Bye bye, anarchists!
I actually remember reading the chapter where they came to power all the way back in November of 2019.
I actually remember reading the chapter where they came to power all the way back in November of 2019.
In this country , it is good to kill an admiral from time to time
- Thread starter Antony444
- Start date
With Antony444's permission, here is a little fanfiction about this TL:
The last continent (Antarctica 1902-1922)
Before the Great War, very few men had ever put a foot on antarctic soil, and none had done so further than a few kilometers inland. A few symbolic flags had been planted on the least hostiles spots around the coasts, French, English, Carolinian, among others, even a Scottish one a long time ago. Nevertheless no state really acted to try and take possession of these inhospitable lands, and no individual was both mad and wealthy enough to risk his life in the confines of this white emptiness. And thus Antarctica sat undisturbed.
But the Great War changed many things. Fortunes were made, which sometimes went from hands to hands and ended within the grasp of peculiar people. Crazy, some would say, out of their minds, lost to reason. Emboldened, would say others, bearers of a vision, slaves to a greater calling. Sometimes, those inheriting these fortunes simply felt guilty about amassing such a wealth in those dreadful times, and searched for any way to ease that guilt, being financing what appeared as the extraordinary feats humanity could attempt, or even taking part themselves in those attempts.
Be it as it may, a new era had opened for the last continent, an era of heroic deeds, an era of frenetic exploration and new discoveries, an era of great challenges, catastrophic failures and resplendent victories. The era of the polar expeditions.
What is known in popular history as the first of those expeditions actually wasn’t an attempt to reach the South Pole. Charles-Baptiste D’Arlevac, duke of Baie Grise in Basse Antipodée was one of those fervently preaching for France to control his whole birth continent. This, alas for Charles-Baptist, wasn’t the view of his government nor of his queen, later empress. He thus, and logically for a man born and nurtured in a family convinced that blood was the answer to all and that nobility was no less (but perhaps even more) than a free ticket for all their wills to be fulfilled by the lesser men, set his eyes on a bigger prize, that is, Antarctica.
Charles-Baptist goal was to land on said continent in November 1906 and spend the next year mapping precisely (more exactly, having his personal cartographer mapping precisely) the coast while circling all over Antarctica. Of course, he planned on leaving an impressive collection of flags all along, thus “conquering” the place for his monarch (and, not exactly secondarily, for his own glory).
Alas, the duke wasn’t exactly the most pleasant of men to interact with (his own self-esteem, some would say ego-centrism, coming between him and any he wouldn’t consider as a “peer”) and there is only so much loyalty that money can buy. He therefore ended up with less-than-stellar specialists among the members of his expedition, and quickly ensured that the others were only there for the pay, not for his project and even less for himself.
Inevitably, the first pothole turned into a dramatic failure, which the unforgiving weather of the Antarctic magnified into an utter catastrophe. Of the fifty-two members of the “year-round” expedition, three survivors managed to be rescued by a passing Irish boat two months after setting foot on the white continent. Charles-Baptist wasn’t among them.
This tragedy could have been a simple footnote in the books of history. However, as France and Spain were distributing the last unclaimed (at least in their views, the natives may have had another opinion on the subject) lands of Africa among themselves, the world started to look ever-shrinking and the ambitious of all nations soon started to see Antarctica as the last place where their appetite for conquest could be satisfied, that is, without taking the risk of a war against a “real” enemy. The South Pole had just became the last remaining trophy for those dreaming of taming new lands.
The next decade and a half saw an unbelievable interest for those “attempts” to reach the pole. In times of peace, the warmongers dreamed of new conquests. In times of war, the lovers of peace dreamed of its vast “unsullied” lands. Numerous expeditions were “launched”.
Many of these were scams, the most famous of them the “Oulianov-Djougachvili expedition” which ended with close to half a million Russians, Poles, Fins and Transylvanians robbed of their economies. The two men secretly fled to the Cape Republic, leaving their junior partner to bear the blunt of the Tsarina and her judges’ wrath. When the Russian secret services finally located the two main culprits, the now-proclaimed Drakan Empire refused to extradite them. The ensuing “special operation” left Vladimir Djougachvili and half a dozen Drakan policemen dead, worsening even more the relations between the two countries. Joseph Oulianov simply went missing, alongside a small fortune in gold and diamonds, never to be officially seen again. Literature, and later cinema, television and other media would offer theory upon theory concerning his final whereabouts.
Most of the sincere attempts at mounting a South Pole expedition would simply never get their undertaker further than their home country, sometimes even no further than their home city. Those who would actually set sails for Antarctica would often backtrack before reaching the white desolation, or perish along the way. From 1908 to 1918, only seven teams actually set foot on Antarctica proper.
Two of them would never move past their base camp, waiting a few month before giving up and coming back home, defeated, but alive. The Danish-Norwegian expedition of 1912 would progress more than a hundred kilometers within the continent, bringing back maps, samples, pictures and stories of places never before seen by man. But they too had to give up the pole. Not to the deadly weather, but to a far more trivial enemy. Botulism. It was later discovered that a small part of the food provisions were not properly checked. Only two cans were actually contaminated. But when Bjergmann, the head of the expedition, discovered one of them on the eve of reaching its no-return point before the winter, not knowing how the supposedly thorough check on the whole food stock let it pass, and, more importantly, what else it let pass, he picked the lives of his men over the glory and headed back.
Three other expeditions ended in tragedy, lost to the cold, illnesses, hunger, accidents, rivalry between members, or any other of those thousands of little setbacks that those unforgiving lands blew out of all proportion. The first bodies were only found nearly half a century later. And after a full century, the remains of the 1917 Spanish expedition would still remain unaccounted for.
In late 1918 the Drakans mounted their own expedition, with a core of Swedish volunteers and led by none other than a nephew of their infamous emperor. After all the bad press of the conquest of Madagascar, now Nelson Island, they wanted a “coup d’éclat” to try and restore their prestige on the world stage. The expedition was well-prepared; it seemed that said imperial nephew had recently stumbled upon an impressive fortune in precious stones and metal, one than none ever claimed back. He also benefited from the state’s (understand: his uncle’s) financial help to make ends meet. All said and done, this expedition was probably the one with the best equipment and crew so far.
It thus was the one which went the farthest.
