If they will not meet us on the open sea (a Trent TL)
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Saphroneth
Banned
And phew! That's all the story posts threadmarked.
I didn't realize I had 127 story posts, wow...
I didn't realize I had 127 story posts, wow...
8 - 14 December 1863
Saphroneth
Banned
8th December
An expedition into the Pashtun regions runs afoul of Pashtuns angry with the expedition, and with the British more generally. A series of running rifle skirmishes begin, in which the British battalions (those with the Snider, as opposed to the Indians armed with the Brunswick or Enfield) are hard pressed to keep the perimeter under control in the face of thousands of sniping tribesmen.
Not wanting to surrender, Neville Chamberlain (the commanding officer) elects to fort up on Crag Piquet and Eagle's Nest, and has the order passed to strictly ration ammunition.
9th December
Friar Mendel reads the article Eine Untersuchung des Problems der Vererbung und der Fehler der Blending Vererbung, und Implikationen für die natürliche Auswah, and has what he will later describe as a moment of holy revelation.
He immediately writes a letter to the author of the article - Charles Darwin - in which he explains that he believes he has strong evidence for a non-blending form of inheritance which will answer most or all of the problems Darwin outlines in the article.
Mendel does not explain the details of his system in this letter, choosing instead to say that he will be sure to send Darwin a copy of his first paper on the matter as soon as it is published, and additionally begs with Abbott Napp that he may be afforded some relief from his duties so as to publish a paper which he considers of great importance.
Abbott Napp (a kindly man who sponsored Mendel's formal education and who considers him a conscientious man and possible successor) grants him this leave, sure that Mendel will not be wasting the time.
11th December
Much of the Prussian III. Corps has been mobilized, and the combined formations begin refresher drill - both rifle shooting and square-bashing. There is much loud German shouting over the poor drill quality of the Landwehr incorporated into the divisions, but this fades to a more neutral rumbling when the shooting takes place as the Landwehr (all very enthusiastic about the whole affair) have largely been doing the odd practice session outside official training courses and are quite good overall.
The artillery, of course, is very good, and the Prussian general staff furnishes several possible advance routes and operational approaches to both Holstein and elsewhere.
12th December
The modern Prussian navy (consisting largely of SMS Thetis) is readied for potential combat at sea.
The Prussian naval officers consider that they would really like some more modern ships, especially as the Danish navy includes an ironclad. Someone asks if they can have a Zodiac class ironclad from Britain - SMS Widder (ram) has a good ring to it.
14th December
As a proof of the accuracy of his formulas on iron resistance as a function of temperature, Palliser performs an experiment outside Edinburgh to much fanfare. He has the noted scientist William Thomson select randomly which of two (identical) cannonballs is to be fired at which target, and also has Thomson select randomly which of two halves of a long armoured plate to douse with hot water from a steam engine.
After five minutes of hot water, both rounds are fired in quick succession against the plate. The doused section is dished in, resulting in a little spall on the far side, but the undoused section is pierced spectacularly.
An expedition into the Pashtun regions runs afoul of Pashtuns angry with the expedition, and with the British more generally. A series of running rifle skirmishes begin, in which the British battalions (those with the Snider, as opposed to the Indians armed with the Brunswick or Enfield) are hard pressed to keep the perimeter under control in the face of thousands of sniping tribesmen.
Not wanting to surrender, Neville Chamberlain (the commanding officer) elects to fort up on Crag Piquet and Eagle's Nest, and has the order passed to strictly ration ammunition.
9th December
Friar Mendel reads the article Eine Untersuchung des Problems der Vererbung und der Fehler der Blending Vererbung, und Implikationen für die natürliche Auswah, and has what he will later describe as a moment of holy revelation.
He immediately writes a letter to the author of the article - Charles Darwin - in which he explains that he believes he has strong evidence for a non-blending form of inheritance which will answer most or all of the problems Darwin outlines in the article.
Mendel does not explain the details of his system in this letter, choosing instead to say that he will be sure to send Darwin a copy of his first paper on the matter as soon as it is published, and additionally begs with Abbott Napp that he may be afforded some relief from his duties so as to publish a paper which he considers of great importance.
Abbott Napp (a kindly man who sponsored Mendel's formal education and who considers him a conscientious man and possible successor) grants him this leave, sure that Mendel will not be wasting the time.
