Eisen, Blut und Fernhandel -German Unification in the 1860s

[Wolf1965]

From the book "Peugeot - A Franco-German Story", La Villette Publication 2010


The founding family of the renowned Corporation stems from the small town Soschen (Socheux) in the Mömpelgard (frz. Montbelliard) district of the German federal State Elsaß-Mömpelgard.

Over the centuries the Mömpelgard region, until roughly eighty years ago majorly French-speaking, changed hands between Germany and France several times. From the fourteenth century onward, Mömpelgard was a County of the Duchy of Württemberg, today another Federal State of Germany. But over time the French conquered the region step by step, until in 1796 France annexed the last bits of the County for itself.


In catholic France the Peugeots are unusual in that they are Lutherans, among few of the movers and shakers of France to be so. This is a heritage from the time Mömpelgard was part of protestant Württemberg. Another attribute of the family is the strong attachment to their home region. Most Peugeots still live in the Franche-Comte and Mömpelgard areas. (Real life as well)

Founded in 1810, by the mid-19th century the Peugeot Corporation had several factories running in the Montbelliard area. Then the Romanic-Germanic War happened. After the war, the new border with Germany meant that one part of the factories were located in France, the other now in Germany, at least for a while since that part of land would be part of the referendum in 1888.
For Peugeot itself the problem was not that big. Being a major factor of work, the German government had given the firm rather magnanimous terms for keeping the factories open, instead of moving it.


The family was divided on what to do, in special since there was pressure from Paris to relocate the factories.

It took some time, many discussions and a lot of bad blood until a compromise was found. Moving the factories would have been really expensive, something the French government did not want to pay for, so in 1870 the situation was settled as follows.
Relocation or closing would be expensive, something Peugeot did not want to pay for by itself and since Paris despite their adamancy on this topic, did not want to pay for that either, the factories would keep running, no matter if on French or German soil. Peugoet had no wish to go bankrupt or weaken their home area just for fancy ideas concocted in Paris by the new government.

To pacify the hawks in the capital, Peugeot agreed to construct new factories further away from the border. Over the next decades, new factories were build at Rennes, Besancon and Lille, but also new ones on the German side in Mömpelgard, Colmar and Wörth.


This created rifts inside the family, deepened by the loaded question how far the company should venture into the newly emerging field of automobiles. In 1891, Armand Peugeot, the main proponent for the automobile sector and who had good connections to Gottlieb Daimler, decided to create facts. His branch of the family would take leadership of the German division of Peugeot and start producing cars there if the others were too timid to consider it.

Soon Peugeot Deutschland started producing cars, while Peugeot Francaise was lagging behind. This time correctly sensing a problem, Paris promised governmental help for the French division if they too started constructing cars.


In an era charged with nationalism, the ties between the two Peugeot branches started to loosen, especially after the Elsaß-Mömpelgard referendum of 1888, where to the shokc, surprise and against the expectations of most French, the area of Mömpelgard under German control decided to stay with Germany.


While the family never fully broke apart, the different circumstances of life in Germany and France certainly led to the two factory branches developing apart into new entities. One of the most obvious examples was the year 1913, when during the World War Peugeot Deutschland produced Panzerkampfwagen for the Kaiserliche Heer and the French Peugeot branch built Chars de blinde for the Armee francaise just 60 kilometers distant.


While both Peugeot branches still produce cars and various of their famous grinders, the list of products is different today. The French part of Peugeot became the main producer of motorbikes in France and one of the two most important ones in the Union Romanique. The German branch does not produce a single motorbike, here BMW, Zündapp and NSU are the incumbents.

German Peugeot on the other hand is quite active in household appliances, expanding from their oldest product. Both firms work for their respective countries military and are active in motor sports.

Today in the 21th century racing colours for cars are just a tradition, considering the many advertisments on the cars, but here the differences get obvious. French racing Peugeots are coated in "La Bleu de France", while the cars from Soschen are in white or silver, following German tradition.


Since the Union Romanique and the Zollverein have begun to cooperate closer in the last quarter century to cross some divides in Europe, ties between the two variants of Peugeot have become tighter again.

 

[Wolf1965]

Trench sector 47, near Casalmaggiore, Austrian Empire, autumn 1911


"Capitano Caprese! Capitano, you have to see this!"

Captain Fausto Caprese, a native of Parma, followed the soldier who had called his superior to himself. The Italian Army had taken several trench sectors on the Austrian side of the Po River in their last attack.

What the first months of the war showed very well was that the Italian front was as sluggish as the German western front. The Austrians had a strong fortified position in both Lombardy and Venezia and were rather happy to let the Italians run against it, while the majority of the Austrian forces were on the Balkans and in Russia.

