Thande
Donor
(Part #246.3 - yes, multiple parts today)
Château d’If, Marseilles, Kingdom of the French
April 24th 1899
Prince Boris Saltykov eyed his counterparts around the long table (yew, appropriately, given the island’s name) without seeming to move his eyes in the slightest, an essential skill for any diplomat, to say nothing of the Foreign Minister of the Empire of All Russias. His face might be of yew as well, for two reasons. It was immobile, and it concealed bitter poison.
This should be a moment of triumph, of course. After ruinous years of war, the Bundeskaiser and the Archking had finally given up. The question that had remained open for decades, over who should dominate Eastern Europe, had been answered, and with the answer that every Russian had hoped for. The Hapsburgs and the Wettins had been humiliated, and the Romanovs reigned supreme.
In theory. In practice, there were so many flies in the ointment that Boris sometimes felt as though he was presiding over a surrender himself.
First of all, and most obvious, there was the French. The damn French. Boris well remembered hearing of Leclerc’s absurd grandstanding back around the outbreak of war, which had formed the basis of a number of editorials in the Vestnik explaining why this showed the childishness and corruption of French-style democratic parliamentarianism and why it had no place in the Imperial Soviet or the Duma. General opinion among nobles and peasantry alike had been that Leclerc was a naïve fool and France would obviously be drawn into the war sooner or later, in an unprepared and uncontrolled fashion.
Now, almost four years later, with oceans of blood staining the soil of four continents and great powers weakened and humbled, France remained neutral and aloof. Indeed, she had added other nations to her so-called Marseilles Protocol league of armed neutrality, and though she had failed to secure Belgium to her side, her bloc had the unquestionable power to tip the balance in the struggle.
Even now. Even now, when Boris sat around a table in a former prison fortress on an island before the city of Marseilles, the city that had given its name to that damned pact. Like his counterparts, he had arrived by boat carrying a neutral (and farcical) Bavarian flag, but he had seen the city from his window. Marseilles was an insult, a swarming mass of peace and prosperity that had not been touched by conflict since the Nightmare War when Boris had been a small child. Yet the city was not soft and helpless, either: a veritable armada of lionhearts, sub-lionhearts and armourclads patrolled its harbour, all flying the white-blue-red tricolour ensign of La Royale. Doubtless the fleet had been sent here from the big naval base at Toulon to send a pointed message to Boris and his opposite numbers. But just because he knew that, didn’t make him any less appreciative of that message.
France was strong, all the stronger because other nations had been weakened. Her image of being able to leisurely intervene on a whim was artificial, of course: she was constrained by having to keep forces close to home in case of a sudden attack by one of her mobilised neighbours, as had been made clear by her failure to subdue the Dashwoodian prisoner rebellion on the Île du Dufresne. But Dufresne was small, faraway and obscure, and served as no more embarrassment to Paris than those damned Mauré savages taking Gavaji had to Petrograd. All that mattered was that France could undo years of sacrifice in an instant if Leclerc decided to throw in with the Germans and Danubians.
He wouldn’t, of course: his voters would crucify him, another weakness of parliamentary democracy. But there was just enough uncertainly to make Boris’ knuckles whiten.
He eyed the table without seeming to, once again. Robert Mercier was here, the French Foreign Minister (not even a nobleman—typical Adamantine, a barely disguised Jacobin fanatic) but so was Leclerc himself, reflecting the fact that the two were from different parties and that Leclerc had never quite let go of the foreign ministry portfolio himself. For some reason, Mercier had even brought a woman named Rouvier, whom Boris’ translator had told him was a deputy in her own right, no matter how absurd that sounded. Not that Boris thought women had no place in politics, of course—many of the Tsar’s ambassadors were amiable idiots and the real work of their embassies was done by their brilliant wives. But it was one thing to have such an informal understanding and quite another to reduce the whole thing to a farce.
