"Fight and be Right"
- Thread starter EdT
- Start date
You think that's bad?
I'm writing well into the 1950s and 60s in some places (like China) in Her Diamond Heart, whilst others are stuck in the 1930s...
Right, I'm getting a bit frustrated with the irritatingly specific writer's block so I'm going to give you, my loyal readers, a choice. Which would you prefer, wait some time for the next chronological part of Fight and Be Right, or have me post the next part but one immediately and then fill in the small gap sometime later on?
Basically, in choosing the latter you'd miss out on the conclusion of TTL's war in Asia and go straight to the end of the war proper, with the events of the bit you're missing alluded to but not detailed. Personally, I don't think it's a massive loss, but if you're feeling completist, please do let me know! I'm conscious that I haven't updated for a while and as I have plenty of new material to post part of me wants to get one with things...
Your choice, anyhow.
Basically, in choosing the latter you'd miss out on the conclusion of TTL's war in Asia and go straight to the end of the war proper, with the events of the bit you're missing alluded to but not detailed. Personally, I don't think it's a massive loss, but if you're feeling completist, please do let me know! I'm conscious that I haven't updated for a while and as I have plenty of new material to post part of me wants to get one with things...
Your choice, anyhow.
I don't think I can argue with font that large- plus, while it's a pain to leave something out it's only really extra detail which isn't massively integral to the plot. Unlike the next chapter...
Chapter 30
“The hardest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine.”
“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”
__________________________________________________
(Taken from “Imperial Russia, from to Oboyan to Brussels” by James Monahan, Pagoda 1975)
Russia was famous for its “Stanniks”. A ragged army of holy men and mystics endlessly traversed the Empire, dressed in tattered robes and with staff in hand. Some went barefoot in winter with chains on their legs, rejoicing in the trail of blood they left on the snow. The chief of the Okhrana, Sergei Zubatov[1], believed they represented the “out-and-out anarchist element amongst Russian peasantry”: the Stannik, he said,
“possesses no real ID papers or even false ones, conceals his real name with the utmost persistence, and can survive, undetected, thanks to village sympathisers, who supply them secretly with food and lodging in dark cellars. They are underground men, free from official identity and earthly restraint. They are dangerous”[2]
Zubatov was correct. While 1894 was not as bad a harvest year as 1891 and 1892, it was still reasonably poor; this combined with fear and anger at the prospect of conscription and the news from Afghanistan, ensured that agrarian discontent steadily grew in the autumn of the year. All that was needed was a spark. This was provided in Tomsk that September, when the Stannik Grigori Rasputin met several exiled Dukhobortsy...
Rasputin is an enigma. Decades of relentless character assassination at the hands of Tsarist propagandists have left the historian little reliable information to go on; all that is certain is that he was a born a peasant near Tyumen sometime in the late 1860s[3], left his village at a young age to wander as a perpetual pilgrim, and was a highly effective preacher and speaker. The one photograph that exists shows a raw-boned man with a pale and intense face and a long, ragged beard, surprisingly delicate hands and dark, deep set eyes. Rasputin apparently wintered at home; on his way westwards from Lake Baikal, having already presumably witnessed the growing discontent on the land, he stopped in Tomsk and imbibed Dukhobortsy dogma.
In its true form, Dukhobortsy is a difficult creed to master, and demands much of the devotee; it is not a sect that lends itself easy evangalisation. Rasputin cared little for this. His trade was in telling people what they wished to hear, and when confronted by the strict tenets of the sect, he did not even attempt to conform. He simply took the attractive aspects of Dukhobortsy – resistance to conscription, communalism, intense religiosity – and wove them into his own rabble-rousing preaching. The result was dramatic. As Rasputin gradually made his way westwards from Tomsk to his home in Tyumen, he left a growing number of believers in his wake. As winter descended on Western Siberia, thousands of peasants returned to their villages to spread the word; by the time spring, and the conscription proclamations came, the entire country was about to rise...
(Taken from “The Encyclopaedia of the 19th Century”, ed James Radcliffe, Novak 1977)
BOXER REBELLION: Period of severe political unrest in Russia between April 1895 and June 1896, primarily consisting of a major peasant revolt but also including terrorism, military mutiny and strikes. The rebellion began in the spring of 1895 as the Siberian peasantry were visited by army recruitment bands. Whipped into a religious hysteria by the preaching of the charismatic monk Rasputin, they began pulling up railway lines, burning the houses of landowners and ambushing the troops sent to quell the disturbances. The term ‘Boxer’, which was used in contemporary news reporting to describe the rebels and subsequently stuck, was actually a highly inaccurate translation; the Dukhobor sect, which was at the core of the revolt, actually should be rendered as ‘spirit wrestlers’[4]...
(Taken from “Imperial Russia, from to Oboyan to Brussels” by James Monahan, Pagoda 1975)
By April 1895 Russia was already fraying at the edges. The bad harvest had left the cities hungry and discontented, vast swathes of Turkestan were in full revolt on behalf of their co-religionists in Afghanistan, and communal strife in Transcaucasia, always simmering beneath the surface, was escalating into open fighting[5]. More worryingly, even in court circles there were growing whispers about the Tsar’s competence to govern. Two events that spring turned manageable discontent into a full-scale crisis; the first was the Dukhobor agrarian disturbances, the second, the Finnish General Strike.
Beginning in April, as military officials began to tour the villages of Western Siberia looking for suitable conscripts, local people began to resist. The experience of Overyata, near Perm, was typical. On April 18th, when the inspector assigned to the village paid a visit, he simply disappeared along with the three soldiers who had joined him. The Governor of Perm sent a search party; they were shot at and were forced to retreat back to the city. Soon roving bands of peasants were burning the houses of local landowners, and any travel through the area had to be in heavily-escorted convoys. The peasants had no organisation or political programme; they simply acted out of anger and frustration, and of themselves were little threat to Russia’s established order. Their impact, however, was highly dangerous. The disturbances meant that even less food reached the cities, and the occupation or destruction of railway lines meant that supplies and reinforcements could not easily be sent from the settled east to the revolt-stricken areas of Turkestan.