While the Austrian High Command would have liked to attack the Italians, that had to wait until the situation in the East was different. One thing was fixed, though. Ever since the backstab from France in 1859 and the recapture of the Lombardy in the 1868, the Austrian Army made a promise to itself to never part with their Italian lands again.

It helped to an extend that unlike 1859 the majority of Austro-Italians saw Vienna as the "lesser evil". Still an ongoing process, Austria was slowly reforming the convoluted internal situation and unlike 1859 the Austria of 1911 was rather stable and had some prestige racked up over the decades. Another factor was the financial side. The two Austrian provinces were quite well off financially and the Lombardians during the nine years under Rome´s control found out soon that the Italian capital could be quite greedy when it came to other people´s money.
This was even more the case for Venice. While it was doubtful that they would become the greatest supporters of Vienna, under Austrian rule the old city was a very important harbour and rather rich. Should they become part of Italy, the fate was obvious. Being downgraded to a port among many and goodbye money!

That was something not really clear to many Italian soldiers, who had banked in part on an uprising by the Austro-Italians. But while the majority of the Austro-Italians were no big fans of being ruled by the Austrians, they preferred at least under the current situation to throw in with the rest of Austria.

A lot of the fighting in the first months were artillery duels across the Po and Ticino rivers, which were the border between Austria and Italy. The few "real" infantry fights were in southeast Lombardy and southernmost Veneto, the only and rather small parts of Austria south of the Po.

Beside holding the line, Austrian advances were rare and limited in scope. They were mostly conducted into southwestern Lombardy, the only piece of Lombardy belonging to Italy. With the Schwerpunkt being in the Pavia area, under the guns of the prepared Austrian fortifications there. Another point of raids into Italy were excursions into the Emilia, from the Austrian Sankt Benedikt (San Benedetto) defence line.
But since one parameter of the operations on the Italian peninsular was letting the Italians bleed themselves, the front was comparatively static.

The typical Italian soldier in the sector Captain Caprese´s unit was fielded had just disdain left for the High Command. The Austrian trenches were well-prepared and all attacks of their own in the beginning of the war had been repelled with high losses on their side. Oh, they had taken trench parts, but could never hold onto them long.
Junior officer and even some senior officers near the frontlines had repeatedly told High Command that there were Austrian border sectors less prepared, but no, sector 47 was attacked again and again with always the same result - failure.

When in the morning another assault on the Austrian lines across the river was started, Caprese and his men simply hoped to survive.

The fighting had again been heavy, but to their surprise, the Austrians had given way this time and now in the afternoon Caprese´s men had reached a section of trench already given up by the enemy. The soldiers were swarming out and searching for anything useful, when Fausto Caprese had been called by one of his men.

He followed him into something of a "living room", one of the dwelling areas for the soldiers at the front. These more or less holes in the ground were nothing much to look at, but Caprese had the dark feeling that the longer the war would go on, the more elaborate the trenches would become. In this specific case, one thing stood out to Caprese´s eye, the missing personal touch, indicating a unit which had not arrived long ago, maybe about a week.
That they had fled before Caprese´s men reached here, gave him some hope for the assault.

Maybe the Austrians had to resort to fielding green units, because they needed more soldiers in the East? Had it been an Austro-Italian unit, finally seeing the light for Italy? But he did not want to look a gift horse in the mouth and waited what the Sergeant had for him.
Sergeant Padelli had three things in his hands, obviously from several backpacks and chests.

"Capitano, I think this is important, might be the Tedesci, but you have to look at it yourself."

Caprese first took the photo. It was clearly done by a professional photographer and showed a young pair before a castle or abbey, going by the festive clothes it might be from a wedding. But what had made Padelli show him this one was the woman. She was lovely with Asian features in a dress Fausto had no idea how it was called.

That was interesting, since with the exception of one country, Asians were rare in Europe. The heighst of Austrian exotica Caprese saw before were pictures of Senoritas and a filled wrap they called Eselsohr (Donkey´s ear), which seemed to be a transcription of a food in the Austrian colonies.
The second item was a war diary, according to the name, it belonged to one Shinzo Oshima and the last item was an official gazette. In civilian life Fausto worked for a firm with contacts into Austria, so he knew some bits and pieces of German. The paper was the official gazette of Weingarten, which was a town in Germany and home of the 124th German/ 6th Württemberg Infantry Regiment, "King Wilhelm´s own".

Fausto groaned silently. The feeling in the back of his mind, when the assault had started in the morning had not betrayed him. The Germans had sent help for the Austrians. It did not matter how few or many, because today and here it was something that impacted his command. Caprese did not believe for one moment that a regiment named for the Württembergian king simply did retreat or flee without a trace.

What could it be? No-!

