Es Geloybte Aretz - a Germanwank

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Monty Burns

carlton_bach said:
But imagine how men in more senior positions will take this. Men who are not middle-class, who have learned to cherish their touchy honour from childhood. Men like Brigadier Antanas Druve, or Colonel Carl Gustav Mannerheim. Yes, very big mistake. Nicholas is becoming quite adept at them (though to be fair, this is Dubrovin's idea, and yes, he had plans like that IOTL, but fortunately nobody took them seriously).
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Yes, seems like Nicholas is "appointing" the leaders of free Baltic and free Finnish governments. From a German point of view, it's very reasonable to support these as well: no matter whether these are successful, they increase the probability of a Polish success.
 

Josephus

But imagine how men in more senior positions will take this. Men who are not middle-class, who have learned to cherish their touchy honour from childhood. Men like Brigadier Antanas Druve, or Colonel Carl Gustav Mannerheim. Yes, very big mistake. Nicholas is becoming quite adept at them (though to be fair, this is Dubrovin's idea, and yes, he had plans like that IOTL, but fortunately nobody took them seriously).
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It would gut the officer corps. There was an inordinate amount of officers of Baltic-German and Skandinavian origins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Russian_military_personnel_of_the_Russo-Japanese_War

More than half of those.

And if you substract the Poles, Georgians and Aserbaijanis, too...
 

wietze

looking at Shternmilers name i get the impression he is jewish? It might not be about just "people of foreign extraction" but could it be there is another pogrom coming?
 

carlton_bach

10 October 1905, Warsaw

Marian Kukiel – General Marian Kukiel of the Polish National Army, though he still found that part hard to believe – was known by his men to enjoy the comforts of command. His suite in liberated Warsaw was well appointed, and general Pilsudski came tro visit quite frequently to sample some liberated wines and delicacies provided by appreciative patriots, and talk shop. Sitting in the deep armchair by the grand fireplace that last year warmed a Russian officer, the leader of the Polish uprising looked unusually troubled.
“We must have Lodz, Marian.”, he repeated. “Whatever the cost, whatever the difficulty, we must have it. If we fail, we are lost.”
Kukiel nodded. “I know. I'm assigning every unit that can be spared already, Josef. There are only so many men we have here, though. Training them takes time.”
“We don't have time. Perhaps it's time to think of an alternative strategy, anyway. You understand, even if Lodz falls, it may do no more than buy us time.”
The presence of a large Russian garrison this far into Free Poland was crippling for any attempt to act like anything like a real state. Men and messages could move in and out of Lodz, but the NA was limited to operating in hiding. The railway lines were closed – effectively to both sides, given the difficulty the Russians had finding railwaymen willing to break the strike – and the troops still patrolled into the countryside. Just a few days ago, a cossack column had cut up the Czenstochau regiment in an ambush nobody had expected. Things were getting out of hand, even as real siege lines began to close around the city.
“Holding Lodz will mean we can finally act like a real government. Appoint administrators, operate police, stop skulking in the shadows.” Kukiel protested.
“For how long, Marian?” Pilsudski was doubtful. “say the city falls this month. We have the winter. Then, the Russians come back. I would love to believe that the Russian Empire will just fall apart, but I can't. That year will decide the issue. 1906 is when Poland lives or dies. And if we can hold them off, what of 1907? What of 1908? Russia will not just disappear.”
“But the Germans...”
“The Germans may already have done everything for us they ever will. Marian, we are the weakest link in the alliance. Truth be told, we still are nothing but a tool in the hands of Germany and Japan, and the kaiser can discard us whenever he chooses. Wilhelm means well, but would he really risk war with Russia? Would you, in his stead? He has done all he set out to do, caused pain for Russiaat little cost. We cannot expect the Germans to fight our war for us. They may yet join in, but we have to have plans in case they don't.”
General Kukiel was silent for a long while. He tried not to think about the possibility of facing the Russian offensive alone. It would come. “What do we do?” he asked almost plaintively. “We can always go back to the underground, but our men, our units.. ”
“Exactly. Marian, I want you to begin negotiations with the Czar. In secret, of course.”
Kukiel was aghast. “Never! Josef, you have no conception what you are asking! Order me to fight to the death, send me to the front, I will gladly give my life for Poland. But I will not betray her.”
“Die gloriously, dammit, it's what we've been so good at all these years. Don't worry, Marian. It will make a grand story for our writers to tell – the ones that didn't go to Siberia for life, anyway. We will not lack for courage. And the survivors will be lionised in the clubs of London, how gallant, what patriotic spirits to die so valiantly for their country!”
He let the sentence hang in midair for a moment. “Screw that, Marian. What I want them to say about us is what bastards, what mean, cold, calculating Macchiavellian sons of bitches to win their country's freedom this way. I want to be remembered for winning, not for trying, because in this league, it's not about how you play the game. Let them sing songs about Kocziusko, I want to go like Bismarck. So, damned well do as I say, or I will find someone else to do it, even if I cannot trust him as much.”
“What do you want me to do?” Kukiel asked, flustered.
“For now, just open a channel. Try to see what concessions are open. We are going to have to hurt the Russians a lot more than we have if we want them to give up something real, but we will. If we are lucky, we'll never need to go that route. But if the Germans leave us hanging, try to get the best agreement you can. I'll go to London and make speeches, and you stay and watch that the Russians honour their end of the deal.”
“They won't. Josef, they never have in the past. The Russians will just promise us the moon and take away everything once they can.”
Pilsudski sighed. “They may. But look at how much we have achieved. If they know what danger a future Polish rising could pose, they will want to avert it. Keep them honest through fear. We'll have to keep the combat organisation alive underground. But it'll be better than any deal I could get after having my Thermopylae in the ruins of Warsaw palace.”
“It's still not fair!”
“Do you want me to leave it to Dmovski's gang? If they havve their way, we'll all be speaking Russian.”
General Kukiel shook his head. What needed doing just needed doing.
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carlton_bach

