BTW - congrats on your nomination, Herr Doktor Thande.
Or should it be Doktor Professor? I never know which would be the best option.
Look to the West Volume V: To Dream Again
- Thread starter Thande
- Start date
BTW - congrats on your nomination, Herr Doktor Thande.
Or should it be Doktor Professor? I never know which would be the best option.
Thande
Donor
Part #245: Exits
The country’s official name is: KINGDOM OF MEXICO (Spanish: REINO DE MÉXICO)
The people are known as: MEXICANS (Spanish: MEXICANOS)
Capital and largest city: The City of Mexico (Spanish: Ciudad de México) (0.7 million) The de facto capital remains Veracruz, with the City of Mexico reserved as the capital of the Empire of New Spain, but in practice today all significant government functions have been centralised.
Flag: A white diamond with red triangles at top left and bottom right, and gold triangles at top right and bottom left, defaced with an eagle perched on a cactus holding a snake in its beak (an Aztec symbol) and the letters ‘RM’ for Reino de México. The flag of the Empire of New Spain (of which Mexico is de jure one constituent, but in practice the two are sometimes considered interchangeable) is also routinely flown, taking the form of a yellow cross on a red cross on a white field with diagonal ragged red Cross of Burgundy behind.
Population: 18 million.
Land area: 170,000 lcf.
Economic ranking: Mexico is difficult to place due to becoming economically integrated with both the Hermandad and, to a lesser but still significant extent, the ENA’s American system.
Form of government: Theoretically an absolute monarchy with limited constitutional freedoms (a central Congress is elected on a restricted franchise, with regional Audiencias with a somewhat more open and democratic one). In practice, the country is too subject to influence from the UPSA and ENA to chart much of an independent path regardless. There have been a number of regional rebellions but no successful central revolutionary attempts.
Foreign relations: Mexico is probably the most independent part of New Spain, having partially managed to play Meridian and American interests off against one another, but this is not saying much, and the country has not managed much of an independent foreign policy since the losses of the Great American War.
Military: The Mexican military is hampered by lack of trust from its rulers, having been subject to suspicion over connections to secret revolutionary societies. In terms of equipment it is reasonably modern, buying mostly from the UPSA, but the aforementioned attitude has tended to discourage proactive leadership from Mexican generals. The exception is with the New Irish (descended from a large number of immigrants who came to Tejas after the potato famine) whom are often considered elite fighters, though they too have been at odds with the central government at times.
Current head of state: King Antonio III (in practice, Emperor Charles VI often calls the shots) – both House of Bourbon
Current head of government: Prime Minister (‘President of the Government’) Francisco de la Cerda, Marquess of Acapulco
*
From: The World At War: From The Pages of The Discerner VOLUME IV: ROAD TO RUIN (1986):
London, Kingdom of the Britons
March 3rd 1899
It was a Friday night. Though the weather was miserable, though prices had steadily risen as the French forced British buyers to pay through the nose (with all sorts of vague assertions about insurance against ships being sunk by nonexistent Scandinavian ironsharks in the Channel), and recently the Belgians had stopped selling and almost absent-mindedly declared war on Britain along with Germany, nothing stopped Londoners enjoying themselves on a Friday night. Pubs and the new ‘night-clubs’ were packed, musicians were in such demand to pay their bills for the rest of the week, ale, wine and whisky flowed freely. Londoners drank to forget their cares, whether it be the everyday problems of precarious and heavy work coupled to domestic strife, or the ulcers that reading between the lines of the newspapers gave them.
On the face of it, it wasn’t as if The Register, The Mercury or The Herald-Courant had to be too economical with the truth to present an image of triumph. After all, ‘the House of Hanover’, ‘the Greater English People’, even ‘the Empire’, were all advancing all all fronts. The Meridians, the old enemy who had started the war, had been cleaned out of North America altogether, and were now cowering in South America with the Jonathans breathing down their necks. The Russians had stalled and then been pushed back on the Drakesland Front, with the Feng Chinese creating more problems for them tearing down the rotten heart of St Petersburg’s puppet regime. The war was going well, and heading for victory.