The disturbances continued well into the summer; even the arrest of the infamous Rasputin did little to improve the situation. On July 2nd, the Okhrana pounced on a prosperous merchant’s house in the town of Lytkarino, near Moscow. In the cellar, they found a makeshift chapel; in a cupboard, they found Rasputin and the merchant’s wife. The Grand Duke Sergei, governor of the region, realised the propaganda gift he had been given, and promptly put the unfortunate monk on trial, not for the expected treason, but rather for heresy. Evidence was produced to prove that Rasputin was not a Dukhobor, but one of the depraved, self-flagellating orgiastic Khlysty; scores of young women were produced claiming that the Stannik had convinced them that only through sin could their souls be cleansed[6], the secret chapel built underneath his hut was lovingly described[7], and witnesses came forward to describe the orgies that took place there[8].
Having inextricably linked, in his view, the Stannik Rasputin with extraordinary deviancy, the Grand Duke saved his greatest insult to the end. The Governor of Moscow decreed that as a Khlysty, the traditional mode of execution should be employed; just as the self-proclaimed ‘Christ’ and arch-pilot of Khlysty Ivan Suslov met his end, Rasputin was shot at dawn, his body then being crucified to the Kremlin wall as a stark warning to others. Andrew White[9], the American Ambassador to Russia at the time, later wrote that the crucifixion was “more appropriate for darkest Africa and savage negroes than a European Power... It was the single most repellent spectacle I have ever witnessed.”
The second major threat to St Petersburg occurred much closer to home. By early 1895, the Grand Duchy of Finland was seething with discontent; the Tsar’s decision to pursue a policy of ‘Russification’ was deeply unpopular and in the years before the war had already provoked small petitions, passive resistance and similar tokens of dissent[10]. What the Russian authorities found so reprehensible about Finland was its ‘separatism’, that is, autonomous political, economic and cultural institutions that differed sharply from the Russian model. These always held the danger of encouraging alternative ways of thinking elsewhere in the Empire, including the ethnic Russian lands. There was also the need for security. The diplomatic shift to a pro-French policy had shifted Russian security concerns to central and northern Europe; as Finland lay so close to St Petersburg, it was the key to Russia’s northern border[11].
It soon became clear that while for the Finns, their nation was a separate state united with the Russian Empire only through the Emperor, for Russia it was merely an autonomous province. In 1890, the Tsar had quietly placed the Finnish postal service under the control of the Russian Ministry of the Interior[12]. More was to come; the year before the war, the Tsar had issued a proclamation asserting the right of the Imperial Government to rule the Grand Duchy without the consent of the Finnish diet[13]. This was deeply unpopular as it was, but in May 1894, as war broke out, newspapers in Finland published details of plans, apparently well-advanced, for the abolition of the Finnish army and the adoption of Russian as the language of administration within Finland[14]. The result was mass protest, a series of small disturbances within the Grand Duchy’s army, and a huge petition to the Tsar, signed by half a million Finns. Just as with the first petition, Nicholas refused even to acknowledge the Finnish delegation[15]. Throughout 1894 and early 1895, the mood in Finland darkened, obliging the Tsar to give his Governor the right to declare martial law should he choose. The final straw would come the following June...
(Taken from “The War of the Dual Alliance” by Douglas Fry, Hudson 1978)
“By the glorious Alpine summer of 1895, most of the French and Italian troops stationed along the two nations’ mountainous border had grown used to relative peace and inactivity. Ever since war had been declared the previous spring, fighting in the region had been restricted to the occasional skirmish between mountain patrols. The Italians were convinced that the threat of German intervention was enough to prevent Paris from initiating major military operations in the region; French commanders, much to their own frustration, had discovered that the Italians were right.
There had always been elements within the French Government and Military that dismissed the German threat as a bluff, and, as it became increasingly apparent that the colonial war was lost, these voices became stronger. In February 1895, Gabriel Terrail and Arthur Meyer went to see Boulanger and demanded action. Extending the war to Italy, they argued, would not only provide action for the large numbers of increasingly restless French troops sat in their barracks reading about foreign combat, but would also lift plunging domestic morale. Moreover, the devious Terrail added, control of Turin and Milan would be powerful bargaining chips in a negotiated settlement to end the conflict.
Boulanger’s fear had never been that such an attack would not succeed, merely the nature of German response. Yet as French morale declined his resolution began to waver. In March, in response to the British capture of Dakar, the French press, egged on by Meyer, began a sustained campaign for the opening of an Alpine front. Still the General resisted; but then, in the spring, two events occurred which were to change his mind. The first was the humiliating Russian withdrawal from forward positions in Afghanistan, which finally ended any chance of India being held ransom in exchange for peace. The second was the disastrous attack on Formosa in June. Hoping that the Allied powers were as war-weary as his own nation, Boulanger reasoned that a swift and decisive defeat of Italy might be accomplished before the Germans were willing to act. If this could be done, an immediate peace deal, to France’s advantage, could be sought.
Throughout June, the French army quietly concentrated troops in the Dauphiné, while the veteran General the Marquis de Galliffet[16] devised a plan of attack. It called for a limited incursion into Italian territory in the Cottian Alps at the Col de Frejus, with a follow-up assault by a much larger force if resistance was light...”
(Taken from “Boulanger” by Francis Moorhead, Imperial 1973)
In the early hours of July 6st 1895, the men who would decide the outcome of the General’s last gamble left the Fort du Replaton[17] and crept up the Col de Frejus. Two battalions of the feared Chasseurs Alpins spearheaded the attack; at dawn, the hastily-constructed Italian outpost on the shores of the pass’ small lake was assaulted and quickly taken, and a few hours later the French descended on the town of Bardonecchia below.