Caprese was already moving to the door opening, when he addressed Padelli. "Porca miseria! Luca, rally our men! We have to get to the rafts and boats-"

"But we are not-, I mean the assault runs perfectly!"
"It´s a trap, Luca! I am sure of it! Send a runner to Capitano Rabini from 1st battalion and tell him to cover our retreat and that he should be carefully watching for surprises at the boat rally point."
"But we have no orders to retreat. If we do so without-"
"Luca, I take the resposibility! We know that our regional Command is too dumb to plan an assault on a toilet hut, still it runs great for now. No matter if the Germans sent here are a token force or better, they are not some militia, but a unit with some reknown. We retreat!"

Caprese knew that Padelli was so reluctant because he worried about him, since a wrong guess could land him in boiling water so to speak. But Fausto was convinced that something was wrong.
They were falling back for about 10 minutes, when his Caprese´s hunch was justified. The battle noise became much louder again and nearing fast, despite his men were retreating. Then a runner pulled at his side.

"Capitano, our rearguard informs us that there is a mass of Austrians and Germans literally flooding the trenchlines..."
"I knew it! Why the heck should the same rubbish planning suddenly function? Let´s move faster."

Caprese´s unit finally reached their rafts and boats. At first Fausto was elated, but then he saw recognised that Rabini´s unit was not here. and those had been informed to watch over the boats. A weird feeling settled in Caprese´s gut. Which was justified only moments later, when rifle barrels popped up from hiding and hand clapping could be heard coming from the just a few meters down the shore line.

A German officer with a small entourage started speaking to Caprese, translated by a man in Austrian uniform.

"I salute you, Italian combattants! You soldiers are the only unit to smell the trap we sprung. Unfortunately for you, we made sure that you would not cross the river again early on. Now we can senselessly fight over boats which will not swim or you can make the right choice and surrender to us!"

Caprese knew that the unknown German officer was right. Any death in a hypothetical fight for the boats would be in vain and senseless.
He spoke up.

"Yes, further fighting would not change the outcome. I, Captain Fausto Caprese, surrender my men and myself to you. Might I know your name?"

"Naturally Captain. I am Oberleutnant (Lieutenant 1st Class) Rommel. Oberleutnant Erwin Rommel from the 124st German Infantry Regiment. Would you please follow me for a talk?"

 

[Wolf1965]

Oberste Heeresleitung, Castle Marienburg, western Prussia late 1911

The German Oberste Heeresleitung (Supreme Army Command), normally shortened to OHL, was for the time being located in the Teutonic Order´s old Main Castle Marienburg at the Nogat River in western Prussia. The large Castle is the biggest brick building complex in Europe.

Since the focus of the conflict laid in the East, the historical place had been chosen to be close to the front or what counted as close at that time in history. Had the western focus prevailed, the OHL would have been located in Bad Kreuznach in the Rhine Province.
This day the Heeresleitung had a high-ranking visitor, the venerable Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria. The highly popular Noble, despite his ninety years still quite active, wanted to get a personal overview on the war situation and therefore travelled from Munich to the High Command.

Luitpold von Bayern at age 90 in 1911

Erich von Falkenhayn

Being the Regent of Germany´s at that time second-largest State, protocol ruled and General von Falkenhayn himself guided Luitpold. Ironically, the Prince Regent was known for his, in the early 20th century among nobles exceptional, down to Earth attitude.
After a tour through the landmark the Castle still is and a lunch, Luitpold and von Falkenhayn entered the Strategy Room. Maps filled the walls and tables, marked with needles, signs and wooden unit markers, showing the adept the situation at all fronts.

For Luitpold, a former General himself, and present, among other operations, in the Unification War against Denmark and the Romanic-Germanic War, much was easily visible. Still, he was glad that Erich von Falkenhayn would explain some things to him in detail, since the last decades had seen a progress in all things military on a level like never before.

At one point, the Prince regent hesitated, read the map texts again, when von Falkenhayn´s amused voice reached his ears.

"I see quite clearly the question in your head, I will answer it after the general outlook if I may?"

"Certainly, Erich. I think there is quite a story behind it which I would like to know. But the general situation definitely comes first. And no stuff like for the news, the real deal."

"As if I could deceive an old warhorse like you, Luitpold...Well, let me begin with the Northern Front, because it is fast. This late in the year every major operation is out on both sides due to the arriving winter. Neither we nor the Iwans hold a decisive advantage, they have a bit of Swedish soil, we have a bit of Finnic-Russian soil. But what is great is that the Swedes and our expedition corps bind quite a number of Russian units up North which they would really like being elsewhere. Our goal for the coming year is trying to cut off the rail to the arctic harbours of Russia.
The situation in the West is difficult. Since we have a Russia first focus, our options on the Western Front are limited by what we have available there. The French and British were surprised that we drive a defensive strategy in the West, seems our show-off excercises in the western part of Germany paid off on that. Still, they managed to take a bite out of us. We lost most of our part of Wallonia, the west of Luxemburg and a small part of the Rhine Province in the 'northern sector" of the front. At the moment, the Entente does respect Dutch neutrality, but we are on watch if they might decide to attack Limburg through Holland."