12 October 1905, Moscow

“It's pretty horrible, overall.” Grand Prince Nikolay Alexandrovich liked to keep abreast of events despite his marginalisation. What his associates told him was not encouraging. Baron Rosen, newly relegated to the palace administration, was only the latest to draw a bleak picture of the Czar's efforts. “It has caused a fair number of ripples in the diplomatic service, and apparently, we haven't been too badly affected.”
That much was true. The secret police and gendarmerie had seen a thorough purge, and the army and navy had relegated many officers whose parentage was in any way undesireable relegated to less exalted posts. Only a few diplomats had lost their posts, though a number of foreign office staff had been reassigned away from secret files and positions of importance on the strength of having the wrong family ties. Not for the first time, the Grand Prince wondered if his Czar knew what he was doing.
“The worst part is that to his Majesty, it looks like the strategy is working.” Rosen was icily sarcastic. “Look, no further defeats! You can even fool the damned Japanese into retreat, and all it takes is a few ten thousand unfortunate souls who will now starve in Kharbin.”
To Nikolay, the story was the epitome of all that was wrong about Russia, and all that was grand about it. General Kaulbars had come up with the idea that, since it was proving increasingly impossible to move trains along the Siberian railroad, you could limit the freight on the rails to supplies and march the three army corps he wanted to Manchuria. Men and horses, he figured, had legs for a reason. The truly amazing thing was that it had actually worked, if you discounted the casualties and the inevitable scaling back such ambitious plans usually suffered. The Russians had walked along the railway lines until, one fine morning, they had surprised Japanese sentries and gone on to relieve Kharbin. In future history books, it would no doubt seem like the most natural thing in the world, a glorious feat of arms. That was, unless the garrison now stuck in Kharbin was starved into surrender. The railway strike was getting worse, not better. Trains often moved with engineers forced to work at gunpoint. The Japanese still held the line to Vladivostok. No doubt Kaulbars would next ask for another corps to walk there. Grand Prince Nikolay wondered why the man still had his job.
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carlton_bach

15 October 1905, Fan-Tcheu (South of the Tarim Basin)

... Steppe warfare is an amazing thing, by far grander and more exhilarating that I had thought it previously possible for anything to be. Take, if you will, the high veldt multiplied by a thousaand, and you will have an impression of the grandeur and majesty that surrounds us in this ancient part of the old world. Surrounded by the oldest civilisations known to man, there is still nothing civilised about this masculine and unforgiving world from whence the East, from time to time, drew the barbaric vigour with which to refresh the enervated blood of its decadent peoples. This land breeds horsemen of superb skill and daring, men as undemanding as they are brave. Inured to hardship from an early age and habituated to war through centuries of tradition, they are as fine and as savage a warrior race as I have yet seen.