Bardonecchia should have been held. The Fort of Bramafam[18], standing on a hill above the town, was a modern and formidable construction, with new artillery pieces. Unfortunately for the Italians, most of the troops who should have been defending the region, and had trained to do so, had instead been sent the previous year to the Horn of Africa; as a result, the remaining Alpini and Bersaglieri formations had been spread thinly across the entire front, bolstered by large numbers of poorly-trained and equipped conscripts[19]. Many troops had not been issued with new rifles because the War Ministry wanted to use up its stock of old cartridges[20], and morale in the Turin region was extremely low, largely as a result of General Baccaris’[21] fanatical- and frequently murderous- approach to discipline. As a result, the garrison at Bramafam had been teetering on the brink of mutiny for weeks over unpaid wages and poor food, and the few guards on duty on the morning of July 6th were more concerned about their rumbling bellies than any attack; after only a few minutes of bombardment by the French, the conscripts apprehended their officers at gunpoint and surrendered to the bemused invaders.
By dawn, the area was under full French control, and de Galliffet cabled Boulanger for instructions. The General’s orders were as simple as they were bold; capture Turin by Bastille Day. Crucially, the charges set by Italian sappers in the Frejus rail tunnel failed to detonate, sparing de Galliffet the trouble of reinforcing his invasion force across the dirt track of the Col de Frejus and allowing supplies and troops to flow into Bardonecchia, where he made his headquarters. Realising that any breakout into the Po Basin would have to take place while the Italian forces were still off-balance, de Galliffet ordered his troops to advance down the Susa valley as rapidly as possible; two days later, French forces met their first real taste of Italian resistance...”
(Taken from “The Encyclopaedia of the 19th Century”, ed James Radcliffe, Novak 1977)
“BATTLE OF SALBERTRAND: 1895 battle during the War of the Dual Alliance as the French conducted their invasion of Piedmont. The French attack across the Alps had taken the Italians by surprise, and General Baccaris scrambled to put together a force capable of stopping the advance in the foothills of the Alps. The advancing French finally ran into the Italian positions at the village of Salbertrand, 15 miles from the French border and 40 from Turin. The Italians had numbers and the terrain in their favour, but French leadership, equipment and troops were far superior. The result was the bloodiest battle on Italian soil since Solferino, as General de Galliffet threw his men time after time down the narrow Susa valley against the Italian trenches, and General Baccaris fed ever-increasing numbers of his conscripts into the fray to stop him.
After 36 hours of near constant fighting, and extremely heavy casualties on both sides, the Italian lines broke and Baccaris withdrew eastwards to Susa with the few troops he had left. Both commands were almost destroyed in the fighting- over 10,000 casualties had been inflicted- but the arrival of fresh French reinforcements from across the Frejus ensured that de Galliffet was able to continue on the offensive. The bloodbath at Salbertrand had two hugely important impacts; firstly, it left the city of Turin almost entirely open to French assault. Ironically the prospect of this, and Italy’s subsequent humiliation, had precisely the opposite effect to that intended by General Boulanger; instead of Italian surrender and a negotiated peace, he had done enough to provoke Germany into action...”
(Taken from “A History of Modern Europe, 1789-1939” by Frederick Carson, Picador 1960)
On July 13th, on the eve of Bastille Day, the German Ambassador called on the Élysée Palace. His message was a blunt ultimatum. The Reich viewed the French offensive in Italy as a breach of the Turin Treaty, a provocation and a threat; if French forces did not pull back to the border and resume their previous defensive stance, Germany would declare war. France’s bluff had been called, and decisively. Boulanger, though a patriot, was a rational man. He knew that France, already beaten in the war overseas against the British, would have no chance whatsoever in a simultaneous war with Germany. Yet to meekly accept the German ultimatum and abandon the drive on Turin, with the Italians decisively defeated in the field, would be an unparalleled national humiliation. For eight years, the General had successfully balanced on what a German newspaper had termed ‘the razor’s edge’. Now, finally, his balance had left him and he would be forced to jump one way or the other...”
(Taken from “Boulanger” by Francis Moorhead, Imperial 1973)
“The General’s romanticism had given way to despair before. The death of his beloved Marguerite four years earlier[22] had driven him close to suicide; only by losing himself in his work, and his determination to deliver France from her enemies both internal and external had he survived. “I’d never have thought it possible to live like this with a heart torn to shreds,” he wrote to Henri Rochefort in August 1891, “If only there were a battle or a war somewhere, how gladly I’d go to it! Now all I have left is Marianne”[23].
All his life, Boulanger had been subject to quickly alternating moods of exhilaration and depression, a tendency encouraged in his later years by the effects of morphia. But in the hours after the German ultimatum, he felt a great calm descend upon him. Gone were the hesitations and fumblings which had often hampered his judgement in the past. At 10AM on July 14th he signed the order commanding French forces to seek a cease-fire in Piedmont and withdraw to their positions on the Italian border. Then, having personally overseen the transmission of the order, he returned to his office and penned a short political testament.
“For fourteen months, I have fought. I have tried to overcome. I have not succeeded, and now am at the end of my strength. I will not let the Republic fall into catastrophe, but have too much pride to bear existence with the knowledge of my shame. I assume all responsibility.
On leaving this life I have but one regret: that of not dying on the field of battle, as a soldier, for my country. Yet I hope my native land will allow one of its children, on the point of returning to oblivion, to utter these two rallying cries to all who love our dear country: ‘Vive la France! Vive la Republique!’”[24]
At half past eleven General Boulanger drew a revolver from his pocket and held it to his right temple. He pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed through his brain, emerged from the left temple and embedded itself in the wall behind him. He died within seconds. An aide, hearing the shot, ran into the room to find the General’s body had not moved, except for his head, which fell forward to the chest and spouted a violent jet of scarlet. The revolver was clenched in his right hand; in his left, a picture of his beloved Marguerite...”