11th December
Much of the Prussian III. Corps has been mobilized, and the combined formations begin refresher drill - both rifle shooting and square-bashing. There is much loud German shouting over the poor drill quality of the Landwehr incorporated into the divisions, but this fades to a more neutral rumbling when the shooting takes place as the Landwehr (all very enthusiastic about the whole affair) have largely been doing the odd practice session outside official training courses and are quite good overall.
The artillery, of course, is very good, and the Prussian general staff furnishes several possible advance routes and operational approaches to both Holstein and elsewhere.
12th December
The modern Prussian navy (consisting largely of SMS Thetis) is readied for potential combat at sea.
The Prussian naval officers consider that they would really like some more modern ships, especially as the Danish navy includes an ironclad. Someone asks if they can have a Zodiac class ironclad from Britain - SMS Widder (ram) has a good ring to it.
14th December
As a proof of the accuracy of his formulas on iron resistance as a function of temperature, Palliser performs an experiment outside Edinburgh to much fanfare. He has the noted scientist William Thomson select randomly which of two (identical) cannonballs is to be fired at which target, and also has Thomson select randomly which of two halves of a long armoured plate to douse with hot water from a steam engine.
After five minutes of hot water, both rounds are fired in quick succession against the plate. The doused section is dished in, resulting in a little spall on the far side, but the undoused section is pierced spectacularly.
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Saphroneth
Banned
Yes, it's that time when both men are thinking hard about their respective halves of the picture. This just got them in contact, and from there genetics follows almost inevitably and very quickly indeed. (Mendelian inheritance makes such amazing sense that, even though it's clearly not the whole picture, it offers an important framework.)Getting the science game on I see. And did I just see a chance for Mendel to get som earlier (pre-death) recognition? IF so I wholeheartedly approve
15 December 1863 - 4 January 1864
Saphroneth
Banned
15 December
Slightly belated launch of HMS Minotaur. This improved Achilles has turned out to take less time to construct than Achilles herself, and is planned to mount both heavy RML guns for punching armour and a large Armstrong battery for general work. Her entire side is protected by armour between 4.5 and 5.5 inches thick, and she is said to be essentially unsinkable by any of the weapons of the American War owing to the combination of her thick armour and her double bottom.
16 December
Charles Darwin is startled and gratified by Mendel's letter, and writes back expressing his great interest in what Mendel has to show him.
19 December
An Austrian diplomat at a meeting of the German Confederation attacks the way that Prussia is - supposedly - warping the whole of Confederation policy around themselves, with both the Polish crisis (attributed by the Austrian in question to the Prussians, something which is a little surprising to some) and the Holstein crisis being cited as examples of this.
Nevertheless, the resolution for action is passed by the Confederation, with a series of escalating get-out clauses amended onto it. It will activate on 12 January.
A patent is issued on Kampticon, later known as Linoleum.
21 December
HMS Achilles is launched. While inferior to Minotaur, she is seen as superior to Warrior and to the current French ships (the most recent and powerful of which is the Provence, which has a thicker belt but slightly thinner battery armour and less effective armour penetration).
The Admiralty's current plans in the event of war with France include the heavy use of Palliser shells on 68-lbers, Somerset guns and heavy RML guns to fight enemy ironclads, and the use of Martin's Shell to disable and destroy the French wooden liners.
25 December
Queen Victoria and her son-in-law Frederick III enjoy a fine Christmas together in Hanover with the blind Hanoverian king George V (a close relative of both other monarchs through different routes). Discussion of politics takes place, in which Victoria states her view that it would be best for Prussia to take a liberal leadership position in German affairs.
George V disagrees, being an autocrat and Austrian partisan by nature, and Queen Victoria of Prussia defuses the situation in deft fashion before an argument can really get going.
26 December
New evidence comes to light in a divorce case, in which it is revealed that Lord Palmerston was not in fact sleeping with the woman in the case as he had originally been accused.
It is perhaps the simplest summary of Palmerston, his energy and his public persona that the suggestion that the seventy-nine year old man had been sleeping around was met with a general sense that the idea was both plausible and a source of amusement and admiration.
1 January 1864
A mass of thanks is held in St John's Archcathedral in Warsaw, expressing the joy and relief of the city for being delivered from the threat of the Russian occupation of the citadel.
The mass also holds a political significance - it is explicitly a New Year Mass, and underlines the separation from Russia and the closer affinity with non-Orthodox Europe by stressing the Gregorian calendar.
4 January
Charles Darwin reads Gregor Mendel's summary paper, Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden (a short piece written up in a tearing hurry and read in Brno a few days previously) and also the four-page notes Mendel has sent on about the basic properties of the hybridization experiments.