But it was not enough. After fighting their way against the elements for months and progressing more than a thousand kilometers toward the pole, the Roosevelt-Van Beek expedition suffered the wrath of a storm unmatched by any of those they had endured to this point. After three days and three night of pure chaos and terror, when the wind finally came down, most of the precious equipment was utterly broken, the provisions spilled upon dozens of square kilometers of unforgiving ice. The Drakans and the Swedes had no choice but to turn around and hope to somehow miraculously get back to their coastal camp where some food was stockpiled.
For most of them, the miracle didn’t occur. Of the thirty seven men of the expedition, only two, both Swedes, made it back alive to their rendezvous with the ship that should bring them back to Africa. However, fearing that they would be judged for the failures of the expedition, they took advantage of the neutral flag the ship was operating under (bringing a Drakan ship in what was basically French-Irish waters would have been the kind of bad idea that was so bad it could very well end up being someone’s last bad idea) to transfer on a Spanish fishing boat and disembark in Spanish America, lost forever to the eyes and reach of their former masters.
If the world started pointing fingers at the Drakans’ failure, many would realize how close they had been to success. In some French circles, this realization took the form of a shockwave. The mishaps of an upstart like Charles-Baptiste were quiet funny, but only as long as no one else outside of France and, maybe, her closest allies, did succeed. The possibility of a Drakan, or worse, someone backed by a country with a competent army, like a Russian or a Carolinian, somehow laying a claim on the South Pole was outrageous. Actions had to be taken.
Empress Charlotte however was not very keen on suggesting to Russia and China that France was in the mood for even more conquests… and thus was the biggest threat around. In the eyes of France’s rivals, two tiny islands, especially belonging to a former ally and in the middle of an already French sea could be an acceptable addition to the empire. A brand new continent, no matter if uninhabited, surely wouldn’t. With tensions already running high all around the globe, Charlotte wasn’t ready to start a second Great War, especially if their was a risk of an unholy alliance of Russia and China against her armies. So, even if the new French expedition received some comfortable amounts of funding from the state (for the scientific parts, of course), it officially remained a private one. Both the crown and the empire’s government were also adamant that it did not change their (deliberately kept vague) view on the claims upon Antarctica… at least for now, that is.
This one soon turned into the largest expedition ever sent to Antarctica, with no less than forty scientists of various fields, among them geologists, cartographers, meteorologists, material sciences specialists, biologists and so on. It was also the first expedition to include women in its ranks, chief among them, on the discreet insistence of the empress, the head of the expedition, Odette Delabaie, a mixed Native-European from Cartier. She had been raised to knighthood the previous year by the empress herself for her saving of the d’Argenteuil cartographic expedition. When said expedition shipwrecked on the northern coast of the province, two of the youngest and fittest of its members went for help. One of them ended in Odette’s village. She then took upon herself to organize some of the remaining villagers, mostly women as most of the men had left for a two weeks hunting party, and rescued the stranded expedition. The presence within said expedition of a distant relative of the empress (somewhere around the fiftieth in the succession line) ensured the events quickly reached Charlotte’s ears.
The Delabaie expedition spent no less than six months, in the harsh 1919-1920 Cartier’s winter, training together before setting sail for their objective. Renewing their supplies, exchanging some items for others after their first trials, consolidating their food supplies, and making the long journey to the distant Antarctica ensured they set foot on the continent just as the austral winter was receding. The liberal use of sledges, dogs and, an important novelty in comparison of previous expeditions, skis, led to an incredibly fast pace. On March the 23rd, 1922, the French light cruiser Hirondelle, welcomed aboard the returning expedition. Their first stop would be the Malouines, where was developed a photograph that would soon be known all around the world: all the expedition members, exhausted, but smiling, grouped around the French flag, and, at their feet, a simple wood panel on which was written “Pôle Sud, 16 juin 1921”.
The last continent (Antarctica 1902-1922)
Before the Great War, very few men had ever put a foot on antarctic soil, and none had done so further than a few kilometers inland. A few symbolic flags had been planted on the least hostiles spots around the coasts, French, English, Carolinian, among others, even a Scottish one a long time ago. Nevertheless no state really acted to try and take possession of these inhospitable lands, and no individual was both mad and wealthy enough to risk his life in the confines of this white emptiness. And thus Antarctica sat undisturbed.
But the Great War changed many things. Fortunes were made, which sometimes went from hands to hands and ended within the grasp of peculiar people. Crazy, some would say, out of their minds, lost to reason. Emboldened, would say others, bearers of a vision, slaves to a greater calling. Sometimes, those inheriting these fortunes simply felt guilty about amassing such a wealth in those dreadful times, and searched for any way to ease that guilt, being financing what appeared as the extraordinary feats humanity could attempt, or even taking part themselves in those attempts.
Be it as it may, a new era had opened for the last continent, an era of heroic deeds, an era of frenetic exploration and new discoveries, an era of great challenges, catastrophic failures and resplendent victories. The era of the polar expeditions.
What is known in popular history as the first of those expeditions actually wasn’t an attempt to reach the South Pole. Charles-Baptiste D’Arlevac, duke of Baie Grise in Basse Antipodée was one of those fervently preaching for France to control his whole birth continent. This, alas for Charles-Baptist, wasn’t the view of his government nor of his queen, later empress. He thus, and logically for a man born and nurtured in a family convinced that blood was the answer to all and that nobility was no less (but perhaps even more) than a free ticket for all their wills to be fulfilled by the lesser men, set his eyes on a bigger prize, that is, Antarctica.
Charles-Baptist goal was to land on said continent in November 1906 and spend the next year mapping precisely (more exactly, having his personal cartographer mapping precisely) the coast while circling all over Antarctica. Of course, he planned on leaving an impressive collection of flags all along, thus “conquering” the place for his monarch (and, not exactly secondarily, for his own glory).
Alas, the duke wasn’t exactly the most pleasant of men to interact with (his own self-esteem, some would say ego-centrism, coming between him and any he wouldn’t consider as a “peer”) and there is only so much loyalty that money can buy. He therefore ended up with less-than-stellar specialists among the members of his expedition, and quickly ensured that the others were only there for the pay, not for his project and even less for himself.
Inevitably, the first pothole turned into a dramatic failure, which the unforgiving weather of the Antarctic magnified into an utter catastrophe. Of the fifty-two members of the “year-round” expedition, three survivors managed to be rescued by a passing Irish boat two months after setting foot on the white continent. Charles-Baptist wasn’t among them.