At least the setting seemed fitting, for he sought to trap the Germans and Danubians in a prison forever. The soldiers here told some interesting stories of the Château d’If’s past. Someone really ought to write a play about it, Boris thought vaguely.[6]
Also here, of course, were the German and Danubian foreign ministers, Adolf von Zastrow and Miklós Alvinczi. Both men seemed composed and relaxes, and it took Boris’ practiced diplomat’s eye to spot the subtle signs of strain. If Boris himself was worried that the French could snatch Russia’s victory away, how much more did these fear that an already terrible situation could be made worse? Yet it had been at their insistence that France mediate these negotiations. Having spent the war just as frustrated by French neutrality as Russia had been, the Germans and Danubians now saw a possible French intervention as their last, slim hope to walk away with dignity.
But Boris was determined to bleed them dry. This was not the gentleman’s war of the eighteenth century. Millions had died, and why? Because the Bundeskaiser had been opportunistic about trying to take on Russia while she was distracted with the situation in America, nothing more noble than that. (It did not occur to Boris to reflect that Russia’s own intervention in the first place had not exactly had honourable motives, either—that was different). This was not about trying to secure a lasting peace in Europe according to an international system, like the Congress of Copenhagen had been. This was about forcing the Germans and Danubians to acknowledge they had lost, and hit them so hard they would think twice about coming back for another round.
And yet, every time Boris was tempted to unsheath his claws, he remembered Leclerc there, twinkling at him, one hand on his pipe. That is, when he wasn’t just interrupted by—
“But that is absurd,” said Alexander II, Grand Duke of Courland, with a frown. “It is an insult to suggest that anything less than the entirety of the former Kingdom of Bohemia should be detached from the German Federation!”
Boris just about managed to suppress his wince. If Leclerc could not resist tinkering in foreign affairs, the same was true of the Tsar. At least Peter V was too concerned with the situations in Circassia and America to become directly involved, but any hope that Boris might be left to get on with the task had been dashed when Peter announced that one of his royal favourites would go along as well in his place. No luck that it might be the sensible Tsarevich Paul, who was still leading his armies against the Turk in Circassia. Not even the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Petras III, who had effectively been roped into running logistics for the whole front (given that was largely the function of his country to the Russian war effort). No, Boris was forced to deal with this silly young idiot, whose reputation was entirely based on that of his grandfather and namesake. The Tsar had managed to use Courland to his advantage by having Alexander ‘forget’ to obey his treaty obligations in the early part of the war, giving Russia access to technically neutral-flagged spy ships, but that had soon been abandoned. Here and now, Boris was wondering if it really had been a delibrate tactic, because Alexander seemed dense enough to really have forgotten to declare war.
“Under uti possidetis, a large fraction of the Sudetenland and southern Bohemia remains in our hands, not to mention Lower Silesia,” Zastrow said smoothly. Despite his noble name, his politics were, if anything, even more absurd than Mercier’s, Boris knew: he was what the Germans called a High Radical, a nobleman who for some reason thought the masses should be elevated to his own level. At least men like Mercier had comprehensible motives given their own humble birth, but Zastrow was just insane. “Of course, if you are proposing a land exchange, the Kingdom of Bohemia in return for the return of all other Russian-occupied territories—”
“That is not what he said,” Boris said loudly before Alexander could reply. Damn him. It was like trying to carefully guide a warship into port when a civilian pleasure steamer driven by drunkards was ploughing across the harbour in its way. Or, perhaps, trying to choreograph a ballet when an escaped lunatic had gained access to the stage. He was half convinced that Alexander’s disruption had already left the Danubians with a much bigger chunk of Wallachia and Transylvania than they would have kept if Boris had been alone, though fortunately Alexander had been ill for a couple of days when they were settling the status of Poland—firmly within the Russian sphere.