So long as one accepted the idea that all the English-speaking world was in this together, of course. From a more crudely parochial point of view, things looked less promising. Germany, the main local cobelligerent, was teetering on the brink as Belgium drove a knife into her back even as Scandinavia and Russia advanced. Though the alliances and declarations of war had never meant much in practice, there was always the possibility that Scandinavia, or Russia—or, now, Belgium—could turn their attention to the Kingdom of the Britons. Britain could, perhaps, defend herself at sea; but for too long she had been treated solely as an annex to the Empire of North America, a factory which could build ships and raise regiments to be transported over the sea to the real war. This, along with certain rumours about the whereabouts of the mysteriously silent Duke of York, meant that a certain impression of the Empire of North America—and its distant Emperor, as an afterthought also King of the Britons—was growing in the minds of the British public. It was a view that was being voiced, increasingly not just in hushed tones, in those pubs and ‘night-clubs’ and equally rambunctious neo-Wesleyan temperance houses, throughout London.
Well, not quite all of London. And that was the problem.
Pall Mall was over two hundred years old, and had survived the Second Great Fire of London—and the enthusiastic urban redevelopment plans of Churchill’s RCTFI—without much damage. Among other establishments, it had played host to the great political club of Macall’s.[1] Of course, such exclusive establishments, catering by subscription to ‘Persons of Quality’ (Macall’s had had female society as well as male) had been regarded as repugnant to the Populism of Llewelyn Thomas’ era. Most of them had either been driven out of business with vindictive targeted taxes, or else forced to relocate from central London and Westminster where they would be at the heart of power and influence. Just as the idea of ‘gentlemen’ no longer had any meaning in the only society that mattered, in the new proletarian mode of governance, so too would the exclusive clubs be removed from their position of influence.
Well, that had been the theory. The reality...
Macall’s had reinvented itself as a working men’s club, shifting sails to follow the new political winds rather than being swept aside. This transition had been managed by the canny Dick Mullinax (who had been born Richard Molyneux, 4th Earl of Sefton). He had carefully made the club temperate for the period in which that tendency was in power, then reintroduced alcohol when the issue split the Populist Party. His clientele had begun, indeed, as the local working men and women who cleaned the new government buildings of the Whitehall Forum or delivered coal or who worked as tellers at the local banks. That was influence, of a sort, in the corridors of power, too. And it began to attract the working-class men who had been elected to Parliament in 1835. It was a pleasant place to have pastime with good company, to kick back after a hard day’s work on those hard marble benches.
Years had passed, and generations with them. It was a strange thing, but all those working-class MPs, when it came time for them to retire and to look for a sound man to take their place in representing their homes—well, who was more qualified than their eldest sons, who had all grown up hearing the business of government in their own homes? That was just logical, obviously. And they had passed on their thoroughly informal status as regulars at Macall’s, possessing membership on an unwritten but politely enforced list. Not just anyone could enter the good old band of pals, after all. You couldn’t trust an outsider until they proved themselves. A man had to be...sound.
Now, sixty-four years had passed since Llewelyn Thomas had first become President. A long time, but not so long that there weren’t some greybeards left who remembered his time in power, who still called the office he had held ‘Prime Minister’ out of habit. They might even remember a time in which Macall’s had been an exclusive place open only to gentlemen, to Persons of Quality. A silly, archaic age.
Now, of course, it was open to anyone who was on that informal list that existed only in the owner’s head, who was trustworthy, who had proven themselves, who had been introduced by an existing member—such as, for example, their father, or their father’s friend, who was likely their own friend’s father. That was how it worked. Very egalitarian.
Two such gen—men, only men, of course—occupied a small private booth in a discreet corner of the club. The oil lamps were turned down and blessed silence reigned. Macall’s could let its hair down at times, but on Friday night, while the rest of London engaged in riots of pleasure, it held a dignified silence. That was only proper—er—pro’er, without pronouncing the second P, of course, guv’nor. There were standards to uphold, after all.