This tragedy could have been a simple footnote in the books of history. However, as France and Spain were distributing the last unclaimed (at least in their views, the natives may have had another opinion on the subject) lands of Africa among themselves, the world started to look ever-shrinking and the ambitious of all nations soon started to see Antarctica as the last place where their appetite for conquest could be satisfied, that is, without taking the risk of a war against a “real” enemy. The South Pole had just became the last remaining trophy for those dreaming of taming new lands.
The next decade and a half saw an unbelievable interest for those “attempts” to reach the pole. In times of peace, the warmongers dreamed of new conquests. In times of war, the lovers of peace dreamed of its vast “unsullied” lands. Numerous expeditions were “launched”.
Many of these were scams, the most famous of them the “Oulianov-Djougachvili expedition” which ended with close to half a million Russians, Poles, Fins and Transylvanians robbed of their economies. The two men secretly fled to the Cape Republic, leaving their junior partner to bear the blunt of the Tsarina and her judges’ wrath. When the Russian secret services finally located the two main culprits, the now-proclaimed Drakan Empire refused to extradite them. The ensuing “special operation” left Vladimir Djougachvili and half a dozen Drakan policemen dead, worsening even more the relations between the two countries. Joseph Oulianov simply went missing, alongside a small fortune in gold and diamonds, never to be officially seen again. Literature, and later cinema, television and other media would offer theory upon theory concerning his final whereabouts.
Most of the sincere attempts at mounting a South Pole expedition would simply never get their undertaker further than their home country, sometimes even no further than their home city. Those who would actually set sails for Antarctica would often backtrack before reaching the white desolation, or perish along the way. From 1908 to 1918, only seven teams actually set foot on Antarctica proper.
Two of them would never move past their base camp, waiting a few month before giving up and coming back home, defeated, but alive. The Danish-Norwegian expedition of 1912 would progress more than a hundred kilometers within the continent, bringing back maps, samples, pictures and stories of places never before seen by man. But they too had to give up the pole. Not to the deadly weather, but to a far more trivial enemy. Botulism. It was later discovered that a small part of the food provisions were not properly checked. Only two cans were actually contaminated. But when Bjergmann, the head of the expedition, discovered one of them on the eve of reaching its no-return point before the winter, not knowing how the supposedly thorough check on the whole food stock let it pass, and, more importantly, what else it let pass, he picked the lives of his men over the glory and headed back.
Three other expeditions ended in tragedy, lost to the cold, illnesses, hunger, accidents, rivalry between members, or any other of those thousands of little setbacks that those unforgiving lands blew out of all proportion. The first bodies were only found nearly half a century later. And after a full century, the remains of the 1917 Spanish expedition would still remain unaccounted for.
In late 1918 the Drakans mounted their own expedition, with a core of Swedish volunteers and led by none other than a nephew of their infamous emperor. After all the bad press of the conquest of Madagascar, now Nelson Island, they wanted a “coup d’éclat” to try and restore their prestige on the world stage. The expedition was well-prepared; it seemed that said imperial nephew had recently stumbled upon an impressive fortune in precious stones and metal, one than none ever claimed back. He also benefited from the state’s (understand: his uncle’s) financial help to make ends meet. All said and done, this expedition was probably the one with the best equipment and crew so far.
It thus was the one which went the farthest.
But it was not enough. After fighting their way against the elements for months and progressing more than a thousand kilometers toward the pole, the Roosevelt-Van Beek expedition suffered the wrath of a storm unmatched by any of those they had endured to this point. After three days and three night of pure chaos and terror, when the wind finally came down, most of the precious equipment was utterly broken, the provisions spilled upon dozens of square kilometers of unforgiving ice. The Drakans and the Swedes had no choice but to turn around and hope to somehow miraculously get back to their coastal camp where some food was stockpiled.
For most of them, the miracle didn’t occur. Of the thirty seven men of the expedition, only two, both Swedes, made it back alive to their rendezvous with the ship that should bring them back to Africa. However, fearing that they would be judged for the failures of the expedition, they took advantage of the neutral flag the ship was operating under (bringing a Drakan ship in what was basically French-Irish waters would have been the kind of bad idea that was so bad it could very well end up being someone’s last bad idea) to transfer on a Spanish fishing boat and disembark in Spanish America, lost forever to the eyes and reach of their former masters.
If the world started pointing fingers at the Drakans’ failure, many would realize how close they had been to success. In some French circles, this realization took the form of a shockwave. The mishaps of an upstart like Charles-Baptiste were quiet funny, but only as long as no one else outside of France and, maybe, her closest allies, did succeed. The possibility of a Drakan, or worse, someone backed by a country with a competent army, like a Russian or a Carolinian, somehow laying a claim on the South Pole was outrageous. Actions had to be taken.
Empress Charlotte however was not very keen on suggesting to Russia and China that France was in the mood for even more conquests… and thus was the biggest threat around. In the eyes of France’s rivals, two tiny islands, especially belonging to a former ally and in the middle of an already French sea could be an acceptable addition to the empire. A brand new continent, no matter if uninhabited, surely wouldn’t. With tensions already running high all around the globe, Charlotte wasn’t ready to start a second Great War, especially if their was a risk of an unholy alliance of Russia and China against her armies. So, even if the new French expedition received some comfortable amounts of funding from the state (for the scientific parts, of course), it officially remained a private one. Both the crown and the empire’s government were also adamant that it did not change their (deliberately kept vague) view on the claims upon Antarctica… at least for now, that is.
This one soon turned into the largest expedition ever sent to Antarctica, with no less than forty scientists of various fields, among them geologists, cartographers, meteorologists, material sciences specialists, biologists and so on. It was also the first expedition to include women in its ranks, chief among them, on the discreet insistence of the empress, the head of the expedition, Odette Delabaie, a mixed Native-European from Cartier. She had been raised to knighthood the previous year by the empress herself for her saving of the d’Argenteuil cartographic expedition. When said expedition shipwrecked on the northern coast of the province, two of the youngest and fittest of its members went for help. One of them ended in Odette’s village. She then took upon herself to organize some of the remaining villagers, mostly women as most of the men had left for a two weeks hunting party, and rescued the stranded expedition. The presence within said expedition of a distant relative of the empress (somewhere around the fiftieth in the succession line) ensured the events quickly reached Charlotte’s ears.
