 10 Downing Street that said that "German support for the rebels in Ireland, and for anti-British positions in Mexico, and in China, created this crisis". On the back of the declaration of war, and without doubt sanctioned well in advance of it, British forces from Belize, Cuba and Miskitia invaded the Mexican Empire, and the Army of the Yangtse, under the command of Field Marshal, the Earl French, invaded China.
China, the eternal battleground, war front in both 61-63 and 79-84. But its neighbours, how much changed can a couple of decades make them. By the time of the Second World War at the end of the 1870s, Japan was a new country, an empire under an emperor, having kicked out the Shogun in the wake of its disastrous involvement in the First war. By the time the Third came around, Japan was a world power, possession of the Philippines having catapulted it to starburst qualities, and naval victory over China in 1889 having brought with it regional hegemony. But a hegemony always challenged by Britain, and with the Chinese Empire collapsing irredeemably in 1902, the instability of the warlord states meant that Brtain and Japan were always heading towards that fatal clash. But come 1911, and Japan was the power raging ahead, Germany its new ally, and Britain playing catch-up, its Army of the Yangtse barely holding onto the balance of power in Shantung.
Defeat, what did defeat matter? By 1911 all defeats of the past were now but way-stations on the way to the future. Russia, the USA, even Japan in its Shogunate form, had all risen again from 1863 by the time of the Second conflict. The Second war, 1879-84 saw a defeat for France, for Spain and for Italy, but by the turn of the new century all had been forgotten. France was again risen from its eternal ashes, Spain under its new Hohenzollern dynasty powerful without, yet weak within, and Italy under the breakaway Savoyard splinters stronger than it had been when fully legitimate. Abyssinia, Tunis, Greece, all had now been subdued and the new king was riding high in his martial glory.
Thus did Italy now cleave to Britannia's side, fighting to hold on to what it had, to keep at bay the rapacious wolves of a risen France, and the covetous hands of a Germany whose positions in Egypt and increasingly in Morocco, made it look back towards the centre. France, in Algiers, and the Ottoman Empire in Tripoli ruled with rods of iron and loins of gold, but Italy with its newer hold on Tunis, intrigued against by the French, and hated by many they had come to rule, looked a tasty morsel. German merchants, German warships had in recent years become more popular within this colony of Italy, and the Kaiser's choice of envoy, in choosing his close personal friend THE GAY BLOKE, for the Italian King's Tenth Anniversary Celebrations in Tunis, had shown not how much Berlin thought of Rome, but how much it valued its growing interests within the colony.
Spain was bound by blood Romanian to the German Empire, the Catholic branch of the Hohenzollerns having spread wing and taken root in Madrid upon the collapse of the Carlists in 1884, and the failure of the generals to agree a republic. With other branches of the Borbon dynasty devastated by combat, and with the French and Italians in disarray, Berlin had pushed for its candidate and in the chaos of peace, with Cuba under the British boot, and the Philippines a possession of their Japanese ally, Madrid had seized upon the proferred hand of friendship, and installed the Hohenzollern with pomp and hatred.
Japan would build upon victory secured on the coat-tails of Britain, to move from the Philippines in 1884 to a resounding defeat of the Chinese five years later, a regional conflict that precipitated the collapse of the last vestiges of power within that empire. For a decade peking would fight to hold onto its provinces, but with the European powers landing armies, building bases and reinforcing their positions directly, it had little chance. For a time Russia tried to play the richer cousin, lending money to the Emperor, selling warships at cut prices, but the death of Tsar Nikolai II and the accession of his nephew Nikolai III, meant that the mid 1890s saw a turning point there as well. A convulsive civil war erupted to end in 1902 with the eclipse of the central authority and the proclamations of the generals in the provinces that henceforth they would rule their own affairs, and pay tribute only to Peking - tribute that very rarely began to be paid, and where it did begin, very quickly ceased. The Emperor did not even rule his own domain, a general of the new school having established his rule over the land from Peking down to Tientsin; he was but a symbol of unity for a state that knew none, a man whom half the world still professed to believe ruled his dominions, but for the other half had ceased to be important. The United States of America, to mis-name the half-country, was foremost amongst those who severed all ties with the Imperial Court and accredited directly ambassadors to the strongest of the generals in their provincial powerhouses.
Iturbide's reborn empire was a child of the First World War, of French martial glory and of chaos wrenching the United States, as was, apart. Convulsion was a word that the Mexicans knew well, rebellions, revolution and coups d'etat a common place, always under the Emperor who sat above such things, but still controlled them. Oft-times it was whispered that he meddled in the coups themselves, backed one general over another, met in secret with rebel leaders, or with elder statesmen, always balancing thinly on the rail, but always there after the next convulsion has shaken the country down. But age sets in, and the greatest challenge is now upon him - invaded by Britain, how can he react?
This war would be the first with the new technologis of the air, of the road, and of under the sea. All wars see new technology, but many would argue that the outbreak of the Third World War would be more significant than anything that had come before. This would be the first war where airships played any part - true Italy had had some at the turn of the century in their conquest of Tunis and both Britain and Germany had deployed a few in China, but this would be as nothing compared to the war to come. Automobiles now ruled the road in technological terms, trucks and vans the vehicle of choice, where choice was possible, and amoured tractors a new development in artillery; and it would be a prescient man indeed who could predict where this might lead.