__________________________________________________
[1] This is a slight inaccuracy on the part of the author; Zubatov, just as IOTL, is appointed in the early 1900s.
[2] This is exactly what the Okhrana believed IOTL.
[3] Even OTL, it is uncertain when Rasputin was born; he himself did not know, and while his daughter claims it was 1871, other sources variously date his birth any year between 1864 and 1869.
[4] This is the case IOTL as well.
[5] Relations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis were especially bad during this period; OTL things culminated in a series of massacres during the 1905 revolution, but ITTL the war provokes a similar, if smaller, process.
[6] This was Rasputin’s modus operandi OTL as well.
[7] This also existed; IOTL Rasputin faced allegations of Khlysty for precisely this reason.
[8] This is not true, but the Okhrana have to earn their pay somehow.
[9] OTL, White was appointed ambassador to Russia by Benjamin Harrison in 1892; ITTL President Foraker has made the same appointment.
[10] OTL, Nicholas II revived russification on his accession to the throne. As this comes earlier ITTL the policy is brought forward.
[11] This is the other reason why Russification proceeds faster ITTL; it’s part of a general effort to shore up Russia’s north-western defences.
[12] This occurred OTL.
[13] This is a direct analogue of OTL’s ‘February Manifesto’ of 1899.
[14] Both occurred IOTL.
[15] This happened OTL as well.
[16] The Marquis has postponed his retirement for the campaign; OTL, he is best known for suppressing the Paris Commune in 1871, and for briefly serving as France’s War Minister.
[17] The fort, which is still there today, is newly built both OTL and ITTL. There were far fewer corresponding Italian fortifications in the period.
[18] Forte de Bramafam was built in the 1870s to serve as a defence against precisely this sort of attack. It was partially demolished by the Germans in 1944 and is now a military museum.
[19] This was a problem OTL during the Italo-Ethiopian war, where enough elite units were sent to Abyssinia to cause problems defending the metropole, while still not being enough to avoid sending conscripts to Africa. The result was that both armies had an unfortunate combination of excellent troops and very poor ones. ITTL Crispi has sent more Alpini to Abyssinia so the problem along the Alpine front, where the Italians don’t really expect to fight, is worse.
[20] This was a problem at Adowa IOTL.
[21] Fiorenzo Bave-Beccaris is best known for the 1898 massacre that bears his name and was claimed as the motive for the later assassination of King Umberto. A reactionary, priggish and singularly stupid man, he is not a good person to be facing a determined attack by as competent commander.
[22] Marguerite, or the Vicomtesse de Bonnemains, had been Boulanger’s long-term mistress both OTL and ITTL. Her death OTL spurred the General’s suicide.
[23] By which Boulanger means the symbol of the French Republic.
[24] Most of this is taken from Boulanger’s OTL suicide note.
“The hardest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine.”
“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”
__________________________________________________
(Taken from “Imperial Russia, from to Oboyan to Brussels” by James Monahan, Pagoda 1975)
Russia was famous for its “Stanniks”. A ragged army of holy men and mystics endlessly traversed the Empire, dressed in tattered robes and with staff in hand. Some went barefoot in winter with chains on their legs, rejoicing in the trail of blood they left on the snow. The chief of the Okhrana, Sergei Zubatov[1], believed they represented the “out-and-out anarchist element amongst Russian peasantry”: the Stannik, he said,
“possesses no real ID papers or even false ones, conceals his real name with the utmost persistence, and can survive, undetected, thanks to village sympathisers, who supply them secretly with food and lodging in dark cellars. They are underground men, free from official identity and earthly restraint. They are dangerous”[2]
Zubatov was correct. While 1894 was not as bad a harvest year as 1891 and 1892, it was still reasonably poor; this combined with fear and anger at the prospect of conscription and the news from Afghanistan, ensured that agrarian discontent steadily grew in the autumn of the year. All that was needed was a spark. This was provided in Tomsk that September, when the Stannik Grigori Rasputin met several exiled Dukhobortsy...
Rasputin is an enigma. Decades of relentless character assassination at the hands of Tsarist propagandists have left the historian little reliable information to go on; all that is certain is that he was a born a peasant near Tyumen sometime in the late 1860s[3], left his village at a young age to wander as a perpetual pilgrim, and was a highly effective preacher and speaker. The one photograph that exists shows a raw-boned man with a pale and intense face and a long, ragged beard, surprisingly delicate hands and dark, deep set eyes. Rasputin apparently wintered at home; on his way westwards from Lake Baikal, having already presumably witnessed the growing discontent on the land, he stopped in Tomsk and imbibed Dukhobortsy dogma.
In its true form, Dukhobortsy is a difficult creed to master, and demands much of the devotee; it is not a sect that lends itself easy evangalisation. Rasputin cared little for this. His trade was in telling people what they wished to hear, and when confronted by the strict tenets of the sect, he did not even attempt to conform. He simply took the attractive aspects of Dukhobortsy – resistance to conscription, communalism, intense religiosity – and wove them into his own rabble-rousing preaching. The result was dramatic. As Rasputin gradually made his way westwards from Tomsk to his home in Tyumen, he left a growing number of believers in his wake. As winter descended on Western Siberia, thousands of peasants returned to their villages to spread the word; by the time spring, and the conscription proclamations came, the entire country was about to rise...
(Taken from “The Encyclopaedia of the 19th Century”, ed James Radcliffe, Novak 1977)
BOXER REBELLION: Period of severe political unrest in Russia between April 1895 and June 1896, primarily consisting of a major peasant revolt but also including terrorism, military mutiny and strikes. The rebellion began in the spring of 1895 as the Siberian peasantry were visited by army recruitment bands. Whipped into a religious hysteria by the preaching of the charismatic monk Rasputin, they began pulling up railway lines, burning the houses of landowners and ambushing the troops sent to quell the disturbances. The term ‘Boxer’, which was used in contemporary news reporting to describe the rebels and subsequently stuck, was actually a highly inaccurate translation; the Dukhobor sect, which was at the core of the revolt, actually should be rendered as ‘spirit wrestlers’[4]...