"Do you think they will try to regain Flandern for the Walloons?"

"I do not see it at this time. They might get desperate enough to outmaneuvre us later on, but at the moment they are confident to take us on without making the Dutch their enemies again. And I must add that we cannot defend the West indefinitely at the current level of enemy attacks with what Ober West has on units. There are two points of view on this topic. If our estimates of enemy casulties are halfway correct, then sooner or later the Franco-Belgian-British forces are pressured by drain to reduce the level of attacks, which would enable us to keep up defence with our current forces there.
If the loss ratio of the Entente is not as high as we predict, then we need substantial reinforcements some day."

"Understood. What is the situation further down the border?"

"We took parts of the Argonne and Lorraine during an earlier counterattack and have put up a defence line there. Despite this, with comparativly few troops in operation, we had further losses. The Falkenberg area and more disturbing nearly all of the Sundgau and southern Elsaß. South of Colmar we hold onto the Beffert and Mömpelgard fotresses, which are beleaguered and cut off from Germany outside a few and rather daring I might add, Airship supply runs."

"Airships? Ah, Zeppelin´s brainchild! Are they as good as we are led to believe by the newspapers?"

"Personally I think the Zeppelins need further development, on which Zeppelin and Schütte-Lanz are working. But for Air Recon they are worth their weight in gold."

Both men smiled at the unintended wordplay.

"Masuren could have become a disaster without our Zeppelins overhead giving updates to the ground forces. Our airships have a much higher endurance and range than the balloons and airplanes, both ours and the enemy´s, additionally we can use them for transport. Still their size and technical sophistication make operating them not as easy as it seems.

There are several reasons why we do not face say, British, airships. Their Zeppelin prototypes are not as advanced as ours and more importantly, the Tommies currently lack the capacity needed to refine enough helium or hydrogen for an airship fleet."

"Very well. But what is up with the southwest, I know the population wants to know why the enemy is 'camped up' there?"

"We already had an operation planned to breakthrough to our two fortresses, when the Franzmänner attacked us with these new weapons and tactics, which enabled them to push us back and take more of our homesoil. The problem is we do not have enough strength in the West at the moment to push them back. A plan is already complete to open up at least a corridor to our encircled forces in the Sundgau, but for this we need to transfer units or hope that the Entente losses a lot more strength in the coming months, so we could do with the local forces. But I would not bet on the latter. While the French have to guard the Spanish border, because they do not know if or when they come to our aid, they still can focus most of their forces against us."

"I hope that I am wrong, but the Western Front has the potential to become a convoluted, bloody mess. And this new invention, the Panzer, plays a big role in that."

"To an extend, it already is a mess... And true, the enemy Panzer play a vital role in this. It is a pain to admit, but they blindsided us there. If I may, I explain more about it later. Let´s see the Southern Front, Italy and the Balkans, since this is another quick thing. The war there is mainly led by the Austrians and Bulgarians. We only have a few units down there to show our flag and bolster cooperation. As long as the sitution does not change for the worse, we will keep it that way. I am not prone to flippant speech, but our comrades are spread over half the globe.

Austria does the same in Italy as we do at the Western Front. Stay on the defensive, except for tactical and sometimes strategic counter-offensives. As far as I know, the Austrian High Command develops a plan to cut off the important Savoy area from the rest of Italy once they can reduce strength in the Balkans. With most of the Entente territory there in our hands this seems quite reasonable to prepare such a plan for 1912."

"Erich, I have a bad gut feeling for the Balkans. Even accounting that we might have hit them on the wrong foot with our general plan in the Balkans, the Entente seems too silent for me down there."

"I ´d like to not admit it, but I share your feeling. While I would like nothing more than a nice, tidy end of the war in the Balkans, I cannot shake the feeling that the Entente prepares a surprise there, which we do not see for whatever reason."

"Well, let us get on. I know what the naming means, but why did you do it? Eastern Front was clear enough, why Mittelfront (Middle Front)?"

"Well, Luitpold, this name popped up first as a nickname in the transport division around General von Stab. On paper, everything east of Schirwindt, Pleß and Peisern is Eastern Front, but calling it Ostfront (Eastern Front) and Fernostfront (Far East Front), especially with wireless, is prone to mistakes.

As said, the transport division came up with it first to handle their duties better. Some visiting young division staff officers brought them to Army Command. One, I think von Manstein was his name, he was the one who really spoke out for changing the naming to clarify. Young, but I think he might make his way.