The ‘negotiations’ went on, Leclerc and Mercier intervening occasionally, the whole thing watched avidly by the woman Rouvier as though it was, indeed, a ballet. Despite Boris’ best efforts, Alexander punched holes in his strategy with his outbursts, which Zastrow and Alvinczi expertly teased apart—often with help from the French. It was a frustrating experience, and Boris tried not to think of how many sacrifices of Russian lives were being undone by this war of words.
He tried to persuade himself that all was well. The Germans had been forced to give up Bohemia, minus Lower Silesia—which they were still holding on to, after all, with the Tsar’s armarts failing to dislodge them from Liegnitz. Boris wasn’t sure how he was going to explain to the Tsar that he had handed back Farther Pomerania west of Köslin, though. Besides the French and Alexander, he cursed the Scandinavians and the Belgians, who had refused to engage with this process and intended to seek a separate peace. He couldn’t fault them for mistrusting the French, but it meant that the Pressburg Pact could play their opponents off against one another. With the Belgians and Scandinavians here, Boris could have coordinated with them to force a more humiliating peace on Germany. As it was, as soon as these negotiations were completed and an armistice signed, the Germans could turn around and throw their whole strength into Low Saxony and Billungia, which certainly wouldn’t serve Belgian or Scandinavian interests. Fools.
Somehow, perhaps through one of Alexander’s ill-advised interventions, they got back to Danubia. “Of course, the independence of Servia is a foregone conclusion,” Boris said almost dismissively. “Together with the port of Bar, naturally. The Servian people have already risen up against their Hapsburg oppressors and wish to join the Slavic brotherhood.”
Alexander glanced at him, startled. “Have they?”
Boris resisted the temptation to close his eyes. In fact there was a grain of truth to his propaganda, according to Gagarin’s spies. Some Servs had taken Russian arms and used them to inflict pinprick defeats on the underbelly of the Danubian Confederation, to which they had been appended since the Turk’s Time of Troubles. But, of course, it was the sort of minor revolt that could be easily put down. Not that Boris would admit it.
Boris had expected Alvinczi to respond with a theatrical laugh or otherwise knock down his proposition. Instead, the Hungarian lit his pipe as though to buy time, and Boris spotted his hand shaking, though his eyes remained level. The scent of terrible pseudo-tobacco filled the air as Alvinczi inhaled. Then, visibly trying to keep his voice steady, he said: “The fate of Servia is not on the table.”
“Oh, really!” Alexander interjected. “I might say the same about—”
Boris, out of options, kicked him under the table before he could give the Germans back Middle Silesia as well. Ignoring the Grand Duke’s outraged expression, he said sharply: “What precisely do you mean, sir?” He turned all the power of his gaze on Alvinczi.
Though Alvinczi was no mean diplomat himself, he broke first, as though all the fight was out of him. He had done his best and fought well to hold on to as much of Transylvania and Wallachia as he could, yet this was what broke him?
“I mean,” Alvinczi said, avoiding not only Boris’ gaze but everyone’s, “that the fate of Servia cannot be decided at this congress. As it has already been decided.” His voice squeaked at the end as his throat closed up from emotion.
Boris was still staring, for once his gaze holding as little comprehension as Alexander’s. “How so?”
Alvinczi coughed to clear his throat. “I am afraid that...the Archking decided on one last gamble to try to win the war, to bring in a new power against...against you, against Russia.”
“That much was easy to surmise,” Mercier said. “You wanted the Turks on your side.”
Alvinczi shook his head violently. “Not that! Never that! We...” He swallowed. “Like Faustus, we sought a deal with the devil. Like all such deals, it has ended in failure, and he has come to take our soul.”
For the first time, Boris’ diplomatic posture cracked and his eyes widened. He leapt to his feet. “You don’t mean—”
[6] Alexandre Dumas was butterflied away in TTL, of course, and so The Count of Monte Cristo was never written. However, in TTL a play was written in the 1920s about the Man with the Iron Mask’s imprisonment in the Château d’If, which is what this is calling forward to.