The Delabaie expedition spent no less than six months, in the harsh 1919-1920 Cartier’s winter, training together before setting sail for their objective. Renewing their supplies, exchanging some items for others after their first trials, consolidating their food supplies, and making the long journey to the distant Antarctica ensured they set foot on the continent just as the austral winter was receding. The liberal use of sledges, dogs and, an important novelty in comparison of previous expeditions, skis, led to an incredibly fast pace. On March the 23rd, 1922, the French light cruiser Hirondelle, welcomed aboard the returning expedition. Their first stop would be the Malouines, where was developed a photograph that would soon be known all around the world: all the expedition members, exhausted, but smiling, grouped around the French flag, and, at their feet, a simple wood panel on which was written “Pôle Sud, 16 juin 1921”.
Thanks, and, before I forget once more, thanks to Antony444 for the permission.
This is such an engaging timeline that I've read the entire thing twice. I have to wonder if someone in TTL might one day write a spec/alt history with a title like To Spare an Admiral and how they might imagine that world would turn out.
The Battle of Belgrade (The Balkans at War 1923)
Before the first artillery gun fired a shell against the defenders of Belgrade, the Russian envoys of the Tsarina had a lot of problematic questions for the Generals on the frontlines. Most of them were about the future of Serbia.
Obviously, it was out of the question to leave the future of the collapsing Anarchist nation to the capriciousness of Fate. Once the Russian soldiers turned their back and marched eastwards, it was a near-certainty the terrorists of the Levellers and their perfidious ilk would come back. The issue of governance had to be tackled here and now before a vicious circle of war engulfed the region for the next three or four decades.
Unfortunately, the Russian High Command had no outstanding option to propose. With most of the moderates and potential sympathisers already dead, there was no political or military force on the other side which desired to open negotiations in good faith. The officers often abstained to remark upon the minor issue of their punitive expeditions increasing the hate between occupying garrisons and occupied citizens.
No political situation and a country in ruins; the winter of 1923 was far from over, and already many observers were predicting the worst, not without good reasons to justify themselves. Despite the Dual Republic of Hungary-Austria vigilance, an unending flow of refugees was trying to escape the Russian onslaught by finding refuge in Hungarian or Bosnian lands, and of course the Anarchist leadership had plenty of agents in that crowd ready to inflame tempers. It was still early, but by February 4, the frontier soldiers in charge of this mess already reported four ‘incidents’ which had caused more than one hundred deaths each.
Several kilometres southwards, the Russian guns were shelling Belgrade, destroying the unpleasant Anarchist architecture and the far more pleasant monuments together.
As several of the ‘old favourites’ had fallen ill – when they had not had their throat cut by local assassins – command had fallen to General Denikin, a long-standing believer that his artillery battery could do anything provided there was enough ammunition to accomplish his goals.
To his dissatisfaction, there wasn’t. Serbian saboteurs had demolished everywhere they could the two rail lines Serbia had built post Great-War, not that it would have helped much as in the contrary case, the trains of Russia and Serbia used different railway gauges.
The Anarchist true believers had nothing to rejoice about, however. Since Denikin had only a limited supply to unleash a firestorm against Belgrade, the Russian General used most of what he had available in the first three days of assault, ordering his men to fire the batteries as fast as they could. The order was obeyed. The Russian regulars had to constantly cold down the tubes with snow and other old tricks, but for three days, the Russian army devastated Belgrade, transforming a large city into a field of rubble, contaminated water, and destroyed civilian tools.
As the clouds created by the uncountable fire darkened the day, it seemed impossible anything was still living into this near-hellish battleground.
But as the first Russian troopers went into the city, they met gunfire, light mortar shells, and well-prepared fanatics eager to die for their nihilistic philosophy.
The first hours of fighting on the fourth day of the Siege of Belgrade established a new level of atrocities, and the division of the Russian Army which entered the city lost one-quarter of its effectives, though the cost for the Serbians was above the ‘crippling’ threshold.
No quarter was asked. No quarter was given. And as the Russian veterans brought flamethrowers and heavy mortars to pulverise each position which had somehow survived the first bombardment, the cost in lives spiralled out of control and became a symbol of everything that was wrong in this war.
The political consequences didn’t make themselves wait. By then, enough Hungarians had arrived to properly report upon the Siege of Belgrade, and the messages they sent back home were not giving any compliment for both belligerents.
Worse, the attempts to raise a provisional local government in the Russian or Greek-conquered areas were evident by their absence. Pleas to inquire upon the subject were properly dismissed with haughty expressions.
As the Russians tried to find an exit for the bloody quagmire they had entered unaware, as their Greek allies showed a curious case of exhaustion to run northwards to join them at Belgrade, the ministers of Regensburg arrived to their own conclusions. One didn’t need to be a genius after all to see that if the land of Serbians wasn’t going to granted autonomy and independence after this war, it would be because its ‘destiny’ was to be a new ‘Grand Duchy’ of Moscow and the Tsarina.
In other words, the Austrians, Croats, Hungarians, and all other populations of the Republic would have a longer frontier with the Bear, while at the same time they were forced to juggle with the worst refugee crisis of the last two decades.
The simplest solution to this predicament – though definitely not the most honourable and tolerant one – was to send back all refugees to Serbia with more weapons to avenge themselves upon the Russians and close the frontier behind.
But this was Russia they were dealing with, one of the Great Powers. And besides, the Serbian Anarchists were nearly done. Street by street, when they were streets left, the Russian assault was eliminating their enemies ruin by ruin and bunker after bunker.
Needless to say, Regensburg politicians weren’t enjoying the prospect of a potential Russian spring offensive when so far no ally had come to support a vigorous stance against Moscow and its endless armies.
That was the moment a new wave of terror bombing was unleashed. But it didn’t happen in the Dual Republic.
No, this time the target was Stockholm...
Before the first artillery gun fired a shell against the defenders of Belgrade, the Russian envoys of the Tsarina had a lot of problematic questions for the Generals on the frontlines. Most of them were about the future of Serbia.
Obviously, it was out of the question to leave the future of the collapsing Anarchist nation to the capriciousness of Fate. Once the Russian soldiers turned their back and marched eastwards, it was a near-certainty the terrorists of the Levellers and their perfidious ilk would come back. The issue of governance had to be tackled here and now before a vicious circle of war engulfed the region for the next three or four decades.