Darwin is thunderstruck by the elegance of the concept, and immediately comes up with a number of examples from human inheritance of "dominant" or "recessive" characteristics (the traditional blond hair and blue eyes being two of the most obvious, at least at first glance).
He is well aware that in most cases it is clearly more complicated than Mendel's peas, but feels this is probably a matter for further research.
He sends Mendel's paper on to the Royal Society, describing it as a "fine piece of work in the matter of inheritance from a gentleman of Moravia", and writes a long letter back to the friar expressing his admiration. The letter also speculates on how some beneficial heritable property may arise which is recessive, but in which that fraction of the population where the property appears nevertheless will be advantaged and become the majority as they preferentially survive and reproduce.
Slightly belated launch of HMS Minotaur. This improved Achilles has turned out to take less time to construct than Achilles herself, and is planned to mount both heavy RML guns for punching armour and a large Armstrong battery for general work. Her entire side is protected by armour between 4.5 and 5.5 inches thick, and she is said to be essentially unsinkable by any of the weapons of the American War owing to the combination of her thick armour and her double bottom.
16 December
Charles Darwin is startled and gratified by Mendel's letter, and writes back expressing his great interest in what Mendel has to show him.
19 December
An Austrian diplomat at a meeting of the German Confederation attacks the way that Prussia is - supposedly - warping the whole of Confederation policy around themselves, with both the Polish crisis (attributed by the Austrian in question to the Prussians, something which is a little surprising to some) and the Holstein crisis being cited as examples of this.
Nevertheless, the resolution for action is passed by the Confederation, with a series of escalating get-out clauses amended onto it. It will activate on 12 January.
A patent is issued on Kampticon, later known as Linoleum.
21 December
HMS Achilles is launched. While inferior to Minotaur, she is seen as superior to Warrior and to the current French ships (the most recent and powerful of which is the Provence, which has a thicker belt but slightly thinner battery armour and less effective armour penetration).
The Admiralty's current plans in the event of war with France include the heavy use of Palliser shells on 68-lbers, Somerset guns and heavy RML guns to fight enemy ironclads, and the use of Martin's Shell to disable and destroy the French wooden liners.
25 December
Queen Victoria and her son-in-law Frederick III enjoy a fine Christmas together in Hanover with the blind Hanoverian king George V (a close relative of both other monarchs through different routes). Discussion of politics takes place, in which Victoria states her view that it would be best for Prussia to take a liberal leadership position in German affairs.
George V disagrees, being an autocrat and Austrian partisan by nature, and Queen Victoria of Prussia defuses the situation in deft fashion before an argument can really get going.
26 December
New evidence comes to light in a divorce case, in which it is revealed that Lord Palmerston was not in fact sleeping with the woman in the case as he had originally been accused.
It is perhaps the simplest summary of Palmerston, his energy and his public persona that the suggestion that the seventy-nine year old man had been sleeping around was met with a general sense that the idea was both plausible and a source of amusement and admiration.
1 January 1864
A mass of thanks is held in St John's Archcathedral in Warsaw, expressing the joy and relief of the city for being delivered from the threat of the Russian occupation of the citadel.
The mass also holds a political significance - it is explicitly a New Year Mass, and underlines the separation from Russia and the closer affinity with non-Orthodox Europe by stressing the Gregorian calendar.
4 January
Charles Darwin reads Gregor Mendel's summary paper, Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden (a short piece written up in a tearing hurry and read in Brno a few days previously) and also the four-page notes Mendel has sent on about the basic properties of the hybridization experiments.
Darwin is thunderstruck by the elegance of the concept, and immediately comes up with a number of examples from human inheritance of "dominant" or "recessive" characteristics (the traditional blond hair and blue eyes being two of the most obvious, at least at first glance).
He is well aware that in most cases it is clearly more complicated than Mendel's peas, but feels this is probably a matter for further research.
He sends Mendel's paper on to the Royal Society, describing it as a "fine piece of work in the matter of inheritance from a gentleman of Moravia", and writes a long letter back to the friar expressing his admiration. The letter also speculates on how some beneficial heritable property may arise which is recessive, but in which that fraction of the population where the property appears nevertheless will be advantaged and become the majority as they preferentially survive and reproduce.
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What an accurate historical representation of a British Character in an Alt-ACW scenario!?
You mean this isn't all because of Palmerston's "Malevolent Hostility" for the Union, no seriously that's a quoted phrase.