The two men possessed carefully annotated evidence that their grandfathers had been, respectively, a coal miner named Punce and a weaver named Smith. Their real names and lineages remained carefully restricted to suitably private spaces such as this booth.
Montague Vincent-Ponsonby genteelly sipped his glass of lager. A passable Helles from neutral Bavaria, though doubtless his batman (ah, ‘administrative assistant’) at the Ministry would present him with a hefty French-inflated bill for transport costs at the end of the month. “How is life treating you, Mr Barrington-Smythe?” he inquired pleasantly.
“Tolerably, Mr Vincent-Ponsonby,” Phineas Barrington-Smythe replied smoothly. “Tolerably.”
“That is, perhaps, all we can hope for in times such as this,” Vincent-Ponsonby sighed theatrically. Pleasantries over with, he moved on. “I hear the deuced Russkies are closing on the Moravian Gate.”
“You might very well think so,” Barrington-Smythe said idly, nursing his own pint. “The Foreign Office, of course, has no comment at this stage.”
Vincent-Ponsonby grinned disarmingly. He was large and bulky; his friend was short and thin. Between them, they comprised a disconcertingly large slice of what the British Government did, really did, quietly, behind the scenes.[2]
“I understand,” he continued after a few more sips of lager, “that His Majesty seeks additional soldiers and vessels for...the final push.”
Barrington-Smythe winced, subtly, his eyelids closing for an instant. “That...is one way in which it might be put,” he said carefully. “To be sure, His Majesty’s request comes from his own lips, but I fear that the ultimate impetus may have originated with Mr Burwell, or perhaps Mr Gedney.”
“Let us be thankful, at least, it was not from Mr Faulkner, then,” said Vincent-Ponsonby, provoking another subtle wince from his friend. “Is the description of the plan in question not, a little, without casting any aspersions on the fettle of our fine fighting men, a little...ambitious?”
“Perhaps less than one might imagine,” Barrington-Smythe said carefully. “The King feels that our Meridian foeman is now on the back foot, and what is required is one quick blow to the head to bring him to the table. Not merely to send our men to reclaim Venezuela, or to fight Monterroso in Pernambuco or New Granada, but...”
“But to go to the serpent’s nest,” Vincent-Ponsonby observed. “The Plate?”
“The Plate,” Barrington-Smythe said, sounding uncomfortable. He avoided his friend’s gaze.
Vincent-Ponsonby sipped his lager for a long moment as he meditated. “Then let me rephrase my previous point,” he said eventually. “It is not ambitious in the sense of finality: if such an operation was successful, it indeed would likely be the final move of the war. However...”
“However,” Barrington-Smythe echoed.
“However,” Vincent-Ponsonby continued relentlessly, “the question instead appertains to the likelihood of success.” He cleared his throat. “Excuse me. It would be a daunting task merely to bring an army from the Island to, let us say, the Cape of Good Hope, in the absence of any foeman seeking to prevent us.”
“The Cape, of course, is now in the foe’s column,” Barrington-Smythe pointed out.
“Quite so—though from what I hear of friend Max’s activities in the allegedly Meridian-aligned portion of the austral regions of the Dark Continent, I am not certain if he sees it that way,” Vincent-Ponsonby said dryly. “Nonetheless, I hope you take my point. It would be a substantial task in and of itself. But the Plate...”
“The Meridians have always had an almost alienistic obsession with the idea of our forces once again intruding into the Plate,” Barrington-Smythe confirmed. “Half of the logic behind their support of Carolina was merely the notion of turnabout is fair play, hanging a dagger of their own over Fredericksburg.”
“Which means that, even in the times of peace, they have never ceased fortifying it,” Vincent-Ponsonby concluded. “We would be thrusting our heads into the lion’s maw.”
“The King does not see it that way, “ Barrington-Smythe said primly.
“No,” Vincent-Ponsonby observed. “He does not.”
Silence reigned, while most of London engaged in riotous joy, for a long moment.
