If German can remain the language of Forschung und Lehre the consequences are infinite. Not in the top tier -- the top tier will continue to study Law in the metropole. All the other gifted sons and daughters of the middle classes may well [non canon] attend e.g.I suspect that in this timeline, German is much more used in scientific circles, because a lot more of the groundbreaking research will be published in German and if people want to work with the original primary sources, they would have to either learn German or have everything translated, which would be costly.
"Ihr Name, mein Fräulein ?"
"فاطمہ جناح"
"Würden Sie das bitte buchstabieren."
"Dora Schule Ida Northpole ..."
The Shit is moving towards a Better Fan.I'm glad to see that this is still engoing! Can I get a cast of the main characters and a basic summary of what's happened so far?
“Three million dollars.” Ramon Lorenzo Falcon was pleased with himself. “And this will include a license to produce and market the weapon throughout South America.”
Robert Van Elm smiled sourly. What else were they supposed to do? Losing the German army order had come close to breaking the back of Colt Firearms Manufacturing Co. A remaining stock of almost 120,000 pistols in an unsaleable calibre and an entire factory full of the machinery to make them and their ammunition had turned from a cunning investment into dead weight overnight – a millstone that threatened to sink the business. The Argentine offer was almost insulting – but it was enough to ensure they stayed afloat.
“Indeed, Mr Falcon.” He agreed. “However, only in the German calibre. This must be noted. The pistols may neither be modified to use any other cartridge, nor marketed in the United States or Canada.”
Falcon nodded his assent. This was no great concession to make. North Americans had illogical attachments to their traditions, and they did things their own way. The governments of Latin America, on the other hand, tended to follow the dictates of price and availability. The Colt pistol was a good one. Proof of its mettle on the battlefields of Russia added to its sales appeal. Nobody would mind that it ate the odd 9mm ammunition the Germans insisted on using.
“I will make arrangements to have the machinery shipped here. The money will be transferred through J P Morgan Bank, 50% in cash, 50% in two-year bonds. It was a pleasure doing business with you.”
Van Elm gritted his teeth. “Likewise.”
is this a Colt produced FN model 1903 (Browning #2) in 9mm parabellum?Buenos Aires, 14 November 1908
i do not know what role Falcón gets to play, in otl he was a police commissioner until his assassination in 1909, and i cannot imagine that his job included signing this kind of deals.I like the thread continuing; I am way too ignorant of the general status of Southern Cone affairs in this period to have any kind of sense what this particular knock-on might portend for South America and hence perhaps the larger world some decades hence. Even a rather rotten ATL SA government might conceivably radically transform the position of South American nations later in the century, if it leads to a feedback effect of self-industrialization. Wallersteinian core-periphery zero sum global assumptions suggest to me that if the wheel of fortune turns to elevate the global status of one or more South American nations, perhaps via a terribly regrettable path, someone else in the world who did OK OTL must do worse--there is only so much room at the top. And one suspects that real success for South American nations would require some kind of breakthroughs in civil society in some form or other that hardly seem foreshadowed by a big gun deal; a more successful Latverian supervillain dictatorship seems more likely--Doomstadt del Sur, anyone?
is this a Colt produced FN model 1903 (Browning #2) in 9mm parabellum?
with the likely improvements, that will make it like an early M1911 in 9mm para (or a early FN Hgh Power)
mr Falcón may have concluded an even better deal than it looks right now
That's his design. At this time, he was basically the lead designer for both Colt and FN.Where's John Moses Browning in all this?
Wallersteinian core-periphery zero sum global assumptions
I detect a Bruce Chatwin homage.Things like this are why I love this site.
I don't think I've ever read anything by Chatwin, and I don't know whether an homage to him would would reflect well on either me or Shevek or not, so I won't claim it.I detect a Bruce Chatwin homage.
“You understand, Sir, that your wealth insulates you from the worst impact of these events.” Representative von Trenck insisted. “It is obvious.”
Hugenberg nodded sagely, casting a sideways look at Hugo Stinnes. The great man seemed to agree. Inviting him to this dinner party had been a risk. As a member of the cabinet’s war economy council, he had publicly opposed many of the conservatives’ political ideas and occasionally even got into shouting matches with particularly forward members of the Völkische faction in the DKP. But Hugenberg remembered the economic stance Stinnes had espoused before the war, and he felt that there was enough common ground to be found here.
“Beginning with the trivial,” he carefully framed von Trenck’s excessive declamation, “it is becoming impossible for people of means to find reliable servants even in peacetime. Household books to that effect have not only continued to sell, demand is growing across the Reich. I agree that this is not a matter of great significance compared to some others, but it is keenly felt by many. The frustration of having to bid for the services of maids and charwomen who will openly compare the wages they can get in factories is corrosive to morale and social order.”