Château d’If, Marseilles, Kingdom of the French
April 24th 1899
Prince Boris Saltykov eyed his counterparts around the long table (yew, appropriately, given the island’s name) without seeming to move his eyes in the slightest, an essential skill for any diplomat, to say nothing of the Foreign Minister of the Empire of All Russias. His face might be of yew as well, for two reasons. It was immobile, and it concealed bitter poison.
This should be a moment of triumph, of course. After ruinous years of war, the Bundeskaiser and the Archking had finally given up. The question that had remained open for decades, over who should dominate Eastern Europe, had been answered, and with the answer that every Russian had hoped for. The Hapsburgs and the Wettins had been humiliated, and the Romanovs reigned supreme.
In theory. In practice, there were so many flies in the ointment that Boris sometimes felt as though he was presiding over a surrender himself.
First of all, and most obvious, there was the French. The damn French. Boris well remembered hearing of Leclerc’s absurd grandstanding back around the outbreak of war, which had formed the basis of a number of editorials in the Vestnik explaining why this showed the childishness and corruption of French-style democratic parliamentarianism and why it had no place in the Imperial Soviet or the Duma. General opinion among nobles and peasantry alike had been that Leclerc was a naïve fool and France would obviously be drawn into the war sooner or later, in an unprepared and uncontrolled fashion.
Now, almost four years later, with oceans of blood staining the soil of four continents and great powers weakened and humbled, France remained neutral and aloof. Indeed, she had added other nations to her so-called Marseilles Protocol league of armed neutrality, and though she had failed to secure Belgium to her side, her bloc had the unquestionable power to tip the balance in the struggle.
Even now. Even now, when Boris sat around a table in a former prison fortress on an island before the city of Marseilles, the city that had given its name to that damned pact. Like his counterparts, he had arrived by boat carrying a neutral (and farcical) Bavarian flag, but he had seen the city from his window. Marseilles was an insult, a swarming mass of peace and prosperity that had not been touched by conflict since the Nightmare War when Boris had been a small child. Yet the city was not soft and helpless, either: a veritable armada of lionhearts, sub-lionhearts and armourclads patrolled its harbour, all flying the white-blue-red tricolour ensign of La Royale. Doubtless the fleet had been sent here from the big naval base at Toulon to send a pointed message to Boris and his opposite numbers. But just because he knew that, didn’t make him any less appreciative of that message.
France was strong, all the stronger because other nations had been weakened. Her image of being able to leisurely intervene on a whim was artificial, of course: she was constrained by having to keep forces close to home in case of a sudden attack by one of her mobilised neighbours, as had been made clear by her failure to subdue the Dashwoodian prisoner rebellion on the Île du Dufresne. But Dufresne was small, faraway and obscure, and served as no more embarrassment to Paris than those damned Mauré savages taking Gavaji had to Petrograd. All that mattered was that France could undo years of sacrifice in an instant if Leclerc decided to throw in with the Germans and Danubians.
He wouldn’t, of course: his voters would crucify him, another weakness of parliamentary democracy. But there was just enough uncertainly to make Boris’ knuckles whiten.
He eyed the table without seeming to, once again. Robert Mercier was here, the French Foreign Minister (not even a nobleman—typical Adamantine, a barely disguised Jacobin fanatic) but so was Leclerc himself, reflecting the fact that the two were from different parties and that Leclerc had never quite let go of the foreign ministry portfolio himself. For some reason, Mercier had even brought a woman named Rouvier, whom Boris’ translator had told him was a deputy in her own right, no matter how absurd that sounded. Not that Boris thought women had no place in politics, of course—many of the Tsar’s ambassadors were amiable idiots and the real work of their embassies was done by their brilliant wives. But it was one thing to have such an informal understanding and quite another to reduce the whole thing to a farce.