Barrington-Smythe was the first to break it. “I do not feel we can argue,” he said carefully. “We do not wish to antagonise Mr Burwell at a time when American power may be the only force that stands between us and conquest by the Scandinavians or the Belgians.”
“It is not a latter-day Viking invasion that concerns me, sir,” Vincent-Ponsonby said. “It is, shall we say, a memory of what event took place the last time this kingdom sent armies to South America as part of a war effort led by the Empire.”
Both men stared into their pints for another long moment.
“We must try,” Barrington-Smythe said finally. “A bold victory, a moment of coming together...that may be sufficient to heal the...unfortunate breakages which this war has produced.”
“I fear it is too late for some of those,” Vincent-Ponsonby said. “But, indeed, we must try.”
They drained their pints. “Of course,” Vincent-Ponsonby added after a moment, “I take it that we shall continue to take our...surcharge on the shipments of uniforms and ammunition?”
Barrington-Smythe tutted at his vulgarity. “Of course, Mr Vincent-Ponsonby. Would it not draw comment if the quotes cited mysteriously decreased? There may be a war on, but that is all the more reason to maintain our standards.”
Vincent-Ponsonby smiled.
[1] As mentioned in Part #68, in TTL Mr Macall did not reverse his name to produce the club name Almack’s.
[2] It is worth noting that these characters are likely creations of the author’s own imagination. While there appears to be some truth to the assertion that the British Government in this era was dominated by a small clique of unscrupulous and shadowy individuals, there is no historical consensus on just what the membership of that clique comprised. This author is focusing on the hypocrisy of where the matter of social class had ended up sixty years after Populism, but others have fixated on anti-Semitic conspiracy theories or American-born businessmen and so on.
The country’s official name is: KINGDOM OF MEXICO (Spanish: REINO DE MÉXICO)
The people are known as: MEXICANS (Spanish: MEXICANOS)
Capital and largest city: The City of Mexico (Spanish: Ciudad de México) (0.7 million) The de facto capital remains Veracruz, with the City of Mexico reserved as the capital of the Empire of New Spain, but in practice today all significant government functions have been centralised.
Flag: A white diamond with red triangles at top left and bottom right, and gold triangles at top right and bottom left, defaced with an eagle perched on a cactus holding a snake in its beak (an Aztec symbol) and the letters ‘RM’ for Reino de México. The flag of the Empire of New Spain (of which Mexico is de jure one constituent, but in practice the two are sometimes considered interchangeable) is also routinely flown, taking the form of a yellow cross on a red cross on a white field with diagonal ragged red Cross of Burgundy behind.
Population: 18 million.
Land area: 170,000 lcf.
Economic ranking: Mexico is difficult to place due to becoming economically integrated with both the Hermandad and, to a lesser but still significant extent, the ENA’s American system.
Form of government: Theoretically an absolute monarchy with limited constitutional freedoms (a central Congress is elected on a restricted franchise, with regional Audiencias with a somewhat more open and democratic one). In practice, the country is too subject to influence from the UPSA and ENA to chart much of an independent path regardless. There have been a number of regional rebellions but no successful central revolutionary attempts.
Foreign relations: Mexico is probably the most independent part of New Spain, having partially managed to play Meridian and American interests off against one another, but this is not saying much, and the country has not managed much of an independent foreign policy since the losses of the Great American War.
Military: The Mexican military is hampered by lack of trust from its rulers, having been subject to suspicion over connections to secret revolutionary societies. In terms of equipment it is reasonably modern, buying mostly from the UPSA, but the aforementioned attitude has tended to discourage proactive leadership from Mexican generals. The exception is with the New Irish (descended from a large number of immigrants who came to Tejas after the potato famine) whom are often considered elite fighters, though they too have been at odds with the central government at times.
