Es Geloybte Aretz - a Germanwank

[Perfidious Albion]

God.

Well, that sounds… distressingly true-to-life.

 

[Vingilótë]

He did get off lightly, but that was the common pattern for trials like that even in Wilhelmine Germany, let alone TTL. The prosecutors could always hope for a sympathetic hearing from right-wing judges, but the law usually allowed only short stints in prison, and the legal protections and appeal options often made this costly both in money and political capital. This is a case in point: Lamszus wrote a book. It was, altogether, neither libelous nor treasonous, it was simply a view of military service in the German army at war by a committed pacifist. A zealous prosecutor decided to throw everything he could find at him, enlisting the help of two officers from the author's unit who felt personally insulted. But ultimately, the law is the law and even the most partisan court can only bend it so much. What they did was, in effect, give him sixteen months for stealing used paper and pencils. That's pretty harsh.

Lamszus is going to be famous now, of course. His book is going to be translated and read the world over. Pacifists everywhere will be sending him letters and money. And a little over a year and a half from now, aggrieved German right-wingers will murder him in a Hamburg street. Postwar Germany won't be Weimar, but is not a nice place.

So a cabal of militants is going around shooting pacifists? Why?

It was prophesized

These aggrieved right-wingers sound like Thule Organization, or at least some kind of Germanic mysticist types.

 

[Admiral Matt]

Now that tens or hundreds of thousands aren't being crippled, killed, or ethnically cleansed between the lines of any given update....

The updates had to get darker? I guess?

 

[JohnOfNottingham]

These aggrieved right-wingers sound like Thule Organization, or at least some kind of Germanic mysticist types.

They are.

And also appeared already.

 

[carlton_bach]

Interesting chapter.

The feme are starting to look a bit like a german Klan, with lynchings and whatnot.

More secretive, but the principle is the same. The German KKK analogue is going to emerge from von der Goltz's postwar politics of mobilising the Völkische vote, a set of mass organisations. These guys are a self-proclaimed group of especially illuminated, divinely inspired warriors fighting for the greater good of a largely ignorant people that refuses to heed its true calling. Kind of like Al Qaeda. They are terrorist cells.

So a cabal of militants is going around shooting pacifists? Why?

Not pacifists in general, but specifically Lamszus. He wrote a famous anti-war book, and now he got out of jail early. It made him a symbol of everything they see as wrong with Germany. This is their idea of cleaning up the place. They have an elevated opinion of their importance and will specifically target people in the public spotlight. It was supposed to be a new Kotzebue moment.

Now that tens or hundreds of thousands aren't being crippled, killed, or ethnically cleansed between the lines of any given update....

The updates had to get darker? I guess?

Well, hundreds of thousands still are being crippled, ethnically cleansed and killed. Fewer killed and more cleansed, admittedly, but it's not a nice time. Not all is dark, though. Just - it's not all nice because the war's over, that's not how wars work.

 

[Kvasir]

What we have yet to see is how Germany's new statelets in the East are going to interact together.

In OTL WWI they were left to their own devices to duke it out while the USSR/Russia was in Civil War and Germany was vanquished in the West.

We know that ultimately the borders in the East will be made unchangeable by a Germany who is fed up with the quarrels but will we see mini-wars from Polish and Lithuanian backed fighters hoping to push various problematic people out of nation states where they 'don't belong'?

And there is still no update concluding the fate of the Baltic Germans. Last we heard they were in camps listening to the birth of the Emperor's new child. The new Baltic states will be looking at radical land reform (code for taking Baltic German lands and giving it to 'native' Baltics without adequate compensation).

Will be interesting to see if that goes forward and whether this Williamite Prussia would consent to the abolishment of property rights in their Mittleeuropa against Germans.

 

[Stendhal]

And there is still no update concluding the fate of the Baltic Germans.

I refer you to Carlton's #6191

The Germans in Russian POW and internment camps would be traced through the Armistice Commission and the Red Cross and transported into the German sphere as quickly as their health and the railroad network allow. Inevitably a number of them will decide to stay in the places of their first arrival or go on to Germany proper instead of returning to the devastated Baltic.

Also, I would guess Germany has some standard Trans-Polonic-Partnership agreement with all its client states that regulates German property. None of the Baltic states can afford to aggrieve the only power on the Baltic Lake.

 

[carlton_bach]

Sanssouci, 29 December

“At least it’s good to see we are not the craziest people around.” Walther Rathenau said flatly.


The report was unequivocal and shocking. Russia’s government, apparently finding that civil unrest, the continuing demobilisation of its army, the collapse of its industrial economy and the ongoing revolts of its peripheral subjects were not enough to keep it fully occupied, had decided on a cure for the paper rouble’s inflation. As of the First of May 1909, all old roubles not explicitly guaranteed in gold would be converted into new roubles at a rate of 1:14. The idea alone was enough to set economists’ heads spinning. More importantly, this was something that had to be done in secret. If word got out, the bottom would fall out of the money market. The savers and small businessmen of Russia would not take kindly to having their property thus diminished.