“Indeed.” Trenck added. “Families of high repute, doctors, lawyers and even military officers, have found themselves abandoned by their household staff practically overnight. There is no longer the least sign of worry over what characters they might be provided by their erstwhile masters. Indeed, nobody seems to care any longer! I have myself had a maid leave her service for a job at the tram company, and we have had to make do with a charwoman ever since!”
Hugenberg motioned him to temporary silence. “It is above all the impact on public morale we are concerned with.” He explained. “And it is no better in the factories. Workers blackmailing owners with overt threats of strike, unions muscling their way into negotiations that should be between individuals … I have little doubt that, though costly, this is manageable for a large corporation. For a small business, as most of Germany’s factories are, it is going to be ruinous if we allow it to go on. A man must be master in his own house!”
Stinnes nodded. That was a language he could understand. “Indeed. I have no objection to treating the workers fairly, even generously, but this Socialistic nonsense has gone too far. That much I agree with, gentlemen.”
Trenck and the white-bearded Karl Gamp nodded eager assent. “We are not opposed to the gifts that the government intends to distribute – as such.” Gamp explained carefully. “Indeed, this has been a highly contentious issue within the conservative party. It is our wing that favours a generous treatment of returning veterans and generally, a policy of reform that looks beyond the narrow bounds of Manchester liberalism. It was the German people that won this victory, and it is the entire German people that should rightly enjoy its fruit. Little enough this may prove to be.” He added sourly.
Stinnes sucked his teeth. He was not happy with the peace settlement. His own vision had included modest territorial gains and farther-reaching assurances of mining and logging rights rather than vague promises of future reparation payments that might or might not be made. Of course there was such a thing as loyalty – you stood by decisions made in the council even if you did not like them. He refrained from comment.
Georg Oertel raised his glass and spoke. He was a bit of an oddity in this circle – a man of modest origin and few means who had risen to his precarious status as a newspaperman via the teaching profession. For all that, he was regarded highly among his friends and enjoyed Hugenberg’s benevolent protection. You underestimated the brain inside his massive square skull at your peril. “It is our firm belief that conservatism means more than doing things the way we have always done them.” he explained. “The world is changing. Science has shown us truths our ancestors could not have dreamt of. Understood in the light of these truths, conservatism means to defend, to expand, to develop the useful values we inherited from our forebears and to discard the superannuated. This is what we mean, Mr Stinnes. We are not a club of junkers polishing their coats of arms in crumbling manor houses. We see a future in which the German people can be the mightiest, healthiest, richest, morally and genetically soundest in the world.”
Hugenberg smiled graciously. This was exactly what the man needed to hear. Oertel, he remembered, was suffering the very predicament – a fixed salary, with little prospect of an increase, in the face of rapidly rising prices and insolent servants – that von Trenck had deplored so loudly, but he never spoke of his personal discomfort. Everything with him was about the big picture.
Stinnes nodded, his face grimly determined. “I can see this, gentlemen. And what is more, I believe that I can support your endeavour. Be aware that this I not going to be an easy path.”
“We are.” Hugenberg ventured. “The issue of workers’ housing alone is enough to tear apart the party. But in the interest of the truth, in the service of the future, it is a risk worth taking. The cheeseparing of the past must end. It was always the policy of the wise and forward-looking leader to ensure the content and safety of his followers.”
“Alles für, nichts durch das Volk?” Stinnes asked, smiling thinly.
Oertel nodded. “True, to a point. We do not deny that the people should be heard, it is clear that giving the rabble the power to overrule authority is a recipe for disaster.”
“To that.” Hugenberg motioned, and the assembled luminaries raised their glasses. Dark port sparkled ruby-red in their cut-crystal goblets. “To the future.”
At the very least you'd have German survive a lot longer as the language of science in places like America without German academia being gutted. More out of inertia than anything else German language courses were offered in my HS in the late 90's.
Perhaps we'd see some German Americans going to German universities ITTL and that sort of thing would help maintain links.
I'm not saying German media will be influential in America, but it could be, and that could do as much to keep German alive as Hollywood does to organically discourage bilingualism.
If I have a nitpick, it's that I don't know if there would be a rich Jewish lawyer this early. (Don't laugh).