(Taken from “Imperial Russia, from to Oboyan to Brussels” by James Monahan, Pagoda 1975)
By April 1895 Russia was already fraying at the edges. The bad harvest had left the cities hungry and discontented, vast swathes of Turkestan were in full revolt on behalf of their co-religionists in Afghanistan, and communal strife in Transcaucasia, always simmering beneath the surface, was escalating into open fighting[5]. More worryingly, even in court circles there were growing whispers about the Tsar’s competence to govern. Two events that spring turned manageable discontent into a full-scale crisis; the first was the Dukhobor agrarian disturbances, the second, the Finnish General Strike.
Beginning in April, as military officials began to tour the villages of Western Siberia looking for suitable conscripts, local people began to resist. The experience of Overyata, near Perm, was typical. On April 18th, when the inspector assigned to the village paid a visit, he simply disappeared along with the three soldiers who had joined him. The Governor of Perm sent a search party; they were shot at and were forced to retreat back to the city. Soon roving bands of peasants were burning the houses of local landowners, and any travel through the area had to be in heavily-escorted convoys. The peasants had no organisation or political programme; they simply acted out of anger and frustration, and of themselves were little threat to Russia’s established order. Their impact, however, was highly dangerous. The disturbances meant that even less food reached the cities, and the occupation or destruction of railway lines meant that supplies and reinforcements could not easily be sent from the settled east to the revolt-stricken areas of Turkestan.
The disturbances continued well into the summer; even the arrest of the infamous Rasputin did little to improve the situation. On July 2nd, the Okhrana pounced on a prosperous merchant’s house in the town of Lytkarino, near Moscow. In the cellar, they found a makeshift chapel; in a cupboard, they found Rasputin and the merchant’s wife. The Grand Duke Sergei, governor of the region, realised the propaganda gift he had been given, and promptly put the unfortunate monk on trial, not for the expected treason, but rather for heresy. Evidence was produced to prove that Rasputin was not a Dukhobor, but one of the depraved, self-flagellating orgiastic Khlysty; scores of young women were produced claiming that the Stannik had convinced them that only through sin could their souls be cleansed[6], the secret chapel built underneath his hut was lovingly described[7], and witnesses came forward to describe the orgies that took place there[8].
Having inextricably linked, in his view, the Stannik Rasputin with extraordinary deviancy, the Grand Duke saved his greatest insult to the end. The Governor of Moscow decreed that as a Khlysty, the traditional mode of execution should be employed; just as the self-proclaimed ‘Christ’ and arch-pilot of Khlysty Ivan Suslov met his end, Rasputin was shot at dawn, his body then being crucified to the Kremlin wall as a stark warning to others. Andrew White[9], the American Ambassador to Russia at the time, later wrote that the crucifixion was “more appropriate for darkest Africa and savage negroes than a European Power... It was the single most repellent spectacle I have ever witnessed.”
The second major threat to St Petersburg occurred much closer to home. By early 1895, the Grand Duchy of Finland was seething with discontent; the Tsar’s decision to pursue a policy of ‘Russification’ was deeply unpopular and in the years before the war had already provoked small petitions, passive resistance and similar tokens of dissent[10]. What the Russian authorities found so reprehensible about Finland was its ‘separatism’, that is, autonomous political, economic and cultural institutions that differed sharply from the Russian model. These always held the danger of encouraging alternative ways of thinking elsewhere in the Empire, including the ethnic Russian lands. There was also the need for security. The diplomatic shift to a pro-French policy had shifted Russian security concerns to central and northern Europe; as Finland lay so close to St Petersburg, it was the key to Russia’s northern border[11].
It soon became clear that while for the Finns, their nation was a separate state united with the Russian Empire only through the Emperor, for Russia it was merely an autonomous province. In 1890, the Tsar had quietly placed the Finnish postal service under the control of the Russian Ministry of the Interior[12]. More was to come; the year before the war, the Tsar had issued a proclamation asserting the right of the Imperial Government to rule the Grand Duchy without the consent of the Finnish diet[13]. This was deeply unpopular as it was, but in May 1894, as war broke out, newspapers in Finland published details of plans, apparently well-advanced, for the abolition of the Finnish army and the adoption of Russian as the language of administration within Finland[14]. The result was mass protest, a series of small disturbances within the Grand Duchy’s army, and a huge petition to the Tsar, signed by half a million Finns. Just as with the first petition, Nicholas refused even to acknowledge the Finnish delegation[15]. Throughout 1894 and early 1895, the mood in Finland darkened, obliging the Tsar to give his Governor the right to declare martial law should he choose. The final straw would come the following June...
(Taken from “The War of the Dual Alliance” by Douglas Fry, Hudson 1978)
“By the glorious Alpine summer of 1895, most of the French and Italian troops stationed along the two nations’ mountainous border had grown used to relative peace and inactivity. Ever since war had been declared the previous spring, fighting in the region had been restricted to the occasional skirmish between mountain patrols. The Italians were convinced that the threat of German intervention was enough to prevent Paris from initiating major military operations in the region; French commanders, much to their own frustration, had discovered that the Italians were right.
There had always been elements within the French Government and Military that dismissed the German threat as a bluff, and, as it became increasingly apparent that the colonial war was lost, these voices became stronger. In February 1895, Gabriel Terrail and Arthur Meyer went to see Boulanger and demanded action. Extending the war to Italy, they argued, would not only provide action for the large numbers of increasingly restless French troops sat in their barracks reading about foreign combat, but would also lift plunging domestic morale. Moreover, the devious Terrail added, control of Turin and Milan would be powerful bargaining chips in a negotiated settlement to end the conflict.