At least the setting seemed fitting, for he sought to trap the Germans and Danubians in a prison forever. The soldiers here told some interesting stories of the Château d’If’s past. Someone really ought to write a play about it, Boris thought vaguely.[6]
Also here, of course, were the German and Danubian foreign ministers, Adolf von Zastrow and Miklós Alvinczi. Both men seemed composed and relaxes, and it took Boris’ practiced diplomat’s eye to spot the subtle signs of strain. If Boris himself was worried that the French could snatch Russia’s victory away, how much more did these fear that an already terrible situation could be made worse? Yet it had been at their insistence that France mediate these negotiations. Having spent the war just as frustrated by French neutrality as Russia had been, the Germans and Danubians now saw a possible French intervention as their last, slim hope to walk away with dignity.
But Boris was determined to bleed them dry. This was not the gentleman’s war of the eighteenth century. Millions had died, and why? Because the Bundeskaiser had been opportunistic about trying to take on Russia while she was distracted with the situation in America, nothing more noble than that. (It did not occur to Boris to reflect that Russia’s own intervention in the first place had not exactly had honourable motives, either—that was different). This was not about trying to secure a lasting peace in Europe according to an international system, like the Congress of Copenhagen had been. This was about forcing the Germans and Danubians to acknowledge they had lost, and hit them so hard they would think twice about coming back for another round.
And yet, every time Boris was tempted to unsheath his claws, he remembered Leclerc there, twinkling at him, one hand on his pipe. That is, when he wasn’t just interrupted by—
“But that is absurd,” said Alexander II, Grand Duke of Courland, with a frown. “It is an insult to suggest that anything less than the entirety of the former Kingdom of Bohemia should be detached from the German Federation!”
Boris just about managed to suppress his wince. If Leclerc could not resist tinkering in foreign affairs, the same was true of the Tsar. At least Peter V was too concerned with the situations in Circassia and America to become directly involved, but any hope that Boris might be left to get on with the task had been dashed when Peter announced that one of his royal favourites would go along as well in his place. No luck that it might be the sensible Tsarevich Paul, who was still leading his armies against the Turk in Circassia. Not even the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Petras III, who had effectively been roped into running logistics for the whole front (given that was largely the function of his country to the Russian war effort). No, Boris was forced to deal with this silly young idiot, whose reputation was entirely based on that of his grandfather and namesake. The Tsar had managed to use Courland to his advantage by having Alexander ‘forget’ to obey his treaty obligations in the early part of the war, giving Russia access to technically neutral-flagged spy ships, but that had soon been abandoned. Here and now, Boris was wondering if it really had been a delibrate tactic, because Alexander seemed dense enough to really have forgotten to declare war.
“Under uti possidetis, a large fraction of the Sudetenland and southern Bohemia remains in our hands, not to mention Lower Silesia,” Zastrow said smoothly. Despite his noble name, his politics were, if anything, even more absurd than Mercier’s, Boris knew: he was what the Germans called a High Radical, a nobleman who for some reason thought the masses should be elevated to his own level. At least men like Mercier had comprehensible motives given their own humble birth, but Zastrow was just insane. “Of course, if you are proposing a land exchange, the Kingdom of Bohemia in return for the return of all other Russian-occupied territories—”
“That is not what he said,” Boris said loudly before Alexander could reply. Damn him. It was like trying to carefully guide a warship into port when a civilian pleasure steamer driven by drunkards was ploughing across the harbour in its way. Or, perhaps, trying to choreograph a ballet when an escaped lunatic had gained access to the stage. He was half convinced that Alexander’s disruption had already left the Danubians with a much bigger chunk of Wallachia and Transylvania than they would have kept if Boris had been alone, though fortunately Alexander had been ill for a couple of days when they were settling the status of Poland—firmly within the Russian sphere.