The German government should create something that is a mixture of the BBC and radio Moscow.
is this a Colt produced FN model 1903 (Browning #2) in 9mm parabellum?
with the likely improvements, that will make it like an early M1911 in 9mm para (or a early FN Hgh Power)
I like the thread continuing; I am way too ignorant of the general status of Southern Cone affairs in this period to have any kind of sense what this particular knock-on might portend for South America and hence perhaps the larger world some decades hence. Even a rather rotten ATL SA government might conceivably radically transform the position of South American nations later in the century, if it leads to a feedback effect of self-industrialization. Wallersteinian core-periphery zero sum global assumptions suggest to me that if the wheel of fortune turns to elevate the global status of one or more South American nations, perhaps via a terribly regrettable path, someone else in the world who did OK OTL must do worse--there is only so much room at the top. And one suspects that real success for South American nations would require some kind of breakthroughs in civil society in some form or other that hardly seem foreshadowed by a big gun deal; a more successful Latverian supervillain dictatorship seems more likely--Doomstadt del Sur, anyone?
i do not know what role Falcón gets to play, in otl he was a police commissioner until his assassination in 1909, and i cannot imagine that his job included signing this kind of deals.
so either he lost his job and is a business man now, or he has gotten a job in the argentine govt, that makes signing this kind of deals his job.
In both cases, i think the 1909 assassination will not take place, which is bad news, since https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramón_Lorenzo_Falcón was a high repressive person, which could lead to more trouble for poor Argentina.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramón_Lorenzo_Falcón
small details in the longer run can mean big differencesNot quite that good, but it is going to be an influential design. More importantly, this will establish 9mm as the caliber of choice for much of the world. There is always going to be a lot of cheapish ammunition to be had out of the German protectorates and Argentina, and some very sound designs support it. A small detail, admittedly.
Sleep came hard, even in the warm, soft, clean bed of his peaceful home. Feldwebelleutnant Koch had come to suspect that, in fact, it came harder there. He had had nightmares in the dark nights under Russian skies and suffered sweating terrors in barrack room bunks, but exhaustion and release from fear had usually allowed him to sleep eventually. Now, released from the iron bonds of duty, away from the comrades with whom he had lived through years of war, he spent many a night tormented by memories he had buried as deep as he could.
Readjustment, the doctor had called it. A few weeks of quiet, some laudanum to help with the insomnia, that was all. What really helped, Koch had found, was schnaps. He had never been a heavy drinker, but facing the alternative, he was determined to change that. A half-litre stoneware bottle, emptied with grim determination, lay on the nightstand, but the effect had been limited. Tossing, sweating, half moaning whispered words, Feldwebelleutnant Koch drifted into the fitful, restless sleep that had been his lot.
Karin Koch had been used to being afraid of her father in the dutiful manner that good girls were. “Wait until Papa hears about this!” were still words that could add worry to a guilty conscience. She had never feared him, not even when he came back from the war on his rare, short furloughs, an increasingly strange, lean, craggy man who smelled of tobacco, dirt and chemicals. Hard though it might be, she was determined not to start now. Woken by his sobbing, she gingerly approached the bedstead he had put in the living room to spare his wife’s sleep and gently laid a wet cloth on his forehead.
“It’ll be all right, Papa.” she whispered. “I’ll stay with you.” Hugging her stuffed toy rabbit, she sat down on the side of the bed and tried to grasp his hand. Her father groaned and half turned over. She could smell drink on his breath, hear terror in his voice. Impulsively, she flung her arms around him and pressed her face against his shoulder, holding on as she recalled him holding her some nights before the war, when she had been just out of kindergarten, a scared little girl. “It’s going to be all right.”
The darkness was rife with memories. Feldwebelleutnant Koch felt his shoulders and chest tense up, muscles pulling so tight with fear it hurt to breathe. Pitch blackness enveloped him, the suffocating, sweaty dark that brought him back to the terrified, tentative advance of night patrol, a dark that offered no protection or concealment, that could explode into savage violence with no warning. Wrapped in an alcoholic fug, his conscious mind spun into its chemical cocoon, Koch felt himself returning again to the dark armpit of the night outside Gumbinnen, the desperate effort to stay quiet, pass unnoticed. His mind could never supply any sights, but the scents, the sounds and sudden violence of the assault remained indelibly inscribed into his memory. The blow, unprepared and unexpected, hands scrabbling for purchase on his ammunition belt, his rifle dropped out of reach, garlic and rotten breath in his face as the hard-packed earth came up to meet him. Russian obscenities – he had not then known what they meant. The arms had been scrawny, wiry, weaker than he remembered, the hair incongruously soft. The briefest of hesitations rose in his mind, suppressed by the rush of unreasoning terror. Feldwebelleutnant Koch closed his hands around the slender neck of his unseen assailant and squeezed.