So it came to Mittelfront for the 'classical' Ostfront and Ostfront for our Asian operations. At the beginning it sounds unusual, but it grows on you since it makes sense. Not for nothing Russia is fighting something they are unused to as well, a multiple front war.

And you want to know how that is going on. Well, as you know, the Russians had their attack on us well-prepared. But they were definitely surprised when they recognised that they were our first focus and not France. Still their plans to cut off East Prussia and Upper Silesia were wellmade. Without the Battle of Masuren we might not have turned the momentum there for the sheer mass of soldiers coming at us. Luckily for us the Russian officers are of extremly variable quality. With Winter coming and shutting down all major operations the frontline is as follows. We are outside Riga and Dünaburg in the North, Congress Poland is a hard nut, but since we closed off the Tarnow-Tannenberg Grand Encirclement Russian resistance is fading there. We have 4 Russian Armies cauldroned and at this time of the year they have no chance of helping them."

"Why the heck is Kornilow still holding out? He has to know that it is over for him and his men."

"Politics. The Entente wants more allies against us. Masuren was a heavy defeat for Russia, but that was one battle and at the moment the 4 armies are still on boa-"

"Yes, I am sure that they ordered Kornilow to hold out until they roped in their possible allies too. But with this win the war in the East, er middle is still not over."

"Unfortunately yes! I do not know how deep we will have to go into Russia until they fold, but I fear that 1912 will not be the last year of the war there. in the meantime we have to keep the West save."


"What about the East, Erich?"

"In Asia the Japanese and we are mopping up the Russian Pacific Coast and the Mongolia Army detachment has gone on winter rest in the Irkutsk and Udinskoje area. We achived full surprise there, but let me tell you the whole operation is a logistics nightmare and without the Mongolians we would look quite idiotic at times, fighting there is so different from here. Fabeck´s report a decade ago did really not understate things."

"I take it that fighting in the East will not be over soon as well, especially if the Entente gains more members-"

Von Falkenhayn nodded.

"And before you start, today I do not want to know the war situation in the colonies. What I heard about the main fronts is enough, you can tell me more in a few days via telephone. what I know now is the a damn large number of our boys will die, no matter who wins in the end. Is that correct?"

"Yes, Luitpold, you are."

 

[Wolf1965]

New York Times, New York, USA early 1912

The smell of coffee, cigars and Hot dogs was strong in the air of the meeting room of the interior politics reporters. They were brainstorming for a large sunday article about the election race of 1912 and that night had fallen over New York did not stop them.

"I have to say this year will be a thrilling campaign, not like the last few one, where the victor could be detected early on. No, this year it will be tight, really tight."

"I agree. The three main candidates are real choices with different portfolios. The 'safe" option for the people is Taft. If he is re-elected he will and that he already confirmed in several speeches, he will keep the US out of the War in the Old World. He might have problems with his party and he is not the most charismatic president we ever had, but promising to keep the war 'away' should bring him votes."

"Definitely! It will be great to see how 'Teddy' is doing through the year. I push in open doors when I say that he charismatic and popular. A lot of people love 'Mr. Big Stick' Roosevelt!"

"Yes, but Roosevelt will loose votes for his stance on Europe. Ever since building the Nicaragua Channel together with us and Berlin accepting the extension of the reworked Monroe Doctrine, Teddy Roosevelt is strongly pro-German. Which everybody could see during the Venezuela-Crisis years ago. He solved it in weeks and the Jerries were quite pleased with his verdict.
There are a lot of poeple thinking that Roosevelt will sooner or later enter the war on Germany´s side, should he become President. And it is an open secret that he is eyeing some bits of 'Canuckland', which he could only get if we side with the Central Powers. The Brits know this as well. Some contacts of mine in DC said the British embassy is throwing everything they have in support of Wilson to stop Roosevelt."

"Yes, option 3 Woodrow Wilson. I do not know what to think of him. Personally I think he should stay in scholary pusuits instead of politics..."

"Hmm, why?"

"You know one of my hobbies is book reviewing? Around the turn of the century I read a book by Wilson about Germany. He was rather glowing in his endorsement of their development. He was a real fan of their health care system, their state structure and many other things. He even predicted that the Jerries would let their womanfolk vote soon - guess what happened in the German national election 1904?
But now, after gathering a pro-British election team around him, Wilson is singing the 'Rule Britannia' tune and Germany is suddenly the enemy of the Free World. (While I changed it a bit for the ATL circumstances, this happened slightly different OTL as well)

Some people will not blink, but for me this shows a serious lack of conviction. Wilson hangs his flag into the wind, if Colonel House tells him to praise the little green men on Mars, he would surely do it.