Boulanger’s fear had never been that such an attack would not succeed, merely the nature of German response. Yet as French morale declined his resolution began to waver. In March, in response to the British capture of Dakar, the French press, egged on by Meyer, began a sustained campaign for the opening of an Alpine front. Still the General resisted; but then, in the spring, two events occurred which were to change his mind. The first was the humiliating Russian withdrawal from forward positions in Afghanistan, which finally ended any chance of India being held ransom in exchange for peace. The second was the disastrous attack on Formosa in June. Hoping that the Allied powers were as war-weary as his own nation, Boulanger reasoned that a swift and decisive defeat of Italy might be accomplished before the Germans were willing to act. If this could be done, an immediate peace deal, to France’s advantage, could be sought.
Throughout June, the French army quietly concentrated troops in the Dauphiné, while the veteran General the Marquis de Galliffet[16] devised a plan of attack. It called for a limited incursion into Italian territory in the Cottian Alps at the Col de Frejus, with a follow-up assault by a much larger force if resistance was light...”
(Taken from “Boulanger” by Francis Moorhead, Imperial 1973)
In the early hours of July 6st 1895, the men who would decide the outcome of the General’s last gamble left the Fort du Replaton[17] and crept up the Col de Frejus. Two battalions of the feared Chasseurs Alpins spearheaded the attack; at dawn, the hastily-constructed Italian outpost on the shores of the pass’ small lake was assaulted and quickly taken, and a few hours later the French descended on the town of Bardonecchia below.
Bardonecchia should have been held. The Fort of Bramafam[18], standing on a hill above the town, was a modern and formidable construction, with new artillery pieces. Unfortunately for the Italians, most of the troops who should have been defending the region, and had trained to do so, had instead been sent the previous year to the Horn of Africa; as a result, the remaining Alpini and Bersaglieri formations had been spread thinly across the entire front, bolstered by large numbers of poorly-trained and equipped conscripts[19]. Many troops had not been issued with new rifles because the War Ministry wanted to use up its stock of old cartridges[20], and morale in the Turin region was extremely low, largely as a result of General Baccaris’[21] fanatical- and frequently murderous- approach to discipline. As a result, the garrison at Bramafam had been teetering on the brink of mutiny for weeks over unpaid wages and poor food, and the few guards on duty on the morning of July 6th were more concerned about their rumbling bellies than any attack; after only a few minutes of bombardment by the French, the conscripts apprehended their officers at gunpoint and surrendered to the bemused invaders.
By dawn, the area was under full French control, and de Galliffet cabled Boulanger for instructions. The General’s orders were as simple as they were bold; capture Turin by Bastille Day. Crucially, the charges set by Italian sappers in the Frejus rail tunnel failed to detonate, sparing de Galliffet the trouble of reinforcing his invasion force across the dirt track of the Col de Frejus and allowing supplies and troops to flow into Bardonecchia, where he made his headquarters. Realising that any breakout into the Po Basin would have to take place while the Italian forces were still off-balance, de Galliffet ordered his troops to advance down the Susa valley as rapidly as possible; two days later, French forces met their first real taste of Italian resistance...”
(Taken from “The Encyclopaedia of the 19th Century”, ed James Radcliffe, Novak 1977)
“BATTLE OF SALBERTRAND: 1895 battle during the War of the Dual Alliance as the French conducted their invasion of Piedmont. The French attack across the Alps had taken the Italians by surprise, and General Baccaris scrambled to put together a force capable of stopping the advance in the foothills of the Alps. The advancing French finally ran into the Italian positions at the village of Salbertrand, 15 miles from the French border and 40 from Turin. The Italians had numbers and the terrain in their favour, but French leadership, equipment and troops were far superior. The result was the bloodiest battle on Italian soil since Solferino, as General de Galliffet threw his men time after time down the narrow Susa valley against the Italian trenches, and General Baccaris fed ever-increasing numbers of his conscripts into the fray to stop him.
After 36 hours of near constant fighting, and extremely heavy casualties on both sides, the Italian lines broke and Baccaris withdrew eastwards to Susa with the few troops he had left. Both commands were almost destroyed in the fighting- over 10,000 casualties had been inflicted- but the arrival of fresh French reinforcements from across the Frejus ensured that de Galliffet was able to continue on the offensive. The bloodbath at Salbertrand had two hugely important impacts; firstly, it left the city of Turin almost entirely open to French assault. Ironically the prospect of this, and Italy’s subsequent humiliation, had precisely the opposite effect to that intended by General Boulanger; instead of Italian surrender and a negotiated peace, he had done enough to provoke Germany into action...”
(Taken from “A History of Modern Europe, 1789-1939” by Frederick Carson, Picador 1960)
On July 13th, on the eve of Bastille Day, the German Ambassador called on the Élysée Palace. His message was a blunt ultimatum. The Reich viewed the French offensive in Italy as a breach of the Turin Treaty, a provocation and a threat; if French forces did not pull back to the border and resume their previous defensive stance, Germany would declare war. France’s bluff had been called, and decisively. Boulanger, though a patriot, was a rational man. He knew that France, already beaten in the war overseas against the British, would have no chance whatsoever in a simultaneous war with Germany. Yet to meekly accept the German ultimatum and abandon the drive on Turin, with the Italians decisively defeated in the field, would be an unparalleled national humiliation. For eight years, the General had successfully balanced on what a German newspaper had termed ‘the razor’s edge’. Now, finally, his balance had left him and he would be forced to jump one way or the other...”
(Taken from “Boulanger” by Francis Moorhead, Imperial 1973)
“The General’s romanticism had given way to despair before. The death of his beloved Marguerite four years earlier[22] had driven him close to suicide; only by losing himself in his work, and his determination to deliver France from her enemies both internal and external had he survived. “I’d never have thought it possible to live like this with a heart torn to shreds,” he wrote to Henri Rochefort in August 1891, “If only there were a battle or a war somewhere, how gladly I’d go to it! Now all I have left is Marianne”[23].