Current head of state: King Antonio III (in practice, Emperor Charles VI often calls the shots) – both House of Bourbon
Current head of government: Prime Minister (‘President of the Government’) Francisco de la Cerda, Marquess of Acapulco
– Taken from APPENDIX: GUIDE TO THE WORLD’S NATIONS AT THE EVE OF THE PANDORIC WAR, OCTOBER 1896, from
The World At War: From The Pages of The Discerner VOLUME I: THE GATHERING STORM (1981)
The World At War: From The Pages of The Discerner VOLUME I: THE GATHERING STORM (1981)
*
From: The World At War: From The Pages of The Discerner VOLUME IV: ROAD TO RUIN (1986):
London, Kingdom of the Britons
March 3rd 1899
It was a Friday night. Though the weather was miserable, though prices had steadily risen as the French forced British buyers to pay through the nose (with all sorts of vague assertions about insurance against ships being sunk by nonexistent Scandinavian ironsharks in the Channel), and recently the Belgians had stopped selling and almost absent-mindedly declared war on Britain along with Germany, nothing stopped Londoners enjoying themselves on a Friday night. Pubs and the new ‘night-clubs’ were packed, musicians were in such demand to pay their bills for the rest of the week, ale, wine and whisky flowed freely. Londoners drank to forget their cares, whether it be the everyday problems of precarious and heavy work coupled to domestic strife, or the ulcers that reading between the lines of the newspapers gave them.
On the face of it, it wasn’t as if The Register, The Mercury or The Herald-Courant had to be too economical with the truth to present an image of triumph. After all, ‘the House of Hanover’, ‘the Greater English People’, even ‘the Empire’, were all advancing all all fronts. The Meridians, the old enemy who had started the war, had been cleaned out of North America altogether, and were now cowering in South America with the Jonathans breathing down their necks. The Russians had stalled and then been pushed back on the Drakesland Front, with the Feng Chinese creating more problems for them tearing down the rotten heart of St Petersburg’s puppet regime. The war was going well, and heading for victory.
So long as one accepted the idea that all the English-speaking world was in this together, of course. From a more crudely parochial point of view, things looked less promising. Germany, the main local cobelligerent, was teetering on the brink as Belgium drove a knife into her back even as Scandinavia and Russia advanced. Though the alliances and declarations of war had never meant much in practice, there was always the possibility that Scandinavia, or Russia—or, now, Belgium—could turn their attention to the Kingdom of the Britons. Britain could, perhaps, defend herself at sea; but for too long she had been treated solely as an annex to the Empire of North America, a factory which could build ships and raise regiments to be transported over the sea to the real war. This, along with certain rumours about the whereabouts of the mysteriously silent Duke of York, meant that a certain impression of the Empire of North America—and its distant Emperor, as an afterthought also King of the Britons—was growing in the minds of the British public. It was a view that was being voiced, increasingly not just in hushed tones, in those pubs and ‘night-clubs’ and equally rambunctious neo-Wesleyan temperance houses, throughout London.
Well, not quite all of London. And that was the problem.
Pall Mall was over two hundred years old, and had survived the Second Great Fire of London—and the enthusiastic urban redevelopment plans of Churchill’s RCTFI—without much damage. Among other establishments, it had played host to the great political club of Macall’s.[1] Of course, such exclusive establishments, catering by subscription to ‘Persons of Quality’ (Macall’s had had female society as well as male) had been regarded as repugnant to the Populism of Llewelyn Thomas’ era. Most of them had either been driven out of business with vindictive targeted taxes, or else forced to relocate from central London and Westminster where they would be at the heart of power and influence. Just as the idea of ‘gentlemen’ no longer had any meaning in the only society that mattered, in the new proletarian mode of governance, so too would the exclusive clubs be removed from their position of influence.
Well, that had been the theory. The reality...
Macall’s had reinvented itself as a working men’s club, shifting sails to follow the new political winds rather than being swept aside. This transition had been managed by the canny Dick Mullinax (who had been born Richard Molyneux, 4th Earl of Sefton). He had carefully made the club temperate for the period in which that tendency was in power, then reintroduced alcohol when the issue split the Populist Party. His clientele had begun, indeed, as the local working men and women who cleaned the new government buildings of the Whitehall Forum or delivered coal or who worked as tellers at the local banks. That was influence, of a sort, in the corridors of power, too. And it began to attract the working-class men who had been elected to Parliament in 1835. It was a pleasant place to have pastime with good company, to kick back after a hard day’s work on those hard marble benches.