Battleships and battlecruisers ruled the waves, but the submarine was now taking up its place of palatial residence beneath it. A few prototypes had seen action in the Second World War, and Japan had even used one in 1889 to enter Kiaochau harbour and sink a Chinese corvette, but this new war would see the submarine given full and free rein. Whilst in battleships and battlecruisers the scores were easy to achieve, with the order of prominence being simple, in submarines it was far more complicated as many states had older models on the navy lists, some of which would prove to be just hulks, others serviceable but obselete, and yet others surprisingly useful in the early phase of the new conflict. An example of the first was the CSA with around twenty submarines on the list, but only a bare handful of any serviceable quality. Japan proved to have around a dozen serviceable submarines, but it quickly became apparent in operations that they were vastly out-classed, and a crash programme of new construction was ordered. Surprising the world, the Ottoman Empire made great efforts to get their five old submarines, dating back to the mid 1890s into action, and every one secured a kill, two of these ancient vessels going on to control swathes of the Aegean in the early months of the war, the most celebrated sinking the Italian battleship Pisa after almost ten hours of patient stalking.
But it would be the new submarine fleets that would make their mark on history, just as on the surface the modern battleships and battlecruisers were doing. With regard to the latter, the silver and grey behemoths of the blue, it was with them that Britain would start the war, and it was with them that it would anchor its hopes for the coming conflict. Nobody could deny that the annihilation of Holtzendorff's squadron was a bitter blow for Germany, not only removing its offensive power, but leaving the whole of their Norwegian colony open to British attack. Grand Admiral, the Furst von Tirpitz, was loathe to send any further ships to the furthest North, but a raging, ranting Kaiser convinced him to detach Admiral the Graf von Spee's 1st Battlesquadron from the fleet. It would not be taken off-guard, and made the journey escorted by two other battle squadrons, which then returned to home waters. The Graf von Spee made the most of his unwanted honour, soon taking charge of the Northern cruiser patrols and setting up raiding squadrons, and sorties into the Atlantic that soon began to have a paralysing effect upon British trade.
A coup de main cannot easily be repeated once the enemy are on their guard, and though Admiral Lord Fisher once again closed with the Northern fjords it took only a submarine's torpedo to drive him off, the antiquated rust-bucket out of Trondheim firing not very accurately at the London but almost hitting the Albion that was making up the rear. Fisher ordered his ships home, not knowing that one shot was all that the ancient submarine was capable of, and not knowing that one submarine was all that the German navy had in these waters. Five days later a division of German troops put ashore at Narvik, setting up coastal defence batteries, and putting prototype aeroplanes up into the air. Who knows what would have happened if Fisher had pressed the attack - all one can be sure of is that there would not have been any further submarine attacks.
A month later that too was not to be the case. The Imperial Yards had been busy, and six submarines would reside at Narvik by late May 1911. The same could be said in reverse for many of the other powers involved in the Third World War; starting from a low, or non-existent threshold, by the time that three months had gone by Britain, France, Russia and Italy all had up-to-the-minute models of submarines coming out of their yards and into operational service. Some would score spectacular one-off successes - the sinking of the Swedish flagship by the Russian Krelbe or the two Spanish scout cruisers that the Italian Aquila sank in the space of two hours. Many would achieve nothing - the entire French Northern submarine squadron sank a grand total of three ships in the first twelve months of the war.
Trade warfare would change things. It was far from a taboo subject, though internationalists would like to point to treaties that the combatants had signed in previous decades. Once in a war, none of the powers felt bound by such high-minded agreements, and it was not long before rules that they had in fact fought for were being ignored by the very powers which had made the biggest fuss about them. From Narvik, Admiral the Graf von Spee organised the cruisers into effective trade warfare units, whilst in Queenstown, Ireland, Rear Admiral Roger Keyes did the same for the first tranche of British submarines to come off the slipways and into service. By mid 1912 everybody in theory wanted to sink everybody else's merchant ships and hang the laws that said otherwise. It would take only a year from the British attack on Narvik in April 1911 to the British attack on a German convoy to the USA in April 1912 for a new way of doing things to fully bed in - the five heavy and six scout cruisers under Admiral the Lord Hood would totally devastate the German convoy, despite Britain's signature on agreements outlawing such actions in international treaties of 1890 and 1905.
The next generation perhaps would not be so gullible, would not believe that what a country signed up to in peace time it would abide by in war time. Certainly no country ever really believed another, and it was only the poor mugs who had the misfortune to be citizens of a signatory country who might find themselves truly disillusioned. Certainly neither Grand Admiral, the Furst von Tirpitz, nor Admiral the Graf von Spee, ever expected Britain to abide by its treaty obligations, and this lack of such expectation of course enabled them to more quickly respond to and counter British actions in these areas. The same can be said if turned around, and for many countries who found themslves dragged into this war. But there were those who had assumed that treaties meant agreement, or who had hoped it did because they could not afford the alternative, and chief amongst the nations disappointed in a rude manner was to be the United States of America, misnamed Northern powerhouse, sandwiched between British Canada and the always unpredictable Confederacy.
Best Regards
Grey Wolf