What we are waging here is what you might call a distilled essence of war. Between us and the enemy, there is no intervening landmark or city, no human habitation to remind us of the pursuits of peace or touch our hearts at the pity of civilian suffering. It is but us, them, and many hundreds of miles of empty land, the perfect war of maneuver, like a chess game of the old Hindoo gods. Little wonder this land brought forth such methodical genius of maneuver. And though they are my charges and my allies, I dare say this fine battle is wasted on the Chinese. What little there is military about them is all a citydweller's fight, suited as they are to the infantry, engineers and the technical branches. I have yet to find one Chinaman who could truly master horsemanship. Fine as our own Uighur auxiliaries are, I would so much more readily have the Mongol and the Cossack that our enemy fields today. In truth I sometimes wonder whether it is not the greatest feat that the Russians have shown the world that they were able to preserve the true qualities of a martial race in these offspring of their people. As hard, as merciless and as courageous as the Mongol, they are at home in this land in a manner that white men rarely, and the Chinese never become. Had they more, I would be in greater doubt of the ultimate outcome, but the Japanese have rattled poor Nicholas so much he can barely spare the mnen for his little empire-building scheme in Mongolia. The Beiyang army is as fine a fighting force as you can hope to make of Chinamen, who have not a martial bone in their body, and as Kitchener did in Egypt, we will use it to grind down better men with more. Our supply depots are filling up, our barracks teeming, and the next spring will see us off to Kobdo. ...
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(Letter by Captain C. Rutherford Williams, observer with the Chinese Army in Mongolia)
 

Benjamin XVIII

Great TL! This is one of the best things I have read on ah.com, ever. I love your focus on a shorter timespan (rather than doing 300 years worth of "history" with no details.) It really brings the setting to life, your descriptions of events is excellent also.
Rather than dry descriptions of events your writing style really makes the story come to life!
You can't see it, but I am raising a glass to this excellent TL!
 

carlton_bach

imperialaquila said:
Oooh, the Chinese are getting in on the Russian collapse, with British help. Did anything like this happen OTL?
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Yes and no. A few years later IOTL, the modernised Chinese army asserted its power in Xinjiang, Mongolia and Tibet, and Russia and Britain stayed away. The question is, of course, whether it was the Chinese army or the triple entente that made themm do it. Up until that point, the British and Russians were trying hard to grab territory in western China. IATL, I've substituted Antanas Druve for Carl Gustav Mannerheim, with the assumption that the Druve plan will be more aggressive and bet on a greater degree of Chinese impotence. As a result, the British are propping up China now. Right now, it's just a matter of a few Russian troops supporting an "independent" Mongolian government in Qing territory. Doing which is a bad idea, but was on the agenda for 1905 and thus will be done unless otherwise directed. Come time - I'm not sure yet, but everything I've read about the Beiyang Army indicates they will be a formidable enemy.
 

carlton_bach

12 October 1905, Potsdam

“'It is with regret that I must conclude His Majesty King Edward will not countenance any consideration of a marriage between Princess Beatrice and Emperor Wilhelm.' - well, there we have it. Can we now get back to serious business?” Wilhelm laid down the letter from his envoy to London on the desk and looked around. The assembled dignitaries were quiet for a moment.
“Does he say why?”, Prince Albert asked cautiously. He had been a proponent of the match and still considered it advantageous.
“Apparently, he won't allow her to wed an adulterer.” Friedrich von Damendorff, who had been instrumental in early negotiations, acidly remarked. There was a notable titter around the table. Albert guffawed.
“Well, if uncle Bertie is so concerned with the niceties of female honour, at least when it comes to his family, we shall have to consider other options.” he said. “Wilhelm, have you given any thought to Princess Olga of Hanover? It may go some way towards healing the rift between our families, and she is a beauty.”
“...if rather difficult.” von Damendorff interjected.
“Gentlemen,” Wilhelm said, “I am sure you are all viewing this with the detached amusement of someone who watches the Khan select his hareem, but I cannot avoid feeling a bit like some prize bull at auction. Olga of Hanover, Cecilia of Mecklenburg, even Wilhelmina of Orange keeps being bandied about...”
“You know that Wilhelmina is impossible!” Albert interrupted.
“Fair enough. But I am tiring of this whole game. Uncle, I know that I can't marry for love, and I will do my duty by the Reich and sire an heir, but please, at least grant me the favourt to find the whole affair tiresome. And to say so.”
Albert sighed. It was no secret that Wilhelm did not look forward to matrimony, and the task of convincing him did not rest easy on the shoulders of the prince whose own marriage was, at best, a convenient arrangement. But by common consent of the court, it was time.
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mikegold

Why is Wilhelmina impossible? Because she doubts the Tweede Kammer would approve of a personal union with a much stronger power? If the two sides negotiate well, the Netherlands could reap substantial benefits while maintaining autonomy on all matters except international affairs.
 

wietze

Indeed good question, is the 'impossible' because of political reasons or otherwise? In fact in otl she got married in 1901, if she isn't married in 1905 atl, she might be a possible candidate.
 

mikegold

wietze said:
Indeed good question, is the 'impossible' because of political reasons or otherwise? In fact in otl she got married in 1901, if she isn't married in 1905 atl, she might be a possible candidate.
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I presume she is unmarried if her name has been bandied about as a possible spouse. Indeed, she might have remained unmarried specifically because of the realistic possibility of snagging the Kaiser himself as a husband.
 
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