Years had passed, and generations with them. It was a strange thing, but all those working-class MPs, when it came time for them to retire and to look for a sound man to take their place in representing their homes—well, who was more qualified than their eldest sons, who had all grown up hearing the business of government in their own homes? That was just logical, obviously. And they had passed on their thoroughly informal status as regulars at Macall’s, possessing membership on an unwritten but politely enforced list. Not just anyone could enter the good old band of pals, after all. You couldn’t trust an outsider until they proved themselves. A man had to be...sound.
Now, sixty-four years had passed since Llewelyn Thomas had first become President. A long time, but not so long that there weren’t some greybeards left who remembered his time in power, who still called the office he had held ‘Prime Minister’ out of habit. They might even remember a time in which Macall’s had been an exclusive place open only to gentlemen, to Persons of Quality. A silly, archaic age.
Now, of course, it was open to anyone who was on that informal list that existed only in the owner’s head, who was trustworthy, who had proven themselves, who had been introduced by an existing member—such as, for example, their father, or their father’s friend, who was likely their own friend’s father. That was how it worked. Very egalitarian.
Two such gen—men, only men, of course—occupied a small private booth in a discreet corner of the club. The oil lamps were turned down and blessed silence reigned. Macall’s could let its hair down at times, but on Friday night, while the rest of London engaged in riots of pleasure, it held a dignified silence. That was only proper—er—pro’er, without pronouncing the second P, of course, guv’nor. There were standards to uphold, after all.
The two men possessed carefully annotated evidence that their grandfathers had been, respectively, a coal miner named Punce and a weaver named Smith. Their real names and lineages remained carefully restricted to suitably private spaces such as this booth.
Montague Vincent-Ponsonby genteelly sipped his glass of lager. A passable Helles from neutral Bavaria, though doubtless his batman (ah, ‘administrative assistant’) at the Ministry would present him with a hefty French-inflated bill for transport costs at the end of the month. “How is life treating you, Mr Barrington-Smythe?” he inquired pleasantly.
“Tolerably, Mr Vincent-Ponsonby,” Phineas Barrington-Smythe replied smoothly. “Tolerably.”
“That is, perhaps, all we can hope for in times such as this,” Vincent-Ponsonby sighed theatrically. Pleasantries over with, he moved on. “I hear the deuced Russkies are closing on the Moravian Gate.”
“You might very well think so,” Barrington-Smythe said idly, nursing his own pint. “The Foreign Office, of course, has no comment at this stage.”
Vincent-Ponsonby grinned disarmingly. He was large and bulky; his friend was short and thin. Between them, they comprised a disconcertingly large slice of what the British Government did, really did, quietly, behind the scenes.[2]
“I understand,” he continued after a few more sips of lager, “that His Majesty seeks additional soldiers and vessels for...the final push.”
Barrington-Smythe winced, subtly, his eyelids closing for an instant. “That...is one way in which it might be put,” he said carefully. “To be sure, His Majesty’s request comes from his own lips, but I fear that the ultimate impetus may have originated with Mr Burwell, or perhaps Mr Gedney.”
“Let us be thankful, at least, it was not from Mr Faulkner, then,” said Vincent-Ponsonby, provoking another subtle wince from his friend. “Is the description of the plan in question not, a little, without casting any aspersions on the fettle of our fine fighting men, a little...ambitious?”
“Perhaps less than one might imagine,” Barrington-Smythe said carefully. “The King feels that our Meridian foeman is now on the back foot, and what is required is one quick blow to the head to bring him to the table. Not merely to send our men to reclaim Venezuela, or to fight Monterroso in Pernambuco or New Granada, but...”
“But to go to the serpent’s nest,” Vincent-Ponsonby observed. “The Plate?”