All his life, Boulanger had been subject to quickly alternating moods of exhilaration and depression, a tendency encouraged in his later years by the effects of morphia. But in the hours after the German ultimatum, he felt a great calm descend upon him. Gone were the hesitations and fumblings which had often hampered his judgement in the past. At 10AM on July 14th he signed the order commanding French forces to seek a cease-fire in Piedmont and withdraw to their positions on the Italian border. Then, having personally overseen the transmission of the order, he returned to his office and penned a short political testament.
“For fourteen months, I have fought. I have tried to overcome. I have not succeeded, and now am at the end of my strength. I will not let the Republic fall into catastrophe, but have too much pride to bear existence with the knowledge of my shame. I assume all responsibility.
On leaving this life I have but one regret: that of not dying on the field of battle, as a soldier, for my country. Yet I hope my native land will allow one of its children, on the point of returning to oblivion, to utter these two rallying cries to all who love our dear country: ‘Vive la France! Vive la Republique!’”[24]
At half past eleven General Boulanger drew a revolver from his pocket and held it to his right temple. He pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed through his brain, emerged from the left temple and embedded itself in the wall behind him. He died within seconds. An aide, hearing the shot, ran into the room to find the General’s body had not moved, except for his head, which fell forward to the chest and spouted a violent jet of scarlet. The revolver was clenched in his right hand; in his left, a picture of his beloved Marguerite...”
__________________________________________________
[1] This is a slight inaccuracy on the part of the author; Zubatov, just as IOTL, is appointed in the early 1900s.
[2] This is exactly what the Okhrana believed IOTL.
[3] Even OTL, it is uncertain when Rasputin was born; he himself did not know, and while his daughter claims it was 1871, other sources variously date his birth any year between 1864 and 1869.
[4] This is the case IOTL as well.
[5] Relations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis were especially bad during this period; OTL things culminated in a series of massacres during the 1905 revolution, but ITTL the war provokes a similar, if smaller, process.
[6] This was Rasputin’s modus operandi OTL as well.
[7] This also existed; IOTL Rasputin faced allegations of Khlysty for precisely this reason.
[8] This is not true, but the Okhrana have to earn their pay somehow.
[9] OTL, White was appointed ambassador to Russia by Benjamin Harrison in 1892; ITTL President Foraker has made the same appointment.
[10] OTL, Nicholas II revived russification on his accession to the throne. As this comes earlier ITTL the policy is brought forward.
[11] This is the other reason why Russification proceeds faster ITTL; it’s part of a general effort to shore up Russia’s north-western defences.
[12] This occurred OTL.
[13] This is a direct analogue of OTL’s ‘February Manifesto’ of 1899.
[14] Both occurred IOTL.
[15] This happened OTL as well.
[16] The Marquis has postponed his retirement for the campaign; OTL, he is best known for suppressing the Paris Commune in 1871, and for briefly serving as France’s War Minister.
[17] The fort, which is still there today, is newly built both OTL and ITTL. There were far fewer corresponding Italian fortifications in the period.
[18] Forte de Bramafam was built in the 1870s to serve as a defence against precisely this sort of attack. It was partially demolished by the Germans in 1944 and is now a military museum.
[19] This was a problem OTL during the Italo-Ethiopian war, where enough elite units were sent to Abyssinia to cause problems defending the metropole, while still not being enough to avoid sending conscripts to Africa. The result was that both armies had an unfortunate combination of excellent troops and very poor ones. ITTL Crispi has sent more Alpini to Abyssinia so the problem along the Alpine front, where the Italians don’t really expect to fight, is worse.
[20] This was a problem at Adowa IOTL.
[21] Fiorenzo Bave-Beccaris is best known for the 1898 massacre that bears his name and was claimed as the motive for the later assassination of King Umberto. A reactionary, priggish and singularly stupid man, he is not a good person to be facing a determined attack by as competent commander.
[22] Marguerite, or the Vicomtesse de Bonnemains, had been Boulanger’s long-term mistress both OTL and ITTL. Her death OTL spurred the General’s suicide.
[23] By which Boulanger means the symbol of the French Republic.
[24] Most of this is taken from Boulanger’s OTL suicide note.
Damn EdT, but that was worth the wait. Things look bleak for France and Russia I must say. Do they have anything going for them at all?
Excellent question- sadly, Boulanger's 'play everyone off against each other and hope something turns up' leadership style means that not only is there no clear successor, but all the contenders hate each other for ideological as well as personal reasons.
Basically, you've got three broad factions; the broadly Republican Right, led by Déroulède and La Bruyère,the Republican Left in exile, led by Clemenceau, and the Monarchists (largely Orleanists) led by Meyer and the Duchess D'Uzès. Then you've got conniving opportunists like Dillon and Terrail who will go wherever they think they can win.
None of these factions can win on their own, and all the individuals involved absolutely despise each other, so the ensuing power struggle, coming as it does a complete surprise, has the potential to be a bit messy. The one saving grace is that nobody actually wants civil war, and that seeing as whoever takes power will probably need to make peace pretty sharpish, they have an incentive to make their coalition as big as possible to spread the blame. There are still an awful lot of potential outcomes though, as the next post explores.
They certainly don't mess around- and the Grand Duke Sergei, who we will see more of, is the hardest bastard of the lot.
Well, both nations have the fact that their enemies can't plausibly invade their metropole, and their home armies are intact; you're not going to see British expeditionary forces in Paris or Moscow, for example. But neither are in a position to take any offensive action, domestic morale is in the toilet, the British blockade is biting... It's not 1918 Germany by any means at all, but there's nothing to be gained from continuing the war.
Good point. This could be a significant factor in the latter German domination that seems to have occurred later on.