“Enviable, in a way,” remarked von Siemens, the finance minister. Germany had prescribed its economy a horrific regimen of high taxes, massive public investment, the selloff of state assets, and some downright evil manoeuvers delaying repayments of war bonds. People had given the Empire the shirt off their back, and Berlin turned around and told them they wouldn’t get it back anytime soon. All of it to stop the Mark from turning into a Confederate dollar, no more than that. Prices were still climbing daily, and all they could do was hope that their measures would eventually work. And the Russians could simply pull this.


“They don’t have much of a bourgeois class.” Ratzel said with an undignified shrug. “I suppose the government knows that their burghers need to stick by it. Everybody else hates them.”


Emperor Wilhelm nodded. “It must be helpful if your rich citizens can’t afford to alienate you.” He said acidly. “But it doesn’t answer the obvious question: Do we allow them to go ahead with it?”


“They don’t really need our permission….” Ratzel began.


“True.” Field Marshal von der Goltz interrupted him. “And if we make our disapproval of the plan public, it won’t matter one bit, will it?”


“That would be unwise.” Von Siemens insisted.


The emperor turned in his seat and fixed him with his single eye. It was a disconcerting experience, and Wilhelm had learned to use it to good effect. “Why exactly?”


“Russia is under tremendous strain,” the finance minister pointed out. “The very fact that they are willing to try something this drastic indicates the level of their desperation. The country is close to its crisis, and the risk is considerable that it could effectively collapse.”


That much was true. Nobody had expected the speed with which the Russian system of government collapsed once the army had been taken out. It was almost as though someone had removed the poles from a tent. The czar’s regency council still had options: They still had an army, for one thing, and their greenjacketed militias, the courts, the police and the tenuous strands of modernity that were woven across the land like a net. But their success was far from ensured, even if they pulled out all the stops. Which they apparently were willing to do, judging by some of the reports coming back.


“Sounds good to me.” Von der Goltz commented. “One less headache. France is bad enough on its own.”


Wilhelm scratched the bridge of his nose. This was one of those knotty questions he hated having to decide.


“Militarily, that may be true.” Rathenau said carefully, “though history suggests Russia has a way of recovering from deepest humiliations, and it does hold grudges. But economically, it is not something we can afford.”


Ratzel nodded. “We are already working on a schedule for the payment of the first tranche of the indemnity. Of course it will not be in gold. We stand to receive timber, copper, iron, tungsten, charcoal, oil, flax … all kinds of raw materials that our industry desperately needs. We cannot afford to buy them abroad, it would break the back of our economy. Not even with the Moscow gold shipment.”


Much of the gold had already been transferred to foreign creditors anyway, and the rest served as a meagre surety for the crushing burden of Berlin’s debt. If they were ever going to earn hard currency from exporting again, if they were to build all the homes, streets, railways, bridges and canals that the government promised, if they were going to service their debt at all, they needed the Russian indemnity. Siemens frowned, but he nodded assent.


“If Russia’s government collapses, so does our economy. I would say it may even be necessary for us to use troops to prop them up, should it come to that.”


The field marshal snorted. “What a world this is, where the greatest victory in a century must be thrown away over the appetites of fat bankers! The Germans I know would rather eat turnips for twenty years than suffer this indignity!”


Wilhelm knew that von der Goltz only turned to histrionics when he was losing an argument. The old warrior understood he could not stand against economic imperatives. What business needed, business must have.


“It may come to that yet, Doctor von Siemens.” He admitted. “For now, let them do what they can, and let us hope it is enough. We can worry about tomorrow when it comes.”

 

[carlton_bach]

Friedrichshafen, 30 December 1908

The engine was enormous. Designed to turn a propeller almost four metres in diameter, it would be suspended in a gondola under the hull of the world’s largest airship, which was invariably the last one that the Zeppelin GmbH launched. Maybach had worked wonders. The army had brought him the prototypes from the Zhukovsky laboratories in Gatchina, but this was an order of magnitude above anything the Russians had had in mind. It was nothing short of a modern miracle. Claude Dornier turned to the NCO attached to the programme with which the Prussian army – soon enough, it wold be the newly minted Reichsluftmacht – supported their research and development work. He looked so young…


“I suppose we can give it a test run.” Dornier suggested. It was cold and wet, and the holidays beckoned, but that was not something a real engineer would allow to distract him from his true love. “What do you think, Herr Feldwebel?”


Hauptfeldwebel Lagarde blinked. “I … sorry, Mr Dornier. I was just thinking. Test run – of course. I can call out the team. But if you consider – we have had five of these delivered, and the LZ 12 will only take four. Would this not do admirably for a high-performance wind tunnel?”