Unfortunately, the Russian High Command had no outstanding option to propose. With most of the moderates and potential sympathisers already dead, there was no political or military force on the other side which desired to open negotiations in good faith. The officers often abstained to remark upon the minor issue of their punitive expeditions increasing the hate between occupying garrisons and occupied citizens.
No political situation and a country in ruins; the winter of 1923 was far from over, and already many observers were predicting the worst, not without good reasons to justify themselves. Despite the Dual Republic of Hungary-Austria vigilance, an unending flow of refugees was trying to escape the Russian onslaught by finding refuge in Hungarian or Bosnian lands, and of course the Anarchist leadership had plenty of agents in that crowd ready to inflame tempers. It was still early, but by February 4, the frontier soldiers in charge of this mess already reported four ‘incidents’ which had caused more than one hundred deaths each.
Several kilometres southwards, the Russian guns were shelling Belgrade, destroying the unpleasant Anarchist architecture and the far more pleasant monuments together.
As several of the ‘old favourites’ had fallen ill – when they had not had their throat cut by local assassins – command had fallen to General Denikin, a long-standing believer that his artillery battery could do anything provided there was enough ammunition to accomplish his goals.
To his dissatisfaction, there wasn’t. Serbian saboteurs had demolished everywhere they could the two rail lines Serbia had built post Great-War, not that it would have helped much as in the contrary case, the trains of Russia and Serbia used different railway gauges.
The Anarchist true believers had nothing to rejoice about, however. Since Denikin had only a limited supply to unleash a firestorm against Belgrade, the Russian General used most of what he had available in the first three days of assault, ordering his men to fire the batteries as fast as they could. The order was obeyed. The Russian regulars had to constantly cold down the tubes with snow and other old tricks, but for three days, the Russian army devastated Belgrade, transforming a large city into a field of rubble, contaminated water, and destroyed civilian tools.
As the clouds created by the uncountable fire darkened the day, it seemed impossible anything was still living into this near-hellish battleground.
But as the first Russian troopers went into the city, they met gunfire, light mortar shells, and well-prepared fanatics eager to die for their nihilistic philosophy.
The first hours of fighting on the fourth day of the Siege of Belgrade established a new level of atrocities, and the division of the Russian Army which entered the city lost one-quarter of its effectives, though the cost for the Serbians was above the ‘crippling’ threshold.
No quarter was asked. No quarter was given. And as the Russian veterans brought flamethrowers and heavy mortars to pulverise each position which had somehow survived the first bombardment, the cost in lives spiralled out of control and became a symbol of everything that was wrong in this war.
The political consequences didn’t make themselves wait. By then, enough Hungarians had arrived to properly report upon the Siege of Belgrade, and the messages they sent back home were not giving any compliment for both belligerents.
Worse, the attempts to raise a provisional local government in the Russian or Greek-conquered areas were evident by their absence. Pleas to inquire upon the subject were properly dismissed with haughty expressions.
As the Russians tried to find an exit for the bloody quagmire they had entered unaware, as their Greek allies showed a curious case of exhaustion to run northwards to join them at Belgrade, the ministers of Regensburg arrived to their own conclusions. One didn’t need to be a genius after all to see that if the land of Serbians wasn’t going to granted autonomy and independence after this war, it would be because its ‘destiny’ was to be a new ‘Grand Duchy’ of Moscow and the Tsarina.
In other words, the Austrians, Croats, Hungarians, and all other populations of the Republic would have a longer frontier with the Bear, while at the same time they were forced to juggle with the worst refugee crisis of the last two decades.
The simplest solution to this predicament – though definitely not the most honourable and tolerant one – was to send back all refugees to Serbia with more weapons to avenge themselves upon the Russians and close the frontier behind.
But this was Russia they were dealing with, one of the Great Powers. And besides, the Serbian Anarchists were nearly done. Street by street, when they were streets left, the Russian assault was eliminating their enemies ruin by ruin and bunker after bunker.
Needless to say, Regensburg politicians weren’t enjoying the prospect of a potential Russian spring offensive when so far no ally had come to support a vigorous stance against Moscow and its endless armies.
That was the moment a new wave of terror bombing was unleashed. But it didn’t happen in the Dual Republic.
No, this time the target was Stockholm...
On the English subforum of the 36 15 HistoireAlternative?
You mean, that place with a dictator who might be crazy enough to attack Russia head on without asking any question and with potential acquaintances with the anti-russian bloc? This is going to end so well...
Another war that'll have been started by some damn thing in the Balkans...
Violence and Escalation (Sweden 1923) [NON-CANON]
The Great War and its aftershocks had imposed great changes to the European nations, be they political, social, or military. Poland, after having looked westwards, focused now exclusively on the enormous threatening neighbour which had annexed a large part of its ancestral territories. Saxony, which had ambitions of uniting the German-speaking populations under its imperial banner, was reduced to a toothless Republic. England and Ireland, occupied for several lifetimes with the threat of Scotland, had after 1902 to decide what to do since the armies of Edinburgh had disappeared except in historical movies.
The Republic of Sweden wasn’t on the receiving end of great changes. In part, this was because the efforts of the Swedish military forces were rather lacking in the world-shattering conflict. When hundreds of thousands of French, Saxons, Westphalians, and many other soldiers died in the trenches, the Swedish government was ‘neutral’. When victory was finally in sight for Russia, Sweden promptly invaded Finland and proceeded to annex as much of its territories as it could.
The participants of the Congress of London in 1902 had a world for this, and it was ‘vulture’. The alternatives were ‘jackal’, ‘hyena’, or ‘carrion master’. The claims of Sweden over Norwegian-held and Danish-held were rejected. France and the rest of the Grande Entente obviously couldn’t force Sweden to return the Finnish territories without forces they didn’t want to deploy, but they certainly could and did deny Sweden more territorial conquests.
The Swedish politicians and the public who had elected them directly or indirectly didn’t like that at all.
The return of the territories ‘stolen’ by the Danish in previous wars was one of the rare things all parties, from the pseudo-Collectivists to the ultra-nationalists of the far right agreed upon. The irony of them doing the same thing to Finland in the name of a ‘Swedish Empire’ which hadn’t existed for decades was lost before it reached their ears.
If there had been only vague warnings at London, the Swedish Army would likely have invaded nonetheless. Unlike the other modern forces in Scandinavia, it was more or less intact, the morale of the conscripts was excellent, and if the artillery and the modern weapons were less advanced than those of the Great Powers, numerical advantage and cohesion should carry the day.