Probably more to the point would be simple geo-politics. With Britain boosted in moral and apparent power and France and Russia quite possibly going into periods of chaos and decline the two would be natural rivals. Even without Wilhelm II and Randolph as leaders. [Two egos that big is bound to cause problems.]
Steve
Well, for all that the war has been destructive enough that both nations want it to end, it's not catastrophic. Yet. For a start, the numbers of casualties on all sides are surprisingly small given the war's global scope- 300,000-350,000 or thereabouts, and a lot of that will be from tropical disease rather than enemy action. A disproportionate amount also consists of dead Abyssinians rather than Europeans, but that's by the by. That's broadly comparable to the Franco-Prussian war, but spread over half the world and two large power blocs- your average Poilu will have spent the entire war twiddling his thumbs in barracks or, at most, taking potshots at a British cruiser hovering offshore.
France has been largely untouched by enemy action. Sure, the odd French port has been flattened and coastal factories have been shelled, but the British can only reach a few miles inland and industrial regions such as Lille will I suspect have seen a wartime boom as much as anything. Much as the British blockade hurts, trade with continental nations (aside Italy, obv.) continues more or less as before; if I remember correctly, wasn't Germany France's largest trading partner in the period?
Where France loses is shiping. Her merchant fleet is either interned, sunk or trapped in port; her Navy is in the same state, although you could argue that the Royal Navy have thoughtfully saved Paris the need to scrap all of its pre-1888 experimental ship types. The colonies are either isolated or gone, but with limited exceptions they were a net drain on the coffers anyhow.
For all that the immediate political situation is a mess, I don't think France is that badly off, considering- and thanks to Boulanger's Open France immigration policy, by 1900 she'll have an extra million or so citizens compared with OTL. If France can weather the political problems thrown up by Boulanger, I think she may well end up slightly better off.
Russia's another matter- the peasants are restless, and as this is a Witte-less TL there hasn't been quite as much investment in the railways (no trans-Siberian, for example, although there is an eariler Central Asian line). The Empire's going to have much more hard-headed, technocratic leadership in the mdium term compared with OTL however, and I suspect we'll see more German investment to match the French. Why? See below.
Probably more to the point would be simple geo-politics. With Britain boosted in moral and apparent power and France and Russia quite possibly going into periods of chaos and decline the two would be natural rivals. Even without Wilhelm II and Randolph as leaders. [Two egos that big is bound to cause problems.
Until her ally in the Triple Alliance was threatened, Germany has been studiously neutral, and although there is a more pro-British sentiment than pro-French, in general public opinion has tended towards 'A plague on both your houses', with a side order of schadenfreude at the fact that Britain is doing Germany's dirty work for it insofar as France is concerned. Neither side has been able to take the moral highground though- for all that the British have used gas, the French have committed acts of piracy on the high seas.
However, the war does put Germany in a very strong position, on the Continent at least. Having seen France given a kicking, Berlin hopes that a concillatory policy towards Russia can ressurect the old 'Three Emperor's League'. Given that Russia will be keen for external security during its bit of local difficulty, it's a fair bet that this stance wil pay off, and the result will be a combination that is not neccesarily helpful towards British interests. It won't be anything like as polarised as OTL's division of Europe into two camps, but it seems perfectly possible that ITTL by 1900 a German-Austrian-Russian bloc might face an Anglo-Italian-Turkish one. As a result, it's entirely possible that an Anglo-French reconciliation may come surprisingly quickly.
Indeed they don't. But Britain has no particular desire to punish France too harshly and breed resentment as consequence, especially as Henry Drummond Wollf is shrewd enough to realise he may need French support against Austrian or Russian expansion in the East in the near future. The exact contours of the peace will be in the next chapter, by the way.
As for that bit you're stuck on, you could make it into a sub-chapter, and put it into its proper place when FaBR Mk2 is ready.
Having seen the various highly spoilerific maps, perticularly the world map in 1940, it looks like either Germany goes to war with France later on, or Britain has another war with France...
Can't wait for more...
Having seen the various highly spoilerific maps, perticularly the world map in 1940, it looks like either Germany goes to war with France later on, or Britain has another war with France...
Can't wait for more...
Poor Boulanger.
I rather liked him and his leadership.
At least his attempts to improve France will not be in vain.
Did not your Capone-special hint that Georges Clemenceau will win the post-Boulanger power struggle?
Very bad times for dissidents in Russia.
I guess that St. Petersburg will not remain Russia's capital after Finland gained sovereignty except Finland will remain associated with Russia.
Speaking of Germany, it seems like this country is the true victor of this war, while the British victory is somewhat pyrrhic (France is not the only nation which would lost a lot of shipping).
Why do you assume this? Post-1895 France seems to be the major country in Europe which avoids war against other major powers.
I rather liked him and his leadership.
At least his attempts to improve France will not be in vain.
Did not your Capone-special hint that Georges Clemenceau will win the post-Boulanger power struggle?
Very bad times for dissidents in Russia.
I guess that St. Petersburg will not remain Russia's capital after Finland gained sovereignty except Finland will remain associated with Russia.
Speaking of Germany, it seems like this country is the true victor of this war, while the British victory is somewhat pyrrhic (France is not the only nation which would lost a lot of shipping).
Why do you assume this? Post-1895 France seems to be the major country in Europe which avoids war against other major powers.
maverick
Banned
Now that I think so, the spoilers weren't that clear regarding France herself...common sense dictates that the Boulangerist Republic would die with him and a fifth republic would be proclaimed...
Also, the short-lived Republic of Guyana that was mentioned in chapter 14, between French guyana and brazil, in IOTL Amapa, is not seen in the maps...so I guess that dies with Boulanger.
Also, the short-lived Republic of Guyana that was mentioned in chapter 14, between French guyana and brazil, in IOTL Amapa, is not seen in the maps...so I guess that dies with Boulanger.
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