And Queen Victoria might not be a crazed shrill harridan?
Or Garnet Wolseley doesn't have a "Weak Chin and a Thin Moustache", another description quoted, perhaps somewhat inaccurately.
It suggests a certain lack of objectivity, and perhaps a deficiency of historical accuracy, amoungst some writers?
Saphroneth
Banned
I'll admit to trying my utmost to avoid caricature, certainly. The divorce proceedings and his citation are OTL!
More seriously, people's attitudes are enduring but their actions are often pragmatic but shaped by those attitudes. Lincoln is a fairly gentle man, but TTL he's probably somewhat dismayed - after all, the Union is broken and the great cause is lost, and he's ended up coming in with a huge share of the blame.
He'll live longer than OTL, though.
6-13 January 1864
Saphroneth
Banned
6 January
Benjamin Butler publishes a book The Guilty Generals of the Great American War, which attacks essentially everyone of command rank in the army except for himself. It does not blame Lincoln for the Trent war, and instead argues that the war was entirely winnable but for the incompetence of the officers in charge of allocating and using army resources (except for himself, of course, who did the best he could with what he had). Grant is decried for alcoholism, McClellan for reluctance to commit his army, Meade for an inability to prevent the investment of Washington DC and for allowing the Capitol to be shelled - the list goes on.
Of particular note is the third section of the book, which can best be viewed as an early example of an alternate history. It describes an alternate approach to the Trent situation, allocating troops and guns in a bewildering array of numbers and tables to arrive at a situation where the Union (so he concludes) could annex Canada, drive the Confederacy out of Kentucky and Virginia, and make heavy inroads into Tennessee within the first six months of the war.
The publication of the book causes outrage in the War Department - quite apart from anything else, almost everyone in the building has been attacked - and McClellan sums up the general sense when he notes that Butler's analysis "moves divisions across the map of the United States at the speed of a mail train, turns recruits into soldiers the equal of the fearsome British riflemen with the addition of one rusty musket for every two men, and assumes that the coast is of no importance whatsoever to defend".
He also notes in passing that, while he will admit to being hoodwinked by Lee, he has also seen Lee's commissariat records and that Butler underestimates the size of Lee's force by nearly half.
9 January
Admiralty minute on the continued value of the liner, or steam line of battle ship. It is generally considered that the type is currently still of value, but it is also noted that in the event of any budgetary or manpower problems the liners should be the first target of force reduction - in the event of a French copy of Martin's Shell being made then most of the liners would be not very useful in a clash of battle lines.
The value of five thousand tonnes of wooden sail and steam ship in the logistic sense is noted to still be considerable, in the event that a major overseas deployment is required to a place without a nearby base. (Though admittedly "just use the Great Eastern" is also considered viable.)
11 January
Butler - considering the negative reaction of the Generals to be vindication - begins looking for a flag officer or navy captain to provide an equivalent book for the US Navy side of things.
The reaction in the Navy is very negative, since nobody with the ability to count thinks that the US Navy could have done much more than delayed the inevitable by a week or two. (The destruction of almost every US naval yard, dockyard, coastal fort or ship has made a considerable impression, even though the USN is now slowly expanding back to a default size; it also means that nearly every surviving flag officer and indeed most captains saw action at the battles in question.)
The only captain to consider breaking ranks is Wilkes, though at the moment this is a private thought.
12 January
German Confederation troops, largely formed of the Prussian III Corps with additional attachments and detachments from other German states, marches into Holstein. Their objective is to force or bypass the Dannevirke, and thus to bring the Danish government to the negotiating table; if this is not sufficient, then they are permitted to advance into South Schleswig for the purpose of bringing the Danish army to battle.
13 January
President Lincoln examines the facts of the case, then flatly denies a request for military assistance in finally defeating the Lakota.
Showing more of the old energy than he has done in some time, Lincoln declares that it would better suit the Land of the Free to treat those with whom it has treated well, as the Confederacy to the south appears to have formed a partnership with their own native population to great effect.
Benjamin Butler publishes a book The Guilty Generals of the Great American War, which attacks essentially everyone of command rank in the army except for himself. It does not blame Lincoln for the Trent war, and instead argues that the war was entirely winnable but for the incompetence of the officers in charge of allocating and using army resources (except for himself, of course, who did the best he could with what he had). Grant is decried for alcoholism, McClellan for reluctance to commit his army, Meade for an inability to prevent the investment of Washington DC and for allowing the Capitol to be shelled - the list goes on.