The ‘negotiations’ went on, Leclerc and Mercier intervening occasionally, the whole thing watched avidly by the woman Rouvier as though it was, indeed, a ballet. Despite Boris’ best efforts, Alexander punched holes in his strategy with his outbursts, which Zastrow and Alvinczi expertly teased apart—often with help from the French. It was a frustrating experience, and Boris tried not to think of how many sacrifices of Russian lives were being undone by this war of words.
He tried to persuade himself that all was well. The Germans had been forced to give up Bohemia, minus Lower Silesia—which they were still holding on to, after all, with the Tsar’s armarts failing to dislodge them from Liegnitz. Boris wasn’t sure how he was going to explain to the Tsar that he had handed back Farther Pomerania west of Köslin, though. Besides the French and Alexander, he cursed the Scandinavians and the Belgians, who had refused to engage with this process and intended to seek a separate peace. He couldn’t fault them for mistrusting the French, but it meant that the Pressburg Pact could play their opponents off against one another. With the Belgians and Scandinavians here, Boris could have coordinated with them to force a more humiliating peace on Germany. As it was, as soon as these negotiations were completed and an armistice signed, the Germans could turn around and throw their whole strength into Low Saxony and Billungia, which certainly wouldn’t serve Belgian or Scandinavian interests. Fools.
Somehow, perhaps through one of Alexander’s ill-advised interventions, they got back to Danubia. “Of course, the independence of Servia is a foregone conclusion,” Boris said almost dismissively. “Together with the port of Bar, naturally. The Servian people have already risen up against their Hapsburg oppressors and wish to join the Slavic brotherhood.”
Alexander glanced at him, startled. “Have they?”
Boris resisted the temptation to close his eyes. In fact there was a grain of truth to his propaganda, according to Gagarin’s spies. Some Servs had taken Russian arms and used them to inflict pinprick defeats on the underbelly of the Danubian Confederation, to which they had been appended since the Turk’s Time of Troubles. But, of course, it was the sort of minor revolt that could be easily put down. Not that Boris would admit it.
Boris had expected Alvinczi to respond with a theatrical laugh or otherwise knock down his proposition. Instead, the Hungarian lit his pipe as though to buy time, and Boris spotted his hand shaking, though his eyes remained level. The scent of terrible pseudo-tobacco filled the air as Alvinczi inhaled. Then, visibly trying to keep his voice steady, he said: “The fate of Servia is not on the table.”
“Oh, really!” Alexander interjected. “I might say the same about—”
Boris, out of options, kicked him under the table before he could give the Germans back Middle Silesia as well. Ignoring the Grand Duke’s outraged expression, he said sharply: “What precisely do you mean, sir?” He turned all the power of his gaze on Alvinczi.
Though Alvinczi was no mean diplomat himself, he broke first, as though all the fight was out of him. He had done his best and fought well to hold on to as much of Transylvania and Wallachia as he could, yet this was what broke him?
“I mean,” Alvinczi said, avoiding not only Boris’ gaze but everyone’s, “that the fate of Servia cannot be decided at this congress. As it has already been decided.” His voice squeaked at the end as his throat closed up from emotion.
Boris was still staring, for once his gaze holding as little comprehension as Alexander’s. “How so?”
Alvinczi coughed to clear his throat. “I am afraid that...the Archking decided on one last gamble to try to win the war, to bring in a new power against...against you, against Russia.”
“That much was easy to surmise,” Mercier said. “You wanted the Turks on your side.”
Alvinczi shook his head violently. “Not that! Never that! We...” He swallowed. “Like Faustus, we sought a deal with the devil. Like all such deals, it has ended in failure, and he has come to take our soul.”
For the first time, Boris’ diplomatic posture cracked and his eyes widened. He leapt to his feet. “You don’t mean—”
[6] Alexandre Dumas was butterflied away in TTL, of course, and so The Count of Monte Cristo was never written. However, in TTL a play was written in the 1920s about the Man with the Iron Mask’s imprisonment in the Château d’If, which is what this is calling forward to.