But he is the man of the pro-British faction He already promised them sole possession of the Nicaragua Channel and the Bentheim Islands. If Wilson becomes President, I think it is only a matter of time until we declare war on the Central Powers. And as Rupert said, the British in Washington do everything they can to push Wilson´s chances."

"And the Germans?"

"Well they cannot do all that much. They have their supporters, Theodore Roosevelt among

them, but the Tommies haywired the German Atlantic cables soon after the start of the war. While we the US still get wireless messages from Nauen, this is nothing on the mass of propaganda stuff the British can send us."

"I predict a head to head race - and I think it will rest on a handful of electors, who will become President this November."

 

[Wolf1965]

Russian High Command, Minsk, early 1912

Orthodox Christmas was on Three King´s Day, but the distance to Catholic and Protestant Christmas did not help the situation by bringing good news. Actually, Christmas had already bygone 3 weeks and the news were still not as positive as Stavka had tried to paint to their monarch.
Tsar Nikolaus II. and his Generals as well had gone into this war with great expectations. Allied with two further Great Powers, gaining Weihaiwei from the British in 1908, a deal but still, the army mobilised well before Germany or Austria the situation looked good inside and outside of Russia. Especially since Stavka in accord with the French and British General Staff predicted a Western Front focus of the Central Powers.

And the war started quite as predicted. The Russian forces marched on into Bulgaria, Austria and Germany following the main plan. Nothing seemed to be amiss, even if several units sent messages that they saw or encountered more enemy troops from different formations than expected.

Still the part of the great plan calling for the seperation of East Prussia from the rest of Germany, taking Germany out region by region, waltzed on. Then came the Battle of Masuren. Russia outnumbered the German defenders at least 3:1, but the battle became a disaster. Lacking cooperation of the Russian Generals, problematic terrain, brave defenders, who used their area knowledge the utmost and had a plan led to a bitter defeat for Russia. But it was not what hit Stavka the most, that was the aftermath. An Austro-German counter-offensive showed clearly that for whatever reason the Central Powers were trying to take out the Rodina first.
Following Masuren, the Germans attacked and advanced into the Baltics and were right now beleaguering Riga, Dünaburg and controlled practically the entirety of Lithuania. But what really focused the Russian High Command´s attention on it was the situation in Posen. Kornilow and his men had been marching forward towards the Oder river, when the plan of the German "Ober Ost" became clear. And it was a bold move, supported with a new German weapon, the Tankovy.

A massive encirclement of 4 Russian armies in western Poland and the bordering conquered parts of Germany and Austria, done late in the year to make a breakthrough attempt more difficult or impossible. Now it was painfully obvious why the Austro-German defenders fell back so fast in several regions, to bait Kornilow to come closer, springing the trap.
(The "Grand Encirclement" is a historical OTL plan too, which was not used due to the different circumstances, but was nearly implemented. Using it ATL, with it´s Russia first focus is practically a given thing. I just changed some parts for the different situation ATL.)

It was clear for Grandduke Nikolai and the other generals that the Germans would have implemented this plan no matter what, but the new weapon helped to cut down time. The Germans called their newfangled device Panzerkampfwagen (lit. Armoured Fighting Vehicle), while Russia´s allies France and Britain called their equivalent Tank, after the design codename.
The naming being whatever it was, Russia needed some of their own. The Tsar himself gave order to the St. Petersburg car factory to design a Russian Tank, keeping in line with the allied naming convention. Even if the Baltic-German Russian officers pushed for adopting their relatives designation and especially the 7th Army was increasingly calling the German vehicles Panzir in their paperwork.

Interestingly due to how history developed, the two Russias never settled on a fixed naming convention. Both nations field Tanks with T-something and P-something designations to this day. For instance, the Tankograd factories obviously call their products Tank, while the St. Peterburg factory changed it to Panzir by 1913 already. Some iconic Russian tanks are the P-41 and the T-56.

The Germans instead moved away from production designations by the late World War to animal names. The Panzer 2d was the last named like this, the 1913 Wiesel (Weasel) Recon Tank the first of that tradition.
Additionally, the name says something about the use. German Battle Tanks are named after cats, Recon vehicles after fast, nimble animals or combat engineer and repair vehicles after strong herd animals like the Büffel (Buffalo).

 

[Tyr Anazasi]

I am glad to see it's back.

Free Beer!

 

[FarAwayInWonderland]

What better way to start your day than with several updates of your favourite TL?

 

[Samuel Von Straßburg]

Nice updates. What ever happened to "das sechsfache Büsingen" (the six-times Büsingen), the German Lothringen enclaves?

 

[Wolf1965]

From the book "The German Model - A success you cannot copy", Peter A. Hall, Simon & Schuster 2015

Few would argue that the Zollverein and Germany as it´s originator are a success story. The Zollverein is one of the most successful, some analysts say the most successful, economic zones ever, the strongest contemporary and the heart of manufacturing on the planet.