Except the winners of the Great War – and the Swedish realised with horror they were not invited to be part of this club – demanded the disbanding of the large Danish-Norwegian united fleet as part of the victory clauses.
With no limitations on the army, it didn’t take a genius to realise where most of the Danish-Norwegian military budget would go for the post-war years. And Sweden couldn’t do anything about it.
The next years therefore were years of peace for Sweden and most of the world. Unfortunately for the Republic, its upper political class was in no mood to enjoy it. The combination of parties seeing their chances of easy ‘liberation’ of Danish-held territory slipping away as Denmark predictably built its army to face Sweden and the unwillingness of international firms to invest inside their frontiers led to multiple crises, with the President, the Prime Minister, and the Swedish Parliament doing their ‘best’ to demonise each other and grab every shred of power in the hope it would lead to their rivals becoming insignificant.
By 1922, the results of these complicated shenanigans were largely that the Head of State was a powerless position, with most of the power being divided between the Prime Minister and the legislative assembly. The head of the government should have held the advantage, being the depository of the executive power and being the master of the ministers, except the military power was also divided, and a lack of super-majority in successive elections had led to opposition figures becoming ministers.
As a result, it was a rare year where there were no elections: save the need to rebuild under Swedish leadership the entirety of Scandinavia, there weren’t any shared ideals the Liberals, the Democratic-Liberals and the Nationalist-Republicans, the three major parties of Sweden, agreed upon. It didn’t help foreigners to trust state-to-state economic negotiations certainly; the probability was high when you entered the country that the government in power wouldn’t be the one which would be elected when you left.
Still, there was no coup or military dictatorship, the Swedish cities were relatively prosperous, and as far as Poland and other anti-Russian republics were concerned Stockholm provided a useful shield against Russian expansion westwards.
The Republic had even managed after several improbable compromises to fund a modest state-civilian air transport company when the Anarchists’ Levellers fuelled terrorist attempts until it blew up in their faces.
Sweden only lost two minor diplomats in the first wave of Anarchist bombings. Sadly for the Swedish people, it wasn’t because the men and women in charge of the executive and legislative power were difficult to reach; it was because the local agitators were busy infiltrating the Army of Sweden.
On February 11, under the nonsensical pretext most of the government had ignored all dignity and sold the Republic to Denmark in exchange of lifetime privileges, thousands of soldiers entered Stockholm and brutally arrested most of the democratically-elected leadership.
And before the month was over, Sweden would be at war once again...
The Great War and its aftershocks had imposed great changes to the European nations, be they political, social, or military. Poland, after having looked westwards, focused now exclusively on the enormous threatening neighbour which had annexed a large part of its ancestral territories. Saxony, which had ambitions of uniting the German-speaking populations under its imperial banner, was reduced to a toothless Republic. England and Ireland, occupied for several lifetimes with the threat of Scotland, had after 1902 to decide what to do since the armies of Edinburgh had disappeared except in historical movies.
The Republic of Sweden wasn’t on the receiving end of great changes. In part, this was because the efforts of the Swedish military forces were rather lacking in the world-shattering conflict. When hundreds of thousands of French, Saxons, Westphalians, and many other soldiers died in the trenches, the Swedish government was ‘neutral’. When victory was finally in sight for Russia, Sweden promptly invaded Finland and proceeded to annex as much of its territories as it could.
The participants of the Congress of London in 1902 had a world for this, and it was ‘vulture’. The alternatives were ‘jackal’, ‘hyena’, or ‘carrion master’. The claims of Sweden over Norwegian-held and Danish-held were rejected. France and the rest of the Grande Entente obviously couldn’t force Sweden to return the Finnish territories without forces they didn’t want to deploy, but they certainly could and did deny Sweden more territorial conquests.
The Swedish politicians and the public who had elected them directly or indirectly didn’t like that at all.
The return of the territories ‘stolen’ by the Danish in previous wars was one of the rare things all parties, from the pseudo-Collectivists to the ultra-nationalists of the far right agreed upon. The irony of them doing the same thing to Finland in the name of a ‘Swedish Empire’ which hadn’t existed for decades was lost before it reached their ears.
If there had been only vague warnings at London, the Swedish Army would likely have invaded nonetheless. Unlike the other modern forces in Scandinavia, it was more or less intact, the morale of the conscripts was excellent, and if the artillery and the modern weapons were less advanced than those of the Great Powers, numerical advantage and cohesion should carry the day.
Except the winners of the Great War – and the Swedish realised with horror they were not invited to be part of this club – demanded the disbanding of the large Danish-Norwegian united fleet as part of the victory clauses.
With no limitations on the army, it didn’t take a genius to realise where most of the Danish-Norwegian military budget would go for the post-war years. And Sweden couldn’t do anything about it.
The next years therefore were years of peace for Sweden and most of the world. Unfortunately for the Republic, its upper political class was in no mood to enjoy it. The combination of parties seeing their chances of easy ‘liberation’ of Danish-held territory slipping away as Denmark predictably built its army to face Sweden and the unwillingness of international firms to invest inside their frontiers led to multiple crises, with the President, the Prime Minister, and the Swedish Parliament doing their ‘best’ to demonise each other and grab every shred of power in the hope it would lead to their rivals becoming insignificant.
By 1922, the results of these complicated shenanigans were largely that the Head of State was a powerless position, with most of the power being divided between the Prime Minister and the legislative assembly. The head of the government should have held the advantage, being the depository of the executive power and being the master of the ministers, except the military power was also divided, and a lack of super-majority in successive elections had led to opposition figures becoming ministers.
As a result, it was a rare year where there were no elections: save the need to rebuild under Swedish leadership the entirety of Scandinavia, there weren’t any shared ideals the Liberals, the Democratic-Liberals and the Nationalist-Republicans, the three major parties of Sweden, agreed upon. It didn’t help foreigners to trust state-to-state economic negotiations certainly; the probability was high when you entered the country that the government in power wouldn’t be the one which would be elected when you left.
Still, there was no coup or military dictatorship, the Swedish cities were relatively prosperous, and as far as Poland and other anti-Russian republics were concerned Stockholm provided a useful shield against Russian expansion westwards.
The Republic had even managed after several improbable compromises to fund a modest state-civilian air transport company when the Anarchists’ Levellers fuelled terrorist attempts until it blew up in their faces.