“The Plate,” Barrington-Smythe said, sounding uncomfortable. He avoided his friend’s gaze.
Vincent-Ponsonby sipped his lager for a long moment as he meditated. “Then let me rephrase my previous point,” he said eventually. “It is not ambitious in the sense of finality: if such an operation was successful, it indeed would likely be the final move of the war. However...”
“However,” Barrington-Smythe echoed.
“However,” Vincent-Ponsonby continued relentlessly, “the question instead appertains to the likelihood of success.” He cleared his throat. “Excuse me. It would be a daunting task merely to bring an army from the Island to, let us say, the Cape of Good Hope, in the absence of any foeman seeking to prevent us.”
“The Cape, of course, is now in the foe’s column,” Barrington-Smythe pointed out.
“Quite so—though from what I hear of friend Max’s activities in the allegedly Meridian-aligned portion of the austral regions of the Dark Continent, I am not certain if he sees it that way,” Vincent-Ponsonby said dryly. “Nonetheless, I hope you take my point. It would be a substantial task in and of itself. But the Plate...”
“The Meridians have always had an almost alienistic obsession with the idea of our forces once again intruding into the Plate,” Barrington-Smythe confirmed. “Half of the logic behind their support of Carolina was merely the notion of turnabout is fair play, hanging a dagger of their own over Fredericksburg.”
“Which means that, even in the times of peace, they have never ceased fortifying it,” Vincent-Ponsonby concluded. “We would be thrusting our heads into the lion’s maw.”
“The King does not see it that way, “ Barrington-Smythe said primly.
“No,” Vincent-Ponsonby observed. “He does not.”
Silence reigned, while most of London engaged in riotous joy, for a long moment.
Barrington-Smythe was the first to break it. “I do not feel we can argue,” he said carefully. “We do not wish to antagonise Mr Burwell at a time when American power may be the only force that stands between us and conquest by the Scandinavians or the Belgians.”
“It is not a latter-day Viking invasion that concerns me, sir,” Vincent-Ponsonby said. “It is, shall we say, a memory of what event took place the last time this kingdom sent armies to South America as part of a war effort led by the Empire.”
Both men stared into their pints for another long moment.
“We must try,” Barrington-Smythe said finally. “A bold victory, a moment of coming together...that may be sufficient to heal the...unfortunate breakages which this war has produced.”
“I fear it is too late for some of those,” Vincent-Ponsonby said. “But, indeed, we must try.”
They drained their pints. “Of course,” Vincent-Ponsonby added after a moment, “I take it that we shall continue to take our...surcharge on the shipments of uniforms and ammunition?”
Barrington-Smythe tutted at his vulgarity. “Of course, Mr Vincent-Ponsonby. Would it not draw comment if the quotes cited mysteriously decreased? There may be a war on, but that is all the more reason to maintain our standards.”
Vincent-Ponsonby smiled.
[1] As mentioned in Part #68, in TTL Mr Macall did not reverse his name to produce the club name Almack’s.
[2] It is worth noting that these characters are likely creations of the author’s own imagination. While there appears to be some truth to the assertion that the British Government in this era was dominated by a small clique of unscrupulous and shadowy individuals, there is no historical consensus on just what the membership of that clique comprised. This author is focusing on the hypocrisy of where the matter of social class had ended up sixty years after Populism, but others have fixated on anti-Semitic conspiracy theories or American-born businessmen and so on.
Thande
Donor
If you haven't seen yet, @Doctor What and I were beaten to the Sidewise Award by one H. Turtledove, but thanks for all your support and especially all the people who liked my FB author page I linked to above - that really does help.
Ooooooooh boy. Another invasion into Buenos Aires? THAT'S going to be an, ah, "adventure".
I’m just curious - do the Audiencias still review court cases? IOTL, they served a variety of functions such as a final court of appeals, a cabinet/council of state around the viceroy/captain-general, and a legislature. Clearly, ITTL they seem to be more legislative than anything else, but do they still have judicial powers?