As such, the economic model at it´s heart should be a hot seller. Well, it is and it is even more not so. Outside the Zollverein and it´s satellite nations, nobody got it to work and even inside it there are some local adaptions. While some economies had success with taking parts of Germany´s model and incorporating it into themselves, most tries to copy the German economic system completely met spectacular failure.
How is that possible, when it enabled Germany and some others to rise to industrial Great Power status? The answer is multi-layered, but let us begin with something very basic. If you had to classify the German economy or those of most Zollverein nations, it would be an "order and stability-based Coordinated Market Economy with a corporatist welfare state".

For many non-Germans this might seem discordant from the get-go and a famous collegue once said: "You have to give praise where it is due. Economically the Germans mixed fire and water and somehow did not get steam."
And exactly here is one reason why the German model is one and works. Germany´s economy functions because of it´s building blocks at the micro and(!) macro level. That these building blocks are a very peculiar and specific mixture is evidenced by the nations who got the German model to work.
Germany and Japan when they first met, were starting their full industrialisation. Newly independent Ireland was cut off "as punishment" from the British Empire markets and Germany could implement her brand of capitalism on the ruin the Irish economy was at that moment. Mongolia was just re-emerging as a nation, when it came into Germany´s orbit, following them. Or take Sweden, while they made several local adaptions, their economy was already on a similar road as Germany´s was. The colonies of the Zollverein nations had to follow their masters lead.

There is one thing unifying all nations who made the German model work. They were starting their industrialisation or had a total economic breakdown before. To make the German model work, you need time and all participants have to cooperate. Something you find not often today or even back then in history.

Now why came this to be?

For this, we have to go back in German history. Not singular, but near unique, in the German states the vast majority of reforms over time where executed by the conservative political forces in a top-down approach. Due to this, even radical reforms originating in other political factions like the Liberals or Jacobins, were implemented if it was seen as positive. The German State governments kept control over what happened, how far reforms would go, implemented even own variations and tried to keep their nations stable.

This is a major factor why revolutions are so rare in German History. Normally the governments implemented reform before unrest could boil over and since it were often concerted reforms, the nations profited from it. For instance, the reforms done by the Soldier´s King and his son Frederick the Great made Prussia the most modern state of their time.

A thing not directly obvious is that this modus of reforming made the Germans accustomed to unusual states of reform.

Since order and stability were of such concern for the State governments, in a typical German state state-of-the-art or advanced reforms exist beside age-old traditions, leading the world in development and doing other things like it was done for centuries is normal for them.

With this in the back of our heads, we jump to the era of industrialisation. Adam Smith´s model of Free Market economy was never without critics, with German economists like List or Schmoller and philosophers like Hegel from early on pointing towards the existing flaws.
Due to various reasons, the German states were latecomers to industrialisation and among the few who made it despite this late start.

To kickstart their industrialisation, the German states invited and bought the services of English specialists, since Britain was the world leader in industrialisation at that time in history. And these British specialists brought with them their brand of economics, namely Manchesterism and Free Market solutions.

Despite some misgivings, the German States began their flirt with a Free Market economy under the influence of the British experts. And they reaped quite a success. From the 1850s onward, the German economies grew in leaps and bounds. Now we come to the defining moment of the German economic model, the Gründerkrise (Founder´s Crisis).

Following Unification and Romanic-Germanic War, Germany´s economy began to grew even faster, finally overheating, leading into the Gründerkrise. In hindsight from over 150 years it is ironic to call it crisis, since despite a severe slump in development Germany still grew quite well, just not as fast. The German Empire had it´s first contact with the boom and bust cycles of Laissez faire economy.

For Britain or the US, used to Laissez faire Market and it´s flaws, they would look at it, say "bad situation, but it happens" and go on. But the German Empire, a state where longterm order and stability were paramount and unused to the disadvantages of Adam Smith´s brand of economics, reacted differently.
Germany had never been convinced of the Free Market model and the Gründerkrise strengthened the voices who claimed that they always knew it and that Free Market had a shiny surface and a rotten core. Critical German economists got more influence and were heard anew. The Federal and the State governments, used to being in the drivers seat, detested having such few influence on the markets when they grew dangerous.

At this point, Bismarck in concert with the State governments pulled a stop. Time for a review. Nobody wanted to throw out capitalism, it worked well, but the type of capitalism used by Britain or the US was not the model Germany wanted to live with. Too many flaws from a German point of view.
The Imperial Government and the German states acted. Cooperation principles replaced the dog-eat-dog principles in competition economic policy. Production mobilisation replaced Free Market in order policies. Corporatist organisation replaced market only self-help.
Laws were replaced, amended, repealed or made new. A tariff system shielded the Zollverein from other competitors, but that was not unique, even nominally Free Market Nations have at least some open or secret tariffs.