Of particular note is the third section of the book, which can best be viewed as an early example of an alternate history. It describes an alternate approach to the Trent situation, allocating troops and guns in a bewildering array of numbers and tables to arrive at a situation where the Union (so he concludes) could annex Canada, drive the Confederacy out of Kentucky and Virginia, and make heavy inroads into Tennessee within the first six months of the war.
The publication of the book causes outrage in the War Department - quite apart from anything else, almost everyone in the building has been attacked - and McClellan sums up the general sense when he notes that Butler's analysis "moves divisions across the map of the United States at the speed of a mail train, turns recruits into soldiers the equal of the fearsome British riflemen with the addition of one rusty musket for every two men, and assumes that the coast is of no importance whatsoever to defend".
He also notes in passing that, while he will admit to being hoodwinked by Lee, he has also seen Lee's commissariat records and that Butler underestimates the size of Lee's force by nearly half.
9 January
Admiralty minute on the continued value of the liner, or steam line of battle ship. It is generally considered that the type is currently still of value, but it is also noted that in the event of any budgetary or manpower problems the liners should be the first target of force reduction - in the event of a French copy of Martin's Shell being made then most of the liners would be not very useful in a clash of battle lines.
The value of five thousand tonnes of wooden sail and steam ship in the logistic sense is noted to still be considerable, in the event that a major overseas deployment is required to a place without a nearby base. (Though admittedly "just use the Great Eastern" is also considered viable.)
11 January
Butler - considering the negative reaction of the Generals to be vindication - begins looking for a flag officer or navy captain to provide an equivalent book for the US Navy side of things.
The reaction in the Navy is very negative, since nobody with the ability to count thinks that the US Navy could have done much more than delayed the inevitable by a week or two. (The destruction of almost every US naval yard, dockyard, coastal fort or ship has made a considerable impression, even though the USN is now slowly expanding back to a default size; it also means that nearly every surviving flag officer and indeed most captains saw action at the battles in question.)
The only captain to consider breaking ranks is Wilkes, though at the moment this is a private thought.
12 January
German Confederation troops, largely formed of the Prussian III Corps with additional attachments and detachments from other German states, marches into Holstein. Their objective is to force or bypass the Dannevirke, and thus to bring the Danish government to the negotiating table; if this is not sufficient, then they are permitted to advance into South Schleswig for the purpose of bringing the Danish army to battle.
13 January
President Lincoln examines the facts of the case, then flatly denies a request for military assistance in finally defeating the Lakota.
Showing more of the old energy than he has done in some time, Lincoln declares that it would better suit the Land of the Free to treat those with whom it has treated well, as the Confederacy to the south appears to have formed a partnership with their own native population to great effect.
Saphroneth
Banned
McClellan has to say something along those lines even if Butler's right, of course. He's being a little unkind (but not much) - Butler basically assumed that all the locomotives and rolling stock needed to make his strategic concentrations were placed ahead of time in the right positions (for example), and assumed that the matter of the coast could be left to the Navy...Ah, the world's first ever ASB scenario!
First of all what is happening here and secondly is not fighting Indians really viable even in a chastened US?
Saphroneth
Banned
This is the Indian War with the Lakota, which is a bit confused compared to OTL (where it was plenty confused enough). The Minnesota militia have pushed the Indians clear out of their State, but the Lakota fell back to the area that's now the Dakotas and OTL were pursued until surrender. TTL Lincoln has decided that - since the reason for the uprising was that Indian Bureau agents were witholding what they were supposed to provide to the Lakota (ie money to buy food) - the militia aren't going to get further support, as they can clearly protect themselves. (OTL he showed plenty of clemency in this particular Indian War.)
Ah, the world's first ever ASB scenario!
Actually its been used as a Rhetorical Teaching Tool since at least Aristotle.
Hellenistic Scholars tended to use a lot of "What ifs".
in OTL he pardoned a large number of the Sioux who were caught (although there were still about 40 or so who were hanged), because he recognized that US government corruption was the primary trigger of the fighting. Not a shining moment in our history to be sure, but the Sioux did some rather nasty stuff here also (although they did show more restraint than was commonly found in frontier warfare).
RodentRevolution
Banned
It was a joke
There, there you'll feel better the next time Saph blows something up
Saphroneth
Banned
Going by current indications, that'll be a lot of Danish pastries. (Or should that be pasty Danish?)There, there you'll feel better the next time Saph blows something up
In all seriousness, the Dannevirke operations are going to be interesting.