Isn't this supposed to be the other way around?
*hears the sounds of the Third Glorious Revolution in the distance*
Capital update as always Thande, and hey, losing out to the grand old man of alt-history himself is hardly the worst loss in the world. And its nice to see that, even in the age of the People's Kingdom, some things never change in jolly ol' London town.
The fact that we don't know who actually comprised the cliques of a regime that existed in the 20th century doesn't bode well for England. It seems that British historiography has been compromised in some way. Perhaps by invasion, revolution, or a slow creep of totalitarianism.
It seems to me that the Third Glorious Revolution will consist of the Duke of York being brought back into power as Regent to widespread acclaim (or at least perceived as such in popular historiography) and is probably a formative movement in English nationalism, but in the process resulting in the members of the shadowy regime destroying its records and their disappearance after they realize their facade is up.
Also, bear in mind that it seems the shadowy regime will only be ruling for a brief period and it reminds me of the military juntas of countries like Germany in WWI.
It seems to me like the Societist Revolution (I think it will occur in Part #250) will result in the South American kings being absorbed into the Combine, but Mexico, at least, will be independent from the Combine because it’s largely under American control.
As regent? I'd guess it would be as king, and for Great Britain (or England at least) to remove itself from the American sphere.
The Kingdom of the Britons has had enough of the rule of an American emperor who can't be bothered to set foot on British shores. The Americans treat Great Britain just like a source of men and money for their wars in the Americas, an adjunct to American glory, with no regard to the interests and protection of Great Britain. They even leave British sailors to die (remember that scene and its foreshadowing at the end?). Enough of American overlordship! They're leading British men to die like lambs to the slaughter in a far-off struggle against the Meridians - America's enemy, for America's interests, not Great Britain's - which Thande has been foreshadowing to be a Gallipoli-esque blood-drenched mess that could inspire national awakening. The Americans have cut ties of sovereignty; they aren't part of the same country as the British any more; they put "American", not "British", on everything; none of the power and glory of the high position they're asserting in the world goes to the British; yet somehow, in a war that serves American interests and not British ones, they still expect the British to fight and bleed and die for them.
^ The above is the impression I get of British grievances in TTL.
I’m sure he would want to be king, but a country which sends Brits to be slaughtered by Meridians won’t look very kindly to its ancestral home breaking away. I could definitely be wrong about this, but breaking off the personal union has the potential of going very, very, wrong. On the other hand, becoming regent again and using the surprise and possible shame Americans feel about Britain having fallen to another dictatorship to negotiate a more independent streak seems like it would work out better.
In any case, the Third Glorious Revolution won’t quite go to plan, judging by all the allusions to the “tumultuous 1920s” and England being a republic by the modern day.
I'm pretty sure that England is meant to be a monarchy by the modern day ITTL.
Well, exactly. But installing the Duke of York - an enemy of the pro-American clique ruling Great Britain - as "Regent" (how can he be, with the king still alive, adult and mentally able?) is already defying the Empire of North America. If you're offending the ENA and provoking its retaliation either way, I don't see what's to be gained by some "regency" hodgepodge instead of going the whole hog.
And yes, sure, the ENA will be angry, but I don't think it's hopeless to defy the Americans. The practicalities of a trans-oceanic invasion make Sealion look like a pleasant jog in a sunlit park. Especially since the Americans are also committed to a full-scale war against the Meridians at the same time.
Well, he'd be running the country whilst the King-Emperor is absent, which is covered by the definition of regent. I suppose "viceroy" might be more accurate, if a touch more insulting to the Brits.
He’s already “Regent”.
So, it would just be saying, “I’m back!” to an English people who don’t know he’s gone.
Also, no one is quite sure whether the clique is pro-American, and in particular, it’s been mentioned that they are fooling the King-Emperor into thinking the Duke of York is still ruling.
We have, however, been given a metric tonne of foreshadowing and justification for the British (especially the English) resenting and splitting away from American rule. And this crisis seems like one of the very rare moments of high tension where that could actually happen.