Sweden only lost two minor diplomats in the first wave of Anarchist bombings. Sadly for the Swedish people, it wasn’t because the men and women in charge of the executive and legislative power were difficult to reach; it was because the local agitators were busy infiltrating the Army of Sweden.
On February 11, under the nonsensical pretext most of the government had ignored all dignity and sold the Republic to Denmark in exchange of lifetime privileges, thousands of soldiers entered Stockholm and brutally arrested most of the democratically-elected leadership.
And before the month was over, Sweden would be at war once again...
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Agree. I tseems bit odd that fascist edque nation just is now parliamentary democracy only in lesser than 20 years later.
My deepest apologies, I knew I had forgotten to take into account a former update. The chapter posted will be declared non-canon, a new chapter will replace it in a few minutes.
This is the second time it happens in this thread...apologies again, I will try to be more careful (though this story has grown so large...)
Swedish Anarchy (Sweden 1923)
After the crisis of the 1910s which had forced Sweden to scrap its plans to invade Denmark, many non-Scandinavian politicians had thought the Swedish National Party of Purity and Expansion would turn to internal matters and abandon the ridiculous idea of antagonising its western neighbours.
Many of these international figures had called it ‘doing the wise thing’, and for good reason.
With the limitations imposed by France on the Danish-Norwegian Navy, the military budget of Copenhagen and Oslo began a massive shift from the waves to land artillery and mechanised armour.
It remained to be sure a modest effort for most of the early 1910s; Denmark and Norway had to pay for the enormous war debts accumulated during the Great War and before. Fortunately for these two countries, while they had scrapped their warships, their merchant navies were still afloat and represented close to fifteen percent of the world’s available tonnage.
Due to several strict economic policies and a time of insecurity lasting two to three years, Denmark and Norway managed to return to something approaching pre-Great War prosperity, achieving the diplomatic coup in the name of reconciliation that England participated in removing most of the landmines and other scars they had created in Scandinavia.
And as prosperity came back, the military budget increased in consequence.
Evidently, the man ruling Sweden didn’t see any of this with an amused eye. Contrary to what observers had hoped he would do, Olaf Gunnarsson had made his reconquest of the ‘Old Swedish Empire’ a cornerstone of his foreign policy.
This wasn’t exactly a sound political move, for despite the best efforts of the National Purity’s secret police, there were many spies in Stockholm, some of them Russian. And even if the Tsarina had been completely unaware of her Empire’s annexations, one of her advisors would have forcefully remembered her that most of the ‘Old Swedish Empire’ was currently colonised and ruled by Moscow.
All in all, the ‘President for Life’ was beating records of unpopularity everywhere wherever he was mentioned outside Sweden. The Entente, after a long period of observation, concluded that for all the benefits of buying Swedish iron, there were twice as many drawbacks and preferred signing significant accords elsewhere. Even Poland, a country which needed allies to ensure its survival in front of the Russian bear, often went to Swedish negotiations trying to convince themselves their noses were dead.
It wasn’t just because the regime was trying to be more dictatorial than the soon-to-be-dead Jacksonian regime of Florida. In an age where religious tolerance was progressively an idea fortified by law and popular approval, the ‘Gunnarsson laws’ were, as several English spokesmen put it, ‘a return to the Dark Ages’. Anyone who was not Lutheran or close to it to not raise the suspicions of the National Party’s ‘inspectors’ could expect a lot of trouble, included but non-limited to bureaucratic shenanigans, and random aggressions by outraged citizens.
The living conditions for the average Swedish citizen increased in the 1910s, though it was at the price of constantly receiving propaganda in movies, newspapers, and most of other forms of communications. Moreover, as everyone saw that the National Party of Purity and Expansion wasn’t going to disappear any time soon, orders for Swedish wood, paper, iron, and machinery increased.
And the President for Life each day woke up believing that one day in the future, his armies would invade Denmark, brush aside all resistance, and take the first step in rebuilding Greater Sweden. His forces had gained a lot of modern machinery which would stand up – at least temporarily – against the arsenal of France – and threats could be made to ensure Norway would refuse to declare war when the offensive was unleashed.
If Olaf had not purged the Riksdag of anything that could be a political opponent, several representatives could have told him that the odds of Norway not honouring its treaty of mutual defence with Denmark were close to zero. And that if Sweden invaded western Scandinavia, other countries may be tempted to join up an anti-Western alliance.
Maybe Olaf Gunnarsson knew it deep inside; after all the core of his regular divisions stayed extremely far from the ‘accepted’ frontier for most of the 1910s.
Unknown to him, however, his bombastic threats and constant vilification of Copenhagen and Oslo had already done enough damage. Denmark and Norway were closer than ever, and to the mutual defence treaty were added several economic, technological research, and cultural ties.
The greater blow to Swedish ambitions, however, was undoubtedly created in 1922 when a young Prince of Denmark and a Princess of Norway fell in love as they met each other in an official reception organised by Copenhagen.
And when 1923 came, there was enough whispers for even the flawed system of foreign intelligence of the National Party of Purity and Expansion to reveal to their master that yes, this time, the princely union was going to go ahead, and would likely result in the union of the two crowns before 1940 was around.
The answer to this extremely series of bad news was rather...volcanic, as told by Swedish ministers’ confidences themselves.
In fact, the first reaction of Olaf Gunnarsson was to mobilise...but Russia invaded Serbia first, diverting temporarily his attention.
Then the first bombs began to explode in Stockholm.
The damage was at first rather limited. Two governmental figures were killed, but overall the numbers of deaths was inferior to forty. In their attempts to remove every potential source of opposition, be it Collectivist or otherwise, the Swedish ‘purists’ and their secret police had not been shy in torturing Anarchists and confiscating their stocks of weapons.
Unfortunately for the Swedish regime, this resulted in a dangerous sentiment of overconfidence, and the surviving Anarchists understood quickly that while their resources were limited, there was an ever-number of displeased persons wishing the end of the dictatorship and the liberty privations.
The resistance of Belgrade was beginning to collapse when a team of saboteur-assassins struck. A military convoy was first ambushed, and the weapons stolen were immediately used to strike at a parade where Gunnarsson was speaking.
Organised too fast and with little in the way of contingencies, the Anarchist-led team failed. Olaf Gunnarsson would have a bad leg and several scars for the rest of his life, but his survival was never in doubt.