Dornier stifled a laugh. Damn, if there was one man in this outfit even crazier than him… “Capital idea! We should try it.” He looked at the soldier’s face more closely. Young – about his own age – but marked with the elusive quality that came from having ‘seen the elephant’, something that his French citizenship had spared the engineer. Dornier knew that he had an instinctive way with machines. His math was up to scratch, too. He had been giving this some thought before.


“Herr Feldwebel, have you given any thought about your career after discharge?”


Lagarde paused. It was a topic he contemplated with an odd mixture of wistful longing and secret dread. He might be free to do everything he wanted, but he doubted anything would be as rewarding, as interesting, and as much fun as his current work. “I suppose I might want to put in for a civil service position in some technical branch.“ he said guardedly. “Or maybe study something like that.”


“Yes.” Dornier felt hesitant. “I can see that that would be attractive. The thing is, I have consulted with the management, and we have decided that we would like to offer you a position on the staff once you are discharged. However… if you are interested…”


Lagarde’s heart skipped a beat. He struggled to retain his composure, succeeded, and answered calmly: “That would be an interesting offer. I still think that studying might get me farther.”


Dornier chuckled. “That was the point I was going to make: We would ask you to attend technical college. On the payroll, of course. Aviation is a young field, and we need everyone who understands anything if we are to make a success of it. Think about it!” The engineer unfolded a pocket yardstick to flesh out Lagarde’s idea. “128 cm… if we put it two metres off the ground, we should be able to make a wind tunnel large enough for 1:10 models and actual aeroplanes. What do you think?”


“Yes.” Hauptfeldwebel Lagarde said awkwardly. “Yes, on both counts. It would be a good idea. Now, regulating the airflow...”

 

[carlton_bach]

Berlin, 01 January 1909

The party was all but over – festivities ended early in Berlin, earlier than ever now that the war had impressed its Spartan stamp on everything the capital did. Her Majesty had withdrawn to her own apartments an hour earlier, giving rise to speculation about an impending addition to the imperial family. In the imperial chambers of the Stadtpalais, the consular guard remained. Doors comfortably closed, a table set with port and tobacco between them, the big three relaxed as the early hours of the new year ticked by. Wilhelm recalled with fondness the meetings they had had before the war. ‘Videant consules’ had been his idea, he mulled. Perhaps the best he had had in his as yet brief reign. Half his most important decisions had been born in this circle.


Field Marshal von der Goltz rested his feet on the ottoman, his military tunic half unbuttoned. On the other side of the table, fashionably languorous where the old bear looked scruffily tired, Walther Krupp von Rathenau had draped himself, a cigar in his left.


“We have been through a lot lately.” He proposed, unsteadily. Their meetings had become less frequent, and he was not certain whether to deplore it. Everyone around the table had changed. The emperor was no longer a child. He might like them, but he no longer needed them.


“Indeed, we have.” Wilhelm agreed. “And yet, we have come out looking pretty well. Some damage notwithstanding….” He gestured at his eyepatch. “And since we have so much to be thankful for,” he raised his glass. Von der Goltz scrambled to his feet and poured himself a generous measure of cognac. Rathenau picked up his half-full port and stood, trying hard to stop the swaying.


“Gentlemen, a toast to, next God, the architect of our victory:”


Von der Goltz frowned. Did he mean….? Surely, that level of self-aggrandisement was out of character. He cast a sideways glance at Rathenau. Bafflement showed on the business titan’s handsome face.


“To Emperor Nicholas II of Russia!”


Their laughter rattled the windowpanes.

 

[carlton_bach]

Explicit liber

 

[Shevek23]

Explicit liber

If that means what I think it means, I don't want to give it a like!

But sooner or later it had to come. Wonderful job, sir.

 

[carlton_bach]

If that means what I think it means, I don't want to give it a like!

But sooner or later it had to come. Wonderful job, sir.

It means that this is the end of the format. I plan to carry the timeline forward in a much reduced fashion, mostly through fictitious histrpry book quotes, but no more vignettes. And it gives me the excuse to post a story-only thread in Finished Timelines and Scenarios. It is now officially finished.

 

[HanEmpire]

Congratulations on completing this project, and thank you for the story!

 

[wietze]

Congratulations on completing this project, and thank you for the story!

seconded

 

[Deleted member 94708]

Explicit liber

Congratulations, sorry though I am to see this go.

Can we assume there will be nothing similarly ambitious in the immediate future to replace it given your family’s demand on your time?

 

[avernite]

Congrats on reaching a satisfactory, if obviously still open for followup, end - to what has been a grand story indeed

 

[Perfidious Albion]

Thank you; it has been an excellent story, at turns bleak and bright, chilling and moving.

 

[Grimbald]

A great read!

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Carlton Bach, thank you so very, very much for sharing your creativity and hard work. This story is simply superb; and while I am saddened to see its magnificence end, when it is time, it is time. Cheers!