But the combination of these actions created the basics of a new version of capitalism. A capitalism more resilent to the whims of the markets. A German type economy cannot grow as fast and much as a comparable Free Maket one can, but it is also less hit by bad situations. Another point why economics always disagree about the various types of economic systems can be seen with the German and British type of capitalism. Since they set different foci, they might be capitalist systems, but they are not the same. What can be the absolut correct action in a Free Market system like in Britain, can be an error in the German one. Likewise, what is a perfect solution in the German system, can be nothing like that in the British.

(As a note to you dear readers: OTL is not much different to ATL here. While many books about the German way of economy start with the time after WW2, many overlook the facts. While men like Ehrhard, Müller-Armack, Kaiser, Röpke or Eucken, to name a few, made changes and brought in excellent own ideas, the basic blueprint of Germany´s economy is still the one made in Imperial Germany. That continuity is not directly obvious, but the view is skewed due to the artificial weakening by the Treaty of Versailles and the dictatorship of Hitler´s time. If someone is interested in economic History, not only Germany´s, but others as well, I point towards the excellent works of Werner Abelshauser)

 

[Wolf1965]

From the entry in "Personsofhistory.net", 2017 edition

Adolf Hitler

(20.4.1889 - 23.4.1978)

Born in Braunau, Austrian Empire, Adolf Hitler desired to become a painter, but his try to gain entry in the Vienna Art Academy was rejected. Hit heavily by this rejection, he spent most of his youth tramping through the lands of the Danube Monarchy and Germany.

Despite living in poverty most of the time during his travelling years, Hitler managed to gain a passage to the Austrian colonies in the Americas. The visit in Yucatan 1909, especially the colony capital Tulum with it´s great Mayan architecture, made a big impression on him, as would be seen later.
At the time the World War broke out, Hitler was living in the Munich "artsy" district of Schwabing and he volunteered for the Bavarian Army. 1912 the direction of his life changed. In the trenches outside Metz, Hitler met another young volunteer, Werner March, who wanted to become an architect after the war. The two became life-long friends.

Adolf Hitler survived the war with several decorations and stayed in the Army until 1919, leaving with the rank of Oberstabsfeldwebel (Sergeant major). He then joined Werner March´s new architect´s office.

While Hitler never had a formal education in architecture and started as the painter/penciler, he soon became responsible for the "look" of their buildings. Werner March was more for the technical side, Hitler did the visuals. In the half-century the duo was active, they made several widely known buildings and became famous as builders of sport stadiums.

Their most famous building is the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. Here Hitler´s fondness for the past could be seen first. The Olympic Stadium vibrates with the contrast and mixture of Roman and Germanic styles. The City Stadium of Graz in his native Austria would not be amiss in a city of the Maya. This Maya influence became a distinctive feature especially in the later years.
The culmination of that was one the the duo´s last works, the Pistolero Stadium in Dodge City. The home stadium of the Dodge City Pistoleers, an American Football team winning the Super Bowl three times in the seventies and nineties, has a clock tower, Maya-style, which is Kansas´ tallest building.

Adolf Hitler was married to Eva Hitler, the pair had twins, Rudolf and Jana. Rudolf was an officer in the Austrian Army, now retired, Jana still leads the Hitler & March architect´s office.

Hitler still painted in his free-time and the exhibitions were medium successful. In the social upheveal of the fifties, Hitler became politically active. He joined the conservative "Seeheimer Kreis" party wing of the SPD, but after his retirement and returning to Braunau he created the NÖAP, the National Austrian Worker´s Party. Currently (2017) the NÖAP has 6 seats in the Austrian parliament.

Adolf Hitler sat in the city council of Berlin, where his bureau is situated, for 12 years, most of the time as an independent candidate. Besides that, he was the spokesperson of the BDA, the German Architects Federation, for 4 decades.
After a time with various illnesses, Adolf Hitler died three days after his birthday, aged 89.

 

[Tyr Anazasi]

Great updates!

Ceterum censeo Beer esse liberta.

 

[Hörnla]

Excellent updates. Your ideas on Hitler are really original and fit the timeline. Also, that is an excellent explanation on the German "economic mentality".

 

[wildwill]

Sorry for the necro, I'd just like to tell those unaware that a rewrite of this was recently begun over on SV.
Check it out if you like.

 

[Kitiem3000]

Sorry for the necro, I'd just like to tell those unaware that a rewrite of this was recently begun over on SV.
Check it out if you like.

Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[HanEmpire]

Link: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.c...l-a-german-unification-atl-new-version.58229/