But the President for Life was angry, extremely so. Several officers lost their positions and their heads for their failures. The iron fist struck again upon the head of the Swedish citizens, and full mobilisation was ordered.
Obviously, this didn’t calm the tensions created by the Anarchist bombings and the Serbian War at all...
After the crisis of the 1910s which had forced Sweden to scrap its plans to invade Denmark, many non-Scandinavian politicians had thought the Swedish National Party of Purity and Expansion would turn to internal matters and abandon the ridiculous idea of antagonising its western neighbours.
Many of these international figures had called it ‘doing the wise thing’, and for good reason.
With the limitations imposed by France on the Danish-Norwegian Navy, the military budget of Copenhagen and Oslo began a massive shift from the waves to land artillery and mechanised armour.
It remained to be sure a modest effort for most of the early 1910s; Denmark and Norway had to pay for the enormous war debts accumulated during the Great War and before. Fortunately for these two countries, while they had scrapped their warships, their merchant navies were still afloat and represented close to fifteen percent of the world’s available tonnage.
Due to several strict economic policies and a time of insecurity lasting two to three years, Denmark and Norway managed to return to something approaching pre-Great War prosperity, achieving the diplomatic coup in the name of reconciliation that England participated in removing most of the landmines and other scars they had created in Scandinavia.
And as prosperity came back, the military budget increased in consequence.
Evidently, the man ruling Sweden didn’t see any of this with an amused eye. Contrary to what observers had hoped he would do, Olaf Gunnarsson had made his reconquest of the ‘Old Swedish Empire’ a cornerstone of his foreign policy.
This wasn’t exactly a sound political move, for despite the best efforts of the National Purity’s secret police, there were many spies in Stockholm, some of them Russian. And even if the Tsarina had been completely unaware of her Empire’s annexations, one of her advisors would have forcefully remembered her that most of the ‘Old Swedish Empire’ was currently colonised and ruled by Moscow.
All in all, the ‘President for Life’ was beating records of unpopularity everywhere wherever he was mentioned outside Sweden. The Entente, after a long period of observation, concluded that for all the benefits of buying Swedish iron, there were twice as many drawbacks and preferred signing significant accords elsewhere. Even Poland, a country which needed allies to ensure its survival in front of the Russian bear, often went to Swedish negotiations trying to convince themselves their noses were dead.
It wasn’t just because the regime was trying to be more dictatorial than the soon-to-be-dead Jacksonian regime of Florida. In an age where religious tolerance was progressively an idea fortified by law and popular approval, the ‘Gunnarsson laws’ were, as several English spokesmen put it, ‘a return to the Dark Ages’. Anyone who was not Lutheran or close to it to not raise the suspicions of the National Party’s ‘inspectors’ could expect a lot of trouble, included but non-limited to bureaucratic shenanigans, and random aggressions by outraged citizens.
The living conditions for the average Swedish citizen increased in the 1910s, though it was at the price of constantly receiving propaganda in movies, newspapers, and most of other forms of communications. Moreover, as everyone saw that the National Party of Purity and Expansion wasn’t going to disappear any time soon, orders for Swedish wood, paper, iron, and machinery increased.
And the President for Life each day woke up believing that one day in the future, his armies would invade Denmark, brush aside all resistance, and take the first step in rebuilding Greater Sweden. His forces had gained a lot of modern machinery which would stand up – at least temporarily – against the arsenal of France – and threats could be made to ensure Norway would refuse to declare war when the offensive was unleashed.
If Olaf had not purged the Riksdag of anything that could be a political opponent, several representatives could have told him that the odds of Norway not honouring its treaty of mutual defence with Denmark were close to zero. And that if Sweden invaded western Scandinavia, other countries may be tempted to join up an anti-Western alliance.
Maybe Olaf Gunnarsson knew it deep inside; after all the core of his regular divisions stayed extremely far from the ‘accepted’ frontier for most of the 1910s.
Unknown to him, however, his bombastic threats and constant vilification of Copenhagen and Oslo had already done enough damage. Denmark and Norway were closer than ever, and to the mutual defence treaty were added several economic, technological research, and cultural ties.
The greater blow to Swedish ambitions, however, was undoubtedly created in 1922 when a young Prince of Denmark and a Princess of Norway fell in love as they met each other in an official reception organised by Copenhagen.
And when 1923 came, there was enough whispers for even the flawed system of foreign intelligence of the National Party of Purity and Expansion to reveal to their master that yes, this time, the princely union was going to go ahead, and would likely result in the union of the two crowns before 1940 was around.
The answer to this extremely series of bad news was rather...volcanic, as told by Swedish ministers’ confidences themselves.
In fact, the first reaction of Olaf Gunnarsson was to mobilise...but Russia invaded Serbia first, diverting temporarily his attention.
Then the first bombs began to explode in Stockholm.
The damage was at first rather limited. Two governmental figures were killed, but overall the numbers of deaths was inferior to forty. In their attempts to remove every potential source of opposition, be it Collectivist or otherwise, the Swedish ‘purists’ and their secret police had not been shy in torturing Anarchists and confiscating their stocks of weapons.
Unfortunately for the Swedish regime, this resulted in a dangerous sentiment of overconfidence, and the surviving Anarchists understood quickly that while their resources were limited, there was an ever-number of displeased persons wishing the end of the dictatorship and the liberty privations.
The resistance of Belgrade was beginning to collapse when a team of saboteur-assassins struck. A military convoy was first ambushed, and the weapons stolen were immediately used to strike at a parade where Gunnarsson was speaking.
Organised too fast and with little in the way of contingencies, the Anarchist-led team failed. Olaf Gunnarsson would have a bad leg and several scars for the rest of his life, but his survival was never in doubt.
But the President for Life was angry, extremely so. Several officers lost their positions and their heads for their failures. The iron fist struck again upon the head of the Swedish citizens, and full mobilisation was ordered.
Obviously, this didn’t calm the tensions created by the Anarchist bombings and the Serbian War at all...
No need for apologies, you are only human. Forgetting about a previous post (or what exactly it was you went to pick in the basement...) is just one of the perks
.Besides, we (your readers) are enjoying the story. The least we can do is help when you need it. (And probably also help when you don't need it, but that's another point
)Butterflies... Butterflies everywhere...
You sure have now far more to keep in mind than when the divergence only affected a handfull of countries in Europe and most of the world could be described as "proceeding as OTL".